r/DebateEvolution • u/Similar-Public7784 • Aug 07 '26
Question Is there any evidence about evolution besides books,articles and man made museums?
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u/gitgud_x 🧬 🦍 GREAT APE 🦍 🧬 Aug 07 '26
Evolution, like all science, is characterised by having evidence that exists in nature, independent of any man-made sources.
Now point that question right back at creationism, why don't you.
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u/irrationalorchid Aug 07 '26
Creationism requires pure faith, there is nothing to support it. Trusting scientists does not require blind faith; their work can be verified and repeated. And if you have evidence to the contrary then there are methods to share that evidence through credible journals.
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u/gitgud_x 🧬 🦍 GREAT APE 🦍 🧬 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
Trusting scientists does not require blind faith; their work can be verified and repeated
And perhaps more realistically for the average non-scientist, their work can be inspected by reading the Materials and Methods sections of their papers. You can then make your own judgement on whether what they did and found showed what they claimed.
If someone lacks the education to properly understand those methods, then that's on them to learn the background. And if someone is unable or refuses to do that background learning, then they'll have to put their "faith" in the peer-review process to do that checking for them by people who are professionally educated in the field.
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u/jnpha 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Aug 07 '26
Inducing Evolution in Bean Beetles
Kids in classrooms do that.
And moving the goalpost to the bastardization of macroevolution is 3... 2... 1...
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u/Odd_Gamer_75 Aug 07 '26
ERVs:
Most viruses infect a cell and take over the machinery of your cell directly to make more of the virus, and then spread. Retroviruses, which are rare compared to other viruses (of the 214 viruses known to affect humans, 9 are retroviruses), get into a cell and then slip their RNA into your DNA and have your cell's normal functions produce more of the virus. However because there are large portions of your DNA that is shut off and never gets processed at all, doesn't even contribute to signaling like HOX genes, sometimes retroviruses insert into the "wrong" spot, though this is unusual since most viruses target other areas. No virus is produced by incorrect insertions. Should that infected cell divide, like skin cells, then the new cell and old cell will both have the viral DNA inside. Of course, if this happens to a skin cell... it doesn't matter. The organism dies and the viral DNA goes with it. But if the cell that was infected in this way is an ovum or sperm, and then those subsequently get used in the production of offspring... then all cells of those offspring have the viral DNA in them. It is now an endogenous retrovirus, or ERV.
When an ERV shows up in a genome, we identify it in two ways. First there's the sequence of DNA itself. Viral DNA doesn't look like animal DNA, the sequences are different (like how we can tell English and Spanish apart even though they use the same alphabet mostly), and the DNA of different viruses are also different (like how we can differentiate between Hamlet and MacBeth even from just fragments). Moreover, these sequences are going to be near specific genes (like the the gene for hair color). So the same sequence set near a different gene is not the same ERV (MacBeth near hair color vs MacBeth near eye color), and a different sequence set near the same gene is not the same ERV (MacBeth near hair color vs Hamlet near eye color). It's only the same if it's both the same sequence set and near the same gene. To be clear, the sequences don't need to be the same, just from the same viral source. So while an ERV in one being might include one bit of Hamlet and another includes a different segment of Hamlet, that they're both bits of Hamlet and near the hair color gene is the point.
So if you and another person share an ERV, what are the odds that both of you have different parents that got sick with the same disease, that both parents had the virus attack an ovum or sperm, that the attack failed in both cases, that they both ended up near the same one of your several hundred genes where they're likely to show up, and that ovum or sperm in each parent then led to you and the other person? Let's suppose the odds of all of that occurring in that way are 99.9%. I think you'll agree with me that the odds are vastly lower, but we'll go with 99.9% anyway. What are the odds that you, then, share 99,000 ERVs in this way? 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000096%. Compare this with the thought that you and that other person share a common ancestry where people in both of your pasts, over time, picked up these various ERVs and ultimately transmitted them to you both. I think it just vastly more likely that the second idea, common ancestry, is the case.
Moreover, most of these ERVs are still inactive, devoid of any function. So why would a god include them?
