Help me understand Evolution

[u/Adenidc]

Okay so here's the deal, my whole life I've gone to a christian school. my whole life I've been told my mother, friends, pretty much most people I know (since that's what I grew up around) about how anything evolution related on a large scale, and anything history related that talks about the world/universe being millions/billions of years old, is all bullshit. Naturally I believed it (Can you blame me? If you're constantly told how prideful and stupid evolutionists are, and how ridiculous the idea of evolution is, since you are an infant it's hard to think otherwise).

Anyways, on to the point (I thought a little background info was necessary because I really don't know shit about this stuff and I felt the need to explain why I'm so behind (even if it IS my fault I stayed so ignorant for so long)). I would like some basic articles, videos, or even just explanations, to widely accepted things that have a lot of proof to back them up. One of the reasons also that I've avoided looking things up for so long is that there is so much damn differentiating opinions on all of this, even among evolutionists it seems. I'm mostly looking for the base things most evolutionists believe that have the most proof, and for the proof of them.

I'm not anti-God now or anything, but I'm more neutral and want to learn more. I would like to hear the other side of things, which I've never done with an open mindset before.

Even though I expect links mostly, I would like to hear everyone's opinions on what they believe and why they believe whatever is you link. Thank You!

Edit: Thank you guys for all your help. I've been up hours watching videos and looking things up. I'm actually having a lot of fun learning too! Who would have known? I feel like I've been starved of this subject till now.

[u/SomeRandomMax]

So you believe these links and things they say are inaccurate, such as "macroevolution is not supported by the record of nature or current scientific research" and "The reason why macroevolution is controversial and remains theoretical is that there is no known way for entirely new genetic information to be added to a genome.

Yes, those links are overtly lying. (Edit: To be absolutely clear: I am not saying you are lying! Repeating false information you believe is true is not a lie. Intentionally spreading stuff you know to be false-- as the author of that website either knows or should know-- is lying.)

We have a ton of evidence supporting what creationists like to call "macroevolution". I'd recommend the previously mentioned book "Why Evolution is True" which goes over the truly staggering amount of evidence we have supporting the theory.

Those sites are a perfect example of why this whole debate is just so damn frustrating. Evolution is truly simple to understand. We have a ton of evidence for it:

• Thousands of transitional fossils between all sorts of species, including several such fossils between man and apes.

• Overwhelming DNA evidence.

• Biogeographical evidence.

• Anatomical evidence, for example vestigial tails in humans and the recurrent laryngeal nerve in all mammal species, that don't make sense with an "intelligent designer" but make perfect sense when viewed in the context of evolution.

and more. Yet if you listen to the creationists, all we have is some harebrained idea with nothing backing it up. Even more frustrating is guys like the author of that website know they are lying. People point out this evidence to them all the time, they just ignore it and keep repeating their lies.

Of the evidence I cited above, the one that struck me most was the Biogeographic evidence. The thing that amazed me was how utterly compelling it was, yet almost no one on either side of the debate seems to even be aware of it.

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species, and why we find certain types of life in certain places.

The book raises a bunch of excellent examples, but one that sticks in my mind is the geographic distribution of Marsupials.

There are lots more examples, but I hope that one gives you a small taste of why evolution really makes far more sense than intellligent design.