So, this evolution "debate"...

[ThatsTheColorOfMyRoom]

I know I'm a little behind the on the bandwagon for this topic, but it still irks me all the same. The way I see it, evolution is just the chemistry of biology. As an organism eats, breathes, and does whatever else it chooses to do, it's chemical structure is slowly, but surly changed, so it doesn't seem too outlandish to me to suggest that, over an extended period of time, any organism is going to be changed by it's environment and lifestyle, and that, in a further extended period of time, an organism will no longer resemble it's original form. In other words, a very complex string of chemical reactions over a long period of time. Chemistry, wtf right? Doesn't seem too complicated to me.
So anyways, feel free to discuss anything pertaining to the topic at hand.

[Morberticus]

What you are describing sounds like simple growth.

Evolutionary biology more specific. It pertains the the change in allele frequencies in a population, and the principle (Darwinism) that induces this change.

[ThatsTheColorOfMyRoom]

Morberticus

What you are describing sounds like simple growth.

Evolutionary biology more specific. It pertains the the change in allele frequencies in a population, and the principle (Darwinism) that induces this change.

Well, in technicality, one could describe what you're describing as simple growth too razz I'm not disagreeing with you, you're absolutely right. But what I'm describing could be thought of as a fuel source for these variations and changes in genes, and the different forms that these genes take on, It's kinda just like a more complex version of allotropy, except larger scale, with macromolecules. I'm simply used to explaining things in a way of chemical reactions, because I believe it's easier to understand a concept if one looks at the building blocks, so I like to explain things as such, so I apologize if my terminology is subpar.

[Princess Amelei]

Be very careful with how you word your understanding.

Microevolution: Random mutations [although you do have non-random mutations such as UV damage, but lets not consider that] occur in sex cells that are passed on to offspring. These mutations may be harmful/beneficial and may be selected on just based on an individual's fitness. Sometimes things other than best-fitness/sexual selection ("ooo I like your shiny blue feathers boy-bird and not your friend's non shiny blue feathers, just cause" ) happen that may alter the percentage of organisms in a group that have a certain "gene type" like ...bottlenecking ...but that's a whole different story.

Macroevolution: These mutations in combination with selection, and a few other events can change how a group of living, related things look. So eventually our genetic mutations (like a mutation for making my kids/grandkids taller) are selected for by other mates and the number of tall people total/percentage of tall people through breeding with my progeny changes.

[Mooby the Golden Sock]

It's important to note that evolution does not happen in one organism. An organism can adapt, but it can't change its own genes and thus can't evolve (Pokemon notwithstanding.)

It's populations of organisms that evolve over time.

[Lilith Maura]

There is no debate, Darwinian evolution is the foundation of modern biology, supported by a nearly insurmountable amount of evidence. The problem is that there are some people out there who are not willing to accept what the evidence suggests, and would rather have nature conform to their beliefs. They will play mental gymnastics, quote mine, cry fowl, appeal to emotions and fears, and out right lie in order to do this. Also, its important to note that many are NOT ignorant of the science behind evolution, a few of them even perfectly understand the concept, but they will refuse to acknowledge that out of sheer stubbornness.

Something else that should be stated now is what evolution is not, or does not do.

-Evolution does not state the origin of life: There is a reason Dawrin's book was called "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection". It does not explain how life was started, and it is not concerned with that. The correct term for that is called Abiogenesis. It drives me nuts how many times I hear people saying something like "but it can't explain how life starts, so evolution is false." It goes without saying that Germ Theory also fails to explain this, as does The General Theory of Relativity, yet we are still sure that these theories are also reasonably accurate descriptions of nature.

-It is not the big bang theory: That is the work of cosmology and astrophysics, not is not even within the realm of biology. It's a totally different subject, that somehow always gets dragged into the "evolution debate".

and my all time favorite

-But its just a theory: ...I don't think that word means what you think it means.

[Sugarbeary]

the OP makes it sound like Pokemon, where a species changes species while it is alive. Which is of course false, your genetics is locked in at birth.

[FutureofScience]

Macroevolution is often the issue during these debates. Although we have witnessed mutations and adaptations, we have yet to witness a change of kind. By this, I don't mean observing one kind of bird adapting to have a different color or beak, but a bird changing into another kind of animal. The theory behind this fact is that we haven't observed animals for a long enough period of time.

