The fact that an education board is seriously holding mock trials of a scientific theory is ridiculous in itself, but to weigh it against religious teachings is beyond belief. Nonetheless, it did prompt me to look into the theory of natural selection more closely (which I am assuming means the same thing as evolution), and I happened upon this article which I think raises a reasonable point:
If there exist valid scientific arguments against any theory, they should be taught along with any and all evidence that supports said theory.
The case of the peppered moths is one pro-evolution argument I have heard on these boards before, and the article claims it to be a hoax.
There are some other arguments that are also mentioned. Do any of these hold water? If so, what are the gaps in scientific records, or occurences in nature that are not fully explained by the theory of natural selection.
It is unreasonable to expect any theory to be completely perfect when there are so many things that are still unexplained. If this theory holds up against most of the scrutiny aimed at it, it’s close enough in my book. Scientific theories are an evolutionary process in themselves (no pun intended), and any gaps will be filled sooner or later. If that wasn’t the case we would still be riding horses on a flat earth. Hardly reason enough to fall back on the “Because God said so” argument.
Having said all that, can all you masters of evlutionary science tell me, Is there something rotten in the state of Evolution?
Although I’m not an evolutionary biologist myself, I can point you to www.talkdesign.org. They have in particular this page on the Cambrian explosion, and this page on the so-called gaps in the fossil record, which were two of the arguments in the article you mentioned.
This argument, though:
That’s just arguing from ignorance. This Colson fellow does not impress me.
As has been stated so many times before, evolution is both a fact and theory. The fact is that organisms change over time and continue to change to this day – if this observation is wrong then entire fields have to be scrapped and something is very wrong in the world. Genetics alone has yielded so much that I don’t see how that could be possible.
The theory of evolution describes the mechanism of change. Most of the scientific debate, I imagine, is going on in this area – the details of the how. No matter how many disagreements are here doesn’t reduce the apparent truth of evolution.
We don’t even know how a lot of things in physics works…but we don’t scrap them and attribute them to god. That’s not how you get to the moon!
Sad to say, that article - like most regarding evolution that stem from pro-creationist sources - is a mixture of misinformation, disinformation, and outright crap.
There have, indeed, been hoaxes perpetrated within the fields of evolutionary biology and palaeontology. However, that does not mean that the entire field is invalidated, any more than the whole “cold fusion” flap several years ago invalidates physics. That these hoaxes do, on occassion get presented as factual for a time is the nature of the beast; however, in each case, the fraud was revealed - by scientists within the field, it should be known - and references corrected.
The claims against evolution in the article are pretty much standard creationist fare: gaps in the fossil record (demonstrating a profound lack of understanding regarding the process of fossilization and the preservation biases inherent therein, as well as the tempo and mechanisms of speciation), the Cambrian Explosion (again demonstrating a lack of understanding regarding fossilization), DNA and “information” (apparently taking a cue from Dembski regarding his nonsensical application of information theory to DNA strands), etc. As for the peppered moth, see here.
Nitpicking specific examples does not constitute an argument against evolution (especially when those nitpicks are so often incorrect in the first place!), nor does it serve as evidence “for” creation. If evidence is provided that such-and-so did not, in fact, evolve along the particular pathway touted in the literature, then all one has done is falsified the theory regarding the emergence of such-and-so. One has not demonstrated a “weakness” of evolution, nor has one demonstrated that creation or intelligent design represents a better explanation. And that is something that the pro-creationist camp has yet to learn.
Are there unanswered questions within evolutionary biology? Sure! Most of them pertain to the origins of specific lineages or the emergence of specific traits, though, not with whether the alleged mechanisms function as described, or at all.
The explanation about transitional gaps (and evidence) is certainly persuasive enough, but theories about the Cambrian explosion seem a bit more vague. Of course, the fact that there is evidence enough to put forth viable theories about something that happened 500 million years ago is saying something.
It seems self-defeating for the creationists to put forth the Cambrian explosion argument anyway, beacuse to do that they have to admit that the earth is 500 million years old - which unravels the counter-argument that it was created 6000 years ago. And the fact that there is any evidence that life existed before the Cambrian explosion means that it wasn’t all created in one fell swoop.
So that’s two down and one to go.
Something else I remember reading a long time ago was about some form of bacteria or similar microbial life-form that use a particular appendage (?) for motility that cannot be explained by evolution. Forgive me if that sounds too vague, but I can’t recall it entirely enough to Google it.
To address this specifically: natural selection is primary mechanism which drives evolution, but it is not the only mechanism (Darwin even said as much in Origin) which does so. NS is not expected to fully explain the organic world; it is expected, however, that the majority of what we observe when it comes to organisms can be thus explained. A subtle point, perhaps, but an important one. Finding instances where NS alone does not provide a satisfactory explanation is, again, not a reason for condemnation of NS acting at all; it is entirely reasonable that other mechanisms or processes, in certain circumstances, may hold sway. An example might be cases of macro-mutations which result in profound morphological changes in a very short time. Such instances are expected to be very rare (as mutation alone is not credited with being the creative force of evolution), but they are not ruled out entirely.
The important thing to know about NS is that it is a statistical phenomenon, not a guarantee. This applies both to the object of selection (e.g., good genes do not guarantee an organism’s evolutionary legacy, nor do “poor” genes automatically doom one to obsolescence), and to its agency (it does not explain 100% of all observed biological phenomena).
That would be Michael Behe’s claims that “the bacterial flagellum” is “irreducibly complex” - that is, it’s too complex to evolve piece-meal, so it must therefore have been “designed”. Here is but one debunking; there are several others to be found (see here and here for a couple more).
If this is true, then there’s no problem, I’d say. Somehow I doubt it’s true, and not just because he’s Chuck Colson. Has anyone read the actual proposal?
Apparently it is, according to other news reports I have read. This puts the onus on individual teachers to make the call on whether to teach evolution in classrooms. It remains to be seen if anyone is brave enough to actually do it though.
Contradictions don’t affect creationists. For example on page 142 in the book Scientific Creationism (Second Edition, Fourteenth Printing) as part of an argument intended to show an unreliability of radioactive dating and speaking of possible variability of nuclear decay rates there is this: “Phenomena such as these [variable decay rate] would be generated by such events as the reversal of the earth’s magnetic field … Since such phenomena are commonly accepted as having occured in the past, even by uniformitarian astronomers and geologists, there is the very real possibility that radioactive decay rates were much higher at various intervals in the past than they are at present.”
This is followed on page 157 by a footnote concerning the work of Dr. Thomas G. Barnes in which he purports to show that the decay of the magnetic field shows that the earth can’t be more than 10000 years old. The footnote says in referring to Barnes’ publication of his work: "In this new edition Barnes firmly refutes the various arguments (e.g. supposed magnetic field reversals) that have been offered by evolutionists against this strong evidence [i.e. of monotonically decaying magnetic field].
The use of the word “supposed” indicates to me that Barnes, the expert they are using to support their argument, disputes the existence of such field reversals.
Hey, Army Air Corps, I’ve been meaning to ask you, what have you been doing the past 60 years? Teaching science? You are so damned knowledgeable about this.
