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Sydney Corder

Fullbright

AP Language and Composition

18 May 2018

The Theory of Evolution is Not Just a Theory

When the work of Charles Darwin was first made public in 1859, the church and clergy

held strong disbelief, unlike modern day scientists who are in almost complete mutual agreement

about the theory of evolution’s validity in the world of science. Even with that being said, a large

portion of Americans, close to three fourths, reject evolution in some way. This is largely in part

to evolutions conflicting ideals with religious beliefs and explanations provided in creation

theory as well as a public misunderstanding of how much factual evidence actually surrounds a

theory. But even with the large amounts of disbelief in the theory, Darwin's underlining findings

that organisms adapt and evolve over time through inheriting genetics from their parents and

common ancestors remains to be fact. This is heavily supported and taught about due to the long

term acceptance by scientists throughout the world on Darwin's work and more convincingly, the

plethora of knowledge we have about fossils and genetic makeup.

Evolution plain and simple is the idea that gene distribution changes over time, which is a

known and provable phenomenon and is responsible for the wide range of diversity on our

planet. In science the word “theory” is used much more differently than in everyday

conversation. Most people would describe a theory as more of a hypothesis or an educated guess,

while in science the word means much more. A theory is an explanation based off of well known

and accepted facts.This misinterpretation is common with the Theory of Evolution as we often
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hear it discredited as “just a theory”. The theory of evolution truly is a large set of ideas that

integrates and explains huge amounts of observations from several areas including embryology,

paleontology, botany, biochemistry, anatomy, and geophysics. According to educator and author

Hank Green, Evolution theory “is the theory that meticulously and precisely explains the facts,

and the facts are indisputable.”

Our oldest and biggest contributor of evidence to the theory of evolution starts with

fossils. Humanities grasp on the fossils of our prehistoric ancestors has changed tremendously

since we started studying them in the 1820’s. At this point in time, scientists believed dinosaur

bones to be the remains of giant iguana, which we today know is not true. It was not until the

1850’s when ideas that fossils are similar to organisms that live on today started to emerge. But

even before this, the work of Carl Linnaeus in the 1700’s classified organisms into families,

including humans and chimpanzees, who were both identified as homoscapians due to similar

bone structures despite of the genetic differences. Carl’s ideas of “homologous structures”

among a wide range of species further proved that organisms change over time and share

common ancestors that are identifiable with these bone structures that have lived on throughout

generations. Over 200 years later, and paleolithic evidence still finds these underlying principles

about the evolution of organisms over time to be true. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, scientist

discovered much older fossils, Rodhocetus that traced back whales, along with pigs, bison and

deer to a common ancestor. An ankle bone found in early Rodhocetus fossils not only proved

that whales used to walk on land, but are related to pigs and bison because of the similar

structure of the ankle that is very particular to only these animals. Fossils have been, and still are

very creditable means of proving evolutions basic theories, and make it clear that only evolution

can explain the origins of modern organisms.

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To put that into perspective, these findings were centuries before the discovery of genetic

material and DNA in 1953, which is where another crucial aspect in proving why evolution is

indeed a fact, begins. Just as we are similar to other invertebrates on a structural level, we are all

similar on a molecular level. The fact that all organisms use the the same RNA to encode genetic

material proves that we are all related, even if distantly. This more importantly proved the

theories about common ancestors found through fossils years before to be true. Not only that but

DNA can prove how alike species truly are due to aspects such as protein structure and gene

sequencing. Theoretically, the the closer the evolutionary relationship, the less these similar gene

structures should have changed over time. Findings like these can confidently explain why

organisms such as humans and monkeys look and function so similar, as we share about 98.6%

of the same DNA. Just as our DNA proves that we descended from our parents, it proves one of

the most important ideas about evolution: we all descended from common ancestors.

All of this long term evidence would make no surprise that around 98% of scientists

accept the Theory of Evolution. But this does not explain why such a large portion of Americans

reject it as a plausible explanation for human life. Further research from Pew Research Center

finds that compared to the United States, even larger proportions of people in other countries

reject Evolution. For example, in Latin America roughly four-in-ten or more residents of several

countries including Ecuador, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic say humans and other

living things have always existed in their present form. The idea that organisms exist and have

always existed in the present state they are in now is strongly based on religious ideas about

creation. Strong beliefs that a one-true creator intricately designed every organism the way they

are seen to be is a common teaching in religions like Christianity, the biggest religious party in

America. This would explain not only the numbers of disbelief, but the higher chance of not
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noticing the clash between religion and science among those who attend church and are more

religiously observant.

Even if a minority of people choose to believe the theory of evolution, it remains to be

the people who are important to its survival. In spite of efforts in many American states to ban

the teaching of evolution in public schools or to teach alternatives to evolution, such as creation

theory, courts have consistently rejected public school curricula that stray away from

evolutionary theory. In a 1987 Supreme Court case, Edwards v. Aguillard, the U.S. Supreme

Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring public school students to learn both evolution and

“creation science” violated the Constitution’s prohibition on the establishment of religion. This is

significant because of the criteria need to be taught in government funded schools. Evolution

theory is taught in school because it is “recognized by the scientific community as settled

because of their consistent performance in supporting research for some time; is a fundamental

to a field of study because they form a unifying framework to help us understand important

issues in that field; and can be presented to and understood by students in public schools at

various ages because they have the necessary content background and analytical skills to

understand them”. Despite the large numbers of people who do not care for the teaching of

evolution theory to their children, it continues in school curriculum due to the overwhelming

paleolithic and genetic evidence that supports it.

The fact is, evolution theory is a fact. In just a few hundred years humanity has been able

to explain some of the big questions about life itself. And while these explanations are not agreed

upon by overwhelming amounts of alternative, theological explanations, evolution still remains a

principal the world of science treats as fact. We can confirm this through not only paleolithic and

genetic evidence, but as well as more complex geological and observational evidence that is not
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discussed about in this essay. Perhaps as societies become more scientifically aware the number

of people agree with evolution theory will increase, but until now it will remain to be rightfully

taught to the youth in public schools as a matter of fact, not theory.

Works Cited

“The Francis Crick Papers: The Discovery of the Double Helix, 1951-1953.” U.S. National

Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health,

profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/Views/Exhibit/narrative/doublehelix.html.

Masci, David. “For Darwin Day, 6 Facts about the Evolution Debate.” Pew Research Center,

Pew Research Center, 10 Feb. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/10/darwin-

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day/.

Moore, Sarah. “How Can DNA Be Used to Determine an Evolutionary Relationship?” Why Is It

Important to Have a Social Life in College? | Education - Seattle PI, 21 Nov. 2017,

education.seattlepi.com/can-dna-used-determine-evolutionary-relationship-6179.html.

“Nested Hierarchies, the Order of Nature: Carolus Linnaeus.” Relevance of Evolution: Medicine,

evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_05.

“Why Teach Evolution?” NCSE, 16 Mar. 2016, ncse.com/library-resource/why-teach-evolution.

crashcourse. “Evolution: It's a Thing - Crash Course Biology #20.” YouTube, YouTube, 11 June

2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3GagfbA2vo.