We are 100% certain that all species have evolved over time. At least, as close to 100% as you can be about anything.
You want proof? Well, there's the whole of the fossil record and the sciences of comparitive anatomy and genetics. All compatible with evolution happening.
You want a specific example? The fossil record suggests dolphins and whales evolved from land animals. The anatomy of dolphins and whales suggests their ancestors were land animals. Their genetics shows that they are related to land mammals, most closely to the hippo. Baby dolphins are born with whiskers which serve no purpose and they lose shortly after birth. Some whales have useless remnants of leg bones inside their bodies.
Really, you would have to be deranged not to accept that dolphins and whales evolved from land-dwelling mammals.
Edit:
The different groups of river dolphins are not the same. If they were identical then that would be hard to explain, because that would mean at least one river dolphin had crossed an ocean to get to another river basin. Instead we see different isolated groups of river dolphins with different genetics - exactly what we would expect evolution to produce.
Sorry, I don't understand your last points. I could program a computer to arrive at the alphabet by an evolutionary process (reproduce with variation, compare with target sequence, breed from those sequences closest to the target, repeat). I wouldn't expect it to take very long at all, especially if I'm allowed to run lots of trials in parallel.
"14* letters"? What does that mean?
We are 100% certain that all species have evolved over time. At least, as close to 100% as you can be about anything.
Edit 2:
"I still don't understand how we can have two completely different species that look identical and function pretty much the same."
I don't see why that's hard to understand. It's called convergent evolution, and the river dolphins are not even a very striking example of it. Look up the thylacine, the marsupial wolf. If there is an ecological niche available nature will fill it, using whatever material is to hand.
It almost seems as if you have the idea that every organism evolved independently from one common ancestor, and each one had to arrive at some predefined "correct" genome. That's not how evolution works at all. A. it's a branching tree, and b. there is no "correct", there is what survives and what does not survive. Run evolution on Earth again and you'd get a completely different set of creatures, but a lot of them would be filling the same niches - wolf, dolphin, maybe even human.
No, but only because science does not deal in proofs, that is an ignorant lay term for 'theory' (itself wilfully misunderstood) or 'evidence'. Proof is the domain of mathematics. And yes, that answers your headline question.
Now, once you understand the rather simple definition of biological evolution, you will realise why it is known to occur. Evolution simply means 'change in gene frequencies of populations over generations'. Have we observed that ? YES ! An example ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eatin...
As for the rest of your content, it only shows where you are in your understanding. I am not going to go into great detail here, nor even address all your points, but please do realise that your understanding is gravely wanting.
- dolphin DNA is not 'completely different' between species whatsoever
- you seem to be stating that these 2 species evolved independently of each other at all stages of their evolution. This belies reality and further exposes your ignorance of the subject. They DIVERGED x years ago and continued to evolve in their respective environments. This leads to the visual differences between them, expressed by genetic divergence. Now, there is a phenomenon called convergent evolution whereby distantly related organisms can arrive at similar traits. Look that up, but do realise it is different from dolphin lineages diverging.
- "By it's own definition natural selection only happens once" Erm, what ?! Change one word in that to make it accurate, take out "it's" and put in "YOUR" ! Natural selection has been happening everyday for billions of years.
- your computer example gives me a headache. I could guess what your thinking and (limited) understanding is in presenting the 'analogy', but why bother ? It is so disjointed and incoherent.
- Further down is this "That's what evolution is about, Natural selection". No, evolution is as I defined it. Natural selection is the mechanism for adaptation - how and why those gene frequencies change, at least at the level of environmental interaction. Hence the combined phrase 'evolution by natural selection'.
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You could do with dropping your misinformed preconceptions and notions of evolution and read an introductory guide to evolutionary principles. Take the time and effort to do so, and you might well begin to see the extent of your ignorance and marvel at the phenomenon itself. Try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
We are WAAAAY past "99.99%" certain that every organism that ever lived on Earth got here through evolution.
Try again.
Edit: "What I don't understand is the correlation between ocean dolphins and river dolphins?
When looking at their DNA their genetic makeup is completely different."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Yeah, that's total bullshit there, Tex. Try learning some actual facts next time.
Scientists have observed evolution taking place in real time right in front of their very eyes.
Your "updates" are almost incomprehensible. I can't even tell what you're talking about. The reason? Probably that you're too lazy to read a book before you go online and scramble a lot of words together.
Well, if you understood:
1. Organic and Inorganic Carbon Chemistry.
2. The nature of nucleic acid and the meaning of compilation.
3. How long a billion years is let alone 3 billion.
Then you wouldn't be asking the question.
Yes, species have been observed to evolve already. It's well known and documented by now. It's willful ignorance if you don't acknowledge this.
Yes. Check out Charles Darwin ,,re pigeons.
Yes, definitely. You just have to look at bacteria and MRSA to see evolution in action.
THOUSANDS of things; Check out the Galapagos Isles. !
Is there scientific proof?
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence for humans
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary...
http://www.agiweb.org/news/evolution/exa...
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolutio...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tra...
I know we can look at DNA to find out a lot of information. Have we yet discovered a species that we know has evolved over time? As of 99.99% certain?
