What represents evolutionist thinking?

Answer 1

Much like religious thinkers, there are many different types of evolutionary thinkers. However, the main concept of evolutionary thinking is that a species changes over time.

Most people, religious or not, can agree on this on a small scale. For instance, the dietary needs of humans have drastically changed through the years. The jawline is slowly changing, and the room for wisdom teeth has been reducing.

Whales skeletons have been found in the Egyptian desert with rudimentary legs, meaning as they moved into the water, they lost the need for legs.

Not everyone believes these things, but overall, they are widely accepted evolutionary thoughts.

Where the disagreements occur more is when wider jumps come into play. Creationist thinking believes that people were made in God's own image, and that is the way they have always been, maybe with some small changes, like the wisdom teeth.

In evolutionary thinking, humans went through a very complex genetic revolution to become what we are today. Some believe there was a very early chimpanzee-human divergence, and that this is represented by species such as Sahelanthropus tchadensis, an early bipedal. Others believe that these other species of bipedals were each unique, and that humans as we know today were a result of survival of the fittest or possibly cross species breeding.

Some other examples of evolutionary thought are:

• The color shift in the peppered moth. Previous to the Industrial Revolution, 98% of these moths were a light, almost white color. After the Revolution, 95% of the moths became a dark color variation. It is believed they did this to better camouflage in a more polluted environment.
• Italian wall lizards were introduced to a new island in the 1970s. On the original island, they are mainly insectivores, but on the second island, they became more herbivorous. Their heads became larger and their bite force increased to accommodate the diet change.

Answer 2

Evolutionist thinking is the perspective that species have evolved over time through mechanisms such as natural selection and genetic variation. It is based on the scientific understanding that all living organisms are related through a common ancestry and that life has changed and diversified over billions of years. Evolutionists emphasize the importance of evidence, such as fossil records, genetics, and comparative anatomy, to support their conclusions.