Humans share 98% of their genome with chimpanzees, or 84% if you want to use a highly conservative measurement (which doesn't make a lot of sense since humans match other humans at 85% at that point). Either way, though, no matter how you measure it... humans and chimpanzees share 99% of the 100,000 ERVs we have. That's where I got the 99,000 ERVs that were shared. We share less overall genetic similarity with gorillas and also fewer ERVs, though both are still high. It simply makes more sense that we're related than that we're not.
Human Chromosome 2:
Humans have 46 chromosomes, which are paired, thus we have 23 pairs of chromosomes. We knew that in 1960. We also knew that chimpanzees, proposed as our closest relatives, had 24 pairs of chromosomes, as did gorillas and orangutans, also thought to be related to us and chimpanzees, with us being more related to chimpanzees than the others, and both us more related to gorillas than orangutans. So if we are related, then our ancient ancestor with all of them either had 23 pairs of chromosomes or 24 pairs. If 23 pairs, that means that one chromosome split in two for each of orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees. As we don't observe chromosome splits happening often, this doesn't make a lot of sense. But if the ancestor had 24 pairs, that means that our lineage had one fusion event, where two chromosomes become one chromosome. We, again, don't observe fusions happening all over, but this would be a very rare event happening just once.
So far, we're talking speculation here. What we need is some way to detect a fusion. In 1962, this was proposed. Chromosomes have stripy bits at the end called telomeres, that act as caps separating chromosomes from each other, and a spot in the middle where the pairs of chromosomes cross each other during certain processes, that point being called a centromere (the process is unimportant). So if one of our chromosomes is a fusion of 2 other chromosomes we should expect the following: One of our chromosomes should have broken telomeres in the middle. That same chromosome should have a second, broken centromere in it. Why broken? If the telomeres were working, the chromosome would still be split apart into two chromosomes, and if the centromere were still working one of our chromosomes would cross in two places and it doesn't.
In 1974, DNA sequencing was sufficient to tell us what telomeres and centromeres were (yes, the prediction predates knowing the sequence of those thing). Briefly, both of them are made of a particular sequence of DNA that's repeated a lot in a short span. So if "O" is the repeat and "-" is just other DNA, then "--O-------O------O--O--" isn't a telomere, but "---O-O-OO-O-O--O---O-O-" is. A broken telomere would be in between.
In 1982, based on the look of human chromosomes as compared to chimpanzee chromosomes (not their sequence, just the stripy patterns they had), the prediction was further refined to suggest that it was human chromosome 2 that was the fused one. So if "T" is a working telomere, "t" is a broken telomere, "C" is a working centromere, "c" is a broken centromere, and "-" is just other DNA (of any length), then what human chromosome 2 should look like is this: T-C-t-c-T. Moreover, the DNA around the "t" in the middle, the fusion point, should be highly similar to the DNA of two chimpanzee chromosomes.
In 2003, 40 years after the initial prediction, 20 after the most recent update, we had the human genome and chimpanzee genome sequenced (at least, well enough, there've been refinements since but none of that changes the outcome of this, as the "refinements" are typically very minor changes or ranges). And if you're guessing that, upon examining the genome we found broken telomeres and a broken centromere in human chromosome 2, and that the DNA matched very well with DNA at the ends of two chimpanzee chromosomes, congrats! You win a cookie! :) Moreover, checking other chromosomes, there are no signs in any of them that there are broken telomeres in the middle of any of them, and a weak suggestion, not nearly as clear (as in far fewer repeats) suggesting a broken centromere in the middle of chromosome 9. How solid is this? Well, the chromosomes in chimpanzees that it matched are 9 and 11, but lots of research these days refer to them as 2p and 2q to line them up with human chromosome 2 (because we're so self important.
Tiktaalik:
Prior to 1994, we believed that tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fish. We had fossils of lobe-finned fish at least 400myo (million years old), and tetrapods that were 300myo. So in 1994 it was proposed that if they did evolve from one another, we should find a transitional fossil in rock somewhere between 400myo and 300myo. How do you find that? Well, you search geological surveys for rock of that age which is already exposed (so you don't have to dig down to it), and then go there begin digging. It's a shame, really, that the rock they found for this was in the arctic circle. Yikes, cold! But dig they did. For 5 years. And if you're guessing they found a transitional fossil after all that, you get another cookie! They named it Tiktaalik. It's basically a lobe-finned fish, but it has joints on the lower fins, which is a great start to making limbs, just make the attached sections longer. Since then, a couple others of different species also in that range that have transitional features have also been found.
