Evolution Discussion

[Horatio Nelson]

I was wondering if you guys could explain to me what evolution is and why you hold it as truth. I'm not wanting to start a debate, but I honestly just want to know. Thanks much.

[CosmicNoodle]

Do you not already understand the theory of evolution?

[Harry Smith]

The whale has a hip bone-case closed

[TheN3rdyOutcast]

The story of evolution is that, starting from the first, single celled life forms, life forms slowly got more diverse over thousand, and millions of years, this diversity ended up creating new species with new adaptions. Adaptions that were favorable, like speed strength and efficiency were kept and passed on to future generations while less favorable adaptions were tossed out because the organisms with the disadvantages, often died, for not being as strong as their counterparts, otherwise known as natural selection. Anyway, more and more species arose and some started to split into different species by developing different adaptions and mutations.

I could ramble on this topic for ages, but if you truly want to learn about evolution, I suggest watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NdMnlt2keE

[CosmicNoodle]

The story of evolution is that, starting from the first, single celled life forms, life forms slowly got mor diverse over thousand, and millions of years, tis diversity ended up creating new species with new adaptions. Adaptions that were favorable, like speed strength and efficiency were kept and passed on to future generations while less favorable adaptions were tossed out because the organisms with the disadvantages, often died, for not being as strong as their counterparts, otherwise known as natural selection.

Masiively simplfyed to fit on something smaller than a book, but yep^

[phuckphace]

tl;dr: pressures in the environment select for the traits that are most advantageous to the organism's survival and opportunity to reproduce. as the environmental pressures change, so does the organism. it's a very nihilistic process driven by time, chance, and a lot of death. a loooot of death. think, an Unreal Tournament deathmatch that went on for 3+ billion years.

this is supported by findings in numerous fields, including but not limited to genetics, archaeology, paleontology and geology. we're up to our eyeballs in breathtakingly compelling evidence for both micro- and macroevolution. the Earth pretty much came with user documentation that explains it all, we just had to dig it up. :P

[Horatio Nelson]

Do you not already understand the theory of evolution?
Not in it's entirety.


The whale has a hip bone-case closed
?


tl;dr: pressures in the environment select for the traits that are most advantageous to the organism's survival and opportunity to reproduce. as the environmental pressures change, so does the organism. it's a very nihilistic process driven by time, chance, and a lot of death. a loooot of death. think, an Unreal Tournament deathmatch that went on for 3+ billion years.

this is supported by findings in numerous fields, including but not limited to genetics, archaeology, paleontology and geology. we're up to our eyeballs in breathtakingly compelling evidence for both micro- and macroevolution. the Earth pretty much came with user documentation that explains it all, we just had to dig it up. :P

That is really not as interesting as I expected it to be. :P


The story of evolution is that, starting from the first, single celled life forms, life forms slowly got more diverse over thousand, and millions of years, this diversity ended up creating new species with new adaptions. Adaptions that were favorable, like speed strength and efficiency were kept and passed on to future generations while less favorable adaptions were tossed out because the organisms with the disadvantages, often died, for not being as strong as their counterparts, otherwise known as natural selection. Anyway, more and more species arose and some started to split into different species by developing different adaptions and mutations.

I could ramble on this topic for ages, but if you truly want to learn about evolution, I suggest watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NdMnlt2keE

That's where I'n stuck, where did the first life forms come from?

[Gigablue]

Evolution: the change in gene frequency in a population over time.

That's all evolution is. Evolution says nothing more about any other topic. Evolution is a phenomenon that can be observed in nature.

We know evolution happens because we can observe it. While it is somewhat difficult to observe in the laboratory, it can be done. There are experiments that show bacteria evolving now abilities in the lab in the span of only a few years. When bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, that’s evolution. For larger organisms, evolution is much slower, since it takes many generations, and the larger the organism, the longer the generations. For large organisms, we can infer that evolution has occurred by looking at the fossil record, which shows a branching pattern, in which species change gradually over time, and sometimes disappear or split into different species. We can also corroborate fossil evidence using genetic evidence. Fossils suggest, for example, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees and to bonobos. Thus, we expect that we would see strong genetic similarities between us and them, and we do. That is how we know what evolved from what, using fossil and genetic evidence.

What causes evolution. Short answer: organisms that are best adapted to their environment survive to reproduce, passing on their genes.

Long answer: Many things all contribute to evolution, including mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection.

Mutation is probably the easiest to explain. Remember, evolution is the change in gene frequency in a population. If a gene mutates, the gene frequency in the population is different. Voila, evolution.

