Admiring evolution

GapingMouth

As a born-in, I was taught to reject evolution right off. That coupled with not being taught it accurately at school (and for only about an hour) it is only now after breaking free of JWs that I have been learning about it. Dawkins has instilled in me an admiration and appreciation for evolution and its elegance. I am genuinely excited when new fossils are found that bridge certain gaps etc. There are countless examples of amazing adaptations and so much variety of life that stems back to a single ancestor etc. So my question is, what example or point about evolution do you like the most? Why? Do you feel as fulfilled as me in this subject?

alanv

Yes definitely. In Britain there is a new series on TV from the world famous David Attenborough called Challenges of life. The series of ten one hour programmes is about creatures surviving and adapting in their envioronments. We had the first one last monday. I would thoroughly recommend it.

The camera work is stunning and the programme really shows how all creatures have the same goal namely to adapt when necessary and to pass on their genes to the next generation

BurnTheShips

Did anyone one see the Discovery channel documentary on Ardipithecus? Pretty good!

MissingLink

It's just a beautiful thing. That complexity can be built up from such simple building blocks by natural processes is amazing. As Richard Dawkins says "it really is the greatest show on earth".

Haven't seen the show on Ardi yet. It's scheduled to record this Sunday. Really looking forward to it.

Midget-Sasquatch

What I really find inspiring are the different routes taken by life as it evolved, with so many possible life-forms coming into being and getting their chance in this world. Some specific life-forms stick around longer than others, but overall the realization that adaptation and change are not only necessary but almost surely intrinsic is a postitive motivator for me. I especially like the solid evidence that evolution is not solely propelled "forward" by a dog eat dog M.O. but that symbiosis has also introduced some huge leaps forward ( prokaryotes to eukaryotes). I'll stop now before I start singing "kumba yah". I think I had too much .... chocolate milk ... this more.

OnTheWayOut

What I like is that life finds a way to adapt. Life as we know it needs water, not ice and not really just humidity- but actual water.

Wherever water can be found, life finds a way. This is exciting because life may have found a way elsewhere in the universe. There are billions of galaxies with billions of stars, they probably have billions upon billions of planets. Science has found that water exists outside of earth, being that it is only made up of two elements that like to bond. Conditions for life must exist in a handful of other places, if not billions of other places.

And this is only for life as we know it to exist. There may very well be life as we would never imagine.