What are five evidences of evolution?

Answer 1

1. The fossil record provides excellent evidence for evolution. Intermediary species such as archaeopteryx, legged cetaceans, horse series, elephant series, cat series--abound.

2. Pseudogenes are genes that do not code for proteins. They essentially are non functioning genes. These are segments of DNA that look like genes, but don't work. Humans and old world monkeys share a defective gene for the synthesis of ascorbic acid, which indicates we share common ancestry.

3. Viral DNA. There are segments of DNA that have been inserted into the genomes of closely related species. It could be possible for two separate species to become contaminated with the same viral insertions, but the only reasonable explanation for intronic insertions of the same length at the same loci is common ancestry.

4. Evolution has been observed. Bacterial resistance is one example. Crawfish resistance to mining toxins is another. Darwin noticed changes in the length of the beaks of entire populations of Galapagos Island finches. Other biologists have noted changes in chiclid species of fish in Lake Victoria, Africa. Studies of Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, have confirmed theories of how speciation occurs.

5. Race circles. Geographically adjacent related species can interbreed in some areas, whereas those that are more distant cannot. Reproductive isolation is a key indicator of speciation.

6. Chromosome counts. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, whereas other primates have 24 pairs. Chromosomes end with a sequence of DNA readily identified as "telomeres." We have identified the pair of "monkey" chromosomes that fused to reduce the number of chromosomes in our species, and have even identified the relic telomere sequences still buried in those pairs.

7. Cladistics. There are indeed other explanations as to why all animal species can be grouped into a nested hierarcy, but common ancestry is the simplest and only purely natural explanation. Ray Comfort asks why people have never seen a "crockaduck," a joke cross between a crocodile and a duck. Indeed, such a creature would undermine the theory of evolution, and be excellent evidence for an origin of species other than via gradual change and common ancestry. Evolution indicates birds evolved from a small group of dinosaurs, and not directly from reptiles.

Why are all mammals tetrapods? Why are all mammals vertebrates? Why are all the mammals native to Australia marsupials? The exceptions are the dingo, whose earliest Australian fossils do not predate the arrival of our species there, rats (same thing), and bats. The wombat is a marsupial, not a flying mammal.

We also see vestigial limbs in snakes (reptiles) and whales (marine mammals). The tails of whales are flukes, which are horizontal, as opposed to vertical fins like those of fish and sharks. The reason is that flukes evolved from hind limbs.

Answer 2

1. Universal genetic code;

2. Common build in related animals;

3. Artificial evolution (if we can regulate it though selection, nature certainly can though natural selection);

4. Fossil record;

5. ...sorry, caught short here, but try googling ´evolution evidence´ and be amazed at the things popping up. I couldn´t find another really separate argument, but maybe you can.

...Oh, and think of Darwin´s finches, and the peppered moth for example. Birds pick off the dark moths ==> light moths become more common. That´s evolution too! And lots of bits of microevolution make up macroevolution.

Answer 3

1) Analogous structures

Example: The human appendix. It is no longer used in the human body, but this is because we evolved so much that we no longer NEED to use an appendix to survive.

2) Homologous structures

Example: The base bone structure of the human arm can be compared to the base bone structure for the arm of a gorilla or primate. We have the same general bones, but they evolved so that they were shaped differently.

3) General human intelligence has obviously evolved. Before, we used to have no common sense. We believed in ghosts and monsters (some still do, sadly), but now these are disregarded as nonsense. It is also clear to us that the center of the universe is not the Earth, but rather our galaxy revolves around the sun. This is common knowledge, widely accepted.

This is the most I can think of....

Answer 4

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. A new plant species (a type of firewood), created by a doubling of the chromosome count from the original stock (Mosquin, 1967).

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

d. 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.

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. Molecular evidence - These are commonalities in DNA ... which is separate from genetic commonalities ... much of our DNA does not code for genes at all. But random mutations (basically 'typos') enter into DNA at a known rate over the centuries. This is called the 'molecular clock' and again gives excellent evidence of when humans diverged from other apes (about 6 million years ago, according to this molecular clock), and this corresponds perfectly with when these fossils first appear in the fossil record (using radiometric dating).

5. Evidence from proteins - Proteins - E.g., things like blood proteins (the things that give us our A, B, O blood typing and the Rh factor (the plus/minus thing) which incidentally stands for 'rhesus monkey'); the exact structure of the insulin molecule; and my favorite, the proteins responsible for color vision. The specific proteins found in human color vision are exactly the same as those found in Old World primates (the great apes and the monkeys found in Africa and Asia). These proteins are absent in New World primates (the Central and South American monkeys), and from all other mammals. In fact among the New World primates, only the howler monkey has color vision ... but these use slightly *different* proteins, coded on different locations and chromosomes, than humans and the OW primates. This is yet more evidence of a closer link between humans and the OW primates.