Migration is similar. Imagine if you have a population with two variants of a gene, we'll call these alleles A and B. They exist in a certain ration in a non-evolving population. Now, imagine that some of the organisms with allele A migrate, while none of the organisms with allele B migrate. The gene frequency changes, thus evolution has happened.

Genetic drift is probably the mechanism the fewest people are familiar with. It is basically just change events changing the gene frequency. Suppose you have the same population as above, with only 10 organisms, to make it easier to understand. Lets say that 9 of organisms have allele A, while 1 has allele B. Then, suppose a natural disaster causes half of the population to die, and, by chance, all of the dead organisms happen to have allele A. In the new population, 4 organisms have allele A, while 1 has allele B. Thus the precent of organisms with allele B has gone from 10% to 20%. In other words, evolution has taken place.

Natural selection is commonly thought to be the same as evolution, but in reality, it is only one of the mechanisms that causes evolution. Natural selection relies on three things: Variation, selection and heredity. That may sound complicated, but each of these is remarkably simple. Variation simply means that the population is not identical, that the organisms differ from one another is some way. Selection means that some organisms have a survival advantage over others. Heredity means that parents pass traits to their offspring.

In any population, some organisms are more fit, meaning that they have a survival advantage over other organisms. This occurs doe to chance mutations, and due to genetic recombination. The more fit organisms are more likely to survive to reproduce, and thus will have more offspring. Over time, they will outbreed the less fit organisms, causing the gene frequency in the population to change.

For example, suppose you have a population of rabbits. These rabbits have a range of different colours, ranging from dark to light. Now, suppose the climate changes. It gets colder and snowier. The light coloured rabbits are better able to camouflage in the snow, and evade predators, while the dark rabbits are more likely to get eaten. It stands to reason that the light rabbits would have more offspring, and over time, the population would become lighter in colour.

Artificial selection is a variation of natural selection. In artificial selection, humans choose organisms that have specific traits that we want, and breed them, while not allowing the undesirable organisms to breed. We change the population to make it what we want.

That's all evolution is. There are hypotheses about what drives the most change, what the main causes of natural selection are, whether evolution happens gradually or in bursts, etc. However, while there is still debate over what evolved from what, scientists are as certain as is possible in science that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.

That's where I'n stuck, where did the first life forms come from?

This isn't strictly speaking, a question about evolution. Evolution describes the change in gene frequency in a population, once the population already exists. Saying that evolution doesn't explain the origin of life is no more valid a criticism of evolution than saying evolution doesn't explain gravity.

However, this is still a very important, and as a yet, not fully resolved question. It is possible for vary simple molecules to self assemble to form nucleotides and amino acids, given time and energy. These simple building blocks could have lead to self replicating organisms. The exact mechanism is still unknown, but we know that RNA can catalyze its own replication. We also know that lipids, which could have formed from simple organic molecules, can self assemble into membranes.

We don't know everything about evolution, or how life came about, but we are learning more and more every day. i think it's only a matter of time before we are able to simulate the conditions of the early earth in the lab and see how life could have arisen.

[flappybird]

In England, very recently, rats have been found to become resistant of common poisons.

�� How cool is that from rats!
������

[Miserabilia]

First of all I really hope you have gotten/will get this in school.
Otherwise I really recomended just looking this up, or looking up a documentary about it.
Basicly, orgnanisms as we know them carry dna.
This DNA can (randomly) mutate. The changes these mutations make are usualy very small.
If the small mutation is profitable in the situation, that orgnisms chances of survival are higher.
If their chances of survival are higher, their offspring will be more frequent than other mutations, and after long enough all of the species will carry this mutation.
kind of.

[Calyx]

I'd say it is virtually impossible to deny evolution. Probably heard about the increasing number of antibiotic resistant bacteria, that's evidence of evolution in action. Pretty cool in my opinion.

[Miserabilia]

If you are stuck on where the first life forms came from,
that's NOT evolution.
It's the subject of abiogenesis, it's a seperate issue.
There are many theories on the originis of the first cell based organisms on earth, but these are not related to the subject of evolution
:)

[Sir Suomi]

That's where I'n stuck, where did the first life forms come from?

There's been research that shows that very simple single cell organism could form from an abundance of carbon in an environment, and Earth had plenty of it.

[Camazotz]

I was wondering if you guys could explain to me what evolution is and why you hold it as truth. I'm not wanting to start a debate, but I honestly just want to know. Thanks much.

