posted on Feb, 2 2017 @ 02:53 AM
Here is an easy way to understand evolution, with a few interesting factoids at the end.
think of evolution as language.
now lets say that language is latin. the romans created latin in italy and spread it to france, spain, and portugal. after rome fell, so did latin.
each region started to change and adapt the language to suit its own region and culture. add to that the various invasions where the invaders language
was incorporated into the mix; such as al, which is an arabic word from the muslim invasion of southern spain, into spanish. then you have regional
differences within the language, such as lisping from spain spanish verses lack of vosotros in mexican spanish.
if it wasnt for the catholic church and western science, latin would be completely dead. think about it. italian is probably the closest thing to
latin there is, but give an italian speaker a novel written in latin and see how well they would do in translating it. they could do it, but not well.
this vast difference in language only took 2000 years to achieve. add another 2000 years and how different would it be?
how does this relate to evolution. well, the same principles apply. think of the genes of dna as being words. for the most part these genes stay the
same and in the same order. however, sometimes the genes get out of place, or are recreated slightly off, and is carried on. just like some words get
added to a language, or the use of that word changes. its the build up of small changes that create the large changes, like latin to spanish.
factoids!
did you know that the mitochondria of a cell was once a completely separate organism? see, way back there was an organism that was really good at
gathering food source, but couldnt make energy, and there was another organism that was really good at creating energy, but not in gathering the food.
one day these two joined. the first cell gathered the food, the second created the energy. a partnership was formed and holds till this day. that is
why mitochondrial dna is different from your dna, even though it lives in almost every cell in your body.
some of the evolution deniers say that dna cannot be added to. thats not true. matter of fact, around 20% of your dna is viral dna. thats right, dna
from virus is in your genetic code. without that viral code, we would not exist because it changed out dna enough to create a placenta! weird, right?
even now there are virus that combine their dna with ours, namely hep b. fortunately hep b targets liver cells and not gamete cells, or we would be
mutating all the time.
now think about this. a virus is not alive, or dead. it is just rna/dna surrounded by a capsule. rna and dna are nothing but proteins. they dont have
any of the internal cell organelles that make a cell "alive". they dont take in nutrients or excrete waste like every other living thing. however,
they reproduce. once they get near a target cell, they invade and replicate themselves. could virus be the "missing link" between protein formation
and single cell formation? all the while single cell organisms are joining with mitochondria?
so, if language can change so rapidly over just 2000 years, how would dna change over millions of years? how would the dna changes effect the host
over millions of years? homo sapiens has only been around for 65,000 years, btw, and in that time we changed from a black african to yellow asians and
white europeans and red indians. we have gained in height. we have gained the ablility to drink milk from other animals, a mutation from 10,000 years
ago. we've lost our wisdom teeth and gained new cancers not seen 400 years ago. change happens, and once all those changes build up, what is the
result? evolution.