Well…no. The development of society and/or intelligence (not morals) may have affected the evolution of humans in that they all but removed natural selection from the picture, but natural selection is not the only mechanism for evolutionary change (unless you are in the Strict Darwinism camp). But, all this has very little to do with the topic at hand.
OK, I’ll take a shot at those for which I can easily find refutations:
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” (Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, chapter “Difficulties”)
Taken out of context. The rest of the quote is:
"When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God “], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.”
More discussion at An Old, Out of Context, Quotation.
“There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasture and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God.” He then went on to say that “I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution.” (Dr. George Wall, professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University. Nobel Prize winner in biology. From an article in Scientific American)
I think this is fabricated. There is no Nobel prize in biology. There is no Nobel prize winner named Wall (see The Nobel Prize Internet Archive). I can’t find any trace of a George Wall at Harvard or on the Scientific American web site or anywhere on the Web. The quote is erroneous prima facie, and it’s hard to believe that anyone trained in biology could say such tripe. The author starts with a “false dichotomy” fallacy; there is no evidence that there are only two alternatives. He/she continues with a gross error; the theory of “spontaneous generation” dealt with generation of complex organisms directly from incredibly simpler precursors, and has no connection to the modern theory of abiogenesis.
“Evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless.” (Dr Louise Bounoure, Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Director of the Zoological Museum and former president of the Biological Society of Strasbourg)
From Old, Out of Context Quotations from French Scientists: Part 1:
‘… this quotation appears to be a mistakenly jumbled combination of statements made by two different people at least 36 years ago (probably should be “apart” - JRF)! - Neither did the editors of The Revised Quote Book find enough room or honesty in their publication to discuss the social/historical context out of which the quotation(s) arose. … The authors of The Revised Quote Book lifted Grasse’s phrase, “the myth of evolution,” out of context, trying to deceive others into believing that Grasse was doubtful of evolution even though he stated he “agreed” with the “nearly unanimous” scientific consensus that “evolution” was an historical scientific “fact.” Grasse simply disagreed with explanations of exactly “how” evolution occurred. He felt the “how” part was not a “simple, understood, and explained
phenomenon.”’
See also More Out of Context Quotations of French Scientists.
“The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps; the fossils are missing in all the important places.” (Francis Hitching, archaeologist).
From Francis Hitching: Commonly quoted by creationists:
“Hitching is basically a sensational TV script writer and has no scientific credentials. In The Neck of the Giraffe he claimed to be a member of the Royal Archaeological Institute, but an inquiry to that institute said he was not. … The reference work Contemporary Authors, Vol. 103, page 208, lists him as a member of the Society for Psychical Research, the British Society of Dowsers and of the American Society of Dowsers. … Many of Hitching’s “references” are lifted from young-earth creationist literature rather than being quoted directly from their original sources.”
"“I have little hesitation in saying that a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory.” (Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer, cosmologist, and mathematician, Cambridge University)
The Big Bang and evolution are not related. Hoyle has long been the major opponent of the Big Bang theory, and it’s not surprising to find a quote like this in his work. But it’s irrelevant.
Supper’s ready, maybe more later. Pretty impressive set of quotes, hum? Don’t creationists ever question something that sounds good to them? Scientists do.
IzzyR:
I apologize if I have somehow given you the impression that I have any contempt for your position. However silly I may regard it, I respect your right to hold any viewpoint you choose, and I certainly don’t mean to portray a contemptuous nature.
That said, I feel I have examined each and every word you’ve written in this thread and have commented appropriately. I am most assuredly an imperfect being, and could have missed something along the way. Please resubmit any point I might have overlooked, or direct me to the appropriate response. Or simply ignore me and hope I go away.
If you are operating under a scientific paradigm, then I would agree. However, creationists are not bound by any such logic, and an omnipotent creator could fashion things in any conceivable manner. The car could be made of titanium, while the truck was made of wood. The actual similarity of their components is further validation of the scientific viewpoint, which could have been falsified by the data. Creationist theories are inherently unfalsifiable.
To me, this is the silliest viewpoint of all. Certainly further scientific advances may change our classifications of the various sequences of DNA. This is part of the strength of the scientific process. But we must base our conclusions on the weight of the currently available evidence, especially when it so strongly supports one. To do otherwise would restrict any further progress. And the full weight of the evidence indicates that 90-95% of the DNA is nonfunctional.
