Hello everyone! Here's a non-confrontational, very simple piece that explains the basic ideas behind evolution. I put this together last year to explain evolution to my brother. Undoubtedly there are holes in this explanation, and I'm sure any biologist here could explain things in far more detail and with more accuracy, but if you're looking for an easy way to show a loved one that evolution makes sense, this might be a good place to start.

It consists of a few observable facts and a thought experiment.

First, a few observations -

Tall parents tend to have tall children. Short parents tend to have short children. Black parents tend to have black children. White parents tend to have white children. This is true for animals as well as for human beings. We can call these differences "traits". We inherit traits from our parents and pass them down to our children. It's certainly possible for short parents to have a child who will grow to be tall, but generally speaking there's a pretty good chance that a child will get the traits of his or her parents.

In nature some traits are very important. For instance, a gazelle better be a fast runner, because when a lion starts chasing the herd, the slowest gazelle is going to be lunch.

Now let's imagine two gazelles in the herd. One is fast, the other is slow. Which gazelle is more likely to survive into adulthood and have a family? The faster one, obviously. The faster one survives because in our simplified environment where outrunning a lion is the key to survival, the fast one "fits" into its environment better than the slower one. That, in a nutshell, is what we mean when we say "survival of the fittest." If the traits you inherited from your parents give you a competitive advantage in the environment you live in, then you "fit" your environment well and are more likely to survive than someone who doesn't "fit" as well.

There's another vocabulary phrase I want to introduce here: "Natural selection". Remember the fast gazelle and the slow one? The traits that make a gazelle run fast are "selected" over time. In other words, if a trait gives a gazelle a better chance at living long enough to make baby gazelles, that trait is being naturally selected by the environment - which in this case means the lions. Survival of the fittest is what happens to individual gazelles, but natural selection is what happens to the herd. Those gazelles whose traits would slow down any baby gazelles that inherit them are probably going to die themselves before they have the chance to make babies and pass those traits down.

Logically, the herd must be getting a little faster each generation. If only the fastest half of the gazelles live long enough to have babies, and only the fastest half of those babies live long enough to have babies of their own, then the whole herd is getting a little bit faster every generation. The herd is slowly changing over time. We call this slow change "evolution."

Of course, the lions are evolving, too. The fastest lions get to eat regularly and live long enough to make babies. The slowest lions starve to death before they have the chance to pass their slow traits down to the next generation.

In this simplified environment we've imagined, both the lions and the gazelles must constantly evolve just to keep up with each other. Nature is like that. Each generation of giraffe gets taller because the short giraffes can't reach the leaves, and each generation of tree gets taller because the shortest trees don't have enough leaves left to keep them alive. Bird's eyesight gets better and insect's camouflage gets better. It's an evolutionary arms race, and the traits that confer the best chance to live long enough to pass themselves on to the next generation are the traits that get selected over and over, causing the species to evolve towards those traits.

We can see natural selection happening in the natural world around us every day. Maybe we can't see evolution with our eyes, but all evolution really is is a long series of natural selections, playing out over eons, and if our lifespans were long enough, we could see the horns on rams get bigger and peacocks get prettier over generations.

Evolution in simpler terms...

The MONEY-BAG in the family automatically becomes the Head even though he is the Youngest.

Evolutionally speaking, He will lead future generations to more riches.

SMH...

OONI OF IFE, you are sighted...

EMIR SANUSI, I hail!

Unionised:
Evolution in simpler terms...

The MONEY-BAG in the family automatically becomes the Head even though he is the Youngest.

Evolutionally speaking, He will lead future generations to more riches.

SMH...

OONI OF IFE, you are sighted...

EMIR SANUSI, I hail!

Good example.

Another good example would be that in Nigeria, for example, greed, selfishness, egotism and avarice are very important survival traits.

The greedy, selfish and avaricious people are most likely to gravitate to , cheat , steal, deceive and kill their way to positions of political and financial power.

Young people , their futures imperilled by the profligacy and moral perfidy of the ruling class, then look up to them, imitate them, and before you know it, the trait multiplies gradually, and over time, exponentially , to overwhelm everything and everyone good and decent.

Consequently, the society is gradually transformed to produce the greedy, the selfish, the avaricious in far greater numbers than the meek, the humble and the patriotic.

