Don't' you think plate tectonics prove that some form of evolution has taken place?

Question

Many animals are adapted, or "specialized" if you wish, to live in very specific climates and ecosystems. Plate tectonics dictates that these climates and ecosystems did not exist at an earlier point in the earth's history.

Answer 1

Proved, no hardly. There is no proff, only conjecture.  

IF we keep hearing lies over and over, will some people accept the lies at truth. YES

If someone says we have proved it over and over, will other believe that lie too. YES.  

But not all of us.

Answer 2

Plate tectonics does nothing of the sort.

Plate tectonics describes the way the lithospheric plates move on the asthenosphere and how it controls the rock cycle, mountain building, crustal destruction, faulting, folding, and other rock processes.

Plate tectonics can only be related to climates because at one time continents, because of plate tectonics, were in different latitudinal positions.

Plate tectonics itself has no direct bearing on climate and climate change. Nor does it have anything to do with evolution.

Evolution deals with the change of life through time starting about 3.8 billion years ago. Plate tectonics has been active since nearly the beginning of Earth, 4.55 billion years ago.

Answer 3

Plate tectonic has nothing to do with climates or ecosystems... that has to do with accpect and stuff...really other then like the existance of deep ocean trenchs, hot springs and stuff, the plates dont really effect cliamtes... but i do believe in evolution... plate tectonics just doesnt support it sry...

And for thos that dont believe in evolution i'm sorry if your religon dosent support it but there wasnt much proof about the world being round eithier but evolution is yes still theroy but if you look up things on it there is alot of supporting evidence,.. just because there is like one step that has yet top be found dosent mean it wont. and besides evolution in animals has been proved with out a dought!! so why couldnt humans have evolved?... so the first few lines of the bible where questionable... what if god created monkeys?? who cares is adam and eve where chimps??

Answer 4

no it proves nothing you can not make new body parts adaptation is from a mutation that was faviorable in the climate in wich the orginism lives or lived

you sir are a shisecomph

Answer 5

Yes!   It is *evidence* that supports the theory of evolution.

(Although I would *HIGHLY* caution you never, ever to use the word "proof" with anything in science.  We use the word *evidence*, not "proof".   You "prove" things in math, not science.  And this very confusion over the word "proof" is at the heart of the confusion over the word "theory" (as many people wrongly think that "theory" means "unproved fact").  ) For more information, I wrote a blog about this:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-5zRy63c3e...

But yes, plate tectonics explains why we see changes in environment in different regions ... e.g. why we can find fossils of dinosaurs or tropical plants in Antarctica (google "Antarctic fossils", or see my Sources below).

Secondly, it explains why we find tropical fossils even in high altitudes ... even in the Himalayas!  The Himalayan mountains (including Mt. Everest) are the result of a collision between two continents, and the resulting upheaval caused the Himalayan mountains.  (See second set of sources.)

Third, it explains why we have *shared* fossils between regions that today are separated by entire oceans.  For example shared fossils between Australia and Antartica (see third group of sources).

Fourth, it explains things like the separation of the primates into two groups with different characteristics.  

E.g. the "Old World Primates" of Africa and Asia (which includes all the apes, including humans) have (a) 3-color vision; (b) opposable thumbs; (c) no prehensile tail; (d) downward-facing nostrils separated by a thin septum; (e) 2 pre-molars and 3 molar teeth.

But the "New World Primates" ... the monkeys of Central and South America, have (a) 2-color vision (what we would call "colorblind"); (b) no opposable thumbs; (c) a prehensile tail; (d) flat noses with sideways nostrils separated by a wide septum; (e) 3 pre-molars and 2 molar teeth.

In other words, the dozens of primate species are separated by geography.  This is explainable by a common ancestor species to primates that got separated because of continental drift before any of these features solidified.

Fifth and finally, it is continental drift is responsible for what Darwin saw on the Galapagos islands.   Island species that resembled mainland species, but with features adapted for the specific islands, and explainable by the isolation caused by the movement of the islands away from the mainland and each other (which we can measure today at occurring at between 2 to 4 inches *per year*)!

So by itself, geology doesn't "prove" anything.   But when coupled with observations from *biology*, plate tectonics and continental drift provide *HUGE* evidence in favor of evolution.

Oh, and here's a special bonus, a film animation of continental drift (click the images to the right):

http://www.abc.net.au/dinosaurs/chronolo...

Answer 6

I'm going to rephrase your question a little before answering:

Question: Because of plate tectonics, some continents have wandered through many climatic zones during their histories.  Fossils have been found in these continents showing adaptations to environments unrelated to the modern environment. Do these observations prove that some sort of evolution has taken place?

Answer:

The fossil record of the development of new species is one of the proofs of evolution. Many factors encourage speciation. At least two factors related to plate tectonics encouraged diversification: (1) Isolation (like continents breaking apart and putting an ocean between) and (2)changes in environment.  Regarding point number 2,  plate motions take place at a rate so slow that flora and fauna can migrate as their environments slowly migrate.  So, it might be a little difficult to show that tectonically related environmental change rather than, say, global climate change was the specific cause of evolution of a given species.  That being said, I do believe that plate wandering contributed to speciation of the earth's flora and fauna.  If Africa and South America were still joined, they would share more native species instead of having evolved continent-specific species. Australia is a great example of isolation leading to local, specialized new species.