Evolution: the change in gene frequency in a population over time.

That's all evolution is. Evolution says nothing more about any other topic. Evolution is a phenomenon that can be observed in nature.

We know evolution happens because we can observe it. While it is somewhat difficult to observe in the laboratory, it can be done. There are experiments that show bacteria evolving now abilities in the lab in the span of only a few years. When bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, that’s evolution. For larger organisms, evolution is much slower, since it takes many generations, and the larger the organism, the longer the generations. For large organisms, we can infer that evolution has occurred by looking at the fossil record, which shows a branching pattern, in which species change gradually over time, and sometimes disappear or split into different species. We can also corroborate fossil evidence using genetic evidence. Fossils suggest, for example, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees and to bonobos. Thus, we expect that we would see strong genetic similarities between us and them, and we do. That is how we know what evolved from what, using fossil and genetic evidence.

What causes evolution. Short answer: organisms that are best adapted to their environment survive to reproduce, passing on their genes.

Long answer: Many things all contribute to evolution, including mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection.

Mutation is probably the easiest to explain. Remember, evolution is the change in gene frequency in a population. If a gene mutates, the gene frequency in the population is different. Voila, evolution.

Migration is similar. Imagine if you have a population with two variants of a gene, we'll call these alleles A and B. They exist in a certain ration in a non-evolving population. Now, imagine that some of the organisms with allele A migrate, while none of the organisms with allele B migrate. The gene frequency changes, thus evolution has happened.

Genetic drift is probably the mechanism the fewest people are familiar with. It is basically just change events changing the gene frequency. Suppose you have the same population as above, with only 10 organisms, to make it easier to understand. Lets say that 9 of organisms have allele A, while 1 has allele B. Then, suppose a natural disaster causes half of the population to die, and, by chance, all of the dead organisms happen to have allele A. In the new population, 4 organisms have allele A, while 1 has allele B. Thus the precent of organisms with allele B has gone from 10% to 20%. In other words, evolution has taken place.

Natural selection is commonly thought to be the same as evolution, but in reality, it is only one of the mechanisms that causes evolution. Natural selection relies on three things: Variation, selection and heredity. That may sound complicated, but each of these is remarkably simple. Variation simply means that the population is not identical, that the organisms differ from one another is some way. Selection means that some organisms have a survival advantage over others. Heredity means that parents pass traits to their offspring.

In any population, some organisms are more fit, meaning that they have a survival advantage over other organisms. This occurs doe to chance mutations, and due to genetic recombination. The more fit organisms are more likely to survive to reproduce, and thus will have more offspring. Over time, they will outbreed the less fit organisms, causing the gene frequency in the population to change.

For example, suppose you have a population of rabbits. These rabbits have a range of different colours, ranging from dark to light. Now, suppose the climate changes. It gets colder and snowier. The light coloured rabbits are better able to camouflage in the snow, and evade predators, while the dark rabbits are more likely to get eaten. It stands to reason that the light rabbits would have more offspring, and over time, the population would become lighter in colour.

Artificial selection is a variation of natural selection. In artificial selection, humans choose organisms that have specific traits that we want, and breed them, while not allowing the undesirable organisms to breed. We change the population to make it what we want.

That's all evolution is. There are hypotheses about what drives the most change, what the main causes of natural selection are, whether evolution happens gradually or in bursts, etc. However, while there is still debate over what evolved from what, scientists are as certain as is possible in science that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.



This isn't strictly speaking, a question about evolution. Evolution describes the change in gene frequency in a population, once the population already exists. Saying that evolution doesn't explain the origin of life is no more valid a criticism of evolution than saying evolution doesn't explain gravity.

However, this is still a very important, and as a yet, not fully resolved question. It is possible for vary simple molecules to self assemble to form nucleotides and amino acids, given time and energy. These simple building blocks could have lead to self replicating organisms. The exact mechanism is still unknown, but we know that RNA can catalyze its own replication. We also know that lipids, which could have formed from simple organic molecules, can self assemble into membranes.

We don't know everything about evolution, or how life came about, but we are learning more and more every day. i think it's only a matter of time before we are able to simulate the conditions of the early earth in the lab and see how life could have arisen.

This is why I wub Gigablue. There's nothing I could say to improve this answer. I believe in evolution because I trust the scientific method.

[coltonaustin]

I don't believe in evolution but I do believe in natural selection. As different traits are introduced into the gene pool (like through mutations) those with favorable traits find a mate and pass it on to their children. Those without favorable traits don't. Traits don't 'evolve' into existence due to their need, but if they do appear and provide a benefit, they move on.
Do you get what I'm saying?

