Rapid evolution?

Has rapid evolution ever been observed?

Have animals ever been seen by people to evolve within 100 years or less?
or some sort of thing like that?

Post links to info about the events if any had ever happened, thanks.
have a great day, thanks again for your time. take cair now

Hi yfh,
In the GCSE biology course I sat a few years ago, we were taught about some moths in the 19th century. They had white specks, so they could blend in with the white lichen on trees and avoid predators. As England became industrialised, the lichen was covered in black soot, ruining the camouflage of the moths. As a result, black moths became far more prevalent in cities.
Hope this helps, but I'm sure others can provide far better examples than this - or even confirmation of it?
Kaeroll

I have read (quite recently) about a couple of examples of plants that have evolved to the point whereby two different branches of what could previously be considered the same species of plant have changed enough that they are no longer able to interbreed. With enough time and different natural pressures, they conceivably will become quite different plants from each other - probably enough that if creationists are still around in a few (possibly tens to hundreds of) thousands of years, they will insist that the two plants may be similar, but were created as individual species.

If I can locate the documentation specifically indicating the plants in question, I'll post it here for you YFH.

Hello my fellow human,

Evolution is a slow process but certain rapid changes have been observed in certain animals and even man.
The earthworms are getting bigger and bigger, slowly, but rapidly in comparison with other evolutions.
Our backs are getting more erect from generations to generations.
Our brains are getting heavier because of the considerable decrease in physical work and increasing requirement of brain activity.
Our thumbs are getting modified too due to the increase in the use of electronic gadgets like computers(keyboard), mobiles, calculators etc.

Use does not Induce.

Arthur

Hello

Yes sir. You are right. Evolution is a consequence of the 'Survival of the fittest'(Theory of natural selection by Charles Darwin) in all cases.
But man has become a different case. Man does not need to struggle to survive.He is the most superior(scientifically).So, i guess, he's got to evolve without struggle. Man everywhere is therefore evolving at the same rate.
Maybe, something like Lamarckism(theory of inheritance of acquired characters) works for Man.
If you, or anyone, has a point against my opinion( for a part of it is my opinion), please say.

thank you.

Your fellow human (yfh)

"Rapid" is a relative term. A rapid snail may move at 3 or 4 feet per hour. A rapid aircraft may move at Mach 3. A 4 minute mile is rapid in human terms.

When you speak of geology, cosmology or evolution rapid ain't so rapid, if you know what I mean.

Random mutations are just that, random. That means one can happen today, tommorrow or a thousand years from now. Given that most mutations bestow no evolutionary advantage and are not selected for, you might have to wait for several lifetimes to observe one occuring and even then it will be several generations of the organism before the results are in.

Given very small breeding populations, great environmental stress, higher radiation fluxes,etc. evolution can move at very rapid rates(for it) and big changes can occur in thousands of years(as opposed to millions) alas you won't live long enough to observe much in the way of change.

All is not lost, however, in the microscopic world of one celled organisms you can observe several generations per hour(or faster with some virulent disease causing organisms). There, in the lab, you can observe extremely rapid evolution every day. So the answer to your question is yes, you can observe evolution occuring right before your eyes.

Grumpy

I do remember a few years ago, there was a new paradigm on the march in Evolutionary science, provacatively titled "Catastrophic Evolution" inwhich a new mutation arrives and is so good at dominating it's niche that dozens of other species have new pressure to adapt, what results is an explosion of new species, but of course that's like a nano-cambrian event so you're still loking at at least hundreds of thousands of years...

That may have petered out however, anyone else remember that?

I was scared that viruses and bacteria evoluve so much faster then humans and animals that they will eventualy defeat us...
^
Any comments about that?
(technolagy is very good but lets set that aside, are paracites out-doing us?)

Your fellow human (yfh)

The struggle against disease has always been difficult. Human mortality before germ theory and antibiotics at times approached 50% and drove average life expectencies down to the low 40's. Rickets, small pox, measles, plague, influenza, polio and Tuberculosis which today are medical cautionary tales were virilent killers affecting every family and sometimes wiping out whole populations(google small pox and indians). Gonarea and syphilis were as fatal as AIDS is today.

Diseases are constantly evolving(especially Influenza) and we are in danger of pandemics with high mortalities, but at least we know something about the biology behind deseases(though not all of them) and we have evolutionary biology to thank for that. Think about that the next time an IDer tries to convince you you should just pray that God will abstain from smitting mankind with a new flu.

Grumpy

Defeat us?

A parasite will never kill off its host species.

As the death rate goes up the rate of spread decreases.

If a disease is 100% fatal and very contagious and fast acting it burns itself out by killing all the hosts in the area, thus IT also dies out. This is one reason why Ebola, while deadly, does not cause Pandemics.

Only if a parasites/disease that allows their host sufficient time to pass on the disease will they themselves survive.

If humans simply used condoms more frequently they would REDUCE the severity of the AIDS virus.

Why?

Because AIDs is already a poorly communicated disease, if you slowed down its rate of infection, by definition, only the LESS LETHAL forms of AIDS would survive.

Over time it would become more cronic than killer.

This has already happened to Cholera.

The reason AIDS is a more lethal/faster killer in Africa then the rest of the world is the dependence on AIDs medication over condoms.

Arthur

i REALY hate paracites, i wish they didnt exist in the eco-system.
all they do is feed off of others,
its like theives in a society; its un-just.

I'll quote myself from another thread:

Rapid evolution:

This isn't related directly to the topic currently being discussed, but I thought I'd throw it in anyway.

Today I attended an awards day for science students who participated in a Nuffield Foundation placement over the summer (including myself, which is why I was there). One of the other projects was about the origins and evolution of the HIV-1 and -2 viruses, and the student whose project it was explained to me that one of the reasons we can't get an effective 'cure' for HIV is the rate at which it evolves - the transcription enzyme makes ~1 errors per copy of the HIV DNA, apparently. Add to this massive natural selection and you have very rapid evolution.

I'd like to see someone explain this phenomenon using Intelligent Design.

Kaeroll

HIV/AIDS is far less infectious than most people realize. If that's the case, why does it spread so fast in many places? The reason is that although the risk of an individual act may be quite low, when the same act is repeated over and over again, or where many millions of people are involved, the numbers of risks taken is beyond counting and the virus has a huge number of chances to cross from one person to another.

If you try to relate this to evolution - you would be saying that humans are the result of a virus. Which is basically what evolutionists say (mutations - natural selection). Mutations and natural selection can be nothing other than a virus - because the creature is not capable of designing (according to evolutionists) a better body for itself - it would all be completely random - the stronger virus surviving. But, in reality, those inflicted with the strong virus die - only the stronger animal and the one without the virus lives. Those with the virus do not mutate into something else. Those that transfer the virus to their children are only transmitting a virus/disease - not a better method of survival.

In any case, animals do not get HIV/AIDS nor can they transmit similar diseases (like SIV OR MAIDS) to humans. HIV/AIDS does not cause human mutation - it only causes disease.