In a nutshell, that's the Evolution of a failed state.

menesheh:
Hello everyone! Here's a non-confrontational, very simple piece that explains the basic ideas behind evolution. I put this together last year to explain evolution to my brother. Undoubtedly there are holes in this explanation, and I'm sure any biologist here could explain things in far more detail and with more accuracy, but if you're looking for an easy way to show a loved one that evolution makes sense, this might be a good place to start.

It consists of a few observable facts and a thought experiment.

First, a few observations -

Tall parents tend to have tall children. Short parents tend to have short children. Black parents tend to have black children. White parents tend to have white children. This is true for animals as well as for human beings. We can call these differences "traits". We inherit traits from our parents and pass them down to our children. It's certainly possible for short parents to have a child who will grow to be tall, but generally speaking there's a pretty good chance that a child will get the traits of his or her parents.

In nature some traits are very important. For instance, a gazelle better be a fast runner, because when a lion starts chasing the herd, the slowest gazelle is going to be lunch.

Now let's imagine two gazelles in the herd. One is fast, the other is slow. Which gazelle is more likely to survive into adulthood and have a family? The faster one, obviously. The faster one survives because in our simplified environment where outrunning a lion is the key to survival, the fast one "fits" into its environment better than the slower one. That, in a nutshell, is what we mean when we say "survival of the fittest." If the traits you inherited from your parents give you a competitive advantage in the environment you live in, then you "fit" your environment well and are more likely to survive than someone who doesn't "fit" as well.

There's another vocabulary phrase I want to introduce here: "Natural selection". Remember the fast gazelle and the slow one? The traits that make a gazelle run fast are "selected" over time. In other words, if a trait gives a gazelle a better chance at living long enough to make baby gazelles, that trait is being naturally selected by the environment - which in this case means the lions. Survival of the fittest is what happens to individual gazelles, but natural selection is what happens to the herd. Those gazelles whose traits would slow down any baby gazelles that inherit them are probably going to die themselves before they have the chance to make babies and pass those traits down.

Logically, the herd must be getting a little faster each generation. If only the fastest half of the gazelles live long enough to have babies, and only the fastest half of those babies live long enough to have babies of their own, then the whole herd is getting a little bit faster every generation. The herd is slowly changing over time. We call this slow change "evolution."

Of course, the lions are evolving, too. The fastest lions get to eat regularly and live long enough to make babies. The slowest lions starve to death before they have the chance to pass their slow traits down to the next generation.

In this simplified environment we've imagined, both the lions and the gazelles must constantly evolve just to keep up with each other. Nature is like that. Each generation of giraffe gets taller because the short giraffes can't reach the leaves, and each generation of tree gets taller because the shortest trees don't have enough leaves left to keep them alive. Bird's eyesight gets better and insect's camouflage gets better. It's an evolutionary arms race, and the traits that confer the best chance to live long enough to pass themselves on to the next generation are the traits that get selected over and over, causing the species to evolve towards those traits.

We can see natural selection happening in the natural world around us every day. Maybe we can't see evolution with our eyes, but all evolution really is is a long series of natural selections, playing out over eons, and if our lifespans were long enough, we could see the horns on rams get bigger and peacocks get prettier over generations.

Thanks for simplifying this in small chewable bits for those who sincerely seek nourishment.

But don't kid yourself that these religio-clowns would learn anything here.
The right hemisphere of their brains would not let this elementary science pass through , because it would challenge their mental status quo.

plaetton:


Thanks for simplifying this in small chewable bits for those who sincerely seek nourishment.

But don't kid yourself that these religio-clowns would learn anything here.
The right hemisphere of their brains would not let this elementary science pass through , because it would challenge their mental status quo.

The oceans of evidence mounting as a road-block to progressive-lefties, not accepting evolution as a fact are so gigantic.

This is a free world, one can choose to be ignorant wilfully. I really care what's true.

Tell them

Pretty good article, but like someone said up there, the confused religio-bigots will certainly take the easy way out, which is to believe rather than understand.

Their lives and brains has already been configured to believe anything from Bible, Koran etc but doubt Science. Unfortunately science sustains lives and makes it easy while religion tells us that our reward for suffering here on earth is somewhere after we die.

Aaaah, remember you don't have the rights to FastTrack the imaginary reward by killing yourself, you just have to stay here and suffer until you die naturally.