In Prothero's book he mentioned some birds and an island where the food source changed to nuts. So then, the birds that had beaks that could break open the nuts for sustenance already existed on the island, it isn't like over time they developed, but they now had an advantage? I could swear that I've read about animals that adapted to different climates and such. So that was incorrect?
Yes it's misleading to talk about animals 'adapting' to their environment. Species adapt individuals don't.
This is well illustrated in the following study of feral pigeons - Something Darwin didn't say...
Imagine a population of finches where one or a few have a slightly stronger beak. In normal times it offers no advantage but if the environment changes so that seeds are less plentiful these individuals will get more food and even if it is by a small percentage leave more offspring. Big strong beaks don't happen suddenly but by numerous incremental changes.
Edited to add - You will find the sort of 'adaptation' language in some biological texts. It's a sort of shorthand as is talk about 'design' which refers to a correlation between form and function. It's important to recognise these or they cause confusion. Sometimes the author is just ill-informed especially in the popular press.
Oh, so we didn't evolve from chimps. Right, that's linear and not accurate. As the tree branches grew on this tree of life there was a limb that was common to us, but the branches off of that limb were different, gradually so of course and over time.
Yes that's right. Life is a tree not a ladder. Most of the branches were dead-ends. More than 99% of species that ever lived went extinct before humans appeared.
in some ways, evolution does kind of end with us, barring some strong change in environment.
There is probably some truth in that although it is controversial. The human species will go on changing insofar as there will be changes in the frequency of alleles in the human gene-pool. However our mastery of our environment has probably reduced the selective pressure that was faced by our ancestors. Evolution also shapes us from the neck up. I wonder if that is where we might see more rapid change.
So these illnesses come out because we can no longer procreate? With men still being able to procreate and women not being able to after a certain age, are there higher percentages of genetic illnesses found in the female population? Or am I missing this point altogether?
Not quite. The point is that individuals who have genetic defects that result in death or incapacity at an age before they leave offspring don't get passed on and tend to get removed from the gene-pool. Illnesses that tend not to appear until after we have produced copies of our genes are unseen by natural selection and tend to accumulate. There is a related reason why you shouldn't marry your cousin. Harmful recessive genes accumulate with impunity because we usually have another good copy. Close relatives are more likely to share the same defects resulting in all sorts of issues for offspring. This is becoming a real worry in some insular religious communities.
Oh, and are we related to the plants too? If I have to throw them in the mix my brain my break, lol
Yes absolutely!
For billions of years only 'simple' prokaryotic organisms existed like bacteria and archaea. An amazing event of endosymbiosis led to the advent of more complex eukaryotic cells. This made multicellular life possible. The problem of energy production was overcome by the mitochondria that were once free-living bacteria existing inside every cell. Bacteria produce energy across their surface membrane but the bigger a blob gets the surface gets relatively smaller compared to the volume. Cells began to specialise and build large complex bodies where the job of replication was assigned to just the sex cells. [Cancer is an illness where a cell has gone native and reverted to individual uncontrolled reproduction]
The origin of complex cells...
Multicellular life includes plants and animals although in fact it is not so simple to differentiate. If you look for 'cladograms' on google images you will see examples of how the tree of life develops.
Here is an interactive tree you can play with...
Dawkins book "The Ancestors Tale" covers this in detail