When I hear about how some reject evolution wholly, I get the impression they mostly don't understand it. Giving the benefit of the doubt, here's what I understand:
Fact: a phenomenon that has been recreated in a lab setting or observed to be true in nature without room for doubt.
Theory: a proposed explanation for many different natural occurrences. Some theories, like gravity, aren't practically able to be proven.
Historical Science: any field of study that comes up with what are technically theories (in the scientific sphere) to understand the past. Historical sciences include paleontology, archeology and history.
Evolution means accumulation of change, coming from Latin "e/ex" ("from") and "volvere" ("to roll", interpreted as "to change").
There are two types of evolution. The first is "microevolution", the second is "macroevolution".
Microev. is the idea that populations of organisms change through generations over time, usually because of genetic mutations. This is a proven fact. Many experiments and observations in nature prove Microev. One example involves a well known animal: canis lupus familiaris (dogs). Man was able to take gray wolves and manipulate its physical and behavioral characteristics through selective breeding to yield generations later human-friendly Wolves that look like chihuahuas, mastiffs, dobermans, papillons etc., because microev works. The same has been done with foxes, creating domesticated individuals in a Russian experiment.
The fact that life forms change over time is indisputable. Things get more complicated with Macroev.
Macroev. Is basically micro. on a much larger scale, saying that these changes in genetics can cause gene variation so great, one population cannot breed with another, being at that point technically two different species. Macroev. is accepted as the best theory to use to explain striking diversity between species, variances in the fossil record and humbling similarities between organisms. All living things use dna and rna to reproduce. All tetrapods have four limbs or have evidence of having descended from a four limbed animal. All diapsids have two temporal fenestra holes. Raptors (as in birds of prey) all have sharp beaks and tallons along with a carnivorous nature and excellent vision.
There's a phenomenon called an "atavism", which is basically is the tendency for organisms to manifest traits of an ancestral species. Humans are sometimes born with tails. Dolphins and snakes are sometimes born with hind legs. Birds sometimes grow teeth or longer tails. This makes sense only if the theory that humans descend from tailed primates, Dolphins from four legged terrestrial animals and birds from dinosaurs.
This happens because the genes to make animals look different from their ancestors are usually simply the old genes acting differently. In development, humans grow a tail, but a gene turns on to absorb the tail into as small tail bone. Snake embryos grow legs, but a gene turns on to absorb back the limbs.
A lacking of "missing links" in the fossil record is an unfair argument. Fossilization is very a rare and delicate phenomenon. The soil in the region would have to be perfect to cover the living thing up before it decomposes and the chemistry needs to be just right to turn the organic matter into rock. Likely, only the most common species were able to have a fossilized specimen. We also don't find every specimen. T-Rex must've been extremely successful as a Genus because of the over 50 specimens we have. Spinosaurus, with only two specimens, must've not been as successful but still widespread.
A similar scenario to the following I had read in a biology textbook, which I feel explains evolution very well.
Say there is a species of red lizards in an environment which has black soil in some parts and white in others. Let's call the lizards "stinkies".
A mutation happens in the cellular stages of a stinky egg, which is when energy changes the dna molecule. Usually this would cause abnormalities in its development, most commonly tumors and cancers. Sometimes, this accident causes bigger teeth, claws or something beneficial to the individual. This stinky is lucky. The dna is mutated to turn the stinky black instead of red, helping it hide from predators on the black soil its population so happens to habitate.
While its bright red siblings are eaten by predators, this stinky hides long enough to breed and pass its genes to the next generation. Eventually the black stinkies are so successful that they outcompete in breeding, hunting and overall survival their red kin. The population turns black through generations of natural selection in an instance of microevolution. The animals just know they survived though, and aren't knowingly evolving a certain direction as a whole.
Another population of stinkies are on white soil. Unfortunately their genetic makeup prohibits them from mutating to a whiteish color quickly, however one gene is mutated that causes the individual to be toxic to birds. Since eagles and owls are the majority of their predators in this scenario, this helps the individual's probability to pass its venom genes to the next generation and to eventually be passed to the rest of the gene pool. Their bright red color is not needed to be there anymore because predators eventually see the brightness as a warning: eating me= death. Poison dart frogs are probably brightly colored in a similar fashion.
Bird-from-dinosaur and human-from-primate ideas are commonly ridiculed.
