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