What and how is evolution?

In my experience, my peers, pastors, and parents have explained evolution in many different ways. As a senior in college, I understand that the concept of evolution is not new, nor does it conflict with my beliefs. Humans have always wanted to understand the world and how it works, and, as of right now, our current theory of evolution is the best understanding we have of how our world works. We can provide evidence that traits can be passed down, that groups of organisms can change, and that organisms that once may have had an ability to reproduce with one another can no longer do so. The scientific theory of evolution is one of change and adaptation, not of a "creatorless and random process" as evolution had been described to me in the past. To me, and all of science, the theory of evolution is functionally fact. Though it cannot be proven without a shadow of a doubt, all of science and the human experience can be traced to the concept of evolution and a changing world. We as humans may learn that we figured it out (or that we were completely wrong), but for now the knowledge that we do have about evolutionary processes is good enough to make a living and an understanding on.

Comments

  1. Jenna ThompsonSeptember 10, 2021 at 4:55 PM

    I completely empathize with how you said evolution had been explained to you in the past as a "creatorless and random process", but how after your education you are now able to realize that evolution is really the facts of what happens to organisms that spawned a theory of how and why it happens to organisms in the ways that it does. I also feel that it is problematic to refer to evolution as a creatorless process when evolution is the theory of how things change, not how it all began (as we said in our first class discussion), and it's not really a debatable topic anyway at this point.

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