Which parts of evolution do you consider not proven facts? One of the big problems with the word "evolution" is that many people mean different things when they use the word, so I never know what someone thinks has or has not been proven.
I'll go for a fairly simple definition of evolution, starting with Darwin. It was recognized long before Darwin that species change over time. Every dog breeder knows that species change. They also know that those changes can be adaptive (short legs for tunnel hunting dogs, long shaggy coats for winter dogs, etc). Nothing in those notions was new at the time of Darwin. What Darwin proposed that was novel was pretty much right there in the title of his book: "On the origin of species by means of natural selection". He proposed that new species arose from old species and that old species went extinct. And that the means of the creation of new species and the demise of old species was differential survival of individuals with characteristics favored by their (often changing) environment and that those characteristics can be passed on to the offspring, creating diverging paths of development and the creation of new species. The biggest argument to the contrary, at the time, was that characteristics of species could change over time (a small value of evolution) but could not give rise to new species. This was primarily driven by biblical literalism, that God created the Heavens and the Earth and all the species that walk the earth and swim the seas and was ordered just so. This view is incompatible with a system of evolution that allows for the creation of new species that did not exist at the time of creation. Now, then, onto the facts. #1: Speciation occurs. This is an observed fact. Existing species die off. New species arise. The variety of ways in which speciation occurs and even the most useful definition of species are areas of debate and research. Speciation still occurs. #2: Natural selection occurs. This is also an observed fact. There is differential survival of species members based on phenotype (what characteristics the individual possesses). #3: Characteristics that natural selection acts upon are heritable. This is also an observed fact. More efficient mechanisms for using water in an arid environment, for example, can be passed down to future generations and have a differential effect upon the survival of those offspring. That, in a nutshell, is Darwinian evolution and there are generations of scientific documentation of all of the above items. It is real, plain and simple, and well established and tested. Now, there are a whole bunch of things that are awesome open questions and things that challenge established notions. The field of Epigenetics alone is causing me to rethinking some views I have about where the level(s) of natural selection work, how they interplay, what role genes versus environment have, all sorts of stuff. It is exciting. But it does nothing to change the validity of the items I list above. Cheers, Judah On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 12:26 PM, Timothy Heald <[email protected]>wrote: > > Or that you don't. > > Simply put it's not a proven fact. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:369093 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
