To all others that posted.....my appoligies on not originally stating MACRO evolution. Let's start over...l

Neanderthal man at the int'l Congress of Zoology (1958) was shown by Dr. A.J.E Cave to be a skeleton in France of an old man who suffered from arthritis.

And why is it still called a Theory....and not a fact?? Because it isn't!!!!

between evolution and god making the earth , there is NO hard actual evidence that either did

Evolution has left numerous records which reveal the history of different species. Fossils, together with the comparative anatomy of present-day plants and animals, constitute the morphological, or anatomical, record. By comparing the anatomies of both modern and extinct species, paleontologists can infer the lineages of those species. Important fossil evidence includes the connection of distinct classes of organisms by so-called "transitional" species, such as the Archaeopteryx, which provided early evidence for the link between dinosaurs and birds,[13] and the recently-discovered Tiktaalik, which clarifies the development from fish to animals with four limbs.[14]

The development of molecular genetics, and particularly of DNA sequencing, has allowed biologists to study the record of evolution left in the organisms' genetic structures. The degree of similarity and difference in the DNA sequences of modern species allows geneticists to reconstruct their lineages. It is from DNA sequence comparisons that figures such as the 95% similarity between humans and chimpanzees come.[15][16]

Other evidence used to demonstrate evolutionary lineages includes the geographical distribution of species. For instance, monotremes and most marsupials are found only in Australia, showing that their common ancestor with placental mammals lived before the submerging of the ancient land bridge between Australia and Asia.

Scientists correlate all of the above evidence, drawn from paleontology, anatomy, genetics, and geography, with other information about the history of Earth. For instance, paleoclimatology attests to periodic ice ages during which the world's climate was much cooler, and these are often found to match up with the spread of species which are better-equipped to deal with the cold, such as the woolly mammoth.

Morphological evidence
Fossils are critical evidence for estimating when various lineages originated. Since fossilization of an organism is an uncommon occurrence, usually requiring hard parts (like teeth, bone or pollen), the fossil record is traditionally thought to provide only sparse and intermittent information about ancestral lineages. Fossilization of organisms without hard body parts is rare, but happens under unusual circumstances, such as rapid burial, low oxygen environments, or microbial action[17].

The fossil record provides several types of data important to the study of evolution. First, the fossil record contains the earliest known examples of life itself, as well as the earliest occurrences of individual lineages. For example, the first complex animals date from the early Cambrian period, approximately 520 million years ago. Second, the records of individual species yield information regarding the patterns and rates of evolution, showing for example if species evolve into new species (speciation) gradually and incrementally, or in relatively brief intervals of geologic time. Thirdly, the fossil record is a document of large scale patterns and events in the history of life, many of which have influenced the evolutionary history of numerous lineages. For example, mass extinctions frequently resulted in the loss of entire groups of species, such as the non-avian dinosaurs, while leaving others relatively unscathed. Recently, molecular biologists have used the time since divergence of related lineages to calibrate the rate at which mutations accumulate, and at which the genomes of different lineages evolve.

Phylogenetics, the study of the ancestry of species, has revealed that structures with similar internal organization may perform divergent functions. Vertebrate limbs are a common example of such homologous structures. The appendages on bat wings, for example, are very structurally similar to human hands, and may constitute a vestigial structure. Other examples include the presence of hip bones in whales and snakes. Such structures may exist with little or no function in a more current organism, yet have a clear function in an ancestral species of the same. Examples of vestigial structures in humans include wisdom teeth, the coccyx and the vermiform appendix.

Molecular evidence

Comparison of the DNA sequences allows organisms to be grouped by sequence similarity, and the resulting phylogenetic trees are typically congruent with traditional taxonomy, and are often used to strengthen or correct taxonomic classifications. Sequence comparison is considered a measure robust enough to be used to correct erroneous assumptions in the phylogenetic tree in instances where other evidence is scarce. For example, neutral human DNA sequences are approximately 1.2% divergent (based on substitutions) from those of their nearest genetic relative, the chimpanzee, 1.6% from gorillas, and 6.6% from baboons.[18] Genetic sequence evidence thus allows inference and quantification of genetic relatedness between humans and other apes.[19][20] The sequence of the 16S rRNA gene, a vital gene encoding a part of the ribosome, was used to find the broad phylogenetic relationships between all extant life. The analysis, originally done by Carl Woese, resulted in the three-domain system, arguing for two major splits in the early evolution of life. The first split led to modern Bacteria and the subsequent split led to modern Archaea and Eukaryote.

The proteomic evidence also supports the universal ancestry of life. Vital proteins, such as the ribosome, DNA polymerase, and RNA polymerase are found in the most primitive bacteria to the most complex mammals. The core part of the protein is conserved across all lineages of life, serving similar functions. Higher organisms have evolved additional protein subunits, largely affecting the regulation and protein-protein interaction of the core. Other overarching similarities between all lineages of extant organisms, such as DNA, RNA, amino acids, and the lipid bilayer, give support to the theory of common descent. The chirality of DNA, RNA, and amino acids is conserved across all known life. As there is no functional advantage to right or left handed molecular chirality, the simplest hypothesis is that the choice was made randomly in the early beginnings of life and passed on to all extant life through common descent.

