Evolution/Creationisim

[Blackmarch]

But what do we do if evolution has a major flaw? I just don't like it when a bunch of people stand around yelling at each other over things that we do not know everything about. And I just don't care if God, Jesus, or an Angel comes to visit in a planet sized space ship or just pops out of a dimensional rift. I don't care if he looks like a Corporate President, or a homeless man. Though, it might be fun if he came on a big white horse carrying a huge sword.

Well we'd change the necessary part of the theory.

It really doesn't have a major flaw, but people make an error in assuming thats all there is or that it must be the only thing in operation.

And because people like to assume things that are not stated or proven.

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basic evolution theory is basically summed in 2 parts (in layman terms);

1) If you introduce gradual changes to something over time, what you end up with will be different than what you started with.

This has been proven. Which flows quite well into the second part-

2) since changes that occured over time caused something to change then it it is logical that if enough changes occcur, you will end up with something completely different.

We still have yet to prove this part conclusively in regards to living organisms. However as stated previously there is a lot that strongly suggests that this happens.

So this is pretty tight.

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Now there are a couple things that that tie in very closely with this theory (and are the parts that have potential weak points)-

A ) What causes changes?

B ) How long does it take for a change to occur?

this is mainly answered by natural selection theory- that organisms with traits that help their survival pass along their traits to more offspring, while organisms that have traits that hinder their survival pass along their traits to few or none offspring. And since these changes tend to be very gradual, then it most likely takes many generations before some trait is significantly different than what was found in the original organism. (however recently we've been seeing instance where species are adapting faster than what's been thought, suggesting that evolution possibly can happen faster than anticipated or there are more mechanisms than just merely natural selection that helps a species adapt)

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If there are any flaws, it's most likely going to be with the concept of Natural Selection, and what are considered to be an influence on a species, and/or in how it is applied to understand actual history.

and IMO, counter influences or things that restrict change.

to HiJolly- if I had to make a wager on something mine would also be on that "Just adding time to the lab experiments" would result in proving longterm evo... however I am also aware that going from the micro to the macro doesn't always scale equally either, so i leave room for doubt in this case, or at least leave room for some factor that could possibly modify how evolution applies to a longterm sample.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Blackmarch

[Dravin]

this is mainly answered by natural selection theory- that organisms with traits that help their survival pass along their traits to more offspring, while organisms that have traits that hinder their survival pass along their traits to few or none offspring.

Actually that answers, along with some other things like population bottle necks and genetic drift, why certain changes are preserved in a population, natural selection, population bottlenecks and genetic drift don't answer why the changes occur in the first place. The answer to that (evolutionwise) is random (which does not mean without cause) mutation.

You're probably aware of the distinction but I gotta get my money's worth out of my biology courses.