Charles DarwinIN THE BEGINNING Evolution For Children And Beginners
[Keep in mind, this is the simplified version of evolution and big bang to introduce the concept. Links below will help you expand upon the subject.]
"Evolution" is what has always been and continues today. The way a certain creature develops offspring which is slightly different from the parents in order to assure survival is evolution.
Evolution simply means to develop from one way to a slightly different version of the original.
Evolution helped us get to be who we are today.
The universe is a big, endless area. Outside of the earth, there is no exact time or no direction. Time and direction is an idea made by people.
The universe is always changing. Many atoms, molecules and gases have always been. Some of these elements floating around are very big and others very small. These elements always are changing.
The beginning is like a kernel of popcorn. The popcorn is hard and small. When it gets really hot it explodes into a big, white, fluffy treat which no longer looks like the kernel.
One element knocks into another element very quickly and starts to change both elements. Sometimes they come together as one. Other times they break up into other new elements. Other elements expand upon itself and just grows.
One theory called "big bang" states that in the big vacuum of this universe, one element no bigger than a speck of dust became superheated and caused an explosion which caused it to expand. When they did, the pieces began to change and grow and continues to spread out.
These elements eventually created this section of our universe, our galaxy. Outside of our universe may be other universes made up of many galaxies. The galaxy in which we live is called the "Milky Way".
A galaxy is a bunch of stars, dust and gases as well as huge rocks, metals and other solid materials held together by a force of gravity. The center force of gravity in our galaxy is the sun.
The sun is a big star filled with dust and gases and is a mass of many elements which is on fire. All the planets are spinning around the sun because of this force of gravity.
THE EARTH'S BEGINNINGS.
When our galaxy was formed, many planets started to get sucked by the gravity force of the sun. The gravity of the sun helps each planet rotate around it. Many of the planets are spinning while they spin around the sun.
Each planet has its own gravity force. The Earth has its own gravity pressure which is different from other planets. It is because of gravity that keeps all life inside of our planet.
A heavy gravity force would make it hard to move. A light gravity force would make it hard to move as well. A steady force of gravity will keep things in place long enough to grow and develop.
Our planet, Earth spins while it spins around the sun. This lets one side of the Earth see light coming from the sun. The other side of the Earth is not facing the sun and sees darkness. This makes day and night on our planet. Each planet has in it a set of gases that it makes and is different for each planet. Some gases are just right to create living elements as we know them.
If a planet is close to the sun, everything on that planet will be really hot. If a planet is too far from the sun, everything on that planet will be really cold. The Earth is not too near or far from the sun and has gases that are able to support life forms we know. It is the reason why there is so much life on Earth. But how did life start?
In the beginning on Earth was filled with liquid, vapor and solid gases as well as mineral elements. The atmosphere around the Earth developed from the vapor gases. The liquid gases formed the water. The solid gases and minerals became parts of the land.
Vapor gases are light. Solid and liquid gases are heavy. These forms are always changing. Water can be all elements - solid, liquid and gas. Water is a vapor in the sky. When the vapor molecules get heavy, they become liquid and fall down from the sky. This makes rain. If the water gets too cold, it freezes and turns into ice or snow.
Water goes in a cycle from the clouds as rain. It falls on the ground as ponds, rivers, lakes, oceans and streams. There is so much water on the surface of the Earth that does not evaporate quickly. The water that evaporates turns to a vapor which goes back towards the sky. The water left over helps support life near the ground.
It is from this ground water where life began many millions of years ago. Water consists of elements of hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Every living thing has water inside. This is because originally all living things were first developed in the water.
When you leave water in a pool without bleach, what happens? For a few days it's nice and clear. Then after awhile green slime starts to grow on top and clings to the sides of the pool. If you did nothing to that pool, by the end of the summer it would look like a green swamp.
Water has tiny one cell organisms living in it. These beings are simple and barely visible. They have a unique life cycle. While they don't die, they were always making copies of themselves. Pretty soon, there were a lot of these single celled things living in the water.
All living things need to feed themselves in order to survive. These cells would have killed themselves if they did not change. There were too many cells in the water and if these cells did not change, they would all starve.
Some one cell creatures became two celled creatures. Some developed more cells. The creatures with more cells fed on the ones with less cells. The ones with less cells then had plenty eat, except now they were also food for the other creatures.