[Vannak]

FutureofScience

Macroevolution is often the issue during these debates. Although we have witnessed mutations and adaptations, we have yet to witness a change of kind. By this, I don't mean observing one kind of bird adapting to have a different color or beak, but a bird changing into another kind of animal. The theory behind this fact is that we haven't observed animals for a long enough period of time.

Your theory is wrong. The reason that we don't see one kind evolving into others is because evolution and the way animals are named is funny. We name animals according to a few hierarchies, when we should really be talking about the family tree. When birds came from dinosaurs they didn't stop being dinosaurs, they were just the bird kind of dinosaur. Like when humans "came" from apes, we didn't stop being apes. We didn't stop being vertebrates, either. Or eukaryotic.

[FutureofScience]

Vannak

FutureofScience

Macroevolution is often the issue during these debates. Although we have witnessed mutations and adaptations, we have yet to witness a change of kind. By this, I don't mean observing one kind of bird adapting to have a different color or beak, but a bird changing into another kind of animal. The theory behind this fact is that we haven't observed animals for a long enough period of time.

Your theory is wrong. The reason that we don't see one kind evolving into others is because evolution and the way animals are named is funny. We name animals according to a few hierarchies, when we should really be talking about the family tree. When birds came from dinosaurs they didn't stop being dinosaurs, they were just the bird kind of dinosaur. Like when humans "came" from apes, we didn't stop being apes. We didn't stop being vertebrates, either. Or eukaryotic.

Yes, that's the theory. And before anyone asks, yes, I do understand that "theory" has a different scientific meaning. haha What I mean is that the debate still persists because we have yet to witness a change of kind. We've witnessed the discovery of fossils that hint at changes of kind, but we have yet to witness a bird slowly evolve into, for example, a monkey. I know it might not be the most probable thing it would eventually evolve into, but it's just an example. I think the most believed theory behind this fact is that we haven't observed animals for a long enough period of time.

[PUSS KING]

You haven't really described evolution. What you've described is a continuous process of change in an organism (which Morbeticus rightly describes as simple growth). Evolution is not this but a series of discrete 'jumps's that occur every time a new organism is conceived. A brief rundown of evolution is something I've typed out a hundred times but I'll happily do so again to increase your understanding:

1. All organisms contain a genetic code comprising several 'genes'. Genes are sequences of DNA molecules assigned the letters G, A, T & C which in strings 'encode' proteins which perform jobs in the organism. These jobs could involve performing chemical work, providing structure, or ever working recursively on the DNA itself for finer control.

2. When two organisms reproduce sexually, the offspring organism randomly inherits roughly half it's genetic material from each parent, creating a genetic patchwork of the two parents.

3. Growth and reproduction both require the replication of DNA. Before a cell splits, a second copy of that cell's DNA is made, so both 'daughter' cells get their own copy. However, mistakes (called mutations) can happen in this process of copying. Most mutations do not cause any change in the gene (this is due mostly to a concept called 'redundancy'). However, when they do cause a change in the gene, an 'allele' is produced - this is a slightly different version of the same gene with slightly different properties, like a 2nd edition of a book. Same general idea, slightly different execution.

4. Over thousands of years lots of different alleles for genes arise in a species. This is where the fun stuff happens. Remember how I said offspring are a 'genetic patchwork' of their parents? Because there are so many alleles for genes floating around, this means they'll have a possibility of receiving different versions of a gene in the process of their conception.

5. Sometimes, that allele is better for the organism's survival. This means that the organism will have a very slightly higher percentage chance of living long enough to sexually reproduce and create new organisms with it's gene in them, and the number of species A with gene X creeps up. Over thousands and millions of years, this slight creep can snowball and become a massive swing, until gene X is the default. Species A has evolved.

6. It can also go the other way. If the allele is bad, the organism is less likely to live to reproductive age, and is less likely to pass on the bad allele, and so after thousands of years there's so few of that bad allele left that it just disappears one day. The last organism with the bad allele dies and it's gone forever. This is also evolution.

7. Consider deer.Let's say an allele P for a signalling protein crops up that causes the deer to grow sliiiiiightly longer legs. "Hooray for the deer!" you may think. "Now it can run faster!" - and you're right. So the deers with allele P escape predators more often, and make allele P babies, until most deer are allele P and there are fewer deer with shorter legs (allele Q).

