I am getting confused about this. Animals and plants and things are said to be able to adapt, right? But then what is the difference between adaptation and evolution? Because if animals and plants and stuff can adapt to, for example, living in an unusual area, then what is the difference?<\/p>\n\t
Adaptation is “A change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment,” but even after adapting, the organism remains the same thing it originally was. Adaptation is reversible, so long as the gene pool remains diverse. The finch gene pool actually contains a large variety of beak styles. In an area of limited food resources, a particular beak style, most suited to that food source becomes dominant, but the bird is still a finch. If other food becomes available, other beak styles will arise, especially if access to a general gene pool of finches remains available.<\/p>\n
Evolution, however, claims that changes accumulate to the point that an organism is no longer the same species. And that the changes become so great that breeding with organisms of the former type is no longer possible; that is, the change is not reversible.<\/p>\n
There is lots of evidence of adaptation. There is no evidence of evolution.<\/p>\n\t
Okay so stuff like beak styles will change in animals depending on their surroundings in adaptation, but the species is still the same species. But what people call evolution is it is not the same species and there is no evidence for evolution but there are lots for adaptation.<\/p>\n
I am wondering, you said that adaptation is reversible. How I understand reversible in this case is that if a new finch beak style arises, the finch can go back to previous beak styles and they can still breed with different beak styled finches as long as the gene pool stays of different kinds. I don’t completely understand gene pools but I do a little. But what if the gene pools do not remain diverse, is an adaptation not reversible then? Because that seems more like what people claim evolution to be if it is not reversible.<\/p>\n\t
First, in adaptation, a particular feature was always possible in a species. It was already pre-encoded in the DNA. It is only because of environmental need that a particular feature becomes dominant. In other words, in adaptation, there is no claim that new information is being created. In fact, what is really happening is a loss of information — a loss of flexibility — because of the pressures of the environment. Yet this loss can be reversed by breeding with others that have the missing pieces.<\/p>\n
Let’s use people as an example. In a complete mixing of people, the majority of people would be of a middle skin tone. Some would be lighter, some darker, but the middle tones would be the dominant trait. But near the equator, the darker skin tones become more dominant because the exposure to the sun causes sunburns and skin cancers in lighter-skinned people. Isolate this darker-skinned group of people from the rest of the world population and dark-skinned is all that is born because the information for lighter skin is lost in the isolated group. Up north lighter-skinned people become more dominant because there is less sunlight and people need sunlight to produce vitamin D. Lighter-skinned people can produce more vitamin D from less sunlight than darker-skinned people. Isolate this lighter-skinned group and light-skinned is all that is born in this group because the darker skin genes are lost.<\/p>\n
But once dark-skinned and light-skinned people met and have children, the missing elements are re-introduced in their children. Most of their children will be of the middle tones, but they can also have some light and some dark-skinned children by the second generation.<\/p>\n
Throughout it all, people still remain people. But if in the isolation all the people carrying a particular gene dies out, then there is no way to bring it back into the general gene pool for people. That feature would be lost forever.<\/p>\n
Evolution, however, claims that new information is created. They claim that environmental pressures cause a species to create new DNA that never existed before. With the new features, the species becomes a new species, unable to breed with the old species. The problem is that this is wishful thinking. There is no evidence of new viable DNA coding being created by random breeding. There is no evidence of new species arising.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I am getting confused about this. Animals and plants and things are said to be able to adapt, right? But then what is the difference between adaptation and evolution? Because if animals and plants and stuff can adapt to, for example, living in an unusual area, then what is the difference? Answer: Adaptation is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-28646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-evolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":27198,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-there-microevolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":28646,"position":0},"title":"Is there microevolution?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I want to make clear that I believe that God created everything according to Romans 1:20.\u00a0I was with friends and the topic of a movie called\u00a0Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed came up. I mentioned that someone I knew said \"You Creationists don't believe in evolution, but we evolutionists believe in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34815,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/isnt-hinduism-older-than-judaism-and-other-questions-about-early-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":28646,"position":1},"title":"Isn’t Hinduism older than Judaism? And other questions about early history.","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Isn't Hinduism older than Judaism? Why does my textbook always talk about dates as far as 10,000 years back? For example, \"farming methods were discovered almost 10 thousand years ago in Mesopotamia\" is in a 9th-grade geography book. In one post you said animals were herbivores before the flood.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60167,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/theistic-evolution-denial-of-the-record\/","url_meta":{"origin":28646,"position":2},"title":"Theistic Evolution — Denial of the Record","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jim R. Everett via bulletin from the Cedar Park church of Christ Atheistic evolution is an unscientific hypothesis because it affirms that life came from nothing. Theistic evolution is an unwarranted compromise and a denial of the record of creation (Genesis 1-2). No man can believe the Bible to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36417,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-not-apply-to-the-earth-since-it-is-an-open-system\/","url_meta":{"origin":28646,"position":3},"title":"Does the second law of thermodynamics not apply to the earth since it is an open system?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My friend converted to atheism. I told him what you said about the second law of thermodynamics, and he said, that only applies to a closed space. He seems to have a comeback for every defense I have. He's always wanting to debate me, prove me wrong, it's like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88391,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/humans-and-chimpanzees-are-not-99-genetically-similar\/","url_meta":{"origin":28646,"position":4},"title":"Humans and Chimpanzees are Not 99% Genetically Similar","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Source: Robert Carter, \"Humans and chimpanzees are NOT 99% identical,\"\u00a0Creation Ministries International, 3 July 2025. \"Yes, humans and chimpanzees do share a lot of DNA, but when you include what they\u00a0don't share, the percent identity drops significantly, into the low 80% range.\" How similar are humans and chimpanzees? \"about 85%\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Issues","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35884,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-adam-and-eve-have-six-fingers\/","url_meta":{"origin":28646,"position":5},"title":"Did Adam and Eve have six fingers?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In my genetics class today, my instructor said that the dominant gene for the number of fingers on a human is six, meaning five fingers is a recessive gene. This startled me because does that mean Adam and Eve had six fingers, and if that was dominant, then wouldn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}