Hello
I decided to explain aspects of the theory (read reality) of evolution via natural selection in the simplest manner that I could think of.
Evolution as I understand it in terms of Natural Selection
1: Evolution is not an explanation of the origin of life, but rather an explanation of how organisms adapt to circumstances gradually over generations to provide natural advantages.
2: Adaptation should not be confused with development. Development is when an individual changes over time. Nor should it be confused with adaptation, an organism can adapt behaviorally and physically, but it cannot change it's species so that its offspring are born with these adaptations at the ready.
3: It is enormously difficult to determine when a new species has developed because offspring are genetically and physically indistinguishable from their parents. Using this logic, all organisms are in a “transitive” phase of evolution trending towards forming a new species with few exceptions.
4: The amount of time that it takes for something to noticeably evolve is relative to the amount of time it takes for that organism to produce offspring and for those offspring become sexually mature.
5: Organisms that evolve do so based on propagation, Fertility to increase the rate that the organism reproduce or attract a mate or survival ability in a particular environment and then mate.
6: Organisms are programmed to crank out as much offspring as possible, be it over a long life, or through a one-time burst.
7: Water-dwelling to Land-dwelling evolution is the hardest to explain. It is commonly assumed that the first amphibious animal was some sort of salamander, that absorbed oxygen through fanning gills that could absorb atmospheric oxygen. It is more likely that the first amphibious creature carried a supply of water with it to breathe, such as a crab rather than actually absorbing oxygen through the atmosphere.
8: When people talk about evolution they mainly limit themselves to mammal evolution, when it should be applied to all forms of life. Plants, insects, single-celled organisms, anything that feeds off a source of energy and produces offspring.
9: Random mutations in genetic code do not often manifest in any helpful way. The mutations that occur and cause the offspring to be radically different typically are fatal.
10: DNA is like an instructor that tells individual cells how to behave under specific circumstances. Rather than clapping its hands together and shouting “let's do this” and building the body, if it were a person it would say “alright, because the neighbours are doing this, we'll do this, Individual Cell.” The body and therefore human creation is more likely to be a result from bottom-up production than it is to be top-down production.
(That means that once the metaphorical ball starts rolling and the egg cell starts dividing and forming groups of cells, at some point something that we would identify as human is recognized, bottom-up, as opposed to some collection of cells beginning as a human, top-down)
11: Turtles are fucking weird. But awesome. But WEIRD.
If I have gotten something wrong, please feel free to correct. I mean that only in terms of the scientific, which is defined as conforming with the principles or methods used in science; "a scientific approach" according to Princeton
Also, I'm going to go ahead and define science as a body of knowledge of laws and theories that were gathered through an approach that subjects them to multiple tests with the aim of demonstrating that they are false but failing through logical and statistical means. These laws and theories concern the physical world; "I used science to demonstrate a physical law today" or "I am going to science you so hard."