However, eventually the deer population migrates away from the area they lived in to one with rockier ground. Now long legs aren't looks so good! Long legs are slightly more awkward, slightly less controlled, slightly more prone to being broken by a misstep. Over time, allele P deers begin to break their legs fairly commonly, and promptly die. The long forgotten Allele Q deers, with their shorter limbs, do break legs from time to time but not nearly as often. Suddenly, Allele Q is the hot new gene property on the market. With Allele P deer dying so often, Allele Q snowballs and becomes the genetic norm again.

Both swings I've just described are evolution. The beauty is, an organism isn't defined by one gene. They're made up of THOUSANDS of genes, which means THOUSANDS of factors contributing to their development, so the population evolves and develops in tiny ways over a really long time, eventually contributing to some really big changes.

8. So evolution, then, is not something that happens to one organism over the course of it's lifetime. The individual doesn't matter to evolution - each individual in the family tree is just one step in the randomised staircase of evolution. It's a discrete process involving many generations.

[Exoth XIII]

FutureofScience

Vannak

FutureofScience

Macroevolution is often the issue during these debates. Although we have witnessed mutations and adaptations, we have yet to witness a change of kind. By this, I don't mean observing one kind of bird adapting to have a different color or beak, but a bird changing into another kind of animal. The theory behind this fact is that we haven't observed animals for a long enough period of time.

Your theory is wrong. The reason that we don't see one kind evolving into others is because evolution and the way animals are named is funny. We name animals according to a few hierarchies, when we should really be talking about the family tree. When birds came from dinosaurs they didn't stop being dinosaurs, they were just the bird kind of dinosaur. Like when humans "came" from apes, we didn't stop being apes. We didn't stop being vertebrates, either. Or eukaryotic.

Yes, that's the theory. And before anyone asks, yes, I do understand that "theory" has a different scientific meaning. haha What I mean is that the debate still persists because we have yet to witness a change of kind.

The problem here is, the word "kind" is really ambiguous. Exactly what constitutes a "change in kind?"
We're more closely related to chimps, than horses are to zebras. And yet, horses and zebras are the same "kind," whereas humans and chimps are not.

Are cats and tigers the same "kind" of animal?
By failing to define a "kind," creationists are being dishonest; they can always move the goalposts.

[Solus Canis Lupus]

Exoth XIII

FutureofScience

Vannak

FutureofScience

Macroevolution is often the issue during these debates. Although we have witnessed mutations and adaptations, we have yet to witness a change of kind. By this, I don't mean observing one kind of bird adapting to have a different color or beak, but a bird changing into another kind of animal. The theory behind this fact is that we haven't observed animals for a long enough period of time.

Your theory is wrong. The reason that we don't see one kind evolving into others is because evolution and the way animals are named is funny. We name animals according to a few hierarchies, when we should really be talking about the family tree. When birds came from dinosaurs they didn't stop being dinosaurs, they were just the bird kind of dinosaur. Like when humans "came" from apes, we didn't stop being apes. We didn't stop being vertebrates, either. Or eukaryotic.

Yes, that's the theory. And before anyone asks, yes, I do understand that "theory" has a different scientific meaning. haha What I mean is that the debate still persists because we have yet to witness a change of kind.

The problem here is, the word "kind" is really ambiguous. Exactly what constitutes a "change in kind?"
We're more closely related to chimps, than horses are to zebras. And yet, horses and zebras are the same "kind," whereas humans and chimps are not.

Are cats and tigers the same "kind" of animal?
By failing to define a "kind," creationists are being dishonest; they can always move the goalposts.

When the issues of kinds come up, I can't help but think of the episode of House M.D. where House is arguing with a little girl who says that her stuffed bear is a dog. I can't find a clip of it on youtube, but I think it's short, simple, and elegant enough to illustrate the issue of placing this weird arbitrary boundary on kinds.

[The Deuteragonist]

The distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is a load of horseshit. Anyone who believes in microevolution but not macroevolution is desperately clutching at straws.

[SirPuzzle]

The Deuteragonist

The distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is a load of horseshit. Anyone who believes in microevolution but not macroevolution is desperately clutching at straws.

This.

There is no debate about the validity of evolution by any serious biologist.

There's no point taking the time to learn about other "theories" just learn about evolution, it's the only one that matters because it's true and it's the explanation for why there is diversity of life on planet earth.