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Evolution

Evolution

1. In everyday use generally taken as any gradual change over time.

2. The belief that living things naturally change over time into more developed (i.e. "more highly evolved") creatures. Typified by the belief in spontaneous creation of simple single cell life and that such a single cell organism "evolved" into man over many millions of years.

Evolution, which is unsubstantiated, is often mistakenly confused with natural selection. Natural selection (which is observable in nature) is the process of "survival of the fittest" (and sometimes the luckiest). Natural selection favours those genes/traits which make a creature better suited to its environment and has the tendency to reduce the size of the gene pool (and thus the capability for variability within the species). Contrariwise, evolution requires new and novel genes/traits to be added to the gene pool. Evolution assumes that mutations in the genes account for new genes (and thus new information in the upward struggle) despite the observation that all known mutations result in a loss of information.

Evolution has never been observed. It is not repeatable. It is not supported by any evidence that has not either been debunked or is in contention. Evolution is a belief system masquerading as science. It is a philosophy, which for many is a religious dogma.

Relevant links:

www.creationdesign.org
www.answersingenesis.org
www.evolutionfairytale.com/ - A satirical look at the molecules-to-man story of evolution.

3. A search technique for finding optimum solutions in a large search space. The search technique relies on natural selection to select between possible parameters. Technically it uses natural selection and not evolution.

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