[Vlerchan]

Do you get what I'm saying?
Yes.

You've just described evolution.

[coltonaustin]

Yes.

You've just described evolution.

I really don't want to argue but natural selection isn't necessarily evolution. They can be different.

Evolution is:
the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins. All life on Earth is descended from a last universal ancestor that lived approximately 3.8 billion years ago. (From Wikipedia)

Natural Selection is:
the gradual process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment. (From Wikipedia)

[phuckphace]

I really don't want to argue but natural selection isn't necessarily evolution. They can be different.

Evolution is:
the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins. All life on Earth is descended from a last universal ancestor that lived approximately 3.8 billion years ago. (From Wikipedia)

Natural Selection is:
the gradual process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment. (From Wikipedia)

sounds redundant.

[coltonaustin]

sounds redundant.

Evolution is the change of traits. Natural selection is gaining or losing of traits.

[Vlerchan]

Evolution is the change of traits. Natural selection is gaining or losing of traits.
If I gain or lose a trait doesn't that infer that my traits have changed overall?

It seems to me like you are just engaging in semantics in order to take an opposing position that you don't really hold.

[coltonaustin]

Ok, example time.
You have a phone and add a case. That's evolution, you changed it.
Then if you drop it in the toilet and have to get rid of it, that's natural selection. You lost it.
(Sorry if its a bad example, it's all I could think of at the moment)

[phuckphace]

Evolution is the change of traits. Natural selection is gaining or losing of traits.

sounds really redundant. that's obvious semantics and you must surely realize that.

[Vlerchan]

It seems to me that natural selection and evolution differ in that:

evolution is the process, and;
natural selection is the mechanism underlying the process.
I'm going to wait on someone who has actually ever studied biology at any reasonable level to back that up. It seems right to me though.

[Gamma Male]

It seems to me that natural selection and evolution differ in that:

evolution is the process, and;
natural selection is the mechanism underlying the process.
I'm going to wait on someone who has actually ever studied biology at any reasonable level to back that up. It seems right to me though.

Right, though labeling natural selection as the mechanism isn't really accurate, since lots of things can contribute to evolution. Natural selection is just the most well known.
Ok, example time.
You have a phone and add a case. That's evolution, you changed it.
Then if you drop it in the toilet and have to get rid of it, that's natural selection. You lost it.
(Sorry if its a bad example, it's all I could think of at the moment)

Natural selection is when organisms with traits that make them better suited to survive survive and go on to breed more, and organisms with detrimental traits don't live as long and thus, don't breed as much.

Evolution is the changing of organisms over time due to a multitude of factors.


Natural selection is just one way evolution occurs. There's also genetic drift, artificial selection, ...etc

[Camazotz]

It seems to me that natural selection and evolution differ in that:

evolution is the process, and;
natural selection is the mechanism underlying the process.
I'm going to wait on someone who has actually ever studied biology at any reasonable level to back that up. It seems right to me though.

Right, though labeling natural selection as the mechanism isn't really accurate, since lots of things can contribute to evolution. Natural selection is just the most well known.

Natural selection is when organisms with traits that make them better suited to survive survive and go on to breed more, and organisms with detrimental traits don't live as long and thus, don't breed as much.

Evolution is the changing of organisms over time due to a multitude of factors.


Natural selection is just one way evolution occurs. There's also genetic drift, artificial selection, ...etc

Yup!

I don't believe in evolution but I do believe in natural selection. As different traits are introduced into the gene pool (like through mutations) those with favorable traits find a mate and pass it on to their children. Those without favorable traits don't. Traits don't 'evolve' into existence due to their need, but if they do appear and provide a benefit, they move on.
Do you get what I'm saying?

Natural selection is a mechanism for evolution. I'm not sure how you can understand the process of natural selection yet deny how it functions in the process of evolution; based on the semantics of your arguments, I'm assuming you don't want to accept evolution because it contradicts personal beliefs?

[Miserabilia]

Natural selection is, in lack of better words, the engine of evolution.
They are not the same thing.
The natural selection (an event that occurs) is the engine of evolution (long term change).

The natural selection of a hot area where species that can't stand heat die,
is the engine for evolution which causes more species there to stand heat.

[Aajj333]

Get ready for your minds to be blown. Evolution? WRONG! Creationism? WRONG!

The truth: The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe
Proof: Planets are meatball shaped

[coltonaustin]

Get ready for your minds to be blown. Evolution? WRONG! Creationism? WRONG!

