PLZ ITS AN EMERGENCY Just as detectives use fingerprints, DNA samples, and other evidence from a crime scene to speculate about what happened, scientists use observations of living species, fossil remains of ancient species, and a variety of other evidence to form and support the theory of evolution.

Many different scientists have contributed to the theory of evolution. Advances in fields of science such as paleontology, embryology, geology, and molecular biology all support and expand upon the theory of evolution based on natural selection proposed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Like with any scientific theory, scientists continue to review and expand on the theory of evolution as new data is revealed.

When you have completed this lesson, you should be able to:

1. identify early ideas about evolution
2. discuss theories that influenced scientific debate over evolution
3. recognize the major sources of evidence for evolution
4. recognize the pattern of features that reveal the history of a species