Can you give any evidence for Darwin's theory?

[pocaracas]

People say it is true and has tons of facts. I have never been given one. So please, can you give me some evidence?

All right, I'll play.

Fossils.
Rock dating which puts different fossil groups in different time periods.
DNA.
Shared genome between similar species, such as apes and humans, or jackals and wolves...

Dodos.
Evolved to fill a niche which didn't include defense against predators... humans came in, they didn't run away, and they all got eaten.

Plate tectonics.
Marsupials developed on the southern part of Pangaea. Then they got separated and evolved into the different "kinds" we can find in Australia and the Americas... none in Africa, Asia, nor Europe.

Plate tectonics corroborate rock dating.
Rock magnetization on the Atlantic seafloor corroborates plate tectonics.
Seismic tomography corroborates the behavior of the planet's core which is responsible for earth's magnetic field which is what imprinted the rock with the measured magnetization.
Magnets were discovered in China which is also where the best fossil beds can be found.
Also, China had Confucius well before Jerusalem had Jesus.
But the Chinese invented gunpowder, only it took European ingenuity to turn it into a weapon... says a lot about the two societies, don't you think?

[Whateverist]

People say it is true and has tons of facts. I have never been given one. So please, can you give me some evidence?

Maybe you're just out of practice for actually looking for where evidence leads. As an apologist on a mission you really only know one thing to do with evidence and that is to screen for what supports your already decided position.

There is plenty of evidence for impartial observers. It is the favorite theory because it accommodates the most facts. You don't need to be shown the facts. You just need to learn how to see and judge them fairly. Good luck.

[Ravenshire]

For fuck's sake:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/natural+selection
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/ev...ution1.htm
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution
http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Theory_of_evolution

And just in case you decide to spout some "just a theory" crap:
http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is...heory.html

Walker, please educate yourself or shut the fuck up!

[Mister Agenda]

Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

Most but not all. One of the things you were given links to was all about evidence for macroevolution.

Those kinds of changes would overthrow the current understanding of biological evolution. A great oversimplification, but it works more like this:

Monkey->hundreds or thousands of speciation events, almost all of which are not in the lineage of apes->apes->hundreds or thousands of speciation events, almost all of which are not in the lineage of hominids->hominiids->hundreds of speciation events, most of which are not in the lineage of modern humans->humans. Each step taking tens or hundreds of thousands of generations.

The clincher as far as evidence goes (not that what poccaracas offered is insufficiently convincing) is retroviral insertions. When a retrovirus infects a heritable germ line cell, the alterations it makes in its host's DNA can be passed on to subsequent generations. If the change is neutral, it can be carried through speciation events as there is no particular pressure to weed it out. The odds of an identical random retroviral insertion being due to anything but common descent are so remote that two organisms sharing a single such insertion is considered proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they share a common ancestor. Seven retroviral insertions have been found in common between humans and chimps.

[Esquilax]

Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

Okay, I just have to know: what went through your mind when you posted this thread? Did you actually think that evolution didn't have any facts to back it up, while at the same time thinking you were safe in not looking up what evolution even is before thinking that?

What is wrong with you?

[The Valkyrie]

Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

Okay, I just have to know: what went through your mind when you posted this thread? Did you actually think that evolution didn't have any facts to back it up, while at the same time thinking you were safe in not looking up what evolution even is before thinking that?

What is wrong with you?

[The Reality Salesman01]

You want to see someone pull a rabbit from a hat, but Evolution is not a magic trick like walking on water or melting fig trees. It's a LONG LONG gradual process. The evidence that exists for evolution is not like a tutorial on how to do a card trick. It's more akin to understanding a language. You wouldn't ask for evidence regarding Latin origins to certain words in the English language and expect me to show you a Latin word which transforms before your eyes into what you understand to be it's present English version. You'd have to study both of the languages and research every subtle nuance, and context, and historical application. Such evidence of that "kind" is a nonsensical request. Evidence for Latin origins of English words exists, but my inability to pull it from a hat doesn't discount it's validity. It's an oversimplified comparison, but I think it works. In short...don't be an idiot.

http://youtu.be/hsbBT118Rbw

[Whateverist]

1100 Steves can't be wrong. Ergo, evolution yes; creationism hell no.

[Sejanus]

Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

Don't ever use that word when discussing evolution. Ever. Here's a little crash course in high school evolutionary biology. First, let's define the word species. A species is a population of animals that can successfully interbreed to produce fertile, viable offspring. Next, I'll inform you that all individuals in a population show some variation in their genetic make-up, which may or may not manifest itself phenotypically; what the animal looks like. It's the reason you don't look exactly like your parents. This variation comes from - Mutations, crossing over and recombination of chromosomes, among other things (I haven't looked at my High school Biology texts in like, a year, so if this isn't sufficient I will explain the variation in more detail).

So, now we have a population of individuals of the same species that show genetic variation and can successfully interbreed to produce fertile offspring. Big whoop. To produce a new species, mechanisms of speciation must act on the population. There are a whole host of these, so I'll explain one that's easy to understand. Allopatric (means "other-land") speciation occurs when a group of individuals is separated from the main population of the species by some geographical barrier, like a river, a new mountain range, etc. The climate is likely to be different where the small group ends up. As such it will have different selection pressures than the original environment. Remember, the group of individuals shows variation, so those individuals who can best adapt to the selection pressures in the new environment have a better chance to survive to pass on those genes that helped them survive. Hence, over many generations, the group develops similar traits which are best suited to surviving in the environment they live in.

To explain this, I'll give an example. Suppose there is a population of mostly green lizards that was located in a forest. A small group of them end up in the desert, where the colour of the sand is yellow. Birds of prey can easily spot the most green lizards, but have a harder time spotting ones that have a colour closer to yellow (due to variation). The yellow-ish lizards will therefore be more likely to survive, to be able to reproduce and pass on their genes. So the group becomes mostly yellow-ish over time. Which leads me to speciation. Say those yellow-ish lizards make it back to the forest. The original population of green lizards will now not be able to recognize the yellow-ish lizards as potential mates; i.e a post-zygotic reproductive isolating mechanism has developed. (there are many of these, this is just an example. There are also pre-zygotic reproductive isolating mechanisms; a different number of chromosomes, for example, among others). Now we can go back to the original definition of a species; a population of animals that can successfully interbreed to produce fertile, viable offspring. The yellow-ish group do not breed with the original population, and so mutations and other RIMs develop to the point where they are unable to interbreed successfully with the original population. This is the point where a new species has developed.

In order to get your "fish to a human" scenario to happen, there needs to be hundreds of thousands if not more of these speciation events, through billions of generations. I hope I've shown that evolution by natural selection explains how you will never see a fish evolve into a human in one generation, the timescale required for that to happen is geological; in the order of billions of years.

Evolutionary biologists of the forum: feel free to correct me.
Creationists: take notes.

[downbeatplumb]

Ok, most of you are giving examples of evolving in little ways. I should have clarified this but i am talking about a change of kind. IN the case of evolution some people think a fish or a monkey to a human. Do you have evidence of a change of kinds like a fish to a human, or a monkey to a human.

You must be the product of an American education.

So sad to see a once mighty nation crumble under the weight of accumulated ignorance.

On the other hand my sons are all better educated than this (My youngest is eleven), so should be able to better compete in the global job market.