What is Evolution?

Evolution Defined and Explained: Evolution can be a difficult concept for people to come to terms with, especially if they do not have much experience with life sciences. Is evolution a fact or a theory? Does evolution explain the origin of life or not? These are important questions which people need to be able to understand and answer. Evolution is not a minor matter - it is, in fact, the cornerstone of all modern biology.

Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide

Evolution can be a confusing term because it is used in more than one way. Many people in the general population have developed an incorrect understanding of evolution for a number of reasons. One is the misinformation spread by creationists - by misrepresenting evolution, they may hope that it will be easier to get people to disregard it. Another is simple ignorance of the topic itself and the specific ways in which science uses certain terminology.

There is some confusion about evolution as a fact and evolution as a theory. Often you can find critics claiming that evolution is 'just a theory' rather than a fact, as if that were supposed to demonstrate that it shouldn't be given serious consideration. Such arguments are based upon a misunderstanding of both the nature of science and the nature of evolution.
In reality, evolution is both a fact and a theory.

To understand how it can be both, it is necessary to understand that evolution can be used in more than one way in biology. A common way to use the term evolution is simply to describe the change in the gene pool of a population over time; that this occurs is an indisputable fact. Such changes have been observed in the laboratory and in nature. Even most (although not all, unfortunately) creationists accept this aspect of evolution as a fact.

Another way the term evolution is used in biology is to refer to the idea of “common descent,” that all species alive today and which have ever existed descend from a single ancestor which existed at some time in the past. Obviously this process of descent has not been observed, but there exists so much overwhelming evidence supporting it that most scientists (and probably all scientists in the life sciences) consider it a fact as well.

So, what does it mean to say that evolution is also a theory? For scientists, evolutionary theory deals with how evolution occurs, not whether it occurs — this is an important distinction lost upon creationists. There are different theories of evolution which can contradict or compete with each other in various ways and there can be strong and sometimes quite acrimonious disagreement between evolutionary scientists regarding their ideas.


There is one particular aspect of evolution that needs to be given specific attention: the somewhat artificial distinction between what is called 'microevolution' and 'macroevolution', two terms often used by creationists in their attempts to critique evolution and evolutionary theory.
Microevolution is used to refer to changes in the gene pool of a population over time which result in relatively small changes to the organisms in the population — changes which would not result in the newer organisms being considered as different species. Examples of such microevolutionary changes would include a change in a species’ coloring or size.

Macroevolution, in contrast, is used to refer to changes in organisms which are significant enough that, over time, the newer organisms would be considered an entirely new species. In other words, the new organisms would be unable to mate with their ancestors, assuming we were able to bring them together.

You can frequently hear creationists argue they accept microevolution but not macroevolution — one common way to put it is to say that dogs may change to become bigger or smaller, but they never become cats. Therefore, microevolution may occur within the dog species, but macroevolution never will.

There are a few problems with these terms, especially in the manner that creationists use them. The first is quite simply that when scientists do use the terms microevolution and macroevolution, they don’t use them in the same way as creationists. The terms were first used in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iurii Filipchenko in his book on evolution Variabilität und Variation. However, they remain in relatively limited use today. You can find them in some texts, including biology texts, but in general most biologists simply don’t pay attention to them.

Why? Because for biologists, there is no relevant difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Both happen in the same way and for the same reasons, so there is no real reason to differentiate them. When biologists do use different terms, it is simply for descriptive reasons.

When creationists use the terms, however, it is for ontological reasons — this means that they are trying to describe two fundamentally different processes. The essence of what constitutes microevolution is, for creationists, different from the essence of what constitutes macroevolution. Creationists act as if there is some magic line between microevolution and macroevolution, but no such line exists as far as science is concerned. Macroevolution is merely the result of a lot of microevolution over a long period of time.

In other words, creationists are appropriating scientific terminology which has specific and limited meaning, but they are using it in a broader and incorrect manner. This is a serious but unsurprising error — creationists misuse scientific terminology on a regular basis.

A second problem with the creationist use of the terms microevolution and macroevolution is the fact that the definition of what constitutes a species is not consistently defined. This can complicate the boundaries which creationists claim exist between microevolution and macroevolution. After all, if one is going to claim that microevolution can never become macroevolution, it would be necessary to specify where the boundary is which supposedly cannot be crossed.

Conclusion:
Simply put, evolution is the result of changes in genetic code. The genes encode the basic characteristics a life form will have, and there is no known mechanism that would prevent small changes (microevolution) from ultimately resulting in macroevolution. While genes can vary significantly between different life forms, the basic mechanisms of operation and change in all genes are the same. If you find a creationist arguing that microevolution can occur but macroevolution cannot, simply ask them what biological or logical barriers prevent the former from becoming the latter — and listen to the silence.





For a good look at the Tree of life.
http://www.dhushara.com/book/evol/trevol.jpg





Ardipithecus ramidus = Australopithecus anamensis = Australopithecus afarensis = Homo habilis = Homo ergaster = Homo heidelbergensis = Homo sapiens.

