Am 17.07.2019 um 22:01 schrieb Tom Kunich:
Also throughout the history of the Earth, rather than species
evolving they suddenly appeared in large numbers of species.
This does not look like evolution but rather mutation.
Mutation is a part of evolution. The main building blocks of
evolution a

1) random Mutation that is slow enough to make the definition of a
species meaningful but fast enough to enable adjustment to changing
surroundings

2) survival of the fittest that kills off 99.99% of badly mutated
creatures

Evolution says that these two mechanisms are sufficient to explain
the variety of life forms on earth.

It was Charles Darwin himself that showed charts and comments that
said that evolution proceeded at a constant pace. "As many more
individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and
as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for
existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in
any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes
varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving,
and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of
inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and
modified form."

Since Charles Darwin's book, there has been the one or other scientist
researching on related topic, starting with Gregor Mendel and not ending
with Richard Dawkins. The basics of evolution occur at (almost)
constant pace (the rate of mutation for example depends on stress
factors like radioactivity but this is irrelevant for the wider picture
of evolution). Emerging aspects, like speciation do not.

Do you know the difference between natural variation and mutation?

I agree, in my previous post, I should have added "natural variation"
(i.e. re-combination of existing genes) on position 1 .

Mutation has absolutely NOTHING to do with evolution. Especially
since most mutations are sterile.

Most Recombinations and most mutations are failures but even nature has
discovered the agile principle "fail often, fail early" ;-)
In humans, approx. half of the fertilized eggs do not survive to reach a
beating heart, on other species the number my be different.
In mammal species that have an average litter size 1, "survival of
the fittest" starts even in the womb.
Other recombinations and mutations might cause sterile offspring and
hence also be "failures" in the long term.

Positive mutations that give a significant advantage are rare. I
remember reading that development of "modern man" depended on three
specific mutations in the last couple of million years to prodive us
with our well-functioning brain (and they had to be in the right order,
the first mutation was a pre-requisite for surviving the third one).
Geneticists are now able to pin-point the date of these mutations quite
well by now.