What is evolution and what is it good for?

At least one half of Idiot America's population wants to throw out biology because evolution makes their magic Jeebus man cry. America's uneducated morons (AKA Christian scum) don't have any idea how important evolution is.

The theory of evolution is a staggeringly beautiful and rather clever concept that aims to describe how animals, plants, bacteria and all other living things have adapted, and continue to adapt, to their surroundings. The theory allows mankind to perceive life's history down the eons and understand how and why all living things came to be.

Evolution is the grand unifying theory of biology. It is a solid core running through all modern research from molecular biology to genomics to ecology. Where once biology was a disjointed group of subjects whose main role seemed to be just to classify life into neat categories, it is now at the forefront of scientific research. Indeed, the study of heredity - genetics - is said to be leading mankind into a biotechnological golden age with ever-more potent pharmaceuticals, cleaner fuels and improved crops.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/pda/A673319

Darwin’s great insight that the vast diversity of life on earth arose over time from a common ancestor revolutionized scientific understanding, with substantial benefit to our economy and our well being. Today, evolutionary principles are the foundation of all of modern biology and have led to major advances in fields as diverse as molecular biology, developmental biology, genetics, behavior, and paleontology. Understanding evolution also allows us to identify genes underlying human illness, combat infectious diseases, mitigate impacts of invasive species, and control pathogens and pests of our crops and livestock.

http://www.amnat.org/

The concept of biological evolution is one of the most important ideas ever generated by the application of scientific methods to the natural world. The evolution of all the organisms that live on Earth today from ancestors that lived in the past is at the core of genetics, biochemistry, neurobiology, physiology, ecology, and other biological disciplines. It helps to explain the emergence of new infectious diseases, the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, the agricultural relationships among wild and domestic plants and animals, the composition of Earth's atmosphere, the molecular machinery of the cell, the similarities between human beings and other primates, and countless other features of the biological and physical world. As the great geneticist and evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in 1973, ‘Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.’

-- The National Academy of Sciences