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.

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"

From 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.

Who 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.