Alright, apparently I'm going first, so:
The theory of evolution is, to put it mildly, possibly the most well supported scientific theory in all of science, certainly within the field of biology. It is also subject to some of the most fervent and rabidly defended misrepresentations that any functional, well supported theory has ever had to deal with. It is my aim here to present the case for the evidence, and dispel the misinformation regarding this topic.
To begin with, I should define what evolution is, insofar as it is understood by the scientists that know it best, and the observations under which it can be shown to happen. This serves two purposes, the first being to nip some of the mistaken beliefs about evolution that my opponent has voiced elsewhere in the bud, and the second being to demonstrate just how inoffensive and, frankly, mundane the process really is.
In short, evolution is a process by which inherited characteristics change in populations of biological organisms over successive generations. It is descent, with modification; this definition is not simply one of convenience to my argument, but is instead used in universities, commonly used laymen's resources, and even biology textbooks. It is also not an instantaneous or magic process, by any means; it does not require that dogs give birth to eagles, for fish to spontaneously grow legs, or for crocoducks to be running around today. All evolution describes, all it has ever described, is the alteration of inherited traits over multiple generations, via genetic mutation. To assert otherwise indicates a misunderstanding of the theory at best, and a misrepresentation at worst.
When working with an accurate idea of what evolution is and does, acceptance of it should be trivial; in fact, among scientists of any profession, both theist and atheist, ninety-seven percent accept that evolution occurs, as does sixty-one percent of the public. By no means do I intend to simply let those numbers stand as an argument from popularity or authority, I merely wish to point out the ease with which those in the know are willing to accept this theory. They have their reasons, which I will go on to now.
If one wishes to see the fruits of evolution one can look to many places, but the easiest of them would be to one's own family. Find your children, your parents, your brothers or sisters, and compare their features to yours; barring identical twins you will undoubtedly find both similarities and differences. They do not look exactly like you, and this is evolution in action; though you have inherited traits from your parents, that genetic inheritance has changed due to errors in the replication of those genes, mutations, that cause you to look different, among many other things. The fact that you are not a clone of your parents is testament to the fact that you are a part of a continuous line of evolution via descent, with each generation in your family being slightly different from the one before it.
Mutations are the engine that drives these changes, in fact every human being is born with about sixty of them, but my opponent would have you believe that they mean nothing, that many small changes do not add up. Luckily for us, our ancestors didn't seem to think the same way, or else they never would have started selectively breeding wolves to retain traits they thought desirable while weeding out those they did not. The domestic dog, in all its breeds and permutations, is but the most prominent of numerous forays into evolution by artificial selection, in both plants and animals, by our ancient ancestors, but none of it would have been possible if they hadn't made a simple observation that my opponent seems unable to make himself; the children of living things are different from their parents. Instead of making this observation, he must compare a Great Dane with a Chihuahua, and find no difference between them. After all, in his worldview, those small changes that fuel evolution do not happen.
Those observations, by the way, are what first prompted Charles Darwin to properly formulate the theory of evolution for his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, but they are not where the evidence in favor of evolution stops. No, in fact the situation is quite the reverse; science has progressed in leaps and bounds in the past 150 years, and all the technological advances that have allowed us to see further, detect more, and peer into worlds heretofore undreamt of, contained the seeds of evolution's destruction. If but one fossil had been out of place, if a single part of the genetic makeup of any species had been independent from any other, if anything had shown us something different, that would have been it. Instead, our increased knowledge base has only ever confirmed or refined our understanding of evolution to the point that today, it is almost unthinkable that it could be proven false.
What has happened in that past century and a half? We discovered genetics, something that hadn't figured into evolution before that moment, and what did we find? A universal genetic set up shared across all biological organisms, with genetic relationships that recapitulate those already established through morphology and biochemistry, confirmation that those organisms that are structurally similar more closely match genetically too. We find endogenous retrovirals, passed down generation by generation by heredity, indicating that species sharing ERVs have common ancestry, even between chimps and humans, which share seven such virogenes. We find human chromosome 2, indicating a fusing of two chromosomes in one of our common ancestors with the great apes, leading to our current chromosomal setup. The more we discover, the more firmly grounded evolution becomes; genetics posed such a great stumbling block to the theory, and yet all we find only confirms our common ancestry with everything else on the planet.
Even the remains of those long dead, no matter their species, attest to evolution. We have gotten so much better at exploring our fossil history, and in doing so we have discovered hundreds, if not thousands of examples of one species transitioning into another, exhibiting traits of organisms that had yet to form. The last link is only a partial list, and just as important as the number of transitional fossils we have found, is their positioning, because evolution also makes predictions; using our knowledge of how organisms evolve we can predict when in history certain organisms, exhibiting certain traits, will appear. This is yet another area in which the study of evolution could have destroyed itself; if an organism showed up too early, or too late, it would cast doubt upon the accuracy of the theory. But what do we find? That we can predict where new transitional forms can be found very accurately. In fact, organisms consistently appear in the stratigraphic column in areas appropriate for evolutionary models, and never elsewhere. Yet another hurdle that evolution leaps over with aplomb.
