The Evolution of Theory: Defining the Debate

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

A curious metamorphosis of the language of evolution seems to be taking place as the Darwinian theory becomes more suspect in the eyes of scientists who advocate intelligent design, and with the public at large.

The Gallup Organization has been polling the public on this issue since 1982, when 38 percent indicated a belief in the creationist explanation of life's origin, 33 percent believed in theistic (God-directed) evolution, and 9 percent chose the “no God” account. The trend has been steadily toward creationism, and by November 2004, 45 percent chose the creationist explanation, 38 percent the theistic evolutionist account, and 13 percent the “no God” explanation.

Nevertheless, the reaction by supporters of evolution has been to shut intelligent design out of the debate over origins and declare that the public has woefully misunderstood scientific terminology when it comes to the meaning of “theory.” As I have reported earlier at BreakPoint Online, “theory” in scientific parlance is said to really mean “fact”—and if the public understood this, there would allegedly be much less confusion over the “theory” of evolution. As author David Quammen said in a November 2004 National Geographic article, “What scientists mean when they talk about a theory [is] not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence.”

It is remarkable how broadly Quammen’s quote has proliferated among other commentators. His words generated over seven hundred hits on an Internet search. Other similar quotes are also widely circulated (emphasis added):

“In everyday use, the word “theory” often means an untested hunch, or a guess without supporting evidence. But for scientists, a theory has nearly the opposite meaning. A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts.” (172 hits) Kenneth R. Miller - Professor of Biology, Brown University; The American Museum of Natural History

“When scientists speak of evolution as a theory they do not mean that it is a mere speculation. It is a theory in the same sense as the propositions that the earth is round rather than flat or that our bodies are made of atoms are theories.” (69 hits) Dr. Dennis O’Neil - Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College

“Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty—above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is ‘a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world’ . . . so when scientists talk about the theory of evolution . . . they are not expressing reservations about its truth.” (628 hits) Answers to Creation Nonsense - John Rennie, Editor-in-Chief; Scientific American, July 2002

These nearly identical definitions of the word “theory” have proliferated so broadly they have taken on the roll of science “talking points.” In reality, it is common knowledge—even among scientists—that a theory can mean anything from wild speculation to near-absolute fact.

Einstein’s special theory of relativity, for example, is a fairly well established theory that has been validated by numerous scientific measurements, yet it breaks down when describing motion in varying gravitational fields. On the other hand, string theory describes subatomic particles in terms of incredibly small vibrating strings whose frequency determines the type of particle. The theory attempts to connect the particle to the four seemingly independent forces found in the natural world: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.

String theory exists only in mathematical formulae and requires a universe of ten dimensions beyond space and time. In an interview for the PBS program The Elegant Universe, 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate David Gross admitted that physicists really don’t know what string theory is:

It’s as if we’ve stumbled in the dark into what we thought was a two-bedroom apartment and now we’re discovering is a 19-room mansion. At least maybe it’s got a thousand rooms, and we’re just beginning our journey . . .

In string theory I think we’re in sort of a pre-revolutionary stage. We have hit upon, somewhat accidentally, an incredible theoretical structure, many of whose consequences we’ve worked out, many of which we’re working out, which we can use to explore new questions… many of us believe that that [a very radical break with conventional physics] will be insufficient to realize the final goals of string theory, or even to truly understand what the theory is, what its basic principles are. (emphasis added)

The “gay gene theory,” which was offered by NIH researcher Dr. Dean Hamer, claimed that sexual orientation was passed genetically through gene position Xq28—a theory that turned out to be completely bogus, if not fraudulent.

As can be seen, “theory,” in the scientific sense, can mean anything from well established to highly speculative to nonsense, and everything in between. Nevertheless, as Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice, it is not important what one thinks a word means, it is which definition becomes “master” over any other. It seems the strategy of evolutionists is to preempt debate by assigning a narrow meaning, i.e., fact, to the word theory—especially when in union with the word evolution. Proponents of evolution have made some headway in altering the meaning of theory in popular reference dictionaries. For example:

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1961: 1. Contemplation; speculation. 2. The analysis of a set of facts in their ideal relations to one another; as essays in theory. 3. The general or abstract principles of any body of facts; pure as distinguished from applied, science or art; as the theory of music or of medicine. 4. A more or less plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle offered to explain phenomena. 5. Loosely, a hypothesis or guess. 6. Math. A body of theorems presenting a clear, rounded, and systematic view of a subject; as, the theory of equations.

Webster’s Seventh Collegiate Dictionary, 1967: 1. The analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another . . .

Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1983: 1. Originally, a mental viewing; contemplation. An idea or mental plan of the way to do something. 2. A systematic statement of principles involved; as the theory of equations in mathematics . . .

Webster’s College Dictionary, 2000: 1. A coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Darwin’s theory of evolution. 2. A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural . . .

The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2005: 1. A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something; especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained; Darwin’s Theory of Evolution . . .

Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 2004: 1. [Obsolete]. A mental viewing; contemplation. SYN: theory, as compared here, implies considerable evidence in support of a formulated general principle explaining the operation of a certain phenomena; The theory of evolution.

So it seems that the “Humpty Dumpty theory” is coming through for evolutionists, in a strategy not uncommon in today’s culture war: Unrestricted abortion is really reproductive health; sodomy is a lifestyle alternative; Christmas is Winter Holiday; and family is whatever one wants it to be. Perhaps we’re approaching a time when the definition of words will no longer be important—we can just make them up as we go along.

But no matter how the language is manipulated in order to change fantasy into reality, the fact remains that the development of complex organisms by solely naturalistic processes remains a formidable, if not insurmountable, obstacle to evolutionists. Darwin himself had doubts about the viability of natural selection in his study of the human eye. His commentary in The Origin of Species is illuminating:

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 possible.

Nevertheless, Darwin steadfastly clung to the belief that natural selection was somehow at work in the complex process of sight. Modern science suggests this conundrum began with a “freckle” that in some mysterious way offered an ancient organism a selective advantage over its competitors until only the freckled mutations remained.

Over time, the spot evolved into a freckled “depression” with a similar competitive advantage, which over the ages evolved into the human eye, complete with lens, iris, vitreous humor, retina, cornea, adjustable pupil, macula, eye lids, tear ducts, and an optic nerve connected to the brain. Yet the eye is but one of a multitude of similarly inexplicable organic complexities—a formidable challenge, indeed, for evolutionists. But there is an alternative:

“The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis Chapter 2, verse 7

Terminology is not the only thing that "evolves" with evolutionists. For instance, look up all the vestigial organs claimed by evolutionists to prove their theory. Most have now been proven to have uses and not be so vestigial at all.

Congratulations -- like most uneducated anti-evolutionists, you have no idea what "vestigial" means, or how vestigial features are used as evidence supporting evolutionary origins. Please try to actually *learn* some biology before you attempt to critique it.

On this long list of bone-headed, fallacious, or dishonest creationist claims, you'll find that your misunderstanding has already been identified and addressed:

CB360. Vestigial organs may have functions.

CB360.1. The human appendix is functional, not vestigial.
(see also CB130: Junk DNA not really junk.)

CB361. Vestigial organs are just evidence of decay, not evolution.

CB361.1. Presently useless vestigial organs once had function.

Here is part of my reply to the last guy who tried attacking biology due to the same lack of knowledge:

Yes, VESTIGIAL FEATURES do indeed provide evidence of evolution "either way", because if they linger from a common ancestor, they indicate the link to that common ancestor, and if they have been "de-selected" as you say, they also provide evidence for evolution because they leave traces of their passing, such as the fact that birds do not have teeth, but still have "broken" genes to produce teeth (which can and have been chemically triggered to produce chicks with reptile-like teeth). Even though birds have lost the teeth of their reptile ancestors, they retain clear evidence that they *did* have teeth in a distant ancestor.
Vestigial features, even (and in some cases especially) ones which are not entirely non-functional, provide strong evidence for evolution precisely *because* they are the kind of "leftover" that a sensible designer wouldn't have put in if he were free to design things from scratch, but are exactly the kind of thing that evolution via common descent produces frequently (because it's slow to "weed out" things which aren't strictly detrimental, and because it "retasks" structures from earlier "models" instead of being free to "redesign" things from scratch.)
So can evolution ever be falsified? Sure -- by organisms having features that are *not* inherited from a common ancestor (by unmodified or modified descent). So far, no such feature has ever been found, despite 100+ years of searching, and despite the fact that *designed* objects have these kinds of non-heirarchical features all the time.
Try learning some biology before you attempt to critique it. Heck, you'd be a long way towards not making bone-headed errors on this topic if you had just *read* (and understood) the links I've *already* given to you for your education. They've already explained the problem with your fallacies, and yet you come right back and make them *again*.
Here, for example, are some of the passages you failed to either read or understand:
[From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/vestiges/appendix.html]

