Evolution, truth or myth?

The question of how we got to be the way we are today is one that has intrigued the imagination of many in the past and still today. We question our existence and try to find the best explanation of how we came to be an explanation that includes all possible if not most factors. According to evolutionists and other scientist in related fields, our existence is best described using the theory of evolution. But to what extent is this explanation true?

According to Google dictionary, evolution is “the process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth”. This in essence demonstrate that genetic inheritance is how we developed the traits, the form and other characteristics etc. that we possess. The theory of evolution states that it is the need for survival that evolves a certain organism or species to adapt to its surrounding and not random genetic mutation that causes some species or organism to develop some traits, form etc. and others not to.

Misconception about evolution theory is that scientists claim that “genes want to evolve and want to adapt”. Ask yourself this question: how can a gene possibly want something? According to TED-Ed survival is not how ‘evolution’ but it is because of reproduction. For example random genetic mutation through reproduction allowed some giraffes to develop long necks, while other giraffe couldn’t. Therefore, today we have giraffes with long necks because those are the ones that could survive. It is not because of the fact giraffes – according J. Lamarck - “spent their lives stretching to reach leafs in high branches that they developed long necks and so passing this trait to their offspring”.

The scientific book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by Micheal Denton is an anti-evolution book that suggests that any evolutionary biology provides no new insight to the origin of living beings on earth. Denton’s discussion of cytochrome-c analyses undermines the idea that fish were ancestral to frogs, which were ancestral to reptiles, which were ancestral to birds and mammals as he believes they should have successfully less correlation with a common ancestor in their amino acid sequences. Although websites like www.ncse.com try to refute the ideas brought forward by Denton in their reviews, the book serves as a very useful component against evolution as it, unlike many Creationists book, contains scientific arguments rather than religious beliefs.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is a very complex idea that is still debatable to this day. Many articles have been written for and against it, each uncovering a new aspects and ideas on the theory. The book Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution by Douglas J. Futuyma highlights a few of these ideas such as how evolution is outside the realm of science and it is this factor that it is difficult to prove its validity in our modern advanced science age.