You are confusing the issue (or maybe I did). I am not stating anything about a deity, other than it is an unnecessary added variable to the situation. I am not trying to take any position on the existence or reasoning of God, though I will if asked. I was unsucessfully trying to illustrate why I would have made a statement like Ben’s. I do not wish to bring theology into the realm of science – that is exactly what I abhor about creationists.
Wrong. Macro-Evolution, one species changing into another - Yes. I’ll repeat the links I posted before:
Observed Instances of Speciation
ome More Observed Speciation Events
Um, you appear to have no knowledge of the chemical reactions involved in life. There is a gigantic number of chemical reactions in living organisms. Some of them are destructive and some are constructive.
from IzzyR:
Well, actually, scientists make exactly this argument. Monkeys, and even more so apes, look more like people than elephants do. Of course scientists look under the surface, so to speak, and do more careful studies of comparative anatomy. On that basis, scientists long ago concluded that humans and apes are more closely related to each other than either of them is to elephants (and that elephants and primates are more closely related to each other than either of them are to crocodiles). Now, with relatively new biochemical evidence, scientists have independent lines of evidence which confirm the anatomical evidence. This involves both DNA sequences and also the amino acid sequences in proteins. (I believe those are the “protein homologies” Ben is referring to.) It’s like finding your fingerprints and your DNA on the murder weapon…unless you can afford to hire OJ’s defense team, you’re in pretty deep trouble.
**
Well, you say that mutations in general only happen 1 in 10,000,000 times a DNA molecule is copied. When I criticise that figure, you retort that you were only talking about mutations that lead to evolution. When I point out that that wasn’t what you said, you say ok, I was referring to mutations in general. But then we see:
**
Now, wait a minute- if your figure of one mutation per 10,000,000 duplications is wrong, then how can the odds be “pretty much ruled out by mathematics”? Simply restating your argument isn’t going to change the fact that you’re starting from rather obviously false numbers. If you read a genetics textbook you find that the real number is, in humans, one point mutation per organism per generation, which is a little different than your figure (and a little more reliable, since mine came from a textbook and yours came from creationist propaganda.)
First off, your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premise. Just because evolution is true doesn’t enable me to trace “how hemoglobin evolved,” any more than the fact that relativity is true enables me to travel fast enough to experience time dilation.
Anyway, as it turns out I personally can can trace how hemoglobin evolved. Ever heard of a phylogenetic tree?
Let me ask you a question. Which two have more similar hemoglobin: humans, lampreys, or cod?
-Ben
Partly to avoid last Thursdayism: a world created by special creation wouldn’t contain the evidence we see of evolution. I’m also saying that if special creation were true, then we would have the world as creationists mistakenly describe it. Creationists insist that “similar animals have similar proteins” is precisely what one would predict from special creation. I’m just granting them the point, and saying that if creationism were true, then one big difference from the world as it is now would be that similar animals really would have similar proteins.
More broadly, I’m working from the creationist assumption that God would create perfect creatures. So we’d see fewer contingent accidents and “molecular fossils” like the prevalence of adenine in biological systems, and instead we might see a system in which redundancy was more broad-based.
-Ben
**
I haven’t studied paleontology enough, but I think we might have a communication problem here. It seems to me that what you’re saying is that if evolution were true, we would see a distribution of fossils like this:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MauveDog has said that that’s what we see, but with sections wiped out:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And it seems to me that you’re reading him as saying that we have clumps, like this:
. ... . . . . .... . . . . .... . . .
(more like a series of bell curves spaced out on a line.)
Am I reading you guys correctly?
**
Uh, but the “general similarity” doesn’t extend to a genetic level. Remember, with all those silent mutations, genetics tells you something’s lineage, not its similarity.
To choose one example, Linnaeus classified organisms on the basis of similarity, and so he classified mammals, birds, and reptiles as three separate groups. If you were going to classify them on the basis of their lineage in the fossil record, you would get a completely unexpected result: birds would be a sub-group within reptiles, more closely related to alligators than alligators were to, say, snakes and turtles.
Now, if you examine their DNA and do “paternity testing,” you find that the DNA completely backs up the lineage from the fossil record, and doesn’t reflect the overall similarity at all (except to the extent that similarity coincidentally reflects lineage.) Where there is a conflict between measures of similarity and deduced lineage from the fossil record, the DNA agrees with the fossil record.
