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#3,476
as for Evolution and selective stuff
how has stuff been tested
Darwin was around two hundred years ago
he made his theories on his collection of stuff
he wasn't privy to DNA tests that dispell stuff he believed back then
for instance you can't change stuff
a Bactria can not become a dog
a dog can't be mutated to become a mouse
a mouse can not be mutated to become a shark
that flies in the face of everything we know today!
how has stuff been tested
Darwin was around two hundred years ago
he made his theories on his collection of stuff
he wasn't privy to DNA tests that dispell stuff he believed back then
for instance you can't change stuff
a Bactria can not become a dog
a dog can't be mutated to become a mouse
a mouse can not be mutated to become a shark
that flies in the face of everything we know today!
In evolution a plant does not magically turn into an animal within one or two generations, something that you clearly believe should happen. Neither does a cat turn into a dog in one generation. Or at all, given that (and please re-read this bit carefully) evolution is essentially about common ancestry (or more correctly 'common descent') between different species of both animals and plants.
If that's the type of thing you want as evidence, you won't find any because that's NOT what evolution is about.
Nonetheless evolution has been directly observed many times, and we have overwhelming observable, empirical evidence to support both the fact and model (theory) of evolution. The model is still being tinkered with in light of new discoveries and advances in technologies such as better DNA sequencing. Adjusting the model in the light of new evidence does not however falsify the fact of evolution.
Speciation is one species evolving into another species. Not only has it been directly observed, but we also have hundred of thousands of specific pieces of evidence (at least) across a number of scientific fields that support and confirm the fact of evolution.
Some examples of observed speciation (in other words evolution) are:
- Hawthorn fly
- Three-spined sticklebacks
- Cichlid fishes in Lake Nagubago
- Tennessee cave salamanders
- Greenish Warbler
- Ensatina salamanders
- Larus gulls
- Petroica multicolor
- Drosophila
- Mayr bird fauna
- Squirrels in the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon
- Apple maggot
- Faeroe Island house mouse
- Primula kewensis
- Croatian lizards
A study published a couple of years ago in the Royal Society journal "Proceedings B" has found coackroaches have evolved separately up to nine different times across Australia. A team of evolutionary biologists at the University of Sydney sequenced the DNA of 25 different species of soil-burrowing cockroaches from around Australia, and compared the results with DNA from a more slim-line type of cockroach that eats and burrows into wood. They found soil-burrowing cockroaches have possibly evolved up to nine different times from the wood-feeders. The researchers found the evolution of soil-burrowing cockroaches occurred as recently as 5 million years ago in New South Wales and as far back as 15 million years ago in Queensland. What the study also confirmed is that evolution can be predictable because different species often (but not always) evolve the same characteristics when exposed to the same environmental pressures. But they do this seperately. It also supported the idea that different environmental pressures lead to different rates and types of evolution. Just because the cockroach has not evolved at a great rate of knots, compared with other species that have faced different types of environental pressures does not mean that modern cockroaches hae not evolved at all. They clearly have.
The above is another example of how advances in DNA sequencing are confirming / answering questions about the evolutuonary processes of a great many species of animals, insects, birds and reptiles. Including humans.
It's basic biology. We have actually observed the evolution of one species into another species.
Scientific literature does contain dozens of examples of speciation events in plants, insects and worms.
In most of these experiments, researchers subjected organisms to various types of selection - for anatomical differences, mating behaviors, habitat preferences and other traits - and found that they had created populations of organisms that did not breed with outsiders.
For example, William R. Rice of the University of New Mexico and George W. Salt of the University of California at Davis demonstrated that if they sorted a group of fruit flies by their preference for certain environments and bred those flies separately over 35 generations, the resulting flies would refuse to breed with those from a very different environment.
Scientists have also directly observed that mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae and body segments should grow. To use the fruit fly example above, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their very existence and development demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures and changes to anatomy, which natural selection can then test for possible uses.
More speciation occurs and the two new species move further apart in gene structure, physiology and so on.
That is evoluton in action. Evolution clearly exists.
Molecular biology has also discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond the point mutations described above, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in new ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism's DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features hence creating new species with different anatomies. Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years.
The above, as well as many other observed examples as well as overwhelming genetic evidence, aptly demonstrate that evolution occurs. DNA testing suggests that macroevolution (what we might also called common descent) also very likely occurs.
Of course, examples of common descent have not been directly observed because no one was there to observe it over such a long period of time (the same problem that exists when there is no direct eyewitness in a murder trial). However the above empirical evidence (which is only a tiny fraction of the evidence that has been gathered) clearly shows that speciation with different genetic mutations influencing anatomy can occur and has been observed to occur.
So based on our understanding and observations of genetics, it is very reasonable to think that it is possible for large-scale changes to occur and that there are no rational reasons or contrary evidence to support the idea that they can't occur.
It is therefore also logical and reasonable to conclude that in the absence of something to prevent it, a succession of speciation events (which do occur - we have observed them in action) would eventually lead to a divergence where descendant organisms would be classified in different genera, families, orders, etc., as per the biological classifications I outlined earlier.
Again the evidence for evolution is there and it is vast.
Molecular biologists, geneticists and chemists will keep adding to the vast catalogue of empirical evidence supporting both the fact and theory of evolution.
NOT ONE PIECE of the many hundreds of thousands of picees (and some scientists are now talking in the millions of pieces - but I'll be conservative) of evidence gathered up to this point have falsified evolution. Not one.
It only takes one piece of contrary evidence to falsify evolution. If you're so sure that evolution doesn't occur, present just ONE piece of evidence that falsifies evolution. For someone who discredits the scientific fact (see definition of 'scientific fact' above) of evolution, surely that's not too difficult for you to do.