Answer 5

I am not sure what you mean by a 'type' of evidence, nor am I sure there are 5. Evidence does come from multiple 'branches' of Biology nonetheless.

The fossil record illustrates evolution. Not only is life obviously ancient, there is obvious change of life through time. Life has existed from the Precambrian to the present: it is ancient. There are transitions too, illustrating change from one major group to another. Archaeopteryx is a clearly semi-dinosaurian and semi-avian. Tiktaalik is a 'semi-fish, semi-amphibian' amid a melange of others that share ichthyian and tetrapodal characters (Ichthyostega, Acanthostegaet cetera).

Comparative genetics and genomics illustrate evolution. Chromosome 2 in humans is a fusion between two ape chromosomes, the fusion having taken place since the human-chimpanzee common ancestor. This shows the explanatory power of evolution in that it explains why chimpanzees and gorillas have 24 chromosomes but humans have only 23.

We can sequence genes, sequence the nucleotides of DNA. The hypothesis that humans are more closely related to chimpanzees and gorillas than to orangutans and gibbons was confirmed by the examination of sequenced DNA.

Comparative anatomy gives evidence of evolution. All flowers constitute their flowers with stigmas and styles, anthers and filaments, ovaries, petals and sepals. But there is variation. The flowering plants are all united by the presence of these structures, but flowers are modified across the spectrum of Angiospermae according to the environment (and that probably means mainly the biotic environment, the world of pollination and the form of the pollinator). Wasp mimicking orchids 'pretend to be female wasps', attracting mate-enthusiastic males which accidentally pollinate the flowers while trying to mate with them. The petals of orchids are still petals, wasp-like or otherwise, even though they may be so different from petals of other families of angiosperms. Indeed, some plants have the petals and sepals fused into structures called tepals. The tubes of many flowers often suit the length of the tongue of the pollinator. The longer the tongue of the pollinator, the longer the floral tube. Modification according to pollinator! The parts of flowers are homologous structures. More often cited are the limb bones of mammals. The limbs of a cat are composed of the same bones as the limbs of a bat. The bat has bones elongated into those that can support a wing-membrane. The cat is a land-based stalker and has the most appropriate bones for the job of land-based agile stalking and climbing. Homologous structures such as the parts of flowers and the bones of mammals unite their owners and are evidence for common ancestry and agree with the parsimonious idea that evolution what already exists and does not start afresh. Evolution modifies bones already present. The cat has an ulna and phalanges. The bat also has an ulna and phalanges. It does't have completely bones just because it isn't a cat, or isn't a land-stalker and climber.

Vestigial structures show the loss of characters over time. Snakes are very obviously limbless. But, if we hypothesise that they evolved from lizards, what would be the evidence? Pythons have vestigial, remnant limbs. Vestigial structures are those that were fully formed in an ancestral organism but have since, due to lack of necessity, become degraded. We have found fossil manatees and caecilians and fossil whales with limbs showing the transition from limbfullness to limblessness. The caecum is vestigial. The eyes of moles are vestigial, as are the ideas of blind cave fish. Why have the trace of eyes if you don't use them? The answer is that ancestors had eyes, and through time, organisms that did not produce eyes so perfectly during development have been favoured in a dark world which doesn't need them.

Morphological change has been observed! Artificial selection was known to Darwin, and from a single ancestral organism, much variation could be procured. From the wolf, dalmations, alsations, dachshunds, poodles, terriers, labradors and shih tzuhs have all been bred. The wolf harbours the potential of all these different morphologies, which come to the surface during selection. Nurseries produce artificially selected beauties all the time and think it just a variety of gardening. Experiments of natural selection have also occurred. Lizards were transported to a small island (Pod Mrcaru) and isolated and it was found that only 30 years later, there was a combination of greater bite force and a vegetarian diet shown by these lizards, a divergence from the ancestral population.

See Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth and other works by the same author for more information.

See Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species

See The Life of Birds by David Attenborough for information on Archaeopteryx

Answer 6

1. Permineralization 2. Natural casts 3. Trace fossils 4. Amber-preserved fossils 5. Preserved remains

Answer 7

biochemical evidence

anatomical evidence

fossils

vestigial structure

embryological evidence

Answer 8

1.fossil record

2.comparative anatomy

3.embryology

4.molecular record

5.domesticated organisms.

Answer 9

Fossils, Anatomical, Embryology, Biochemistry, Biogeography.

Answer 10

No