Evolutionary vestiges are, technically, any diminished structure that previously had a greater physiological significance in an ancestor than at present. Independently of evolutionary theory, a vestige can also be defined typologically as a reduced and rudimentary structure compared to the same homologous structure in other organisms, as one that lacks the complex functions usually found for that structure in other organisms (see, e.g. Geoffroy 1798).
Classic examples of vestiges are the wings of the ostrich and the eyes of blind cavefish. These vestigial structures may have functions of some sort. Nevertheless, what matters is that rudimentary ostrich wings are useless as normal flying wings, and that rudimentary cavefish eyes are useless as normal sighted eyes. Vestiges can be functional, and speculative arguments against vestiges based upon their possible functions completely miss the point.
For more discussion of the vestigial concept, extensive modern and historical references concerning its definition (especially the allowance for functionality), see the Citing Scadding (1981) and Misunderstanding Vestigiality and 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Anatomical vestiges FAQs.
And:
[From: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#vestiges]
A vestige is defined, independently of evolutionary theory, as a reduced and rudimentary structure compared to the same complex structure in other organisms. Vestigial characters, if functional, perform relatively simple, minor, or inessential functions using structures that were clearly designed for other complex purposes. Though many vestigial organs have no function, complete non-functionality is not a requirement for vestigiality (Crapo 1985; Culver et al. 1995; Darwin 1872, pp. 601-609; Dodson 1960, p. 44; Griffiths 1992; Hall 2003; McCabe 1912, p. 264; Merrell 1962, p. 101; Moody 1962, p. 40; Muller 2002; Naylor 1982; Strickberger 2000; Weismann 1886, pp. 9-10; Wiedersheim 1893, p. 2, p. 200, p. 205).

For example, wings are very complex anatomical structures specifically adapted for powered flight, yet ostriches have flightless wings. The vestigial wings of ostriches may be used for relatively simple functions, such as balance during running and courtship displays—a situation akin to hammering tacks with a computer keyboard. The specific complexity of the ostrich wing indicates a function which it does not perform, and it performs functions incommensurate with its complexity. Ostrich wings are not vestigial because they are useless structures per se, nor are they vestigial simply because they have different functions compared to wings in other birds. Rather, what defines ostrich wings as vestigial is that they are rudimentary wings which are useless as wings.
Vestigial structures have perplexed naturalists throughout history and were noted long before Darwin first proposed universal common descent. Many eighteenth and nineteenth century naturalists identified and discussed vestigial structures, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Georges-Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon (1707-1788), and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Over sixty years before Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species, the eminent French anatomist Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1772-1844) discussed his observations of the vestigial wings of the cassowary and ostrich during his travels with Napoleon to Egypt:

"There is another species that, like the ostrich, never leaves the ground, the Cassowary, in which the shortening [of the wing] is so considerable, that it appears little more than a vestige of a wing. Its arm is not, however, entirely eliminated. All of the parts are found under the skin. ...
Whereas useless in this circumstance, these rudiments of the furcula have not been eliminated, because Nature never works by rapid jumps, and She always leaves vestiges of an organ, even though it is completely superfluous, if that organ plays an important role in the other species of the same family. Thus, under the skin of the Cassowary's flanks are the vestiges of the wings ..." (Geoffroy 1798)

Geoffroy was at a loss for why exactly nature "always leaves vestiges of an organ", yet he could not deny his empirical observations. Ten years later, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) identified several vestigial structures in his Zoological Philosophy (Lamarck 1809, pp. 115-116):

"Eyes in the head are characteristic of a great number of different animals, and essentially constitute a part of the plan of organisation of the vertebrates. Yet the mole, whose habits require a very small use of sight, has only minute and hardly visible eyes ...
Olivier's Spalax, which lives underground like the mole, and is apparently exposed to daylight even less than the mole, has altogether lost the use of sight: so that it shows nothing more than vestiges of this organ. Even these vestiges are entirely hidden under the skin and other parts, which cover them up and do not leave the slightest access to light.
The Proteus, an aquatic reptile allied to the salamanders, and living in deep dark caves under water, has, like the Spalax, only vestiges of the organ of sight, vestiges which are covered up and hidden in the same way." (Lamarck 1809, p. 116)

Even Aristotle discussed the peculiar vestigial eyes of moles in the fourth century B.C. in De animalibus historiae (lib. I cap. IX), in which he identified them as "stunted in development" and "eyes not in the full sense".
As these individuals noted, vestiges can be especially puzzling features of organisms, since these "hypocritical" structures profess something that they do not do—they clearly appear designed for a certain function which they do not perform. However, common descent provides a scientific explanation for these peculiar structures. Existing species have different structures and perform different functions. If all living organisms descended from a common ancestor, then both functions and structures necessarily have been gained and lost in each lineage during macroevolutionary history. Therefore, from common descent and the constraint of gradualism, we predict that many organisms should retain vestigial structures as structural remnants of lost functions.

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