Evolution
Common descent, speciation, fossils, genomes, development, and the design arguments raised against them.
14 articles
Fundamentals
Evidence
- Common DescentAnatomy and molecular data independently produce the same nested hierarchy, a pattern designed objects do not show.
- SpeciationNew species forming has been observed in the field and in the laboratory, in plants, insects, and vertebrates.
- Transitional FossilsFossil sequences document the origin of tetrapods, whales, birds, and mammals, with predicted forms found in predicted strata.
- BiogeographyThe distribution of species across islands and continents tracks geography and history rather than habitat suitability.
- Endogenous RetrovirusesInherited viral insertions sit at matching genomic coordinates across species in a pattern that reconstructs the same tree as anatomy.
- PseudogenesGenes broken by mutation are shared with their specific disabling lesions by exactly the groups that other evidence links.
- Embryology and DevelopmentEmbryos build structures their adults never use, and the regulatory machinery for those structures still works when tested.
- Vestigial Structures and AtavismsReduced structures and reappearing ancestral traits correspond to the functional anatomy of related groups rather than to arbitrary forms.
- Antibiotic and Pesticide ResistanceSelection is observed directly in bacteria, insects, weeds, and rodents, and its predictions are built into medical and agricultural policy.
Objections
- Irreducible ComplexityBehe's argument that some systems cannot function without every part has been answered for each of his examples.
- Intelligent DesignThe movement's history, its central arguments, and the Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling on whether it is science.
- Genetic InformationClaims that mutations cannot add information depend on a definition of information that is never given precisely.