**
Well, you can also posit last Thursdayism. You can’t just wave your arms and say “God did it.” You have to come up with an explanation of why things are the way they are. Why do we see species being followed by other, barely different species? Why are gradations between some taxa so smooth that the divisions between them are essentially arbitrary? Why do we see certain patterns in DNA? Evolution can answer these questions, but creationists generally don’t even know what questions they are trying to answer.
**
No, it is valid, because it’s clearly a broken gene. If a group of species, related according to the fossil record, are the only species which can get scurvy because they lack a gene for synthesising vitamin C, and at the place where that gene should be they instead have something that looks exactly like the gene but it has mutations which keep it from working, then that’s a broken bottle if I ever saw one.
Remember, too, that the problem with vestigial limbs isn’t that they are supposed to be useless; it’s that they’re so obviously jerry-rigged. I say that the vestigial legs of a whale are proof that it evolved from a legged species. I don’t say that because they’re useless, because as it turns out they help support the whale’s genitalia. I say that they prove evolution because there are better ways to support genitalia than using shriveled legs.
**
But you’re reading my argument as an argument from evil, when it’s not. The question is, if you’re going to say that God did it, then what did he do? It’s one thing to make an attribution, and another to make an explanation. How does the hypothesis of special creation explain anything? What predictions does it make? If you predict that God would have gotten it right the first time, then you have a problem when faced with the fact that in some cases, you see a half-finished job. Within a population of butterflies, both of the genes they need in order to escape predation are present. But there’s only a 50% chance that the offspring will actually get both of them. So why didn’t God finish the job, and put both genes on separate genetic loci?
Let me ask you this: do you understand what segregational load is?
-Ben
I should point out that I didn’t see this post before I told Joel to put up or shut up…
-Ben
**
Actually, I didn’t see your reply at all at the time I wrote, and I apologize.
**
Go to http://www.talkorigins.org and look at their “observed instances of speciation” FAQ. In any event, there is overwhelming genetic evidence for common descent.
**
First off, this is abiogenesis, not evolution.
Secondly, creationists can’t explain the origin of life either- all they can do is attribute it to God, but that attribution has no explanatory power whatsoever. Protein homology is a different issue: evolutionists have an answer that fits all the facts and makes powerful predictions, while creationists don’t. Protein homology leads to new discoveries, when evolutionists explain it. Does “God did it” help to explain the functioning of proteins?
Is there anywhere that creationists can provide an explanation of the facts where evolutionists cannot?
I think you have a distorted understanding of what “chemical reactions” are. All the processes of a living cell are chemical reactions!
-Ben
OK, back from supper. Onward through the quotes. When doing this, you quickly learn to appreciate the standard scientific practice of providing references to sources … the creationists seldom do this, probably because they just copy from each other and have no idea where the original came from. The same errors turn up over and over again on creationist web sites.
“I admit that an awful lot of that [fantasy] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared fifty years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now, I think that that is lamentable, particularly because the people who propose these kinds of stories themselves may be aware of the speculative nature of some of the stuff. But by the time it filters down to the textbooks, we’ve got science as truth and we have a problem.” (Dr Niles Eldredge, Palaeontologist and Evolutionist)
From
[Quote: Niles Eldredge]
(http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/quote_eldredge.html):
“This makes it sound as if Eldredge was saying that horse fossils are somehow not good evidence for evolution. But, that’s not what he meant. … Eldredge was in fact complaining that the exhibits showed horse fossils in a linear sequence - a “ladder of progress”, small-and-archaic shading into big-and-modern. This is false to evolutionary theory, which predicts that species can be organized into a tree diagram. It is also wildly false to the horse evidence.”
"“The theory of Evolution … will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has.” (Malcolm Muggeridge, well-known philosopher)
Why is a philosopher considered an authority on evolution? From
[Quote: Malcolm Muggeridge]
(http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/quote_muggeridge.html):
‘Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist. As his biographer puts it, he had “a dedication to nonconformity that led him to champion many a lost cause.” When he was alive, I read some of his columns, and saw him on TV. To the best of my knowledge, he went to his grave without bothering to learn anything about science. The quoted opinion was not an informed opinion.’
I found some more information about the quote from “George Wall”. The name was spelled wrong. George Wald was professor at Harvard, and one of the winners of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He wrote an article in the August 1954 Scientific American. This is probably the source of the quote, if it is indeed a quote. At
[Quote: George Wald]
(http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/quote_wald.html) there is some discussion of a different creationist misquote from that article.
