# Dissent from Darwin

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 12, 2009, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505 "2009-10-12T06:09:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/1 "2009-10-12T06:09:33Z")

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[http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/](http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/)

Anyone know of this website? I haven’t gone through and examined it. I don’t know enough about evolution to really delve deeply into the debate so I usually abstain. I am willing enough to accept evolution, but I do it not out of my own well-reasoned conclusions but because I have faith in Scientists.

I understand the gist, something mutates if that mutation survives into the next generation it might propagate, a sufficent number of mutations and supposedly it branches off into a new species. Natural Selection makes sense, but so does the idea that it lacks sufficient explanatory power.

So is this website on the up and up or is it some kind of clever Intelligent Design site?

What are the legitimate arguments going on regarding evolution today?

Here is a quote from one of the signatories:  
_“Darwinism is a trivial idea that has been elevated to the status of the scientific theory that governs modern biology.”_  
Dr. Michael Egnor, Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook

It doesn’t seem to me to be that people are arguing against Evolution, they are just trying to wrestle it away from the stranglehold that Charles Darwin maintains. Is that an accurate viewpoint?

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**Author:** ![Orr\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ee59a6/32.png) [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/2 "2009-10-12T06:39:06Z")

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> [@mswas](#):
>
> [http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/](http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/)
> 
> So is this website on the up and up or is it some kind of clever Intelligent Design site?

The site and the statement were originated and currently maintained by Discovery Institute, known for promoting ID.

I don’t think it’s particularly clever.

I’ve only ever encountered the term “Darwinism” used by those who are attempting to associate the study of evolution with a straw man. The brief statements made by people who may or may not be the credentialed people they claim to be, are not particularly illuminating.

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**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/3 "2009-10-12T06:46:06Z")

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I’m reading through the three papers they link on their site, the first two were interesting. I thought that, perhaps, they were arguing for multiple life origin points, i.e. different phyla evolving independently from different instances of the same phenomenon (amino acid generation, abiogenesis) rather than the common ancestor theory. I thought it was maybe a little weird, but okay. The third one seemed to continue the trend, pointed out some flaws that may exist. It started sounding, little by little, more like an ID theory (a particularly well reasoned one, I’ll admit) from the language, but I wrote it off as a little bias from reading your post.

Then you get to page five…

> [@](#):
>
> But Berra forgot to consider a crucial, and obvious,  
> point: Corvettes, so far as anyone has yet been able  
> to determine, don’t give birth to little Corvettes. They, like  
> all automobiles, are designed by people working for auto  
> companies. In other words, an outside intelligence. So  
> although Berra believed he was supporting Darwinian evolution  
> rather than the pre-Darwinian explanation, he unwittingly  
> showed that the fossil evidence is compatible with  
> either. Law professor (and critic of Darwinism) Phillip E.  
> Johnson dubbed this : “Berra’s Blunder.”

That rang the alarm bells. I kept reading though to see if perhaps it was just an illustration, just saying “oops!” And that they were just using it to show a hole in Darwinian evolution rather than argue for ID. It got a little better for a bit, and they made a good point with this:

> [@](#):
>
> In 1999, a Canadian textbook-writer justified the  
> practice: “You have to look at the audience. How convoluted  
> do you want to make it for a first time learner?”  
> Bob Ritter was quoted as saying in the April 1999 Alberta  
> Report Newsmagazine. High school students “are still very  
> concrete in the way they learn,” continued Ritter. “We want  
> to get across the idea of selective adaptation. Later on, they  
> can look at the work critically.”

being a terrible point of view. But if you want to see where this is all going skip down to page 7, the section titled “What’s going on here?” It suddenly just goes into how now that we’ve seen this evidence we know that Darwinian evolution has holes (sure, why not, offer something better) we are going to show you that not every Intelligent Design proponent is a moronic creationist, take a look at this molecular biologist for example!

So yeah, it takes a lot of reading, but in the end it’s an ID ninja site.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/4 "2009-10-12T07:33:18Z")

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Gotcha. That’s kind of what I thought but I thought that maybe there was some sort of internal dissent within the biology community that might be conflated by know-nothings as being evidence of a problem with evolution when it’s not so much a problem with evolution as much as it is dissent regarding the process.

I do find natural selection to be a woefully inadequate explanation. It still doesn’t get me from raw matter floating in the void to complex organism with the ability to contemplate itself. But then again, there are whole levels of my scientific education that I could complete and probably have a better understanding of why things are the way they are.

