Darwins Theory, which should no longer be called a theory, it is fact, as Newton’s research is now referred to as Newton’s Law so Darwin’s analysis of life forms should be Darwin’ Laws, like other scientific laws they are tweaked and amended as scientific knowledge advances. Charles Darwin and one of his less famous contemporaries Alfred Wallace proposed that animals, and indeed plants, evolved into different species, many remaining in the same genus such as the Panthera genus of lions tigers and leopards are all able to interbreed but looking very different to each other. Darwin’s famous finches living in the isolated Galapagos Islands over 600 miles from the nearest land mass of Ecuador have developed different shaped beaks depending on the food source available on their particular island.
The shape of the beak depended on whether the finch primary consumed seeds, nuts, insects and importantly, were they considered attractive to females, females who judged a well fed and successful male father for her children by not only fitness but the ability to have the energy to produce healthy and distinctive plumage. However the finches did not arrive at their existing species by predetermined evolution, each step in their evolution was because of a happy mutation; mutations drive evolution. Mutations can help, hinder or be neutral. Neutral mutation- changes in DNA sequence that are neither beneficial nor detrimental to the ability of an organism to survive and reproduce. An example of help ford mutation are Okapis. Okapis are a member of the Artiodactyla genus which includes cows, sheep camels and pigs and have the appearance of cattle or deer however eons ago they had a series of mutations which were benign but made them look more like a cross between a deer and a zebra with a partial striped rear and legs, however some Okapis developed a further mutations of genes in the vertebra of the neck. Nearly all mammals including whales and dolphins have seven vertebra in their necks, some Okapis vertebra gradually enlarged with most being crippled and dying out along the way but some had mutations in other organs in the neck which enabled the trachea, muscles, veins and nerves to lengthen as well, so still with the basic seven vertebra some Okapis finished up as their nearest relatives, Giraffes, who left the forests frequented by Okapis and found a niche on the plains feeding on tall areas that the other ruminants could not reach. mutations cause evolution.
Practically every living organism has gone through many mutations to arrive at the creatures they are today, humans are primates and are classified with the Great Apes, one of the major groups of the primate evolutionary tree, great apes being gorilla, Chimpanzee, Orangutan, Bonobo and human all with a common ancestor which mutated into the various species. Chimpanzees and Bonobos are humans closest living relatives and all three have neanderthal DNA, knowledge that will cause apoplexy amongst creationists, as all the great apes have a common ancestor and creationists already denying that man evolved from apes, imagine their wretchedness if it was discovered that apes evolved from man.