The truth: The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe
Proof: Planets are meatball shaped

I love your sarcasm.

[Aajj333]

I love your sarcasm.

Ramen

[ImCoolBeans]

Evolution: the change in gene frequency in a population over time.

That's all evolution is. Evolution says nothing more about any other topic. Evolution is a phenomenon that can be observed in nature.

We know evolution happens because we can observe it. While it is somewhat difficult to observe in the laboratory, it can be done. There are experiments that show bacteria evolving now abilities in the lab in the span of only a few years. When bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, that’s evolution. For larger organisms, evolution is much slower, since it takes many generations, and the larger the organism, the longer the generations. For large organisms, we can infer that evolution has occurred by looking at the fossil record, which shows a branching pattern, in which species change gradually over time, and sometimes disappear or split into different species. We can also corroborate fossil evidence using genetic evidence. Fossils suggest, for example, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees and to bonobos. Thus, we expect that we would see strong genetic similarities between us and them, and we do. That is how we know what evolved from what, using fossil and genetic evidence.

What causes evolution. Short answer: organisms that are best adapted to their environment survive to reproduce, passing on their genes.

Long answer: Many things all contribute to evolution, including mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection.

Mutation is probably the easiest to explain. Remember, evolution is the change in gene frequency in a population. If a gene mutates, the gene frequency in the population is different. Voila, evolution.

Migration is similar. Imagine if you have a population with two variants of a gene, we'll call these alleles A and B. They exist in a certain ration in a non-evolving population. Now, imagine that some of the organisms with allele A migrate, while none of the organisms with allele B migrate. The gene frequency changes, thus evolution has happened.

Genetic drift is probably the mechanism the fewest people are familiar with. It is basically just change events changing the gene frequency. Suppose you have the same population as above, with only 10 organisms, to make it easier to understand. Lets say that 9 of organisms have allele A, while 1 has allele B. Then, suppose a natural disaster causes half of the population to die, and, by chance, all of the dead organisms happen to have allele A. In the new population, 4 organisms have allele A, while 1 has allele B. Thus the precent of organisms with allele B has gone from 10% to 20%. In other words, evolution has taken place.

Natural selection is commonly thought to be the same as evolution, but in reality, it is only one of the mechanisms that causes evolution. Natural selection relies on three things: Variation, selection and heredity. That may sound complicated, but each of these is remarkably simple. Variation simply means that the population is not identical, that the organisms differ from one another is some way. Selection means that some organisms have a survival advantage over others. Heredity means that parents pass traits to their offspring.

In any population, some organisms are more fit, meaning that they have a survival advantage over other organisms. This occurs doe to chance mutations, and due to genetic recombination. The more fit organisms are more likely to survive to reproduce, and thus will have more offspring. Over time, they will outbreed the less fit organisms, causing the gene frequency in the population to change.

For example, suppose you have a population of rabbits. These rabbits have a range of different colours, ranging from dark to light. Now, suppose the climate changes. It gets colder and snowier. The light coloured rabbits are better able to camouflage in the snow, and evade predators, while the dark rabbits are more likely to get eaten. It stands to reason that the light rabbits would have more offspring, and over time, the population would become lighter in colour.

Artificial selection is a variation of natural selection. In artificial selection, humans choose organisms that have specific traits that we want, and breed them, while not allowing the undesirable organisms to breed. We change the population to make it what we want.

That's all evolution is. There are hypotheses about what drives the most change, what the main causes of natural selection are, whether evolution happens gradually or in bursts, etc. However, while there is still debate over what evolved from what, scientists are as certain as is possible in science that evolution has occurred and continues to occur.



This isn't strictly speaking, a question about evolution. Evolution describes the change in gene frequency in a population, once the population already exists. Saying that evolution doesn't explain the origin of life is no more valid a criticism of evolution than saying evolution doesn't explain gravity.

However, this is still a very important, and as a yet, not fully resolved question. It is possible for vary simple molecules to self assemble to form nucleotides and amino acids, given time and energy. These simple building blocks could have lead to self replicating organisms. The exact mechanism is still unknown, but we know that RNA can catalyze its own replication. We also know that lipids, which could have formed from simple organic molecules, can self assemble into membranes.

We don't know everything about evolution, or how life came about, but we are learning more and more every day. i think it's only a matter of time before we are able to simulate the conditions of the early earth in the lab and see how life could have arisen.

Awesome post 10/10. I really couldn't say any of it better myself.