I just read a short article by Michaele Allies, Misconceptions About Evolution, What People Get Wrong on MSN. Below I characterize the author’s main points.

1. Humans did not evolve from monkeys but from a common ancestor millions of years ago.
2. Evolution is ‘just’ a theory as gravity is ‘just’ a theory. A scientific theory is always supported by data and facts.
3. Evolution is a very slow process. It’s a gradual process that happens over generations. Bacteria and viruses mutate and evolve quickly because their generations occur in minutes while ours take decades.
4. Survival of the fittest does not mean survival of the strongest. It means survival of the best adapted to survive to reproduce.
5. Evolution is random. It does not drive organisms toward any goal.
6. Living organisms, including humans, are not in their final evolved state. Evolution is ongoing.
7. Populations do not evolve simultaneously. Individuals evolve. An individual with a better ‘fit’ to its environment has a better chance than others of its species of maturing to reproductive age.
8. Evolution does not address religious beliefs. Evolution answers the question ‘how?’ whereas religion attempts to answer ‘why?’ In science, there is no question ‘why?’
9. Differences are that ethnic appearances in people are not necessarily adaptations. They often are mere expressions of different aspects of the human gene pool. All humans are very close members of the same gene pool.
10. Humans and dinosaurs never co-existed. Dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago. Humanoid ancestry extends back a little more than 1 million years.
11. Humans and all creatures continue to evolve. Some creatures such as Sea Jellies have few, if any evolutionary paths forward.
12. Finally, one principle not included in the article is that evolution does not invent solutions to environmental challenges. Evolution is not inventive. It can only build on what has previously evolved. One example of this is the structure of our brains. Newer sections are overlayed on older parts. Thus we carry the reptilian and fish brains as still functional, but old technology.