Molecular evidence also offers a mechanism for large evolutionary leaps and macroevolution. Horizontal gene transfer, the process in which an organism transfers genetic material (i.e. DNA) to another cell that is not its offspring, allows for large sudden evolutionary leaps in a species by incorporating beneficial genes evolved in another species. The Endosymbiotic theory explains the origin of mitochondria and plastids (e.g. chloroplasts), which are organelles of eukaryotic cells, as the incorporation of an ancient prokaryotic cell into ancient eukaryotic cell. Rather than evolving eukaryotic organelles slowly, this theory offers a mechanism for a sudden evolutionary leap by incorporating the genetic material and biochemical composition of a separate species. This evolutionary mechanism has been observed. Heneta, a protist, is an extant organism that is undergoing endosymbiotic evolution[21][22].

Further evidence for reconstructing ancestral lineages comes from junk DNA such as pseudogenes, i.e., 'dead' genes, which steadily accumulate mutations. [23]

Since metabolic processes do not leave fossils, research into the evolution of the basic cellular processes is done largely by comparison of existing organisms. Many lineages diverged when new metabolic processes appeared, and it is theoretically possible to determine when certain metabolic processes appeared by comparing the traits of the descendants of a common ancestor or by detecting their physical manifestations. As an example, the appearance of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere is linked to the evolution of photosynthesis.

Evidence from studies of complex iteration

"It has taken more than five decades, but the electronic computer is now powerful enough to simulate evolution" assisting bioinformatics in its attempt to solve biological problems.[24] Computer science allows the iteration of self changing complex systems to be studied, allowing a mathematically exact understanding of the nature of the processes behind evolution and providing evidence for the hidden causes of known evolutionary events. The evolution of specific cellular mechanisms like spliceosomes that can turn the cell's genome into a vast workshop of billions of interchangeable parts can be studied for the first time in an exact way.

Christoph Adami et al., for example, make this point in Evolution of biological complexity:

To make a case for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity in biological evolution, complexity needs to be both rigorously defined and measurable. A recent information-theoretic (but intuitively evident) definition identifies genomic complexity with the amount of information a sequence stores about its environment. We investigate the evolution of genomic complexity in populations of digital organisms and monitor in detail the evolutionary transitions that increase complexity. We show that, because natural selection forces genomes to behave as a natural "Maxwell Demon," within a fixed environment, genomic complexity is forced to increase. [25]

David J. Earl and Michael W. Deem also make this point in Evolvability is a selectable trait:

Not only has life evolved, but life has evolved to evolve. That is, correlations within protein structure have evolved, and mechanisms to manipulate these correlations have evolved in tandem. The rates at which the various events within the hierarchy of evolutionary moves occur are not random or arbitrary but are selected by Darwinian evolution. Sensibly, rapid or extreme environmental change leads to selection for greater evolvability. This selection is not forbidden by causality and is strongest on the largest-scale moves within the mutational hierarchy. Many observations within evolutionary biology, heretofore considered evolutionary happenstance or accidents, are explained by selection for evolvability. For example, the vertebrate immune system shows that the variable environment of antigens has provided selective pressure for the use of adaptable codons and low-fidelity polymerases during somatic hypermutation. A similar driving force for biased codon usage as a result of productively high mutation rates is observed in the hemagglutinin protein of influenza A. [26]

"Computer simulations of the evolution of linear sequences have demonstrated the importance of recombination of blocks of sequence rather than point mutagenesis alone. Repeated cycles of point mutagenesis, recombination, and selection should allow in vitro molecular evolution of complex sequences, such as proteins." [27] Evolutionary molecular engineering, also called "directed evolution" or "in vitro molecular evolution", involves the iterated cycle of mutation, multiplication with recombination, and selection of the fittest of individual molecules (proteins, DNA and RNA). The process of natural evolution can be reconstructed, showing possible paths from catalytic cycles based on proteins to ones based on RNA to ones based on DNA.[28]

seriouslyfunnylady...... so when fish were fish...they had gils right? When they came on land...they instantly developed lungs and the gils just disappeard ? We will see how long it takes to disprove their apparant "proof" on that article.

To all others that posted.....my appoligies on not originally stating MACRO evolution. Let's start over...lol

therefore, all babies in the womb are endowed with roughly the same configuration. this includes nipples. when the sex is finally decided through testosterone(male), or estrogen(female), some features which are already present either fade or are left as is. the nipples are one such item. if the sex is female, well, you already have the parts. if male, your nips become obsolete and you're stuck with them.

The sex of the baby is not decided by testosterone and estrogen levels. I've always heard it's decided by the Y chromosome.

So.....What happens to the women?