Misconceptions about Evolution and
the Mechanisms of Evolution
Misconception 1: “Evolution is a
theory about the origin of life.”
Evolutionary theory deals
mainly with how life changed
after its origin.
 Regardless of how life started,
afterwards it branched and
diversified.

Evolution mainly studies how
Time
Now
Ancient
time
life forms branch and diversify
Misconception 2: “Evolution is like a
climb up a ladder of progress;
organisms are always getting better.”

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It is true that natural selection weeds
out individuals that are unfit in a
particular situation, but for evolution,
“good enough” is good enough. No
organism has to be perfect.
For example, many organisms (like
some mosses, protists, fungi, sharks,
and crayfish) have changed little over
great expanses of time.
Other groups may have changed and
diversified a great deal—but that
doesn’t mean they got “better.” After
all, climates change, rivers shift
course, new competitors invade—
and what was “better” a million years
ago, may not be “better” today. What
works “better” in one location might
not work so well in another. Fitness is
linked to environment, not to
progress.
Sometimes changes are not needed to survive. Many species
have changed little over great expanses of time
Misconception 3: “Evolution is like a
climb up a ladder of progress and man is
at the pinnacle of animal evolution”
Aristotle’s vision
of a Great Chain
of Being, above.
We now know
that this idea is
incorrect.

This statement suggests that human evolved from apes, and
human being the panicle of evolution. Both are incorrect!
Man considers himself superior to other creatures; from years of cultural and religious belief he considers
himself the centre of the universe, the pinnacle and even the purpose of creation; and that all creation
revolves around him; and that other creatures are here merely to serve his purpose and are therefore not
considered as beings in their own right.
Misconception 3.1: Humans evolve
from chimpanzees
Time

It is important to remember that evolution dosn’t
say Humans evolve from chimpanzees. Humans
and chimpanzees are evolutionary cousins and
share a recent common ancestor that was
neither chimpanzee nor human.

Humans are not “higher” or “more evolved” than
other living lineages. Since our lineages split,
humans and chimpanzees have each evolved traits
unique to their own lineages.
Are humans more closely related to Chimpanzees
or to Gorillas?

Misconception 4: “Gaps in the fossil
record disprove evolution.”

The fact that some transitional fossils are not preserved does not disprove
evolution. The environmental conditions for forming good fossils are not that
common.

Also, scientists have found many transitional fossils. For example, there are
fossils of transitional organisms between modern birds and their dinosaur
ancestors, and between whales and their terrestrial mammal ancestors.
Misconception 5: Individual organisms
evolve during their lifetimes?
Natural selection acts on
individuals
but populations
evolve
Misconception 6: “Natural selection
involves organisms ‘trying’ to adapt.”

Natural selection leads to
adaptation, but the process
doesn’t involve “trying.”

Natural selection involves
genetic variation and
selection among variants
present in a population.

Either an individual has genes
that are good enough to
survive and reproduce, or it
does not—but it can’t get the
right genes by “trying.”
Misconception 7: “Evolution means
that life changed ‘by chance.’ ”
The streamlined shape yellow fin tuna is no accident. A
more streamlined shape allows these fish to move
through the water faster. During their evolution, natural
selection favored the more streamlined tuna and other
aquatic swimmers. eg. Shark, dolphin, penguin

Evolution is NOT a random
process. The genetic variation
on which natural selection acts
may occur randomly, but
natural selection itself is not
random at all.

The survival and reproductive
success of an individual is
directly related to the ways its
inherited traits function in the
context of its local environment.

Whether or not an individual
survives and reproduces
depends on whether it has
genes that produce traits that
are well adapted to its
environment.
Misconception 8: “Living organisms
must be the product of careful and
conscious design, so perfectly
formed that they cannot be explained
by the random workings of evolution
alone.”
E.g. The human eye_an intelligent
design?

The human eye is
an organ of great
complexity, both in
structure and
function.

The proponents of intelligent
design (creationism) assert that
the combination of nerves,
sensory cells, muscles, and lens
tissue in the eye could only have
been "designed" from scratch.

After all, how could evolution,
acting on one gene at a time,
start with a sightless organism
and produce an eye with so many
independent parts, such as a
retina, which would itself be
useless without a lens, or a lens,
which would be useless without a
retina?
Building an eye: step-by-step criterion can be applied
to building a complex organ like the eye
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We begin with the simplest possible case: a
small animal with a few light-sensitive cells.
We could then ask, at each stage, whether
natural selection would favor the incremental
changes that are shown, knowing that if it
would not, the final structure could not have
evolved, no matter how beneficial.
Starting with the simplest light-sensing
device, a single photoreceptor cell, it is
possible to draw a series of incremental
changes that would lead directly to the
lens-and-retina eye: an increase in cell
number, a change in surface curvature, a
slight increase in transparency.
This incremental process is the real reason
why it is unfair to characterize evolution as
mere chance. Chance plays a role in
presenting random genetic variations. But
natural selection, which is not random,
determines which variations will become
fixed in the species.
Critics might ask what good that first tiny step,
perhaps only five percent of an eye, might be.
As the saying goes, in the land of the blind
the one-eyed man is king. Likewise, in a
population with limited ability to sense light,
every improvement in vision, no matter how
slight, would be favored -- and favored
dramatically -- by natural selection.
Design flaws -
Another way to respond to the theory of intelligent design is
to carefully examine complex biological systems for errors that no intelligent designer
would have committed.
vertebrate eye
octopus eye

