What i can't understand about evolution....

To add to what Rrhain and others have said, consider the nautilus' eye. It seems to work just fine without the lense.I really need to stress that you need to throw away the concept "fully developed". Why? Because it applies to every step of the way. Every tiny step in evolution IS fully developed. Everything from a light sensitive cell to a hawk's eye is "fully developed".

It is completely understandable to see creationists misunderstanding evolution to such a degree. According to their creation myth, god created the various creatures fully formed from dirt. In other words, god knew ahead of time what his creatures would look like. This is much like an artist painting a picture of what he wants it to look like. When the creo is presented with something like evolution, they unconsciously try to superimpose their creation myth onto evolution.The easy part is pulling your hair out of your head and the hard part is trying to explain to them what evolution is as oppose to their misconception of what evolution is. Why do you think my hair is getting thinner and thinner?Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

My background is in physics, programming, and running simulations. I think it's what has helped me understand the nature of evolution. In the past, I've literally left my computer running a computation for a simulation for days at a time. Each result adds a minute (very very very small) change to the system. After several days, I looked at the simulation and it looked nothing like what I started out with.It helps to think of it like walking. A step doesn't get you very far. 2 steps doesn't get you very far. But given enough time and enough steps, you could potentially end up a thousand miles away. That's what evolution is. Evolution is just a change in allele frequency of a population over time. Given enough time and changes through mutation and natural selection, the changes could add up to quite a bit.Now, remember that we are talking about a population here. The most common mistake individuals make is trying to visualize an individual organism evolving. That's not how it works. In fact, I've heard a few ministers and preachers try to pass this off. It's nothing more than a lie. The smallest unit that can evolve is a population. I must also point out that if it were as simple as you getting more than the very basic knowledge of biological evolution through reading these boards, we wouldn't have a need for schools. These are subjects that take a life time to study. I remember how stressful it was when I took the biology classes in college, and I wasn't even a biology major.Nothing bothers me more than to have a person ask me "ok, explain to me what Kepler's laws of planetary motion are and how they work." I brought up Kepler's laws because they are, frankly, quite simple and yet I don't think anyone can adequately explain them in a few sentences. Now, imagine someone asking me to explain relativity or quantum mechanics.The point is don't expect people to be giving you a college education on biological evolution in a few posts and don't expect yourself to learn anything but the very basics from here.

Hey Percy, would quoting Darwin from The Origin of Species something like "I was wrong..." be considered quote mining? I've seen quite a few attempts to that affect.