Is it just the past that confirms evolution? No! We can see it in action just as easily. In many ways, modern medicine relies upon evolution existing to function; diseases grow resistant to antibiotics because they evolve, as our application of antibiotics selects out those organisms that cannot survive them. Ever wonder why you need a new flu shot every year? It's because the flu virus evolves and changes all the time, necessitating a new inoculation to cover the differences. Diseases even evolve new methods of bypassing our immune systems; are our doctors having to deal with these realities just delusional, or pretending? Or are these real, present dangers that need to be combated, because evolution is actually happening?
But only in medicine, right? No, I'm not done. We can see evolution happening in laboratories, too: Nylon was invented in 1935, and yet strains of flavobacteria can develop the ability to digest it under laboratory conditions, when they couldn't before. Fruit flies, when isolated in the lab, evolve in reproductive isolation and prefer partners of the same type for breeding. Hell, even in the wild we can watch species evolving new traits.
I could keep going, but I think I've made my point more than adequately. Everything we know about the natural world screams evolution by natural selection, and offers us no indication of intelligent design, or special creation, or whatever other buzzword creationists want to try to sneak "god did it" into our biology. We can see it in the records of the past, we can see it in present day right before our eyes, and using our predictive methods we can even see it in the future. The evidence is so omnipresent and overwhelming that, barring the arbitrary and unsupported whims of certain religious movements, the vast majority of religious practitioners and leaders have accepted and integrated the fact of evolution into their beliefs and daily lives. As our latest Pope recently said: "God is not a magician."
Not only is there sufficient evidence to accept evolution, there isn't even a realistic ideological reason to reject it. It is no coincidence that denial of evolution relies so heavily on insistent, baseless literalism in scripture, combined with both a strange and arbitrary selectiveness over what, precisely, should be taken literally, and far more egregiously, serious misinformation about the very basic principles of evolution. Quite simply, there is no rational reason that evolution, properly understood, could possibly be denied.
Thank you all for reading, and good luck to my opponent.
The theory of evolution is, to put it mildly, possibly the most well supported scientific theory in all of science, certainly within the field of biology. It is also subject to some of the most fervent and rabidly defended misrepresentations that any functional, well supported theory has ever had to deal with. It is my aim here to present the case for the evidence, and dispel the misinformation regarding this topic.
To begin with, I should define what evolution is, insofar as it is understood by the scientists that know it best, and the observations under which it can be shown to happen. This serves two purposes, the first being to nip some of the mistaken beliefs about evolution that my opponent has voiced elsewhere in the bud, and the second being to demonstrate just how inoffensive and, frankly, mundane the process really is.
In short, evolution is a process by which inherited characteristics change in populations of biological organisms over successive generations. It is descent, with modification; this definition is not simply one of convenience to my argument, but is instead used in universities, commonly used laymen's resources, and even biology textbooks. It is also not an instantaneous or magic process, by any means; it does not require that dogs give birth to eagles, for fish to spontaneously grow legs, or for crocoducks to be running around today. All evolution describes, all it has ever described, is the alteration of inherited traits over multiple generations, via genetic mutation. To assert otherwise indicates a misunderstanding of the theory at best, and a misrepresentation at worst.
When working with an accurate idea of what evolution is and does, acceptance of it should be trivial; in fact, among scientists of any profession, both theist and atheist, ninety-seven percent accept that evolution occurs, as does sixty-one percent of the public. By no means do I intend to simply let those numbers stand as an argument from popularity or authority, I merely wish to point out the ease with which those in the know are willing to accept this theory. They have their reasons, which I will go on to now.
If one wishes to see the fruits of evolution one can look to many places, but the easiest of them would be to one's own family. Find your children, your parents, your brothers or sisters, and compare their features to yours; barring identical twins you will undoubtedly find both similarities and differences. They do not look exactly like you, and this is evolution in action; though you have inherited traits from your parents, that genetic inheritance has changed due to errors in the replication of those genes, mutations, that cause you to look different, among many other things. The fact that you are not a clone of your parents is testament to the fact that you are a part of a continuous line of evolution via descent, with each generation in your family being slightly different from the one before it.