“The pathetic thing is that we have scientists who are trying to prove evolution, which no scientist can ever prove.” (Dr. Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize winner and eminent evolutionist)
Dr. Robert Millikan, of the Millikan Oil Drop experiment and winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics was not an evolutionist, and there is no reason to believe that he was competent to make that statement.
"“The best physical evidence that the earth is young is the dwindling resource that evolutionists refuse to admit is dwindling … the magnetic energy in the field of the earth’s dipole magnet … To deny that it is a dwindling resource is phoney science.” (Thomas Barnes Ph.D., physicist)
From The General Anti-Creationism FAQ:
“Briefly, Barnes took approximately 150 years of data on the Earth’s dipole magnetic field and extrapolated it backwards to about 10000 years Before Present (B.P.). He stated that the field 10,000 years ago would, on this calculation, have been as strong as that of a magnetic star, and stated (correctly) that this was absurd. However, there are four fatal flaws in his analysis. …Barnes studied only the dipole component of the Earth’s magnetic field, In fact, the very same data that Barnes used show that the nondipole component of the field increased during the same period of time, almost exactly cancelling the decrease in the dipole field … The second failure of Barnes’ study was the idea that one can take data from a short period of time and simply extrapolate it backwards to obtain a reliable estimate at a time remotely removed from the data. … The third failure of Barnes’ study was the mathematical model he chose. He decided to fit the data to an exponential. The data fit a straight line just as well … a straight line would have given a much older age for the Earth than the 10,000 years that Barnes, because of his Biblical literalism (emphasis added - JRF), wishes to promote.The fourth failure of Barnes’ study was his failure to consider any other evidence than the 150 years worth of data from geomagnetic observatories that he used. There exists, in paleomagnetic data, a long record of the Earth’s magnetic dipole strength (extending backwards for millions of years). The data are in agreement with the observatory data Barnes used over their common intersection, but they differ drastically from Barnes’ extrapolation when one goes further back in time.”
From Some Questionable Creationist Credentials:
“Thomas Barnes, formerly affiliated with the Institute for Creation Research … holds a legitimate M.S. degree in physics from Brown University. However, his Sc.D. degree from Hardin-Simmons University, a Christian school and his undergraduate alma mater (when it was known as Hardin-Simmons College), is merely honorary.”
See also On Creation Science and the Alleged Decay of the Earth’s Magnetic Field
"“No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.” (Pierre-Paul Grasse, Evolutionist)
Probably out of context. Another Grasse quote:
“Zoologists and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position …” (Pierre P. Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, pg. 3)
See Out of Context Quotatations of French Scientists.
Well, I submit that a pattern is developing. I think I’ve done enough to demonstrate that pattern. Joel, since you posted the link to those quotes, how about you research and post some discussion of a few of them?
And this is precisely why creationism is bunk! For creationism to be scientific, it must make predictions. But instead of making predictions, creationists just say well, you can’t understand God.
If you really want to posit special creation as a scientific theory, you have to be very specific and precise. For example:
-
If organisms appeared spontaneously, where did their mass and energy come from?
-
Where did the information inherent in those species come from? This is closely related to my next point, which is:
-
Why do the species seem to be related in a familial fashion, rather than just random species (like unicorns and gryphons) being formed? Clearly there is some rule governing what kinds of new species form. What is that rule? Can you delineate those rules in such a way as to be able to predict as-yet undiscovered species, as evolutionists can?
-
Having delineated those rules, can you explain why certain imperfections appear? Why do jerry-rigged organs appear?
Do you see what I mean? “God did it” does nothing, because it doesn’t say who God is, how he did it, or what plan he used. Saying “God created species perfectly adapted to their environment,” as some creationists claim, is a step further, but it conflicts with the evidence (because it predicts similar proteins for similar organisms, and conflicts with segregational load) and it doesn’t explain the hierarchical ordering of lifeforms. Some creationists go further, and make vague statements about how “symmetry” demands that if birds exist and dinosaurs exist, then archaeopteryx must exist, but I am unaware of any usefully unambiguous statement of the “symmetry” rules.
It’s all fine and well to say that God created segregational load because he works in mysterious ways- just don’t pretend that that’s science, because it doesn’t explain anything.
-Ben
I think you’re missing his point. I believe Izzy is saying that similarity does not necessarily imply descent.
-Ben
Damn, but this is relaxing. It is nice to see people who have more time than I do all the typing.
