Question: Have you evidence to support evolution?

Kevin Mahon answered on 11 Jun 2012:

Loads!

Some examples…

1. Evolution reproduced in the lab or documented in nature:

a. Two strains of fruit flies lost the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring in the lab over a 4-year span … i.e. they became two new species. (Easily repeated experiment.)

b. Multiple species of the house mouse unique to the Faeroe Islands occurred within 250 years of introduction of a foundation species on the island.

c. Formation of 5 new species of cichlid fishes that have formed in a single lake within 4,000 years of introduction of a parent species.

2. Fossil evidence – (So much to list). The way fossils appear in the layers of rock always corresponds to relative development … more primitive creatures in lower (older) layers. Absolute dating of fossils using radiometry. Constant discovery of new transitional forms. E.g. reptile-birds, reptile-mammals, legged whales, legged sea cows. The *locations* on the planet on which fossils are found (e.g. hominids don’t appear simultaneously around the world, but appear first in Africa, and spread slowly to other regions).

3. Genetic evidence – E.g. the fact that humans have a huge number of genes (as much as 96%) in common with other great apes … and (as much as 50%) with wheat plants. The pattern of genetic evidence follows the tell-tale patterns of ancestral relationships (more genes in common between recently related species, and fading the further back in time).

4. Vestigial limbs/organs – E.g. Leg and pelvic bones in whales, dolphins, and some snakes; unused eyes in blind cave fish, unused wings in flightless birds and insects; flowers in non-fertilizing plants (like dandelions); in humans, wisdom teeth, tailbones, appendix, the plantaris muscle in the calf (useless in humans, used for grasping with the feet in primates).

5. Embryology – E.g. Legs on dolphin embryos; tails and gill folds on human embryos; snake embryos with legs; marsupial eggshell and carnuncle.

6. Biogeography – The current and past distribution of species on the planet. E.g. almost all marsupials and almost no placental mammals are native to Australia. This is the result of speciation in a geographically isolated area.

7. Homology – E.g. the same bones in the same relative positions in primate hands, bat wings, bird wings, mammals, whale and penguin flippers, pterosaur wings, horse legs, the forelimbs of moles, and webbed amphibian legs.

There’s also lots of molecular and protein based evidence but that’s a bit outside my field of knowledge!