Change?

[Erik3]

For starters let me apologize for my lack of scientific knowledge.

This may be a silly question to a lot of evolutionists but...

If evolution is true, then why isn't there a steady stream of things evolving from the amoeba up to man?

that is what happens according to evolution correct?

thanks
Erik

 

[billwald]

Evolution is observed in small critters like amoeba. Humans no longer evolve because our mating is not random but by choice and our preservation of defective lines of DNA short circuit the process.

Human activity such as destroying the environment effects which critters will survive and that is the only thing that evolution is about - various events which determine that some lines of DNA survive and other's don't.

The argument about complexity muddies the waters because it at least in part confuses natural selection, commonly called "evolution," with social Darwinism which is a psuedo science which tries to "improve" the human race - NAZIism and Lysenco biology. The most successful multicelled example of evolution is probably the cockroach which can tolerate even high doses of ionizing radiation. They will be around even if we nuke the world.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

It happens, but very slowly, and not specifically from the amoeba, which is a modern organism.

In the fossil record, there is a series of forms showing the gradual appearance of various groups from unicellular organisms to modern organisms. This is what we actually expect.

But evolution is not a ladder, not a race, and not inherently a progression from less to more complex organisms.

 

[artybloke]

For starters let me apologize for my lack of scientific knowledge.

This may be a silly question to a lot of evolutionists but...

If evolution is true, then why isn't there a steady stream of things evolving from the amoeba up to man?

that is what happens according to evolution correct?

thanks
Erik

Ermmmm.... no, not as such. It's not a ladder upwards. That's Lamarckism, which like Creationism has been roundly falsified.

Evolution occurs because of two things: mutation and natural selection. A "mistake" occurs in the DNA sequence of a single organism born to a particular species, say. This usually doesn't get passed on because it is usually not necessary for the survival of that species, or is harmful to its survival. This might be, say, a slightly longer beak in a finch. However, if the finch finds that its normal food source has run out but a slightly longer beak enables it to eat a slightly bigger seed, then the finch with the longer beak survives to the next generation but the one with the shorter beak won't. This is natural selection. But if there is still a supply of the original food somewhere on the island, populations of the older finch (with the smaller beak) will still continue, and there will then be two species of finch instead of one on the island.

So there is no steady stream "upward", more a continual branching off like a spreading bush.

None of this progress, by the way, is in way conscious as far as the life itself is concerned. Mutations happen to individuals in every generation; natural selection happens because of a change in the environment and happens to a population. Combine the two and you have evolution.

I hope that has been useful. Also, I ought to point out that there is nothing in the theory of evolution that says that God could not have controlled the process from the very beginning. Evolution does not equate to atheism.