Because intelligent design works from a
clean sheet of paper, it should produce
organisms that have been optimally designed
for the tasks they perform. Conversely,
because evolution is confined
to modifying existing
structures, it should not
necessarily produce perfection.
On the left is the vertebrate eye with
the nerve fibers facing out towards the
light source and on the right is an
octopus eye with the nerve fibers
pointing in towards the brain
Less-than-perfect vision Incredibly, this is exactly how
the human retina is constructed
some eye features seemed poorly ‘designed’:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The nerve fibers from the retinal rods and
cones extend not inward toward the brain
but outward toward the chamber of the
eye and source of light. They have to
gather into a bundle, the optic nerve,
inside the eye, and exit via a hole in the
retina.
Even though the obstructing layer is
microscopically thin, some light is lost
from having to pass through the layer of
nerve fibers and ganglia and especially
the blood vessels that serve them. The
eye is blind where the optic nerve exits
through its hole.
It would not be if the nerve fibers passed
through the sclera and formed the optic
nerve behind the eye.
This functionally sensible arrangement is
in fact what is found in the eye of a squid
and other mollusks, but our eyes, and
those of all other vertebrates, have the
functionally stupid upside-down
orientation of the retina.
Vulnerable to wear and tear, prone to break down and rendered helpless by
microscopic organisms - the human body is in fact an inefficient evolutionary
bodge-job.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-476607/The-tantalising-design-flaws-bodged-bodies.html#ixzz0p7mS3WuZ
The odd things in nature illustrate best how natural selection works.

Giant Pandas eat bamboo relatively well despite
the fact that they are bears. They possess a
relatively dexterous hand with
an
opposable thumb. This hand would win

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no prize for design. In contrast to ours it is very
clumsy. It is not constructed like our hand either.
There are five Panda fingers and a thumb. The
thumb is actually a part of the wrist
known as the radial sesamoid.
Giant Pandas are not good at what they do.
They were designed to do what other bears
normally do. Their hand is not
well
designed but it works effectively
based on what was available.

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Pandas don't process their food well either, why?
Their reproductive success as a whole is not
good. Yet, they survive.
Giant Pandas are examples of how nature juryrigs from available components and does not
necessarily do a "well designed" job either.
"Poor design" is consistent with the
predictions of the scientific theory of evolution
by means of natural selection. This predicts that
features that were evolved for certain uses, are
then reused or co-opted for different uses
Misconception: 10 “Evolution is ‘just’
a theory.”

In science, a theory is a rigorously
tested statement of general
principles that explains
observable and recorded aspects
of the world. A scientific theory
therefore describes a higher level of
understanding that ties "facts" together.
A scientific theory stands until proven
wrong -- it is never proven correct.
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The Darwinian theory of evolution
has withstood the test of time and
thousands of scientific experiments;
nothing has disproved it since Darwin
first proposed it more than 150 years
ago.
Indeed, many scientific advances, in a
range of scientific disciplines including
physics, geology, chemistry, and
molecular biology, have supported,
refined, and expanded evolutionary
theory.
Misconception: 11 “Most biologists
have rejected ‘Darwinism’ (i.e., no
longer really agree with the ideas put
forth by Darwin and Wallace).”


Evolution by natural selection
has been demonstrated at
many levels of biological
system and is recognized as
the unifying concept in
Biology.

Darwin’s idea that evolution generally
proceeds at a slow, deliberate pace has been
modified to include the idea that evolution
can proceed at a relatively rapid pace under
some circumstances. In this sense,
“Darwinism” is continually being modified.
Thus far, however, there have been no
credible challenges to the basic Darwinian
principles that evolution proceeds primarily
by the mechanism of natural selection acting
upon variation in populations and that
different species share common ancestors.
Scientists have not rejected Darwin’s natural
selection, but have improved and expanded
it as more information has become available.
For example, we now know (although Darwin
did not) that genetic mutations are the
source of variation acted on by natural
selection, but we haven’t rejected Darwin’s
idea of natural selection—we’ve just added
to it.
Misconception: 13 “Evolution and
religion are incompatible.”

Religion and science (evolution) are very
different things. In science, only natural
causes are used to explain natural
phenomena, while religion deals with
beliefs that are beyond the natural world.

The misconception that one always has to
choose between science and religion is incorrect.
Of course, some religious beliefs explicitly
contradict science (e.g., the belief that the
world and all life on it was created in six literal
days); however, most religious groups have no
conflict with the theory of evolution or other
scientific findings.

In fact, many religious people, including
theologians, feel that a deeper understanding of
nature actually enriches their faith. Moreover, in
the scientific community there are thousands of
scientists who are devoutly religious and also
accept evolution.
Pope John Paul II embraces evolution

"In a major statement of the Roman Catholic Church's position on the
theory of evolution, Pope John Paul II has proclaimed that the theory
is 'more than just a hypothesis' and that evolution is compatible with
Christian faith: "It is indeed remarkable that this theory has
progressively taken root in the minds of researchers following a
series of discoveries made in different spheres of knowledge', the
pope said in his message Wednesday. 'The convergence, neither
sought nor provoked, of results of studies undertaken independently
from each other constitutes, in itself, a significant argument in favor
of this theory..."

"If taken literally, the Biblical view of the beginning of life and
Darwin's scientific view would seem irreconcilable. In Genesis, the
creation of the world, and Adam, the first human, took six days.
Evolution's process of genetic mutation and natural selection-the
survival and proliferation of the fittest new species-has taken billions
of years, according to scientists ..."

"The Pope's message went much further in accepting the theory of
evolution as a valid explanation of the development of life on Earth,
with one major exception: the human soul. 'If the human body has its
origin in living material which preexists it, the spiritual soul is
immediately created by God', the Pope said."