Disclaimer: This thread discusses the truth of evolution, and the failed scientific thesis known as Intelligent Design. All copy pastes are in quote boxes
Solving the Evolution.
First it's best to explain what the theory of evolution is, as it's never taught in school and it's very common for the facts to get muddled. Here it is, in it's simplest form. Select to expand quote Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.
That is to say, once you have replicator that can replicate itself, with enough accuracy to maintain information, with each copy being identical except for possible minor 'mutations' you will have the beginnings of the process of evolution.
Once the replication starts, pretty soon there will be competition for resources. This competition, selects the less competitive copies for deletion. And the successful copies continue to replicate. These basic laws of selection will produce ever increasing favorable variations.
This is the Theory of Evolution. The simplest explanation for the complexity of life ever developed. So simple it took a genius his whole life to work it out.
When Darwin proposed it 150 years ago it would still have been considered a Hypothesis, but since then enough discoveries have lifted it to the status of 'Theory'
When somebody says, "Evolution is just a Theory", they are using a different meaning of the word to when a Biologist says the "Theory of evolution"Select to expand quoteFrom the Oxford English Dictionary;
Theory, Sense 1: A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observation.
Theory, Sense 2: A hypothesis proposed as an explanation; hence, a mere hypothesis, speculation, conjecture; an idea or set of ideas about something; an individual view or notion.
It is the first meaning that a Biologist uses when describing the Theory of Evolution. It is the first meaning when a Chemist describes Atomic Theory of the elements. Astronomers use it in the 'Heliocentric Theory'. A physicist is being true to the first definition when he describes the 'Theory of Gravity'. These are as close as science comes to fact. For all intensive purposes Scientific Theories are facts. They will never be disproved.
The second meaning is what the Layman uses when saying, "Evolution is just a Theory". They are failing to understand the different meanings of the word.
The reasons why there are no Proofs in science, is because strictly, only pure mathematics can hold anything as fact. The mathematical equivalent of a scientific theory is a Theorem. Pythagorus's Theorem, for example started as conjecture, and has since been proved many times. It could be disproved instantly, if somebody found a triangle that broke the rules. Facts are serious business, and Mathematicians insist science is not allowed to use them.
But, whatever nerds, it is a fact that the sun is the centre of the solar system (heliocentric theory) just like it is a fact that we have all evolved from a common ancestor (theory of evolution)
Intelligent Design..
Intelligent design is a Thesis; it claims that evolution by natural selection is insufficient to explain the complexity of life we see around us. For example, "The human eye is far to complex to have come about by natural selection, it therefore must have been designed by an intelligent designer. You will hear common catch phrases like 'Irreducible complexity', where it is claimed an organ or trait cannot be evolved from a more simple origin.
It has a few variations, but a major one is Evolution by Design, where it accepts minor evolution happens, but attributes the hard stuff to a designer.
It's common metaphor goes like this, "if you find a watch in the desert, you would assume it was designed by an intelligent watchmaker, ergo, everything complicated requires a designer"
The Process of Evolution
Evolution requires a replicator, and this replicator is the DNA molecule. A DNA molecule is the mechanism that transmits its own information from one generation to the next. It does this by arranging itself into a Double Helix. This Double Helix will split down the middle, and form two halves, which then builds itself up again to complete a new double helix. A perfect copy, unless there are mutations, which change the information code. These can be good changes, neutral changes, or bad changes.
The larger the mutation, the more chance it will be non beneficial. This is a slow process.
In a competitive environment, DNA must protect itself. So DNA replicators that develop protective shells survive better than ones that don't. The Cell wall has just evolved. We now have Genetic information, surrounded by a protective shell, which can reproduce itself. Good start!. The rest is a runaway process of natural selection, which following simple rules, is responsible for all the life on earth. This is a slow and very wasteful process. But that's OK because the earth is 4.6 billion years old.
Why it is the only explanation
Evolution by natural selection is a simple idea, requiring only natural processes. It is the only natural process that can explain the complexity of life on earth. Once it starts, it needs no helping hand from any intelligent process.
The good thing about evolution is it is easy to disprove. A good Theory is easily falsified. A single fossil in the wrong spot, or an organ found to be too complex would go along way to doing this. A fossilized rabbit in the pre Cambrian is a famous pun on what would be needed to disprove evolution.
Intelligent Design, meanwhile, requires a higher intelligence to explain the same problem. Any being, powerful and intelligent enough to do this would be even more complex than the complexity it's brought in to solve! This is an argument of infinite regress. Select to expand quoteWho designed the designer? Who designed the designer's designer? Ad infinitum.
