How did the discovery of DNA prove that Darwin’s theory of evolution was correct and how does it change the way we view evolution today and into the future?
Darwin didn’t have any evidence to prove his theory of evolution. His theory explained that all animals come from the same prehistoric animals, which were fish. Over the time, all animals adapted and mutated to create new species that can survive in the new environments that they are introduced to. Humans have evolved from fish, to apes and then to humans. This happened so that we could adapt to our environments. This was part of his theory as well, where he suggested that humans and chimps are relatives, which means that they are both descendants of the same ancestor. That ancestor would be a fish that once existed in the oceans. At the time, he had no hundred percent evidence since science wasn’t as advanced as it is now, but now we have the ability to analyse DNA, we know that Darwin’s theory was correct. Scientists were able to study ape DNA and compare it to human DNA. They found very close similarities in our genes, proving Darwin’s theory that humans and chimps are related. We also found that that humans and apes share 99% of the same genes. Darwin theorized that all animals on the Earth are descendants from fish. This couldn’t have been proven until modern day scientists found Tiktaalik, a prehistoric animal that had a transitional form with a fish body and the same bone structure found in all four-legged animals. This animal proved that his theory was correct because we can see from Tiktaalik how these species moved from the ocean onto land.