Mutations are the engine that drives these changes, in fact every human being is born with about sixty of them, but my opponent would have you believe that they mean nothing, that many small changes do not add up. Luckily for us, our ancestors didn't seem to think the same way, or else they never would have started selectively breeding wolves to retain traits they thought desirable while weeding out those they did not. The domestic dog, in all its breeds and permutations, is but the most prominent of numerous forays into evolution by artificial selection, in both plants and animals, by our ancient ancestors, but none of it would have been possible if they hadn't made a simple observation that my opponent seems unable to make himself; the children of living things are different from their parents. Instead of making this observation, he must compare a Great Dane with a Chihuahua, and find no difference between them. After all, in his worldview, those small changes that fuel evolution do not happen.
Those observations, by the way, are what first prompted Charles Darwin to properly formulate the theory of evolution for his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, but they are not where the evidence in favor of evolution stops. No, in fact the situation is quite the reverse; science has progressed in leaps and bounds in the past 150 years, and all the technological advances that have allowed us to see further, detect more, and peer into worlds heretofore undreamt of, contained the seeds of evolution's destruction. If but one fossil had been out of place, if a single part of the genetic makeup of any species had been independent from any other, if anything had shown us something different, that would have been it. Instead, our increased knowledge base has only ever confirmed or refined our understanding of evolution to the point that today, it is almost unthinkable that it could be proven false.
What has happened in that past century and a half? We discovered genetics, something that hadn't figured into evolution before that moment, and what did we find? A universal genetic set up shared across all biological organisms, with genetic relationships that recapitulate those already established through morphology and biochemistry, confirmation that those organisms that are structurally similar more closely match genetically too. We find endogenous retrovirals, passed down generation by generation by heredity, indicating that species sharing ERVs have common ancestry, even between chimps and humans, which share seven such virogenes. We find human chromosome 2, indicating a fusing of two chromosomes in one of our common ancestors with the great apes, leading to our current chromosomal setup. The more we discover, the more firmly grounded evolution becomes; genetics posed such a great stumbling block to the theory, and yet all we find only confirms our common ancestry with everything else on the planet.
Even the remains of those long dead, no matter their species, attest to evolution. We have gotten so much better at exploring our fossil history, and in doing so we have discovered hundreds, if not thousands of examples of one species transitioning into another, exhibiting traits of organisms that had yet to form. The last link is only a partial list, and just as important as the number of transitional fossils we have found, is their positioning, because evolution also makes predictions; using our knowledge of how organisms evolve we can predict when in history certain organisms, exhibiting certain traits, will appear. This is yet another area in which the study of evolution could have destroyed itself; if an organism showed up too early, or too late, it would cast doubt upon the accuracy of the theory. But what do we find? That we can predict where new transitional forms can be found very accurately. In fact, organisms consistently appear in the stratigraphic column in areas appropriate for evolutionary models, and never elsewhere. Yet another hurdle that evolution leaps over with aplomb.
Is it just the past that confirms evolution? No! We can see it in action just as easily. In many ways, modern medicine relies upon evolution existing to function; diseases grow resistant to antibiotics because they evolve, as our application of antibiotics selects out those organisms that cannot survive them. Ever wonder why you need a new flu shot every year? It's because the flu virus evolves and changes all the time, necessitating a new inoculation to cover the differences. Diseases even evolve new methods of bypassing our immune systems; are our doctors having to deal with these realities just delusional, or pretending? Or are these real, present dangers that need to be combated, because evolution is actually happening?
But only in medicine, right? No, I'm not done. We can see evolution happening in laboratories, too: Nylon was invented in 1935, and yet strains of flavobacteria can develop the ability to digest it under laboratory conditions, when they couldn't before. Fruit flies, when isolated in the lab, evolve in reproductive isolation and prefer partners of the same type for breeding. Hell, even in the wild we can watch species evolving new traits.
I could keep going, but I think I've made my point more than adequately. Everything we know about the natural world screams evolution by natural selection, and offers us no indication of intelligent design, or special creation, or whatever other buzzword creationists want to try to sneak "god did it" into our biology. We can see it in the records of the past, we can see it in present day right before our eyes, and using our predictive methods we can even see it in the future. The evidence is so omnipresent and overwhelming that, barring the arbitrary and unsupported whims of certain religious movements, the vast majority of religious practitioners and leaders have accepted and integrated the fact of evolution into their beliefs and daily lives. As our latest Pope recently said: "God is not a magician."
Not only is there sufficient evidence to accept evolution, there isn't even a realistic ideological reason to reject it. It is no coincidence that denial of evolution relies so heavily on insistent, baseless literalism in scripture, combined with both a strange and arbitrary selectiveness over what, precisely, should be taken literally, and far more egregiously, serious misinformation about the very basic principles of evolution. Quite simply, there is no rational reason that evolution, properly understood, could possibly be denied.
Thank you all for reading, and good luck to my opponent.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