Oh, and I lost my scorecard a page or two back, but I believe Izzy was asking about high definition sections of the fossil record. I’m at home and all my reference books are elsewhere, but we do have some excellent sequences of parent/daughter sequences among shallow-water invertebrates. IIRC, Nils Eldredge based his portion of the Punctuated Equilibrium paper on some trilobites that were preserved in the sediment of a shallow sea, with many meters of bedding planes representing several million years of steady deposition. We also have some really neat oyster sequences. The finest grained records are of the hard parts of marine invertebrates.
Let me see if I can find a reference about the changes in the plankton skeletons from the bottom of the White Cliffs of Dover to the top. Now that’s an example of an almost perfect situation, with generations of related organisms dying and being preserved in the same site.
Regarding the continuity of portions of the fossil record, and some other interesting discussion: I stumbled across something while researching those quotes, and forgot to post it.
Smooth Change in the Fossil Record
Another link to observation of speciation:
I know everyone groans when someone brings up a religious matter in the middle of an evolution/creationism debate, but I really have to mention a matter of good faith, for the portion of this debate which believes that Creationism is some part of faith in God. You scientist can just take a break here, cause you are, (in this narrow aspect only,)mere swine. These pearls are not for you.
Before you devout Christians speak of God’s work in the creation of the world, you need great caution in your sources. When you attribute a report as a true representation of what happened you are claiming that is the work of God. If it turns out that the claim is wrong, you have said God made this mistake. Foolish, huh? But worse things are happening than this.
People fake evidence. When scientists fake evidence, it is bad science, and peer review does much more than mock the sources of such evidence. They censure such a scientist by effectively ending their career in science. When a Creationist fakes evidence, he lies, and calls the lie the word of God. When a paleontologist mistakes a partial Theropod track for a human footprint that is an error. When others subsequently paint portions of the print to enhance its human appearance that is a lie. They do it to promote Creationism, and then claim that they propound the truth of God’s work. Does God need people to tell lies for Him?
Every word you speak, when you speak of Creationism is your testimony to the Truth of God.
Don’t be wrong.
And never make any tiny portion of it up. I seldom say things like this, but I firmly believe Creationism is more likely to serve the will of Satan than Evolution ever could. Science often finds that some element upon which its predictions are made was not what they thought it was. They change their theories, and make new predictions, and test them again. They might waste time. Creationism pretends to illustrate the work of God. When Creationists are shown to be wrong, they must change Gods. Are you willing to bet that high?
The bible is not a biology textbook. Using it for one is desecration of the bible, and bad biology.
My brothers, we have so much to do to serve Him, why not spend our time creating love, rather than questioning creation?
Tris
Triskadecamus, well said. And (without deprecating your contribution), similar to the quote I posted on page 3 and the St. Augustine quote to which a link was posted a few messages after that.
Izzy said:
Which evolutionist is fond of claiming that? Please name names and cite cites.
Now, some of us state that evolution is a fact and a theory (or group of theories, actually). Perhaps you were confused?
Blockhead said:
That is simply an incredible misunderstanding. I hardly know where to begin.
Let’s start with saying that morals are not a “hinderance” to evolution. They are a part of evolution. You don’t see squirrels turning on one another to kill off the weak, do you? No. Does that mean they have “morals”? No. So what you call “morals” already exists to some extent in the animal kingdom.
How do you know? What about people like Stephen Hawking? By your statement, he has hurt the gene pool because he is crippled. Well, I would submit that he has definitely helped humanity by giving us knowledge that we might not have if he had died many years ago.
Humans evolved the ability to overcome – to some extent – our genetics. However, the use of this ability does not mean it goes against evolution, but again, it is part of evolution. Some animals evolved the ability to run fast, or to kill prey, or to fly. We evolved the ability to use our brains to our advantage.
Morals are a way to help the survival of our entire group – humans.
Also, remember that until recently, humans were living with people they were very likely related to in some way. Since you shared genetic material with these people, you wouldn’t want to kill them and hurt the chances of your own genes being passed down. Now, if another tribe came along, the constraints against killing those folks wouldn’t be as great. Indeed, you might do so as part of a fight for the survival of your genes if they were competing for resources.
'Cus otherwise you’d get frostbite in some really nasty places.
Below is a review of The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, by Niles Eldredge. It originally appeared in the State Journal-Register of Springfield, Illinois, and is copyright 2000 by me. It cannot be reproduced elsewhere without my permission.
