Science Forums 2

[kcl0341]

I entirely agree with InfiniteNow that evolution is fact. The following message is quoted form my essay "Was the universe created by God?"


In a world of stable populations where each individual must struggle to survive, those with the “best” characteristics will be more likely to survive, and those desirable traits will be passed to their offspring; and that these advantageous characteristics are inherited by following generations, becoming dominant among the population through time. They were more adapted to their surroundings. This is natural selection. Darwin further infers that natural selection, if carried far enough, makes changes in a population, eventually leading to new species. He puts forward myriad observations as demonstrations of this, and also claims that the fossil record can be interpreted as supporting these observations. Darwin imagined it might be possible that all life is descended from an original species from ancient times. Modern DNA evidence is consistent with this idea.

Further evidents to prove the Theory : Evolution occurs whenever a new species of bacterium evolves a resistance to an antibiotic which previously was lethal to that bacterium. Evolution is the observation that biological organisms evolve. In other words, descendants are seen to have gone through a type of genetic modification process when compared to their ancestors. The modification is most often the result of natural genetic synthesis, and the differential traits manifested may be translated into changes in the genetic composition of the population. As the populations of organisms change over time, the organisms are often observed to be well suited to their environments, and many different species of organisms resembling each other closely, are indicative of evolution

Charles Darwin ‘s theory of evolution by natural selection is satisfying because it shows us a way in which simplicity could change into complexity, how unordered atoms could group themselves into ever more complex patterns until they ended up manufacturing people. Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things. A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name. Salt crystals tend to be cubes because this is a stable way of packing sodium and chloride ions together. In the sun the simplest atoms of all, hydrogen atoms, are fusing to form helium atoms, because in the conditions that prevail there the helium configuration is more stable. A crystal such as a diamond can be regarded as a single molecule since its internal atomic structure endless repeated.

Before the coming of life on earth, some evolution of molecules could have occurred by ordinary processes of physics and chemistry. There is no need to think of design or purpose or directness. If a group of atoms in the presence of energy falls into a stable pattern it will tend to stay that way. The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and rejection of unstable ones.

King Lee (kcl0341)