An important aspect of science is being open to and even seeking out that which might disprove your theory.

@reflectingmonkey True, there are other mechanisms that determine the forms of life, such as biomechanics.
A very old book, Darcy Thompson's "On Nature", explains it perfectly. Its thinking, examples and diagrams remain as true and relevant today -- will be so until life on this planet dies with the cooling of our sun.

@reflectingmonkey

[quote] others suggest that aliens or gods might have influenced things.[/quote]

I mean...they [i]might[/i] have but i'm not sure there's good reason to believe they did.

@Pikachu one of the points I was trying to make, but maybe didn't express clearly, is that on one hand creationist argue that for various reasons they believe God played an essential role in producing the various form of life around us and they do not believe that evolution (which implies production of random form and selection of the ones that are adapted) is an important factor regarding this. on the other hand, you, and me, believe that evolution is the main mechanism behind diversity of forms of life. for this I think your question cannot be fruitfull, no one is saying that the mechanisms described by the theory of evolution don't exist, we just argue about how important those mechanisms were and if there were other factors, like god or aliens. but yes, I am a science guy and the good old occam's razor prevents me from seriously considering aliens or gods unles they become the only possible way to explain what we see around us. I don't think anyone has done that yet.

@reflectingmonkey

Yeah that is the interesting thing. We do all tend to agree that the mechanisms by which life diversifies are observable and self-evident. That's why i like to ask the question of creationists how life diversifies [i]x[/i] amount and no further.

@Pikachu are you familiar with JB Lamarck? he was around the same time as Darwin and had also a theory of evolution but him and Darwin disagreed about the idea of preservation of aquired traits. Darwin said there is no preservation of aquired traits and Lamarck said there is. (preservation of aquired traits means if you develop a talent by practicing a lot (aquired trait) is it preserved (transmitted to your offsprings). Darwin's theory won so few people know about Lamarck but something interesting that he said about evolution is that the only thing necessary for an amyba to eventually evolve into a human is lots of time. people can easily see the mechanism of natural selection on a small scale but when faced with amybas becoming humans it suddenly seems impossible, seeing the millions of step by step changes over millions of years is harder to visualize where are some powerful being just making it the way it is is easy to visualize. "why is it like that?""god made it like that". simple, requires very little brain power. 😂🤣

@reflectingmonkey There is definitely preservation of acquired traits among plants. It you expose a plant to a non-lethal dosage of a herbicide, it will develop a resistance to that chemical and pass on that resistance to all its progeny.
We see similar things with insects developing resistance to insecticides,
and bacteria to antibiotics.

@reflectingmonkey

Yeah people find it easier to imagine what is essentially a human intelligence.

@hartfire yes, for a very long time people believed that there was no preservation of aquired traits but recently people are coming back to this concept, partially because of epigenetics but also some addaptations seem to apear much faster that what would be required with regular natural selection. natural selection implies a difference in the ratio of offsprings that survive and have offsprings. for example around chernobyl you find animals and plants who are resistant to radiation and this happened much faster than would be expected. its doubtful that all animals died except the ones who were resistant and all the ones we see now would be offsprings of those, which would be how traditions natural selection would aproach the question.

@Pikachu yeah and then they come up with the idea that god created humans in his image.😂 the reality is its easier to imagine a god which is like us: violent, intolerent, sometimes loving and sometimes hateful, with a giant ego (needs to be worshiped and respected OR ELSE ☠️ )😂

@reflectingmonkey Agreed. That survival of some of animals near Chernobyl is classic evolution by natural selection of the fittest.
The theory is more developed and complex now. For instance, competition is not the only driver. The principle of cooperation can also improve chances of survival - hence the development of immune responses, social species, familial bonding, altruism, symbiotic species and so on.
It's not "chance"; it's cause and effect.