How many users on these boards actually support "The Theory of Evolution"?

[Scoobes]

Evolution- UK.

Its the only theory that actually has any actual evidence to supoort it, from the molecular scale, to microorganisms to visual changes in development and phenotype. We still have no way to prove or disprove the existence of god and the closest thing I can think of that matches the description of god is the concept of energy and the forces found in physics. If god exists I don't think its in the way all the major religions seem to describe it. In fact, I'm somewhat against organised religion as I believe spirituality is something that is personal and not something you're told to follow.

Experiments carried out to try and simulate the environment as it is believed to have been when the Earth formed show that simple polymers can form quite readily including the building blocks to nucleic acids. RNA can fold into shapes that can catalyse reaction that are now carried out by enzymes that include replication of RNA. Its slower then the enzymes that cells carry now but even today we see RNA catalysis can occur. The formation of these show the start of slow evolution and development to more advanced systems. It seems likely the first membrane based life were more similar to viruses, and eventually evolved the ability to replicate themselves using these RNA catalysts before evolving the use of DNA for storage and amino acids and proteins for catalysis and other structural systems.

A number of bacteria are very similar to the organelles (namely chloroplasts and mitochondria) found in eukaryotic cells. This itself was a precursor to the formation of multicellular clusters as found in funghi. The interaction between these cells would then give rise to multicellular organisms. If you look at fossil records you can see the development of the human skull.

If you think about it, evolution is a self-evolving system so in theory we should see evolution speed up. IMO we are seeing this occuring. It took a long time before we went from bacteria to eukaryotes. This then allowed organisms to evolve into multicellular organisms in less time, which allowed for sexual reproduction which again speeds up evolution by adding extra diversity to reproduction. And now? Now we are comming up to a point where we will be able to evolve organisms as we see fit. We're already doing this with microorganisms, and with advances in stem cells and genetics, we're getting to a point where this may be possible in more complicated organisms.