We are learning more and more that birds have more and more in common with dinosaurs than ever thought. Non Avian Theropod Dinosaurs (like T-Rex, Velociraptor, Allosaurus, Archeopteryx etc) and avian dinosaurs (modern and extinct birds) share similarly shaped feet and necks. They also share feathers, the build up of calcium during pregnancy in bones and wishbones. Other dinosaurs, like triceratops, probably had feather like quills, at least during infancy. Some of the later ones were beaked with few teeth, from Triceratops to Oviraptor.
Dinosaurs also raised their young, determined by using computer models to indicate that many dinosaurs couldn't stand on their own, like bird chicks, and had to be cared for by their parents. Like birds, especially those with crests, the infants are very easily distinguished from the adults, unlike most reptiles. The bones are now thought to change shape un gradually as the animal got older. Ceratopsians had horns curving backwards in youth, but grew forward in sexual maturity. Tyrannosaurids may have had infants which were long and slender, having more teeth than the adults. They grew into a shorter, boxier head with a gnarly crest and fewer teeth, which were larger and more banana shaped.
The anatomical and proposed behavioral similarities makes paleontologists propose the theory that dinosaurs evolved these characteristics and passed the genes to birds to explain this phenomenon, and we see birds today expressing the inherited biology of their dinosaur ancestors.
Nobody said humans evolved from chimpanzees, at least nobody credible. We simply have a common ancestor, like what we have with everything alive today. With the great apes however that common ancestor is more recent.
We share a lot of similarities with Gorillas, Bonobos and Chimps. We have superficially similar ears, hands, brows and bone structure. We all have a well developed hippocampus in our brains, helping us to be highly social and intelligent so that we can use our family groups and intelligence to do things like hunt cooperatively, defend each other as a large group and feed each other when food is found or exploited from the environment. We all even arguably laugh in one form or another and use tickling, hugging, sex, touching (sometimes at least resembling grooming) and kissing to strengthen social bonds. The females of all species also breast feed using two teats on the chest. We're all mammalian primates with enough variation to distinguish species.
Human evolution into how we are now is mostly between two arguments. One is well accepted, saying that hominids were grassland animals, losing hair and sweat to cool in the savannah and walking as a biped to look over the grass for prey like buffalo. This is well accepted. The issues are that almost all carnivorous savannah animals are hairy, water retaining animals who run on four limbs, which apparently makes them faster.
Primates seen walking through shallow water are sometimes seen walking upright. Many marine mammals like dolphins or hippos are totally bald-naked. Elephants and rhinos are said to have had an aquatic past, and now they're mostly hairless. Lions, cheetahs and Hyenas are all covered with fur. It's thought in the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis that proto-hominids were once evolving to live in water. We do seem to naturally be more adapted to being stranded near a lake, river or coastline rather than an arid grassland. It's also curious that we're the only great apes with small webbing in between our digits when we widen our hands, lacking in chimps, gorillas etc. however, as far as what's known, there's little evidence in the fossil record for this hypothesis.
To wrap it up, microevolution is an indisputable fact. Science also admits objectively that microevolution is theoretical, but fairly accepts it as at least a very valid theory, if not the most likely theory we have thus far. Humans didn't evolve from chimps, but are cousins with chimps, gorillas, orangutans and alike, and human evolution is still debated. Birds likely evolved from dinosaurs. With all that said, I can't stress enough how microevolution is a FACT but macroev is a strong, proposed explanation for multiple phenomenon, a theory, but can't be practically proven, because according to science, you had to be there to see it happen.
I hope this clears up some things. Science doesn't want to teach speciation through evolution as a fact, because science itself says macroev can only practically be a strong theory, like gravity, even though most of the public accepts gravity well.
I also hope that we'll one day be able to not see religion and science as opposing forces. I'd like to see a world where myths and lore in Christianity, Heathenry, Islam and the others are viewed as only relevant to culture, morality and spirit, and not scientifically or historically valid. My own heathen myths are ridiculously fantastic in the context of cosmology and science. I don't accept the lore of Odin, Vili and Ve using the flesh and bone of the giant Ymir to create the earth nor that the sun and moon are Giants being chased by sky wolves.The false scientific validity of religion lead to things like geocentrism, when imo religion should be related to the spirit and social group in things like meditation, prayer, community bonds and spiritual veneration.
