MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

The field of molecular biology provides the most detailed and convincing evidence available for biological evolution. In its unveiling of the nature of DNA and the workings of organisms at the level of enzymes and other protein molecules, it has shown that these molecules hold information about an organisms ancestry. This has made it possible to reconstruct evolutionary events that were previously unknown and to confirm and adjust the view of events already known. The precision with which these events can be reconstructed is one reason the evidence from molecular biology is so compelling.
"Since 1859, that great tree has been built up painstakingly by close study of fossils and modern organisms. And then, Darwins speculation, and all that careful work, was confirmed from an unpredicted source the molecules. Proteins in the bodies of all organisms, and indeed DNA and RNA, the fundamental molecules of life, carry records of evolutionary transitions. Simply put, the degree of difference between the same proteins (or the DNA or RNA) in different species is proportional to the time since they split apart. So, humans have molecules that are nearly identical to those of chimpanzees, rather more different from those of cows, and very different from those of slime molds. The amount of difference is proportional to the time of divergence on the evolutionary tree. Since 1960, molecular biologists have been drawing up their own evolutionary trees, and these match those based on fossils and museum specimens of living plants and animals. The final, and most startling, confirmation of Darwins insight also comes from the molecular biology. All living things, from viruses to humans, from bacteria to grasses, share complex molecular machinery the whole DNA/ RNA code of life dprotein synthesis machinery and the ATP system of energy transfer." Source: http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolutio... under the heading "Molecular Confirmation."