Reddit reviews Why Evolution Is True

"Prove" is a strong word. The fossil record provides extremely strong evidence for evolution from a common ancestor, but I concede that if that was all the evidence we have, I might not accept evolution either (though I am not a paleontologist... They might disagree).

But fossils are only one tiny bit of the overall evidence. In fact when Darwin formulated his theory, he didn't even have anything close to the fossil record we have now. His evidence came not from fossils but from comparative Anatomy and biogeology. And nowadays we have far more powerful evidence such as DNA & Genetics. I can completely understand why you don't accept evolution based solely on the fossil record, but if that is all you are looking at, you are ignoring the vast majority of the evidence.

If you sincerely want to know more, you can start on this Wikipedia page.. From there, I recommend either Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne or The Greatest Show on Earth. Both go into all the various bits of evidence, from all the various fields. Either one will give you a much deeper understanding of why the fossil record is very compelling evidence, but how it is far from the only evidence.

I can't say one single piece of evidence (or a single study) convinced me, but I can summarize the various pieces of evidence as biogeography - the fact that we see similar (related) creatures living in the same geographic area and even some creatures on different continents with similar features in places where plate tectonics would lead us to expect similarities - and genetics, most notably the human vitamin c gene, which is defective.


The evidence for evolution is not measured in single studies, but in the weight of the collective evidence. For an overview of the collective evidence across many fields, this book by Jerry Coyne lays out the general case for the factuality of evolution. If you read it you do need to be ready for some Dawkins-esque posturing - he wrote a book on why faith and science are incompatible, but the information in the book is very good. For a basic summary, this Khan Academy page does a good job.

Finally, institutions like the Biologos institute convinced me that it's Biblically okay to believe in Theistic Evolution (Evolutionary Creation? Whichever one posits God's active involvement in creation via evolution.). The final "nail in the coffin" was The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton.

The book Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne goes over these questions in detail. It talks about the evidence available to Darwin, and the evidence that we have discovered since then.

I listened to the audio book, but it seemed like a nice, accessible book, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.

Edit: One of the things that the book covered that I found most compelling was the geographic evidence of evolution, a topic I was not really familiar with previously.

To give one specific example, Marsupials are naturally occuring in only two areas, Australia and the Americas, especially South America. Darwin predicted that when we explore Antarctica, we would find fossil evidence of marsupials there, which was later determined to be true. At some point in history, ice bridges connected these three bodies, and allowed marsupials who naturally evolved in S. America to migrate to Australia (or was it the other way around?). Once the two populations split, they continued to evolve, so the two populations are now distinct species, but dna testing proves that they are very closely related.

I am badly paraphrasing the idea, but that is just one of several very strong arguments that the anti-evolution crowd tends to ignore. You really have to stretch to come up with a explanation for these distributions outside of evolution, so it is easier to just pretend the whole line of evidence doesn't exist.

(Unrelated: Marsupial distribution is also strong evidence against the Noah myth. If Marsupials had been on the Ark, how is it that they were able to travel from the middle east to S. America and Australia without leaving any fossil evidence anywhere along the way?)

FREE
(On The Origin Of Species)
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1228

KINDLE
(Why Evolution Is True (Jeffrey Coyne)
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-Is-True-ebook/dp/B001QEQRJW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1368402079&sr=1-1&keywords=why+evolution+is+true
(Evolution: What the Fossils say)
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Matters-ebook/dp/B007H9RGOK/ref=pd_sim_kstore_8
(Your Inner Fish)
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-3-5-Billion-Year-ebook/dp/B0010SKTRA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1368402391&sr=1-1&keywords=your+inner+fish

and there's a really good power point you can download here:
https://ssl.cbsd.org/sites/teachers/hs/jucollins/Pages/Evolution-Page.aspx

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: "Why Evolution is True"


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|Mexico|amazon.com.mx|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Australia|amazon.com.au|
|Italy|amazon.it|




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I enjoyed Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True". It's been a while since I read it, but the Amazon description suggests it is evenhanded.

• "Why Evolution Is True does not aim to prove creationism wrong. Rather, by using irrefutable evidence, it sets out to prove evolution right."

A good start: Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne-ebook/dp/B001QEQRJW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492988145&sr=8-1&keywords=Why+evolution+is+true

Apart from highschool (No one should count highschool lol) I've had two years of science studies, both from classes from biology to chemistry so I know a bit about both. I also regularly talk to science teachers I've had as well as frequent science forums when I can. For fun I read things such as

“Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution”
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God.../dp/0061233501
This was written by a scientist who is a Christian.

To:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001QEQRJW/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Why Evolution is True By Jerry A. Coyne

& then I also peruse news networks because every so often people make claims about evolution which leads me down the path of looking at their sources and how they reached that conclusion :)

So I'm stupid but not THAT stupid lol I just have honest questions that confuse me :)

this is also a possibility?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QEQRJW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Here you go. It is a full but that details the whole thing without pounding on religion. It is also a good primer on the scientific method.