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I'm writing this into response to the comments left by Aldo Bann about how evolution works. It would appear that he might have received some pretty harsh comments from other readers.
I will give Aldo the benefit of the doubt that when he read up about the TOE on the internet he did indeed suffer from information overload.
Aldo, I hope the below would help to make you understand what the TOE is all about, and I will do this with a few statements and even a few examples of actual evidence.
1. TOE does NOT have an end goal. Most creationists incorrectly assert that we have never witnessed one species change into another, and then they would provide examples like frogs turning into monkeys, or Ravana's example of ecoli changing into mushroom. This is a completely ridiculous assertion. Proponents of the TOE would call this a straw-man argument. But the point here is that there is no "guiding force" for evolution. It is simply a function of random mutations that are either adaptive or non-adaptive to a changing environment. What we have observed many times are speciation events. That is when two subgroups of a species diverge enough over a sufficient period time that cause them not to be able to breed with one another. They are genetically so different that they cannot interchange DNA information anymore. This has been observed many times. Feel free to search for "speciation events"
2. TOE does NOT say that man came from monkeys. TOE says that man and ape had a common ancestor. You have to think of all species as a tree, NOT a chain. Again, this ties into the fact that evolution does not have end goal. Mankind was not, and never will be the ultimate goal of life on earth. We are simply a form of life capable of adapting to our environment. Why we appear so special to ourselves is because millions of years of evolution have provided us with a larger brain and with it the capability of reasoning, logic, and abstract thinking. That does not mean we are a superior species. Certain species like sharks have been around for hundreds of millions of years, much longer than we have, without the need for much change at all. Surely under certain circumstances you would think that this would be a prime candidate for a superior species!
3. TOE does state that new species can (not must) evolve. As mentioned in point 1 above, a speciation event is effectively one species changing into many. We cannot know what those species will be, as they will quite likely be something completely new.
4. “Species” is a man-made concept. Modern taxonomy was invented by a man called Carl Linnaeus a few hundred years ago. That was before we discovered DNA and the double-helix. It was also before Charles Darwin published “The Origin of the Species”. It is purely a man-made concept for classifying the diversity of life we can observe on the planet. But a problem arises when you try to reconcile modern animals with the discovered fossils. There are plenty of examples of fossils being relabelled, first as one species, then as another, simply because some new evidence was uncovered. You can search for examples of this. This system has a problem because it is fundamentally static, and does not account for the ACTUAL OBSERVED FACT that virtually all life on earth has changed and is still changing over time. Search for phylogenetic tree, and you will see that scientists are trying to change this system to something that is more dynamic and a more accurate reflection of what we observe in nature today.
5. There is no difference between the mechanics of micro and macro evolution. Without sounding patronising, ask yourself: What is 1+1 ? What is 1+1+1 ? What is 1+1+1+1 ? Etc. etc. 1+1+1+1+1+…+1+1 = infinite. You can continue this as far as you like. “Macro” evolution is simply “micro” evolution over a longer period of time. Now, creationists will boldly claim that macro-evolution isn’t possible. The only way this can be true is if there is some barrier in the DNA of all lifeforms actively preventing certain mutations to take place. This barrier simply doesn’t exist. DNA doesn’t “know” it is rabbit, frog, chimp, or human DNA. Mutations can occur anywhere in the code. Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or detrimental. Detrimental mutations are usually irradicated because it reduces the organism’s ability to survive in its environment. Beneficial and neutral mutations can have no effect, or even increase the organism’s ability to adapt to its environment.
For examples of how drastic these changes can be in a very short period of time, read up on the Russian Silverfox experiment.
6. Nature only appears designed. But the proverbial devil is in the details. A very recent example I came across about how fundamentally undesigned things in nature are is that of the eyes of the Iberian mole. (You will probably know that the “complexity” of the eye is seen by many creationists as “unequivocal proof” of the existence of the designer)
Now, this mole has a partially formed iris, no muscle tissue to move the eyes around, and the light sensors are basically a jumbled mess. All these eyes are good for is basically the ability to discern between light and dark.
But that’s not the worst part. The Iberian mole has no eyelids! That’s right. The eyes of this mole are permanently covered by a layer of skin!
Now, just ask yourself this. What kind of designer designs a creature with a virtually useless set of eyes, and then to add further insult to injury, covers them with skin so that the mole can never open them ?!
7. DNA is the final proof of evolution. That’s right, in actual fact, fossils are just the cherry on top. When we started sequencing the genome of not only humans, but that of other animals, it provided us with the most compelling evidence yet that evolution is not only fact, but that our closest living ancestor is the bonobo, sharing 98.6% genetic code with it. How is this possible? Well, the answer lies in junk DNA. Junk DNA is basically useless bits of “code” in our DNA. Now again, creationists will claim that it’s not really junk, we simply hadn’t discovered what it is used for. But sadly this is just wild conjecture. Whilst there might be some partial information that can be extracted from this DNA, the vast majority of it is redundant. How do we know it’s redundant? By looking at how the proteins the gene is expressing is encoded for. You can basically remove all the “junk” bits, and the gene will still code for the exact same protein. This is not just conjecture. This has been proven in lab experiments.
Now, how does this prove that we are related to animals? Simple. All we do is look at the genes coding for the same proteins in other animals, like the bonobo for example. And guess what we’ve found? Yup, the same pesky junk DNA turns up in these animals too! Now, this is too much of a coincidence. Why would an intelligent designer put the same useless junk DNA into all the different species???
Only evolution and common ancestry can explain this observation sufficiently.
I can put even more information, but I suggest you read a book about DNA from James Watson, one of the co-discovers of the double helix. Another good read would also be Richard Dawkins’ The greatest show on Earth.
I too had a problem understanding evolution. I protested against it vehemently, until I eventually realised that the only reason I objected to it was because of religious indoctrination. There was really no scientific basis for why I shouldn’t accept this theory as fact.
I hope the points above would do the same for you.