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**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/5 "2009-10-12T13:51:26Z")

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> [@mswas](#):
>
> I do find natural selection to be a woefully inadequate explanation. It still doesn’t get me from raw matter floating in the void to complex organism with the ability to contemplate itself. But then again, there are whole levels of my scientific education that I could complete and probably have a better understanding of why things are the way they are.

Read _The Ancestor’s Tale_ by Richard Dawkins. He starts at the present (_Homo sapiens_) and works backwards to the primordial soup, explaining how each main branching occurred along the way.

It’s long, but it’s not overly technical. (I skimmed some of the biochemistry-heavy sections, I’ll admit.)

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**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/6 "2009-10-12T14:06:35Z")

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Natural selection doesn’t go back to inanimate matter, by the way. Abiogenesis is a different process than evolution.

There is no internal scientific dissent over the basics of evolution and common descent. Those are as proven as the atom. Objections from personal incredulity are not exactly devastating.

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**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/7 "2009-10-12T16:53:36Z")

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> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Natural selection doesn’t go back to inanimate matter, by the way. Abiogenesis is a different process than evolution.
> 
> \*\*There is no internal scientific dissent over the basics of evolution and common descent. Those are as proven as the atom. \*\*Objections from personal incredulity are not exactly devastating.

(my bolding)  
I think you hit the nail on the head here and in a way tackle one of the OP’s issues. The basics are pretty well established, but the nuances may be up for discussion so the “Darwinian stranglehold” can be challenged of it hinders further research on evolution.

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**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/8 "2009-10-12T16:56:58Z")

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Yeah, there is discussion, for instance, over whether natural selection is the only sorting mechanism, but not over the essentials of mutation, adaptation and speciation.

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**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/9 "2009-10-12T17:14:00Z")

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> [@mswas](#):
>
> Here is a quote from one of the signatories:  
> _“Darwinism is a trivial idea that has been elevated to the status of the scientific theory that governs modern biology.”_  
> Dr. Michael Egnor, Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook

As soon as I saw this (and a reference to denouncing “Darwinism” I knew you’d found yet another bogus Intelligent Design website.

Egnor is one of a handful of physicians who boast impressive-sounding titles that do not in the least back up their opinions, which make sense from a religious point of view but are woefully lacking as far as a scientific framework.

I’ve run into Egnor when he appeared in response to postings on [this blog](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/03/train_wreck_thy_name_is_egnor.php), and he truly comes across as laughably ignorant. Or if you prefer, Egnorant.

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**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/10 "2009-10-12T17:16:02Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> [In recent years there](http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/faq.php) has been a concerted effort on the part of some supporters of modern Darwinian theory to deny the existence of scientific critics of Neo-Darwinism and to discourage open discussion of the scientific evidence for and against Neo-Darwinism.

emphasis added

I think the above is inaccurate and that an individual could sign the statement:

> [@](#):
>
> [I am] skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

…without agreeing with the “4) Why is it necessary to have such a statement?” statement from the FAQ.

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**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/11 "2009-10-12T18:44:34Z")

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The thing is, no actual biologists think that Darwin was the last word on evolution. The man died 100 years ago.

Helpful hint: anyone who uses the term “Darwinism” is a creationist of one sort or another. Invariably. It’s a concerted effort on the part of the creationists to discredit the idea of evolution by blaming it all on one fallible human being. It’s an attempt to create a parallel with “Marxism”. Some guy thought up a wacky idea back in the 1800s and millions of stupid people fell for it.

And the funny thing is, if Darwin had died as a young man, we’d still have the theory of natural selection, only the creationists would call it Wallacism, not Darwinism. [Alfred Russel Wallace - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace)

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**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/12 "2009-10-12T19:06:32Z")

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> [@mswas](#):
>
> What are the legitimate arguments going on regarding evolution today?

None really. Sure some scientists will bicker over fine details but they all agree on the overall arc of evolution being the mechanism at work.

Remember these are scientists…if one could find a gaping (and legitimate) hole in evolution their career would be made and they’d be famous. They’d jump all over it.

Thing is many thousands of scientists from a myriad of specialties have been working on this for 150 years. Everything they keep finding and adding to the body of work only supports evolution, not debunk it. Keep in mind the numerous fields this encompasses as well as advances in technology allowing ever deeper insight. It is not just biologists. It is archaeologists, it is bio-chemists, it is molecular biologists, geneticists, paleontologists, bioinformaticians and so on.

All those fields coming at the question from all sorts of angles adding in new levels of testing due to advancing technology and the pile of evidence in favor of evolution just keeps growing.

If you are a betting man the smart money is on evolution.

