Introduction to Evolution

If every fossil were magicked away, the comparative study of modern organisms, of how their patterns of resemblances, especially of their genetic sequences, are distributed among species, and of how species are distributed among continents and islands, would still demonstrate, beyond all sane doubt, that our history is evolutionary, and that all living creatures are cousins.  Fossils are a bonus.  A welcome bonus, to be sure, but not an essential one.  It is worth remembering this when creationists go on (as they tediously do) about "gaps" in the fossil record.  The fossil record could be one big gap, and the evidence for evolution would still be overwhelmingly strong.  At the same time, if we had only fossils and no other evidence, the fact of evolution would again be overwhelmingly supported.  As things stand, we are blessed with both.

--Professor Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale

To understand evolution, humans must think in much larger units of time than those we use to define our lives.  After all, evolutionary change isn't apparent in days, months and years.  Instead, it's documented in layers and layers of rock deposited over 4.6 billion years.
--From "Deep Time" a page on the PBS Evolution Website

 ...be on guard against giving interpretations of Scripture that are far fetched or opposed to science, and so exposing the Word of God to the ridicule of unbelievers.
--Saint Augustine

In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next.  Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.
-- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986

Understanding Evolution  (off site)

Understanding evolution and science (off site)
Matthew F. Bonnan, Ph.D.
Dept. Biological Sciences, Western Illinois University
Macomb, IL 61455

What Is Science?  (off site)
Jason Rosenhouse

How Do You Spot A Bad Scientific Argument?  (off site)
Jason Rosenhouse

300 million year old rock (off site)
Lauren Becker

 Evolution is a Fact and a Theory (off site)

Evolution as Fact and Theory  (off site)
Stephen Jay Gould

Evolution for Beginners (off site)
On Ken's home page, click on the link "Beginners"
Ken Harding

What is Evolution? (off site)

Evolution Education Resource Centre (off site)

Talk.Origins FAQ (off site)

Major Tenets of Evolution (off site)

Evolution Happens! (off site)

Biology: The Truth About Where We Stand
Scott Field

The Evolution Fact FAQ (off site)
M. R. Leipzig

Tiny Clues Big Answers
Chet Raymo

Improbable Probabilities (off site)
"Assorted comments on some uses and misuses of probability theory"
Mark Perakh

Humans as the World's Greatest Evolutionary Force  (off site)
Stephen R. Palumbi

The Panda's Thumb  (off site)