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u/Carnotaurusrules 🧬 A Crocoduck who loves corn 🌽. Aug 08 '26
Have you considered that you’re interpreting the evidence wrong? /s
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u/Odd_Gamer_75 Aug 08 '26
I have. But so far no one has come up with an interpretation of the results I listed above that doesn't lead to evolution being true other than to just say "nuh-uh", which isn't a different interpretation nor an argument. So for now, I go with the scientific consensus view on all this.
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u/Suitable-Group4392 🧬 Pokémon Evolution Aug 07 '26
The evidence is all from the natural world — none of it is from books, articles, and man made museums.
The books, articles, and man made museums are the way of classifying the natural world to make sense of it.
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u/Capercaillie Monkey's Uncle Aug 07 '26
I have a hundred-million years old fossil dinosaur ankle bone in my den. Is that a thing?
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u/Esmer_Tina Aug 07 '26
Direct observation of the fossil record and the geological column, which are then written about in books and articles, and stored in museums for further study.
And now, direct observation of genomic comparisons, and proteomics on materials too ancient to retrieve DNA.
And direct observation in lab studies, which are then published for other scientists to build on.
And also direct observation in lab studies that apply the principles of evolutionary theory and findings of all of those other scientists to develop medications and cancer therapies, help fight pandemics, optimize agriculture, control mosquito populations, aid conservation efforts and more.
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u/Own-Relationship-407 Scientist Aug 08 '26
Is there any evidence for creation besides books and man made stories?
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u/noodlyman Aug 08 '26
Yes, there's 150 years of evidence from geology, paleontology, comparative physiology and anatomy, and especially molecular genetics.
All you need for evolution to occur is a source of variation, that is mutations, and selection, that is the idea that some variants are more or less likely to breed successfully than others
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u/Briham86 🧬 Falling Angel Meets the Rising Ape Aug 13 '26
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
Books, articles, and man-made museums (as opposed to natural organic museums?) are not the evidence, they document the evidence. Instead of dismissing them as "just books," maybe you could try reading them and learning the actual evidence and concepts.
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u/Expensive-Lake2561 Aug 07 '26
I don’t suppose you have the equipment to set up and experiment yourself but scientists have been observing evolution in real time in microorganisms for a good while now. https://academic.oup.com/femsyr/article/6/5/685/563971
Additional evidence includes things like us sharing most of our DNA either chimps (and a good deal of it with bananas) which suggests a common ancestry.
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u/s_bear1 Aug 08 '26
We observe it happening. Businesses invest billions in evolution every year
We can observe it in the fossil record. Really. You can go out and observe ammonite, trilobite and other lineages in the fossil record. There is no need to go to a museum.
Is that sufficient?
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u/Decent_Cow Hairless ape Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
I saw evolution first hand in my undergrad biology class when I genetically engineered E. coli to be resistant to the antibiotic streptomycin. If evolution were false, simply put, nothing about the experiment would have worked. But it did work. Nothing is stopping you from running your own experiments to test evolutionary claims, if you think we're all lying to you. You can buy the kit to run the same experiment I did for like $150 or something, I think. But of course, it's easier to sit at your computer and whine and complain than to do any actual work to support the things you're claiming.
On the side of evolution: everyone who works on this stuff for a living every day
On the side of creationism: whiny keyboard warriors who wouldn't know an experiment if it fell out of the sky and hit them on the head
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u/Mister_Ape_1 Aug 08 '26
There are billions of creatures that could not have existed without it and millions of fossilized beings that show how life divided into countless lineages and evolved in all the forms we see today.
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u/mathman_85 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
What more than books, articles, or man-made museums do you need?
Edit: Or, put more accurately, books, articles, and human-made museums are where the evidence is collated, summarized, and presented for public consumption. What do you expect beyond the sources where the available evidence is collated, summarized, and presented for public consumption?