Thanks for reading.
Fact: a phenomenon that has been recreated in a lab setting or observed to be true in nature without room for doubt.
Theory: a proposed explanation for many different natural occurrences. Some theories, like gravity, aren't practically able to be proven.
Historical Science: any field of study that comes up with what are technically theories (in the scientific sphere) to understand the past. Historical sciences include paleontology, archeology and history.
Evolution means accumulation of change, coming from Latin "e/ex" ("from") and "volvere" ("to roll", interpreted as "to change").
There are two types of evolution. The first is "microevolution", the second is "macroevolution".
Microev. is the idea that populations of organisms change through generations over time, usually because of genetic mutations. This is a proven fact. Many experiments and observations in nature prove Microev. One example involves a well known animal: canis lupus familiaris (dogs). Man was able to take gray wolves and manipulate its physical and behavioral characteristics through selective breeding to yield generations later human-friendly Wolves that look like chihuahuas, mastiffs, dobermans, papillons etc., because microev works. The same has been done with foxes, creating domesticated individuals in a Russian experiment.
The fact that life forms change over time is indisputable. Things get more complicated with Macroev.
Macroev. Is basically micro. on a much larger scale, saying that these changes in genetics can cause gene variation so great, one population cannot breed with another, being at that point technically two different species. Macroev. is accepted as the best theory to use to explain striking diversity between species, variances in the fossil record and humbling similarities between organisms. All living things use dna and rna to reproduce. All tetrapods have four limbs or have evidence of having descended from a four limbed animal. All diapsids have two temporal fenestra holes. Raptors (as in birds of prey) all have sharp beaks and tallons along with a carnivorous nature and excellent vision.
There's a phenomenon called an "atavism", which is basically is the tendency for organisms to manifest traits of an ancestral species. Humans are sometimes born with tails. Dolphins and snakes are sometimes born with hind legs. Birds sometimes grow teeth or longer tails. This makes sense only if the theory that humans descend from tailed primates, Dolphins from four legged terrestrial animals and birds from dinosaurs.
This happens because the genes to make animals look different from their ancestors are usually simply the old genes acting differently. In development, humans grow a tail, but a gene turns on to absorb the tail into as small tail bone. Snake embryos grow legs, but a gene turns on to absorb back the limbs.
A lacking of "missing links" in the fossil record is an unfair argument. Fossilization is very a rare and delicate phenomenon. The soil in the region would have to be perfect to cover the living thing up before it decomposes and the chemistry needs to be just right to turn the organic matter into rock. Likely, only the most common species were able to have a fossilized specimen. We also don't find every specimen. T-Rex must've been extremely successful as a Genus because of the over 50 specimens we have. Spinosaurus, with only two specimens, must've not been as successful but still widespread.
A similar scenario to the following I had read in a biology textbook, which I feel explains evolution very well.
Say there is a species of red lizards in an environment which has black soil in some parts and white in others. Let's call the lizards "stinkies".
A mutation happens in the cellular stages of a stinky egg, which is when energy changes the dna molecule. Usually this would cause abnormalities in its development, most commonly tumors and cancers. Sometimes, this accident causes bigger teeth, claws or something beneficial to the individual. This stinky is lucky. The dna is mutated to turn the stinky black instead of red, helping it hide from predators on the black soil its population so happens to habitate.
While its bright red siblings are eaten by predators, this stinky hides long enough to breed and pass its genes to the next generation. Eventually the black stinkies are so successful that they outcompete in breeding, hunting and overall survival their red kin. The population turns black through generations of natural selection in an instance of microevolution. The animals just know they survived though, and aren't knowingly evolving a certain direction as a whole.
Another population of stinkies are on white soil. Unfortunately their genetic makeup prohibits them from mutating to a whiteish color quickly, however one gene is mutated that causes the individual to be toxic to birds. Since eagles and owls are the majority of their predators in this scenario, this helps the individual's probability to pass its venom genes to the next generation and to eventually be passed to the rest of the gene pool. Their bright red color is not needed to be there anymore because predators eventually see the brightness as a warning: eating me= death. Poison dart frogs are probably brightly colored in a similar fashion.
Bird-from-dinosaur and human-from-primate ideas are commonly ridiculed.