Scientist Discusses Triumph of Evolution
by David Bloomberg
If you were to talk to the vast majority of scientists – religious or not – about evolution, they would agree that mountains of evidence support it. Unfortunately, that same information often does not get properly communicated down the line to laymen, teachers, and politicians. Thus, we end up with situations like the one in Kansas, where the state school board removed evolution from the science curriculum because of board members’ religious and political beliefs.
Scientist Niles Eldredge has no doubts, and wants to let everybody know. You can tell just by looking at the cover of his new book, “The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism” (W.H. Freeman, $24.95). The second part of the title, regarding creationism, is in backwards type – perhaps to illustrate what Eldredge thinks of creationism. In science, one looks at the evidence and then draws a conclusion. With creationism, the conclusion is pre-ordained, and supporters try to claim evidence to back it up while ignoring anything contrary. Creationism is backwards.
Eldredge says he wishes he didn’t even have to write this book. Creationists, he notes, have put forth nothing new in terms of science, only in politics. He emphasizes that he would not have written a book just to criticize somebody’s religious beliefs, but he thinks the use of those beliefs as an attack on science – especially in schools – deserves our attention. Scientists cannot ignore issues like this: “Evolution is triumphant in the intellectual realm, but it is still under siege in the political arena.”
Throughout the book, Eldredge asks and answers questions about evolution as he hits on different points of evidence for it. For example, he shows how three different lines of evidence all point to the old age of the Earth (rather than the young age proposed by some creationists). He explains how the “Cambrian explosion” of various life forms supports evolutionary predictions, not creationism.
He also shoots down some common creationist arguments and addresses their claims, such as those against radiometric dating, “gaps” in the fossil record, assertions that all fossils were caused by Noah’s flood, etc. One popular claim is that “microevolution” – small changes within a species – is acceptable but that “macroevolution” – changes to new species – is not. But Eldredge notes: “Microevolution and macroevolution differ only as a matter of scale, as we have seen from the connectedness of all life, and from the sliding scale of events.”
He tackles the frequent creationist misuse of the word “theory” as if it just meant some wild idea. In science, a theory has a great deal of evidence to support it. Thus, the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun is “only a theory.” The idea that gravity will cause an apple to fall to the ground rather than into the sky is “only a theory.” As Eldredge says, “all of science is only a theory.”
In discussing the way creationists try to attack, he points out how they use disagreements about specific details as if they were evidence against evolution itself. However, such disagreements are actually a strength of science, not a weakness. All the scientists involved in such discussions agree that life has evolved. They are now only trying to figure out the details, and in doing so, science is progressing.
Science is really the key to this book. Eldredge does not simply attack creationist methods; he discusses how science works. Science must be “predictive” in terms of the ability of an idea to forecast certain phenomena. This is the test of a theory, and evolution has passed that test many times over, while creationism has not.
Evolution predicts that some species should be more closely related to each other than to other species. This is precisely what scientists find, both by observations in nature and in genetic codes.
Another prediction is that there should be a fossil record showing a general progression from simple forms of life up through more complex forms over time. That, too, is found to be correct.
He discusses the vast evidence for human evolution, calling it, “one of the very best, most complete, and ironclad documented examples of evolutionary history.” Here, as at other points along the way, he makes his feelings known as he describes creationist attempts to attack human evolution as “simply puerile and downright wimpy.”
In science, when the evidence disagrees with your theory, you must change it or abandon it. Eldredge shows how creationists react to evidence for evolution. Archaeopteryx, for example, is “beautifully intermediate between advanced archosaurian reptiles and birds.” It is strong evolutionary evidence. Creationists, however, ignore it altogether and claim it is “just another bird.”
He sums up his feelings quite well when he says, “Creation science isn’t science at all. Creation scientists have not managed to come up with even a single intellectually compelling, scientifically testable statement about the natural world – beyond, that is, hypotheses that have long since been tested and abandoned by science, in many cases as long ago as the nineteenth century.”
Eldredge closes by explaining why he thinks creationists continue to attack evolution. To them, he says, evolution strikes at the heart of morality. For if we evolved from lower animals, they say, why should we not act like them and ignore the morality of God?
Yet, as Eldredge notes early on, “most of the formative figures in the emergence of modern science were deeply religious.” One does not need to abandon religion in order to accept the scientific results demonstrating evolution. The idea that evolution automatically implies immorality is one of the creationists’ own making. They are fighting against an idea that they created themselves!
No matter their reasons, as long as they fight against evolution without using proper scientific methods, scientists like Eldredge will speak up and point out their flaws. At some point, maybe even the politicians will take heed.