As convoluted as this may seem, and due to some recent discussions on this forum, I felt is necessary to present, as well a plagerized article as I could find, the evidence for evolution. Having been educated in public schools, and gone to Adventist colleges, and open to new ideas [at least, I seem to think so], historically, I have rejected the case for evolution due to instances where the pattern of evolution didn't make sense and did not explain all. [I guess that is why they call it "a theory"]. It was a 'working theory' at best, but plagued with problems, at least in my mind. Recent discussions regarding evolution as a plausible explaination for our genesis fly in the face of popular biblical interpretation, that is, a more literal view of it. It seemed to me that to balance out the discussion, the side of evolution needed to be presented and examinined. [AKA attacked ]

And so, last week, I found a National Geographic magazine [Nov 04] with the title on the cover, “Was Darwin Wrong?” Inside, they answered with the article’s title- “NO. The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming”. And they then put forth their arguments for evolution and why there is so much conclusive proof. Here is a summation of selected paragraphs of what I found FOR evolution begining with the next post.

Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life’s work of Charles Darwin, is a theory. It’s a theory about the origin of adaptation, complexity, and diversity among Earth’s living creatures. …. [This theory] is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact.

Many fundamentalist Christians and ultra-orthodox Jews take alarm at the thought that human descent from earlier primates contradicts a strict reading of the Book of genesis. Their discomfort is paralleled by Islamic creationist such as Harun Yahya, author of a recent volume titled “The Evolution Deceit”, who points to the six-day creation story in the Koran as literal truth and calls the theory of evolution “nothing but a deception imposed on us by the dominators of the world system”.

The gist of the concept is that small, random, heritable differences among individuals result in different chances of survival and reproduction-success for some, death without offspring for others- and that this natural culling leads to significant changes is shape, size, strength, armament, color, biochemistry, and behavior among the descendants. Excess population growth drives the competitive struggle. Because less successful competitors produce fewer surviving offspring, the useless or negative variations tend to disappear, whereas the useful variations tend to be perpetuated and gradually magnified throughout a population. [this is known as “Anagenesis”] during which a single species is transformed. But there is a second part, known as speciation. Genetic changes sometimes accumulate within an isolated segment of a species, but not throughout the whole, as that isolated population adapts to its local conditions. Gradually it goes its own way, seizing a new ecological niche. At a certain point it becomes irreversiblely distinct-that is – so different that its members can’t interbreed with the rest. Two species now exist where formerly there was one. Darwin called that splitting-and –specializing phenomenon the “principle of divergence”. It was an important part of his theory, explaining the overall diversity of life as well as the adaptations of the individual species.

The evidence, …, mostly fell within 4 categories” Biogeography, paleontology, embryology, and morphology. Biogeography is the study of the geographical distribution of living creatures-that his, which species inhabit which parts of the planet and why. Paleontology investigates extinct life-forms, as revealed in the fossil record. Embryology examines the revealing stages of development [echoing earlier stages of evolutionary history] that embryos pass through before birth or hatching; at a stretch, embryology also concerns the immature forms of animals that metamorphose, such as the larvae of insects. Morphology is the science of anatomical shape and design. Darwin devoted sizable sections of the “The Origin of Species “ to these categories.

Biogeography …offered a great pageant of peculiar facts and patterns. Anyone who considers the biogeographical data, Darwin wrote, must be struck by the mysterious clustering pattern among what he called “closely allied” species- that is, similar creatures sharing roughly the same boy plan. Such closely allied species tend to be found on the same continent [several species of zebras in Africa] or within the same group of oceanic islands [dozens of species of honeycreepers in Hawaii, Thirteen species of Galapagos finch] despites their species –by-species preferences for different habitats, food sources or conditions of climate.

Paleontology reveals a similar clustering pattern in the dimension of time. The vertical column of geologic strata, laid down by sedimentary processes over the eons, lightly peppered with fossils, represent a tangible record showing which species lived when. …What Darwin noticed about this record is that closely allied species tend to be found adjacent to one another in successive strata. One species endures for million of years and then makes it last appearance in , say, the middle Eocene epoch; just above, a similar but not identical species replaces it. In North America, for example a vaguely horse like creature known as Hyracortherium was succeeded by Orohippus, then Epihippus, then Mesohippus, which in turn were succeeded by a variety of horsy American Critters. Some of them even galloped across the Bering land bridge into Asia, then onward to Europe and Africa. By five millions years agothey had nearly all disappeared, leaving behind Dinohippus, which was succeeded by Equus, the modern genus of the horse. Not all these fossil links had been unearthed in Darwin’s day, but he captured the essence of the matter anyway. …Darwin argued, Closely allied species succeed one another in time, as well as living nearby in space, because they’re related thru evolutionary descent.

Embryology too involved patterns that couldn’t be explained by coincidence. Why does the embryo of a mammal pass thru stages resembling stages of the embryo of a reptile? Why is one of the larval forms of a barnacle, before metamorphosis, so similar to the larval form of a shrimp? …Because, wrote Darwin, “the embryo is the animal in its less modified state” and that state “reveals the structure of its progenitor.”

Morphology, his 4th category of evidence, was the “very soul” of natural history, according to Darwin. …Living creatures can be easily sorted into a hierarchy of categories-not just species but genera, families, orders, whole kingdoms- based on which anatomical characters they share and which they don’t. …Such a pattern of tiered resemblances- groups of similar species nested within broader grouping, and all descended from a single source-isn’t naturally present among other collections of items. You wont find anything equivalent if you tried to categorize rocks, or musical instruments, or jewelry. Why not? Because rocks types and styles of jewelry don’t reflect unbroken descent forms from common ancestors. Biological diversity does. The number of shared characteristic between anyone species and another indicates how recently those two species have diverged from the shared linage.

Two comments:

1. As I understand it, the arguments from embryology are not longer considered as strong: the 'phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny' hypothesis having been tentative and not supported so much. Any biologists out there are welcome to challenge me on this one - or Neil's article might address the issue.

2. As I think I've said before, the evolutionary mechanism requires three things - mutation, natural selection and time. We see the two of them that we *can* see - mutation and natural selection - occurring in our world now. Our life spans don't allow us to observe for the kinds of time span that speciation requires. This is where we end up having to look at 'circumstantial evidence' (which all of the evidence we have is): we can't observe the 'crime' in process but we can reconstruct the circumstances.

I think this'll be an interesting discussion, potentially.

A painful lesson that was taught me....The concept of evolution is in reference to biology only...not geology.

3. Biology.

1. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.
2. The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny.

And I would like to keep the discussion centered upon the evolutionary aspects to creation...As my article has said, the evidence for evolution "is overwhelming"... Well, I am giving some oppertunity for that view to be dispelled/questioned/confirmed.

So, if there is some evolutionary evidence that you would like to present, or creation evidence to present, feel free to do so....Otherwise, I am afraid that geology is just a way of hijacking this thread and is

Sorry...