This month, one of our most shocking letters to the editor was from Christian Mackenzie, who wrote in about the idea of Creationism and openly rejected evolution as a whole. Because of the overwhelming responses we’ ve received to this letter, we want to draw attention to some specific points of empirical evidence that support evolution. Types evidence range from a variety of different disciplines of science- from molecular biology, to paleontology, to anatomy- and some of this evidence has been known since before the nineteenth century. While evolution does have many questions remaining unanswered, the ever expanding field of science opinions
strives to prove assumptions false and reject especially improbable explanations, and thus our understanding of science is increasing.
Vogue was lucky this month to bring in some top scientists and have them share with us their research. From our knowledge, organisms are linked by lines of descent from common ancestry. We can therefore make the implication that over time, through the generations, there must be some evolutionary change at the molecular level- that is, in our DNA, our carrier of genetic information.
Moving through the generations, and passing through more and more descendants as the individuals evolve, the number of changes accumulate. Over time, the DNA between two organisms from two generations far apart from each other should be very different. Likewise, if two organisms have a recent common ancestor, and their DNA is compared, their DNA would be more similar. For example, the human and the chimpanzee are thought to have descended from a common ancestor about six million years ago. Because our relationship to chimpanzees is relatively recent, our DNA differs by just a couple percent. This would not be the case had evolution not occurred.
Further molecular evidence supporting evolution is found in studies of certain regulatory proteins, which cause genes to turn on and off as an organism develops. After looking at these regulatory proteins’ functions and examining small changes in the proteins, researches have observed some substantial effects on the function and anatomy of the individual organism. These changes can cause such profound effects that over time, they may be responsible for major evolutionary changes including the evolution of limbs from fins in tetrapods. Such changes suggest that small changes at the molecular level over time
The gene that, when mutated, causes cystic fibrosis, is very similar to the corresponding gene in the chimpanzee. As the organisms become less and less related to humans, the nucleotide sequences are less and less similar.
30 VOGUE JUNE 2013
By: Talia Liu