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**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/13 "2009-10-12T19:56:25Z")

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**Whack-a-mole** has brought up one of the most amazing things about evolutionary theory. Darwin’s original assertion has proven to be one of the most enduring theories in science. The details are debated, but the basic principle remains just as Darwin posited. It’s pretty unassailable as science goes. And yet, it’s the one that the religious folks rail against. At least they’re ambitious.

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/14 "2009-10-12T20:36:39Z")

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> [@mswas](#):
>
> Gotcha. That’s kind of what I thought but I thought that maybe there was some sort of internal dissent within the biology community that might be conflated by know-nothings as being evidence of a problem with evolution when it’s not so much a problem with evolution as much as it is dissent regarding the process.
> 
> I do find natural selection to be a woefully inadequate explanation. It still doesn’t get me from raw matter floating in the void to complex organism with the ability to contemplate itself. But then again, there are whole levels of my scientific education that I could complete and probably have a better understanding of why things are the way they are.

Where is that internal dissent?

Not directed much at you but to the ID proponents:

> **[Where exactly can I find this controversy again? | TalkDesign](http://www.talkdesign.org/cs/node/42/)**

> [@](#):
>
> Where exactly can I find this controversy again?  
> …
> 
> The best reason not to teach the “origins controversy” is that it simply is **nowhere to be found**. Genuine scientific controversies – the important and useful ones – take up a huge volume of space in the scientific literature. Even the controversies sparked by wrong ideas can be tracked as they generate discussion among the members of the scientific community. If no-one is talking about it, it’s not controversial.
> 
> And no-one in the scientific literature is talking about “irrecducible complexity” or “complex specified information”. A recent search on “irreducible complexity” in the Science Citation Index yielded seven instances of papers using this term (two of these were direct responses from Behe to criticism of his work.) For comparison, the term “face on mars” yielded three papers discussing the proposition that an advanced Martian civilization had built edifices with human features.
> 
> But it gets worse.
> 
> A comprehensive examination of biology databases in which both ID terms and authors were used in queries yielded the following:
> 
> ```auto
> 
> BIOSIS PubMed
> Search term hits..directly related hits....directly related
> "Intelligent Design".....................20....9..................324....3
> "Complex Specified Information"..........0.....0..................111....1
> "Specified Complexity"...................1.....0..................152....1
> "Irreducible Complexity".................5.....5..................10....3
> Any term.................................23....11.................162....6
> 
> ```
> 
> This is to say that in all of PubMed, only six papers appear in which one of the four terms listed is used as a key phrase.
> 
> In comparison, REAL controversies have a substantially larger presence in the literature.
> 
> ```auto
> 
> ........................................BIOSIS...........PubMed
> 
> "Group Selection".......................530...261........148....58
> "Endosymbiosis".........................574...249........182....120
> "Punctuated Equilibrium"................195...190........38....31
> 
> ```
> 
> ID may be claimed as a “new science” (though it’s neither), so it may be argued that its anemic presence in the literature indicates the early stages of a controversy. (In which case it’s too early to be mandating its teaching in science classes. But whatever.)
> 
> How do ID citations look over time, as compared to genuine controversies? Sometimes the source of an idea can be traced to a particular publication. Most often the publication will be a scientific paper, but it can just as well be a scientific or even a popular book. If the idea generates interest, scientists will respond to it in the literature, and cite the seminal publication in their own work. The “citation impact” or the number of publications that cite a particular work, thus gives a reasonable approximation to the importance of the work in the literature.
> 
> …
> 
> **It’s clear that the “seminal” ID works have all peaked in their citation impact. They’re not just not ready for prime-time, they’re past their sell-by date.**
> 
> \*\*What this means is that if there is to be a scientific “origins controversy,” it will not be able to depend on these texts already written. That is to say, the founding text of a scientific “origins controversy” has not yet been written.
> 
> Which makes “teaching the controversy” a difficult proposition.\*\*

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/15 "2009-10-12T23:24:45Z")

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LOL I just found this:

> **[Project Steve | National Center for Science Education](https://ncse.ngo/project-steve)**
>
> NCSE's "Project Steve" is a tongue-in-cheek parody of a long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" or "scientists who dissent from Darwinism."