Over a few million years, the battle of these cells grew larger and large as they could have been seen without a microscope. Many of these cells became the model for many of the water animals we see today. Other of these cells changed in order to eat the food that was forming on the solid land. Some of these cells came out of the water and developed wings for many different reasons. These changes were not overnight, but took billions of years for single cells to become the earliest versions of bigger living creatures we know today.
It is because of those changes we have flying creatures, swimming creatures and land creatures.
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.
What is evolution? Evolution has happened, evolution is happening and evolution will continue to happen!All life forms have come from other life forms. All living things are related to each other. All life on Earth has a common origin.
One life form can mutate or change into another version of the same life form. Some changes are to survive which is called natural selection. Others are due to the enviornment. These changes help life to continue and get stronger. The weaker life forms die off and the new ones take over.
Mutation changes the genetic code of the cells called DNA. Life forms that are more complex than the original one celled creatures all have a genetic code. This code tells their cells what to become.
A person will have a genetic code that will tell some cells to become eyes or ears or skin or any part of the body inside and out. A person will have a completely different code from any other life form.
It is when two living beings come together that the DNA cells come together. Just like the big bang. These cells join and become one cell that grows and divides into more cells. Eventually that cell becomes a life form according to what the DNA cells dictate.
Some people have the wrong idea about evolution. Due to the term "Theory of Evolution" some assume it is only a theory that has not been proven. They believe there is no proof of a transitional fossil known as a missing link. They believe that there has never been a real observation to prove that things can evolve. They also mistakenly believe that evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance and violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Evolution has actually been proven within the past century. Due to chemical changes and pesticides, many insects have changed their DNA code in order to become able to survive what would have poisoned and killed them.
Many diseases have been cured due to medicines such as antibiotics. After awhile, the germs, which are living celled beings, would have become totally extinct if they did not change. These germs became stronger versions of the old germs and the DNA structure changed.
These are examples of evolution that has happened rather quickly. If such changes can be made in such a short time, it is also believable that major changes can happen over a much longer period of time.
The changes are not as big as some people think. A frog will not change into a cow. A monkey will not change into a man. Instead, the change is rather gradual. While primates such as monkeys, chimps, and apes may have similar DNA traits to man, people are merely their cousins on the evolution chart. Man did not come from apes, but developed from similar living sources which became separate creatures.
Some people try to claim that the DNA information carried by living things lets them create order. However, order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too like snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, and lightning. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system.
As far as missing links, there are many transitional fossils that either have been destroyed over time or have yet to be found. That does not mean that because some fossil proofs are not around that evolution did not occur.
There are in fact many examples of transitional fossils. What some people fail to understand is the evolution is very gradual. These transitional fossils found will have very minor changes and may have many other living forms changed from the original.
There's nothing in the theory of evolution which says an living form can have only one line of descendents, or that it has to go extinct when a line of descendents evolves.
The theory of evolution does not says that life originated, and evolution proceeds by random chance. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but natural selection and mutation is the very opposite of choatic chance.
Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation. Natural selection sorts out variations to see which will survive and which will not.
When the environment changes, or organisms move to a different environments, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations multiplying.
Abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) is not due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. To calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is impossible without recognizing the wide range of materials that the first cells might have formed from and the many different forms that the first organism might have taken.
Carbon atoms are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation to become more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA.
The theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least. Like so many other words, it has more than one meaning. Its strict biological definition is "a change in frequencies over time." By that definition, evolution is an indisputable fact.
Most people seem to associate the word "evolution" mainly with common descent, the theory that all life arose from one common ancestor. Many people believe that there is enough evidence to call this a fact, too.
Calling the theory of evolution only a theory is true, but the idea it tries to convey is completely wrong. Scientific theories differ from scientific laws only in that laws can be expressed more exactly. Being a theory implies self-consistency, agreement with observations, and usefulness. The argument rests on a confusion between what "theory" means in informal usage and in a scientific context.
A theory, in the scientific sense, is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena". The term does not imply lack of certainty.
Nothing in the real world has ever been rigorously proved, or ever will be. Proof, in the mathematical sense, is possible only if you have the luxury of defining the universe you're operating in. In the real world, we must deal with levels of certainty based on observed evidence. The more and better evidence we have for something, the more certainty we assign to it; when there is enough evidence, we label the something a fact, even though it still isn't 100% certain.
