Evolution is a Law of Nature

Evolution is the process that has occured throughout all of the Earth's history. The first form of life is what resembles a prokaryote, a single-celled organism that uses carbon dioxide as a carbon source and oxidizes inorganic materials to extract energy. Later, prokaryotes evolve glycolysis, a collection of chemical reactions that free the energy of organic molecules such as glucose (sugar) and store it in the chemical bonds of ATP. Glycolysis (and ATP) continue to be used as a life source in almost all organisms, unchanged, to this day. Approximately 0.2 billion years after the first prokaryote, these cells evolved into bacterium, which performed photosynthesis. Next came eukaryotes, and eukaryotes began to sexually reproduce. Eventually, a very long series of events occured that introduced multicellular life, animals, plants, mammals. What proves this process? Many factors do. In this argument, I will be naming three. -Bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Bacteria colonies can only build up a resistance to antibiotics through evolution. It is important to note that in every colony of bacteria, there are a tiny few individuals which are naturally resistant to certain antibiotics. This is because of the random nature of mutations. When an antibiotic is applied, the initial innoculation will kill most bacteria, leaving behind only those few cells which happen to have the mutations necessary to resist the antibiotics. In subsequent generations, the resistant bacteria reproduce, forming a new colony where every member is resistant to the antibiotic. This is natural selection in action. The antibiotic is "selecting" for organisms which are resistant, and killing any that are not. Source: http://www.researchgate.net... (page 220) -Genetic commonalities. Human beings have approximately 96% of genes in common with chimpanzees, about 90% of genes in common with cats, 80% with cows, 75% with mice, and so on. This does not prove that we evolved from chimpanzees or cats, though, only that we shared a common ancestor in the past, a distant relative. And the amount of difference between our genomes corresponds to how long ago our genetic lines diverged. Sources: http://genome.cshlp.org... http://www.sciencemag.org... http://journals.plos.org... -The fossil record. The fossil record shows that the simplest fossils will be found in the oldest rocks, and it can also show a smooth and gradual transition from one form of life to another. http://evolutionfaq.com... Now, these all prove effectively that evolution has happened. But another factor of evolution is how it happens, which is where the "theory" bit comes in: Natural Selection. Evolutionary biologists have written extensively about how natural selection could produce new species. For instance, in the model called allopatry, developed by Ernst Mayr of Harvard University, if a population of organisms were isolated from the rest of its species by geographical boundaries, it might be subjected to different selective pressures. Changes would accumulate in the isolated population. If those changes became so significant that the splinter group could not or routinely would not breed with the original stock, then the splinter group would be reproductively isolated and on its way toward becoming a new species. Good luck to my opponent (I did not cite sources for the first paragraph, since it was purely anecdotal)