Evolution

Samurott

Darwin had considerable evidence at his disposal. The most famous would be the finch beaks on the Galapagos Islands. But he also noted graduated geographic differences in pigeons, as well as traits bred by pigeon fanciers. Fossils of giant sloths indicated these creatures and forms and varieties long extinct.

Probably the single biggest piece of evidence was the fact most species fit into a nested hierarchy of forms, highly indicative of shared (or common) ancestry.

Yes. Without variation in organisms for natural selection to choose from there would be no change in allele frequency over time in the population of organisms under discussion. This is the definition of evolution, so without change over time, no evolution.

Charles Robert Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace discovered the process of evolution called natural selection by Darwin.

Science has no capacity to completely prove something... However these are some facts that make it likely to be true.

- An extensive fossil record which completely conforms to predictions.

- Observing evolution in action (such as the flu virus changing ever year, the HIV virus changing all the time, speciation in plants and animals in non-lab environments, lab experiments etc).

- Paternity testing (the techniques used in paternity testing are also used to demonstrate how closely related different species are).

- DNA (all organisms use the exact same code for proteins)

- similarities in phylogeny (why do we share so many features with other organisms?)

- similarities in DNA conform to the predictions made by evolution

The discipline of biogeography.

The two types are Dna, and fossils

Reproductive variation is central to evolution. All else in evolutionary theory follows directly or indirectly from the fact that organisms reproduce with variation.

It's mutability and it's heritability. It changes and these changes, in the germ line, are inherited by your progeny, The change in allele frequency over time in a population of organisms; evolution.

Incrementally. Variants that were camouflaged a little better (looked a little more like a stick) got eaten a little less (than the ones that looked a little less like a stick), and so the features of this variation were re-enforced in the population. And so you end up with animals that look exactly like a stick, as long as they're sitting still.

False

In themselves, they are not. But placed in the larger context of the animal kingdom, it becomes immediately apparent that they adhere to the nested hierarchies of biology on all levels, and that the phylogenetic trees in which they are found are strongly convergent independent of the trait assayed.

Darwin read the book Lamarck wrote and said that he did not get one idea from it as it was ludicrous in content. So, Lamarck would be the one scientist that did not influence Darwin according to Darwin.

lamarckism

A lion is naturally selected, at least in the wild. Dogs are selectively breed.

Individuals suited to the struggle for existence will survive and reproduce better than individuals not so suited. Differential reproductive success is just another name for evolution by natural selection.

Natural selection explains adaptive change in the immediate environment.

No. The dinosaurs rose in the Mesozoic era. The end of the Mesozoic era was also the end of the dinosaurs. The era following is the Cenozoic, which we are still in today.

Biologist

Biologist is a generalized answer. Biology covers a broad spectrum of career paths. More specific answers could be "Botany" or "Ichthyology" which are branches of biology but more specifically geared to the search for and study of Plants and Fish, respectively.

Cells

Herbert Spencer was the early sociologist who applied the concept of evolution to societies.