This is one of, if not the, most common misconceptions people have about evolution. Apes didn't magically become humans; we share a common ancestor with apes, from which we both branched off and evolved separately. No evolutionary biologist in the world will tell you that apes just became humans.

"Nothing but a hypothesis". That's quite ironically exactly what creationism is... evolution is a scientific theory with heaps of evidence behind it. The great thing about science is that it's true whether you believe in it or not, while religious beliefs are only true to those who claim them. Evolution is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of fact.

Evolution has got so much evidence behind it. To deny it is to revel in close-minded belief bias. In fact, the evidence for evolution is so vast it can be divided into several distinct fields of evidence (DNA evidence, fossil record evidence, homologous structual evidence, etc.)

DNA evidence: ALL species share common genetic material. You even share portions of your DNA with your dog, your cat, heck, even your pet goldfish! The genetic code is universal. This is why scientists can genetically modify organisms; we all share common genetic backgrounds, which is why genes can easily be transmitted via a vector across two very different organisms and still code for the same proteins, leading to an eventual change in phenotype (the physical manifestation of the protein the gene codes for). More closely related organisms (organisms with more recent common ancestor) have even more DNA in common. For example, our DNA is 99% identical to that of chimpanzees because we share a common ancestor with them who lived about 6 million years ago (quite a short time relative to the huge evolutionary time scale.) This points to the conclusion that all species evolve from common ancestors, and that all species share a common ancestor.

Fossil record evidence: If you've ever taken a Biology class, heck even a Social Studies class (I kid you not, we actually discussed this in Social Studies!) you may be familiar with a few of the waves of hominids such as Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, Neanderthals etc. Scientists have discovered many fossils of these hominids. Careful observation of these fossils shows that each of these species were distinct from the others, the more recent ones being more similar to modern day humans, Homo Sapiens. This is physical evidence that human evolution took place. I strictly discussed human evolution, but this can actually be applied to pretty much every other species whose earlier fossils have

been discovered.

Homologous structural evidence: This field is actually quite difficult to explain lucidly, so I will link to a website which can explain it a lot better than I can: http://evolution.about.com/od/evidence/a/Homologous-Structures.htm\

This is just a very small portion of the myriad of evidence in support of evolution. To explain them all would take hours and a lot of patience!

How about the "evidence" for creationism?

Erroneous, fallacious holy books without a shred of evidence to back up their claims, rife with scientific errors and blatant contradictions.