Evolution is a fact, it works without the need for any intelligent designer. It is a fact that we are all related to chimps, frogs and potatoes. It is a fact that Whales once walked on land, and it is a fact that the whale's closest relative is the Hippo.
Time permitting, (I can type like the wind) I will follow up with some of my favorite proofs.
I (and maybe others) will be happy to answer any questions, no question is too daft. And no question is to difficult.
Mondays Proof. Edited*
The recurrent laryngeal nerve is a proof of evolution that shows it occurs without any foresight. There are numerous blunders left as evidence of our gradual modification from simpler organisms. It shows that evolution is an unintelligent process.
The recurrent laryngeal nerve is a nerve that controls our larynx (voice box). It's not far from the brain. The best route for this nerve would be a direct route. This does not happen. The nerve takes a detour, as it exits the brain, the nerve travels down the neck, past its destination, and continues down to the heart, where it loops around an artery, and then proceeds back up the neck to the larynx. In humans this detour is a few feet. In Giraffes this detour is amazing, but in sauropods, the detour is ridiculous.
The reason for this detour is because all tetrapod's evolved from fish. In fish there is no neck, so the path from the brain to it destination is a direct route. But everything gets tangled when you grow a neck. It is impossible for an animal to 'regrow' the nerve to avoid the tangled artery, so we all live with it. To fix this would be a modification that cannot be done in small steps, therefore it is an unbreakable rule that all tetrapods have this mixup. And it's bad engineering.
Here is the nerve detour, shown in a human.
When it becomes advantageous to grow an even longer neck, the nerve must extend.
We can see below the reasons why the nerve gets tangled, everything is straight forward in our ancestors, the fish.
There are many other costs that a giraffe pays by becoming so tall, including the neck vertebrates, and are well covered in the Giraffe episode of the BBC docco, Inside Natures Giants, available on youtube. The following is a scene showin the dissection of the laryngeal nerve in a baby giraffe..
Having had "intelligent design" thrust upon me by a person previously, yes, this is a religous topic.
Please keep you heads cool guys .. Seabreeze is for pain relief, not creating arguments. 
OK then, Ignore intelligent design..
Evolution is not a religious topic, it's pure science. And it's true.
pppfffftttt
I'd rather record my next fart and replay it over ,and over than read that 
this stuff is as retarded as the climate debate
why must there only be two choices...?
either you must believe in evolution
or you must believe in intelligent design
both are treated as religions by their associated whack jobs
Geez not very popular, how bout those immigrants taking our jobs?
Evolution is us, you're all red thumbing yourselves. lol.
Did anyone in Sydney go Kitesurfing/Windsurfing yesterday?
How was is?
I chickened out right at the last minute... cold and the wind looked a little all over the place.
Big fan of the whole evolution thing. Its very cool how a theory developed by observation so many years ago still dominates the life sciences. Physics is a whole different ball game and it seems amazing that something that seems as simple as gravity could be so hard to explain and really that's nothing compared to the other problems that face your modern day physicist. Even when he/she does work something out its almost impossible to explain in any simple terms. This means that for many of us its easier to adopt beliefs that mostly fit with the world we observe and not think to much about the detail. While the Devil may not be in the detail, concepts of a multi-verse or dark matter seem even stranger than the traditional alternatives.
Fortunately the strangeness of the universe doesn't seem to affect the here and now to much. I was out on the water yesterday and it was cold...so cold that the joy of chasing down waves was being tempered by the physical discomfort of the wind chill. Now this I do understand....though if I am related to the fishes surely 8C air temperatures and 10 C water temperatures shouldnt bother me at all..damn all this evolution how about some devolution....
Finally a genuine question! It was all worth it
If you are interested in the theory of evolution, don't bother Doggie no pictures or boobs and some quite long words, Robin Dunbar's Grooming Gossip and the Evolution of language is a must read.
I'm pretty impressed with the overwhelming dislike for this subject.
I would like to know the reasons why there has been such an angry response?. I only started it because there were some misconceptions in a recent unrelated thread. It seems the guys who know least about evolution, are the ones who dislike it the most. And judging by the red thumbs, thats everyone!.
It's an interesting reflection on the mindset of this forum. Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution. How can people be so hostile towards a fact of science?
Is banging on about Haarp doomsday devices more interesting to the average Australian?
Can anybody who thinks this is such a sh1t subject explain why?
In a way if evolution is for real then perhaps all those scientists who are worried about climate change should not be. If the Earth's climate signifcantly changes because we burn coal and oil to make our life easier, this will create opportunities for new species to take advantage of.
So new species will evolve to survive in the ecological places that have been vacated by other species we have killed off through eating, habitat destruction or climate change.
In the end evolution will work it all out so why not just keep making a complete mess of the place if that makes our life easier?