> [@](#):
>
> NCSE’s “Project Steve” is a tongue-in-cheek parody of a long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of “scientists who doubt evolution” or “scientists who dissent from Darwinism.”
> 
> Creationists draw up these lists to try to convince the public that evolution is somehow being rejected by scientists, that it is a “theory in crisis.” Not everyone realizes that this claim is unfounded. NCSE has been asked numerous times to compile a list of thousands of scientists affirming the validity of the theory of evolution. Although we easily could have done so, we have resisted. We did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues are decided by who has the longer list of scientists!
> 
> Project Steve pokes fun at this practice and, because “Steves” are only about 1% of scientists, it also makes the point that tens of thousands of scientists support evolution. And it honors the late Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary biologist, NCSE supporter, and friend.
> 
> We’d like to think that after Project Steve, we’ll have seen the last of bogus “scientists doubting evolution” lists, but it’s probably too much to ask. We hope that when such lists are proposed, reporters and other citizens will ask, “How many Steves are on your list!?”

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**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/16 "2009-10-13T03:08:14Z")

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> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> None really. Sure some scientists will bicker over fine details but they all agree on the overall arc of evolution being the mechanism at work.
> 
> **Remember these are scientists…if one could find a gaping (and legitimate) hole in evolution their career would be made and they’d be famous. They’d jump all over it.**  
> Thing is many thousands of scientists from a myriad of specialties have been working on this for 150 years. Everything they keep finding and adding to the body of work only supports evolution, not debunk it. Keep in mind the numerous fields this encompasses as well as advances in technology allowing ever deeper insight. It is not just biologists. It is archaeologists, it is bio-chemists, it is molecular biologists, geneticists, paleontologists, bioinformaticians and so on.
> 
> All those fields coming at the question from all sorts of angles adding in new levels of testing due to advancing technology and the pile of evidence in favor of evolution just keeps growing.
> 
> If you are a betting man the smart money is on evolution.

(my bolding)  
In theory yes, but that sientist also has a spouse and kids and mortgage payments. A complex (and true) theory like Evolution would require massive experiments and analises that could not be done by a single man.  
The ammount of criticism and name-calling would be amazing. Even if the guy/gal had some pretty good ideas he’d/she’d be going against massive opposition and being befriended by some religious groups would only hurt the case.

I’m not saying that any credible challenges against Evolution are even remotely likely to appear.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/17 "2009-10-13T03:24:46Z")

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Science is not about ideas, it’s about proof. If anyone could show hard evidence against evolution, there _couldn’t_ be any ridicule.

It wouldn’t have to be that complicated either. All anyone has to do is find a fossil in the wrong strata. Find a human skull in the precambrian and you have falsified evolution.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/18 "2009-10-13T03:48:29Z")

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> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Science is not about ideas, it’s about proof. If anyone could show hard evidence against evolution, there _couldn’t_ be any ridicule.
> 
> It wouldn’t have to be that complicated either. All anyone has to do is find a fossil in the wrong strata. Find a human skull in the precambrian and you have falsified evolution.

More likely that would reflect on geology. Given that we can see evolution in the lab and in the wild, even what you describe wouldn’t be enough. Basically, the evidence for evolution is so large and diverse that you basically have to go all the way to “the world is an illusion” or “Earth was created ten minutes ago and our memories are false” or “all of science is a conspiracy and the evidence is fake” in order to falsify evolution. It would be like falsifying gravity.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/19 "2009-10-13T03:58:19Z")

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> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> It wouldn’t have to be that complicated either. All anyone has to do is find a fossil in the wrong strata. Find a human skull in the precambrian and you have falsified evolution.

I don’t see how that’s true. I get what you’re getting at, but I think you’ve oversimplified it.

A precambrian human skull would just have moved hominid origins waaaay back. Even today we have species essentially indistinguishable from Ordovician fossils, for example, like the horseshoe crab.

Fossils are rare (compared to the billions of potentially-fossilizable animals now dead) and discovering them is chancy. If we hadn’t stumbled across horseshoe crab fossils before now, would finding a 445-million-year-old horseshoe crab fossil undo evolution?

Besides, we’re really discussing natural selection, not “evolution,” when discussing “Darwinism.” Evolution – the observable fact that things change over time – was accepted by churchmen and natural philosophers before Darwin and Wallace supplied an explanation for the means by which it operates: natural selection. Even today you can directly observe evolution, so there’s no way to falsify it. Natural selection as its engine is susceptible to replacement by competing theories. In fact, as I understand it, current thought is that sexual selection and genetic drift play parts in evolution too, and exactly what proportion of change is due to each of those mechanisms is not yet established, although consensus for best guess seems to be natural selection is the major force, with proportionally smaller contributions from sexual selection and genetic drift.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dissent-from-darwin/513505/20 "2009-10-13T04:47:19Z")

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> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> … All anyone has to do is find a fossil in the wrong strata. Find a human skull in the precambrian and you have falsified evolution.

I’m hoping for a dinosaur with a saddle.

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