We are learning more and more that birds have more and more in common with dinosaurs than ever thought. Non Avian Theropod Dinosaurs (like T-Rex, Velociraptor, Allosaurus, Archeopteryx etc) and avian dinosaurs (modern and extinct birds) share similarly shaped feet and necks. They also share feathers, the build up of calcium during pregnancy in bones and wishbones. Other dinosaurs, like triceratops, probably had feather like quills, at least during infancy. Some of the later ones were beaked with few teeth, from Triceratops to Oviraptor.
Dinosaurs also raised their young, determined by using computer models to indicate that many dinosaurs couldn't stand on their own, like bird chicks, and had to be cared for by their parents. Like birds, especially those with crests, the infants are very easily distinguished from the adults, unlike most reptiles. The bones are now thought to change shape un gradually as the animal got older. Ceratopsians had horns curving backwards in youth, but grew forward in sexual maturity. Tyrannosaurids may have had infants which were long and slender, having more teeth than the adults. They grew into a shorter, boxier head with a gnarly crest and fewer teeth, which were larger and more banana shaped.
The anatomical and proposed behavioral similarities makes paleontologists propose the theory that dinosaurs evolved these characteristics and passed the genes to birds to explain this phenomenon, and we see birds today expressing the inherited biology of their dinosaur ancestors.
Nobody said humans evolved from chimpanzees, at least nobody credible. We simply have a common ancestor, like what we have with everything alive today. With the great apes however that common ancestor is more recent.
We share a lot of similarities with Gorillas, Bonobos and Chimps. We have superficially similar ears, hands, brows and bone structure. We all have a well developed hippocampus in our brains, helping us to be highly social and intelligent so that we can use our family groups and intelligence to do things like hunt cooperatively, defend each other as a large group and feed each other when food is found or exploited from the environment. We all even arguably laugh in one form or another and use tickling, hugging, sex, touching (sometimes at least resembling grooming) and kissing to strengthen social bonds. The females of all species also breast feed using two teats on the chest. We're all mammalian primates with enough variation to distinguish species.
Human evolution into how we are now is mostly between two arguments. One is well accepted, saying that hominids were grassland animals, losing hair and sweat to cool in the savannah and walking as a biped to look over the grass for prey like buffalo. This is well accepted. The issues are that almost all carnivorous savannah animals are hairy, water retaining animals who run on four limbs, which apparently makes them faster.
Primates seen walking through shallow water are sometimes seen walking upright. Many marine mammals like dolphins or hippos are totally bald-naked. Elephants and rhinos are said to have had an aquatic past, and now they're mostly hairless. Lions, cheetahs and Hyenas are all covered with fur. It's thought in the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis that proto-hominids were once evolving to live in water. We do seem to naturally be more adapted to being stranded near a lake, river or coastline rather than an arid grassland. It's also curious that we're the only great apes with small webbing in between our digits when we widen our hands, lacking in chimps, gorillas etc. however, as far as what's known, there's little evidence in the fossil record for this hypothesis.
To wrap it up, microevolution is an indisputable fact. Science also admits objectively that microevolution is theoretical, but fairly accepts it as at least a very valid theory, if not the most likely theory we have thus far. Humans didn't evolve from chimps, but are cousins with chimps, gorillas, orangutans and alike, and human evolution is still debated. Birds likely evolved from dinosaurs. With all that said, I can't stress enough how microevolution is a FACT but macroev is a strong, proposed explanation for multiple phenomenon, a theory, but can't be practically proven, because according to science, you had to be there to see it happen.
I hope this clears up some things. Science doesn't want to teach speciation through evolution as a fact, because science itself says macroev can only practically be a strong theory, like gravity, even though most of the public accepts gravity well.
I also hope that we'll one day be able to not see religion and science as opposing forces. I'd like to see a world where myths and lore in Christianity, Heathenry, Islam and the others are viewed as only relevant to culture, morality and spirit, and not scientifically or historically valid. My own heathen myths are ridiculously fantastic in the context of cosmology and science. I don't accept the lore of Odin, Vili and Ve using the flesh and bone of the giant Ymir to create the earth nor that the sun and moon are Giants being chased by sky wolves.The false scientific validity of religion lead to things like geocentrism, when imo religion should be related to the spirit and social group in things like meditation, prayer, community bonds and spiritual veneration.
Thanks for reading.
