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Asked by danielharling to Panos, Sarah, Michael, MarkF, Mark on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: General. This question was also asked by marinebiologistusa.
Question: what do you think about evolution? Do you beleive in the theory of evolution?
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Panos Soultanas answered on 14 Jun 2010:
Evolution is a continuous process of changing and adapting as a resonse to environmental challenges. Life interacts with the physical world and responds to the physical world in order to adapt in the best possible way to gain survival advantages.
Evolution becomes more obvious when one studies the ‘molecular world’ i.e. the world of life molecules. There you can clearly see how many organisms essentially use the same molecules with minor differences to carry out similar life processes.
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Mark Travis answered on 15 Jun 2010:
I think Darwin’s realisation of evolution is one of the greatest scientific ‘discoverys’ ever. The evidence of evolution is all around us- in the fossil records, in the DNA of every species. I definitely believe in evolution- it is a far more convincing, evidence-based argument than any other explanation I have heard.
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Sarah Burl answered on 15 Jun 2010:
I think you guys were on the chat today. I believe in evolution as the evidence is there to show this. We all look the same at early stages of the embryo – fish, bird or man. Have you ever heard the expression ‘as rare as a hen’s teeth’. This refers to occassional chickens that have teeth because they have the gene for teeth from their ancestors that had teeth. Now the gene is still there but is never expressed and so never forms teeth.
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Mark Fogg answered on 15 Jun 2010:
Sorry it’s a long answer, but I think the really important questions deserve longer answers 😉
Evolution by Natural Selection is simply the best and most powerful way of explaining the evidence of how the enormous diversity of life has come about. Not only is there evidence of evolution over millions of years in fossils, it is easily seen in the lab with viruses and bacteria, and in the natural world with what are known as ‘Ring Species’ (in the UK, Herring Gulls and Lesser Black Backed Gulls), but I’ll stick to bugs for an example. 🙂
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is a result of evolutionary change. In a population, there might be one or two bugs that survive after having antibiotics thrown at them. These survivors can then produce more bugs that survive antibiotics and so on, generation after generation. Bugs in the same population that can’t live with antibiotics die off. Very quickly the entire population is made of only antibiotic resistant bugs. That’s evolution in action. MRSA is an example of an antibiotic resistant bug that has evolved in this way through the accidental overuse of antibiotics. Furthermore, there is some evidence that a small number of Swine Flu strains have evolved resistance to anti viral drugs used to fight them.
Evolution is not ‘just a Theory’. In science, unlike in daily life, ‘A Theory’ is not just a hunch or a guess, a scientific Theory is backed up by huge amounts of evidence and it’s the evidence that’s important. After all, Gravity is considered a Theory and we aren’t all floating around, are we? People get mixed up with Theory and Hypothesis, basically ‘a Hypothesis is an educated guess based on observation’. See here http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
If you understand the difference between evidence and hearsay or anecdote, you’ll be well on the way to understanding how the Natural world works.
Hope that’s helpful and not too much to take in 😉 -
Michael Loughlin answered on 21 Jun 2010:
I do agree with it as it fits the evidence. I don’t udnerstand it all..especially bats…but i think that is more me not being able to deal with the enormous timescale..being only a shortlife human
in the lab i have seen it in action when making bacteria drug resistant so i am happy to beleiev in it, even if i don’t udnerstand all of it
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