This article was prompted by comments made on many other articles......
Understanding the process of evolution seems to be lost on many people out there… some because they can’t comprehend how one cell can evolve, becoming a complex life form, which is quite a bit to get your head around, others because of the perceived dissonance with their religious belief.
The most common mistake is to anthropomorphize evolution, as if it has a mind, makes decisions or choices. It does not! There is no predetermination of success. Survival is success, good or bad, great design or not!
Evolution is a driven by a process known natural selection. Simply put, the trait that helps an organism survive better than that organisms peers, will be passed on to the next generation. Traits that don’t will die.
It is a harsh, unforgiving process. It does not seek out the best possible traits, just the successful ones.
Lets look at some examples in nature: The ostrich has wings, but cannot fly. It did not choose not to fly, it just can’t, this is because flying was not crucial to its survival, size was.
Then why are there still wings? This is because the genes are still present, a kind of ‘left over’ from something that was successful in an earlier ancestor. These genes may over many, many generations eventually be bred out, or wings may develop into forearms, something like that.
Evolution is fluid; ever changing, all living creatures are ‘transitional forms’ still evolving, as are we!
It is blatantly obvious when you look at birds in areas where there are no predators, they are colorful, bright & have ‘look at me’ traits. Not so where there are predators, the successful ones are dull, camouflaged and their eggs blend into their environments etc.
It is difficult to understand on a macro level, but given the vast amount of time the process has been going on for, it becomes more understandable.
If evolution did not take place, why is it that there are no fossils of current organisms in the Cambrian period? Where are the decedents of those fossils? Surely if nothing evolved, the fossil record would be constant over every period in history, the decedents would never change.
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