As you can see Neanderthals split off at Homo Heidelbergenis becoming their own race.




-- Homo habilis (2.6 M BC - 1.9 M BC)
-- Homo erectus (1.9 M BC - 0.4 M BC)
-- Homo heidelbergensis (0.8 M BC - 0.2 M BC)

All species except Homo sapiens (modern humans) are extinct. Homo neanderthalensis, traditionally considered the last surviving relative, died out 24,000 years ago. Fact....!



This is the first Race to have the word Homo infront of the name.. Homo is greek for Human.



For a better understanding of Evolution facts and Theory one should look up the name Stephen Jay Gould who is the leading expert in explaining Science facts and theories.

____________________________________


~post edited by animoo_x

Use this thread for further discussions on different evolution theories, opinions on evolution and against creationism.
Stay on topic please!

You forgot to put a one-line summary for all the dummies who'll get tl;dr syndrome. So I'll do it for you...

Basically, evolution explains how life changes over time, not how it originated. It has nothing to do with the big bang or the origins of life or earth, and it does not claim that the human species started when a monkey gave birth to a human one day.

That was 2 lines, so some people still might suffer from tl;dr.

Thats why I added the Conclusion:
'to the most part I wanted to explain it well enough where one can see the mistakes they may have been making.'

Also to show that Evolution in it self is indeed a fact.

So what are the moral, social, and philosophical ramifications of evolution?
Why should anyone but biologists care?

That's the point, no one but biologists or people interested in biology should care, just like no one besides physicists should care about the specifics of gravity, or no one besides geologists should care about how old the Earth is. So no one should be making a big fuss about how it "goes against their religion," or that it's "teaching atheism," or that it "can't be true because my grandfather wasn't a monkey." It's just a simple scientific fact that only people who specialize in that field need to worry about.

Basically, only Medical Doctors and people on that field should care about your health; so you should not. And people people who want to master in Education should go to school and you should just stay at home and not care about anything you do not want to specialize in. Rather simple; ignorance is truly bliss.
On the lighter side, that essay on the very first post looks rather familiar. Hopefully, I am mistaken.

ok you answered your own question what more do you want us to do

Those aren't the same, your health and education affect your quality of your life, so obviously you should care about those. But knowing the intricate details of evolution or carbon dating or whatever will not benefit anyone in any way unless they specialize in those fields. The only thing you need to know about those is the basics so that you don't have misconceptions about them that can have a negative impact on yourself and others, like thinking "teaching evolution=teaching atheism so we shouldn't be teaching it in school."

Well, if you actually consider theories in sociology (particularly Comte's and Spencer's), teaching evolution affects life. How? Well, it helps you realize that if you are fit to survive, it actually affects how you act. But, yeah, I get your point. Hopefully you got the sarcasm, too.

This makes more sense than the alternate views. Evolving over time vs created as we are, is not a winnable debate.

Evolution is, in fact, the cornerstone of all modern biology.

Without evolution, most of todays Science and drugs would never have came about.

So are you saying there are no moral, social or philosophical ramifications of evolution? Why does it even need to be articulated then?

Actually there is a reason to fuss. In christianity, humans were created straight from God and there was nothing in the middle. That means according to christians we humans did not evolved from single-celled organisms. That's what the fuss is about, when different beliefs collide with one another.

There are many people who believe that God started evolution, and that the 7 "days" were actually billions of years (since we measure time by the Earth's rotation and revolution around the sun, and he didn't created the sun until the 4th day, so it's possible that all those "days" were much longer than our 24-hour days). If you believe in God then it makes sense, since we have witnessed evolution many times over on a minor scale, and have even caused several species of animals to evolve through artificial selection (domestic dogs and farm animals). So even though we don't have any solid evidence as to when or where the first cell came from, or what exactly is the missing link between humans and apes, evolution does occur all the time, every day. Denying it is just like denying that the Earth revolves around the sun. If you believe that God made the whole universe, why couldn't he make evolution?




Because people misunderstand it and think it is a belief system, when it is actually a scientific fact that we have observed many times over. They think that this "belief" in evolution is a threat to their faith in their religion, when in reality it isn't, and I think that's what the OP was trying to show everyone.

-Well I am speaking on behalf of the general christian population. Of course there were times where christians denied stuff like the earth being round and all simply because it challenged what they knew. I myself do not deny the evidence that lays before us but how it has been interpreted is what makes christians wonder. Of course everything takes time to make and usually it appears instantaneous to us because we did not notice the process in the making. A good reason why christians deny evolution is because believing in it would mean that if a deme of early homids did evolve into the humans of today than that would mean that there was not just two humans that progressed the race but many humans.
-Now for myself, the thing that bewilders me the most is how we humans evolved from the homids and developed the skills to make sophisticated tools and develop a vastly creative mind. This is something anthropologists have not found yet and hopefully in my timeline I'll be able to see the bridge between the gap.
-And that brings me up to another reason why people might skepticize on evolution. We've seen species 1 and linked it with species 2 but where is the process that happened inbetween? Just something I thought up.