Evolution Myths

There’s a lot of myths about evolution. Some of them come from misunderstanding what science says. Others are deliberately spread by people wishing to discredit the science. This page explains a few of the common ones.

• There is no evidence for evolution
• Only atheists believe in evolution
• Evolution doesn’t explain how life started
• Microevolution happens, but not macroevolution
• If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
• What about the missing link?
• Doesn’t evolution say a dog can give birth to a cat? Why don’t we see any crocoducks?

There is no evidence for evolution

Many biologists consider evolution to be one of the best supported discoveries in all of biology, with every fossil found and every genome sequenced acting as supporting evidence for the theory.

See our Evidence for Evolution page.

Only atheists believe in evolution

The Catholic Church, the largest Christian church in the world, accepts that evolution is the best explanation for the origin of human life. Although obviously individual Catholics each have their own opinions, a survey by Pew Research found that more than half accept evolution.

Many other large mainstream Christian churches accept evolution, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Episcopal Church (United States), and the Church of England.

The same Pew Research survey found that 80% of Hindus, 77% of Jews, and 81% of Buddhists accept evolution.

Most people who accept evolution are actually religious.

Evolution doesn’t explain how life started

This is actually not a myth! Evolution doesn’t explain how life started. But it doesn’t attempt to.

Evolution explains how life has changed, diversified, and grown in complexity. Where life came from to begin with (biogenesis) is a separate question, and is an area of active research.

Think of it this way: when you learn to play a piano, you don’t learn how to build a piano, but that doesn’t make learning how to play the piano a less valid thing to study.

Microevolution happens, but not macroevolution

Some people claim to believe in “microevolution”, but not “macroevolution” — that is, they believe that over generations, species can adapt to be better suited to their environment, but not become a new species.

The most common way new species evolve is called allopatric speciation. In this example, we’ll discuss mice living in a forest, but the same ideas can be applied to any animal or plant.

1. An avalanche collapses the bank of a lake and creates a new river dividing the forest into two halves. Over time this river becomes wider.
2. The mice are divided into two populations at opposite sides of the river. They cannot swim across the river.
3. Small changes (adaptation or microevolution) occur in the population on the southern half; perhaps less fruit grows there and over hundreds of generations, their digestive systems get better at digesting grasses.
4. Small changes occur in the population on the northern half as well; there are more predatory animals in this part of the forest and the lighter colored mice are often eaten; browner mice survive and after just a few generations, the mice on this side of the river are entirely brown.
5. A million years go by and the two populations of mice have changed in different ways.
6. People build a dam which cuts off the flow of the river and the mouse populations are reunited and can spread throughout the forest. The brown mice have for generations tried to breed with the darkest mates possible for camouflage, and rarely try to mate with the paler mice. And on the rare occasions when the two populations do attempt to mate, their genetics have become so incompatible that no healthy offspring can result.
7. The two populations have become different species.

While evolution only makes tiny changes each generation, over the course of thousands or millions of generations, those small changes add up.

Given how many generations it takes for speciation to take place, most scientific evidence for speciation is found in the fossil record. However, speciation has also been observed in the lab, using bacteria and animals which have a very quick reproductive cycle such as fruit flies (Diane Dodd, 1989).

If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

If motorbikes evolved from bicycles, why are there still bicycles?

Motorbikes and bicycles each have a different niche. A motorbike is better for travelling long distances quickly. A bicycle will help you get fit, and will usually cost a lot less. There is room for both to exist; the invention of motorbikes didn’t cause bicycles to be entirely replaced — it just broadened the variety of two-wheel transportation.

A variety of other apes exist because humans haven’t totally replaced them in all areas, and indeed conservationists are now working to protect apes and ensure that there are “still apes” in years to come.

What about the missing link?

If I show you a picture of some yellow liquid and a later photo which shows the liquid as red, and claim that there was a chemical reaction which changed the liquid from yellow to red, it would be reasonable for you to ask for a picture of the “missing link”, where the liquid is orange. But if I showed you the picture of the orange liquid, it’s a little unfair to insist that there are now two missing links — one between yellow and orange, and one between orange and red.

Scientists have found a number of different intermediate forms between modern humans and earlier apes. There will likely always be gaps in our knowledge as well-preserved fossils are hard to find, but the evidence that we did evolve from other apes is overwhelming.

Doesn’t evolution say a dog can give birth to a cat? Why don’t we see any crocoducks?

Evolution does not predict that an animal will ever give birth to a completely different animal — instead it relies on gradual change which is only noticeable over a period of hundreds of thousands of years.

It also does not predict chimeras — combinations of existing animals — will occur.

A dog giving birth to a cat, or a crocodile–duck hybrid, are not expected by the theory of evolution; in fact they’d go a long way to disproving current theory.