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What Do We Know About Evolution?
Contents
- What does Evolution State?
- Do Scientists Really Believe Evolution?
- The Geologic Column
- What is Not Known?
- Are borates the key to life?
- Are Evolution and Religion in Conflict?
- Want Do Others Say?
Do we live on a planet that
was
Are these claims valid or pseudoscientific nonsense? These claims and others are
explored in the |
What does Evolution State?
"Evolution" and the "Theory of Evolution" are two different things.
Evolution - New and increasingly complex life forms have emerged since life began on this planet. The combination of the geologic column and fossil records provides compelling evidence for this. Radiometric dating provides the timeline for when it occurred.
Theory of Evolution - The explanation for what caused evolution and how it occurred. While evolution is considered a fact by most biologists, its explanation, the theory of evolution, is still being worked out and there is disagreement among biologists as to the specific mechanisms that make evolution possible. Evolutionists often change their ideas on how evolution occurred, but not on whether it occurred.
The Earth is Very Old - Evolution requires a large amount of
time to occur. The general consensus among the various scientific
groups (biologists, cosmologists, physicists, geneticists, etc.) is that
it is about 4.5 billion years old.
See How Old is the Earth?
Want to Learn More?
Do Scientists Really Believe Evolution?
Over 99% of biologists believe that change across time (evolution) is a fact. Yet, there is much debate as to how evolution occurred (evolution theory). There are some biologists and geologists that disagree with evolution (Steve Austin, Institute for Creation Research, Discovery Institute).
The Geologic Column
The geologic column shows that new and increasingly complex life forms (Descent with Modification) have appeared since life began on this planet.
Cenozoic
- Holocene
- Pleistocene
- Pliocene
- Miocene
- Oligocene
- Eocene
- Paleocene
Mesozoic
- Cretaceous
- Jurassic
- Triassic
Paleozoic
- Permian
- Carboniferous
- Pennsylvanian
- Mississippian
- Devonian
- Silurian
- Ordovician
- Cambrian
Pre-Cambrian
- Vendian
Some have claimed that Noah's Flood explains the geologic column, but this explanation simply doesn't fit the facts. See Noah's Flood for more information.
Others claim that it doesn't exist at al because there is no single place where it exists in its entirety. This simply isn't true. While it it true that it is not complete in all places, there are some locations in which it is. See References. Even if it didn't exist in its complete form in any one place, it's a relatively simple process to deduce what the complete column should look like from the samples. See puzzle below
Click image for Geologic Column Puzzle
It does exist
- http://home.entouch.net/dmd/geo.htm
- http://www.trueorigin.org/geocolumn.asp
- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/#ref-robertson
It does not exist.
General information about the Geologic Column
- http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/paleonet/Column/GeoCol.Html
- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/
What is NOT Known about Evolution?
How did it all start? This is one of the biggest unanswered questions of evolution. Darwinian evolution doesn't directly address this, since it deals with how life evolved after it started. But be sure, biologists consider this a vital question and are working hard for a solution. While this important question has not yet answered, the below information shows some of the progress that is being made. These are just quick summaries. Check out the References below for more detailed information on these topics.
The Miller-Urey experiments shows how amino acids could have arisen abiotically. But that's still a long ways from RNA or DNA. There are critics of this experiment, including the book/video "Icons of Evolution."
It has recently been shown that borates (similar to the minerals that give us Borax laundry booster) are able to convert naturally occurring organic chemicals into a simple sugar called ribose. That's one of the essential steps to building RNA and then DNA, on which all life as we know it is based. While all the answers are not yet known, science is clearly getting closer.
The clay known as montmorillonite is a mineral which is famous among prebiotic chemists for its activity in assembling activated nucleotides into RNA. Clay particles carrying adsorbed RNA can still help to assemble vesicles and in the process, bring bound RNA into the interior of the vesicles. The remarkable fact that a simple, abundant mineral can bring together the key components of early life may help to simplify models for the origin of the earliest living cells. See Nucleic Acids, etc.
Miller-Urey Experiment- http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
- http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/icon1millerurey.html
Borates
- The Origins of Function in Biological Nucleic Acids, Proteins, and Membranes
- The paradox of the origin of life - Nucleic Acids
Are Evolution and Religion in Conflict?
Want do others say?
General
- God and Science - Progressive Creation
- Evidence Supporting Biological Evolution
- http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evohome.html
- http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_3.htm
Speciation
