Posted on 02/10/2005 1:06:55 PM PST by restornu
I write as neither a creationist nor a Darwinist, but as one who knows what is probably the most disreputable scientific secret of the past century: There is no plausible scientific theory of the origin of species! Darwin himself was not sure he had produced one, and for many decades every competent evolutionary biologist has known that he did not. Although the experts have kept quiet when true believers have sworn in court and before legislative bodies that Darwin's theory is proven beyond any possible doubt, that's not what reputable biologists, including committed Darwinians, have been saying to one another.
Without question, Charles Darwin would be among the most prominent biologists in history even if he hadn't written The Origin of Species in 1859. But he would not have been deified in the campaign to "enlighten" humanity. The battle over evolution is not an example of how heroic scientists have withstood the relentless persecution of religious fanatics. Rather, from the very start it primarily has been an attack on religion by militant atheists who wrap themselves in the mantle of science.
When a thoroughly ideological Darwinist like Richard Dawkins claims, "The theory is about as much in doubt as that the earth goes round the sun," he does not state a fact, but merely aims to discredit a priori anyone who dares to express reservations about evolution. Indeed, Dawkins has written, "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane ...."
That is precisely how "Darwin's Bulldog," Thomas Huxley, hoped intellectuals would react when he first adopted the tactic of claiming that the only choice is between Darwin and Bible literalism. However, just as one can doubt Max Weber's Protestant Ethic thesis without thereby declaring for Marxism, so too one may note the serious shortcomings of neo-Darwinism without opting for any rival theory. Modern physics provides a model of how science benefits from being willing to live with open questions rather than embracing obviously flawed conjectures.
What is most clear to me is that the Darwinian Crusade does not prove some basic incompatibility between religion and science. But the even more immediate reality is that Darwin's theory falls noticeably short of explaining the origin of species. Dawkins knows the many serious problems that beset a purely materialistic evolutionary theory, but asserts that no one except true believers in evolution can be allowed into the discussion, which also must be held in secret. Thus he chastises Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould, two distinguished fellow Darwinians, for giving "spurious aid and comfort to modern creationists."
Dawkins believes that, regardless of his or her good intentions, "If a reputable scholar breathes so much as a hint of criticism of some detail of Darwinian theory, that fact is seized upon and blown up out of proportion." While acknowledging that "the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record" is a major embarrassment for Darwinism, Stephen Jay Gould confided that this has been held as a "trade secret of paleontology" and acknowledged that the evolutionary diagrams "that adorn our textbooks" are based on "inference ... not the evidence of fossils."
According to Steven Stanley, another distinguished evolutionist, doubts raised by the fossil record were "suppressed" for years. Stanley noted that this too was a tactic begun by Huxley, always careful not to reveal his own serious misgivings in public. Paleontologist Niles Eldridge and his colleagues have said that the history of life demonstrates gradual transformations of species, "all the while really knowing that it does not." This is not how science is conducted; it is how ideological crusades are run.
By Darwin's day it had long been recognized that the fossil evidence showed that there had been a progression in the biological complexity of organisms over an immense period of time. In the oldest strata, only simple organisms are observed. In more recent strata, more complex organisms appear. The biological world is now classified into a set of nested categories. Within each genus (mammals, reptiles, etc.) are species (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.) and within each species are many specific varieties, or breeds (Great Dane, Poodle, Beagle, etc.).
It was well-known that selective breeding can create variations within species. But the boundaries between species are distinct and firm – one species does not simply trail off into another by degrees. As Darwin acknowledged, breeding experiments reveal clear limits to selective breeding beyond which no additional changes can be produced. For example, dogs can be bred to be only so big and no bigger, let alone be selectively bred until they are cats. Hence, the question of where species come from was the real challenge and, despite the title of his famous book and more than a century of hoopla and celebration, Darwin essentially left it unanswered.
After many years spent searching for an adequate explanation of the origin of species, in the end Darwin fell back on natural selection, claiming that it could create new creatures too, if given immense periods of time. That is, organisms respond to their environmental circumstances by slowly changing (evolving) in the direction of traits beneficial to survival until, eventually, they are sufficiently changed to constitute a new species. Hence, new species originate very slowly, one tiny change after another, and eventually this can result in lemurs changing to humans via many intervening species.
Darwin fully recognized that a major weakness of this account of the origin of species involved what he and others referred to as the principle of "gradualism in nature." The fossil record was utterly inconsistent with gradualism. As Darwin acknowledged: "...why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?"
Two Solutions
Darwin offered two solutions. Transitional types are quickly replaced and hence would mainly only be observable in the fossil record. As for the lack of transitional types among the fossils, that was, Darwin admitted, "the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory."
Darwin dealt with this problem by blaming "the extreme imperfection of the geological record." "Only a small portion of the surface of the earth has been geologically explored, and no part with sufficient care." But, just wait, Darwin promised, the missing transitions will be found in the expected proportion when more research has been done. Thus began an intensive search for what the popular press soon called the "missing links."
Today, the fossil record is enormous compared to what it was in Darwin's day, but the facts are unchanged. The links are still missing; species appear suddenly and then remain relatively unchanged. As Steven Stanley reported: "The known fossil record...offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid."
Indeed, the evidence has grown even more contrary since Darwin's day. "Many of the discontinuities [in the fossil record] tend to be more and more emphasized with increased collecting," noted the former curator of historical geology at the American Museum of Natural History. The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism, Stephen Jay Gould has acknowledged. The first problem is stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear. The second problem is sudden appearance. Species do not arise gradually by the steady transformation of ancestors, they appear "fully formed."
These are precisely the objections raised by many biologists and geologists in Darwin's time – it was not merely that Darwin's claim that species arise through eons of natural selection was offered without supporting evidence, but that the available evidence was overwhelmingly contrary. Unfortunately, rather than concluding that a theory of the origin of species was yet to be accomplished, many scientists urged that Darwin's claims must be embraced, no matter what.
In keeping with Darwin's views, evolutionists have often explained new species as the result of the accumulation of tiny, favorable random mutations over an immense span of time. But this answer is inconsistent with the fossil record wherein creatures appear "full-blown and raring to go." Consequently, for most of the past century, biologists and geneticists have tried to discover how a huge number of favorable mutations can occur at one time so that a new species would appear without intermediate types.
However, as the eminent and committed Darwinist Ernst Mayr explained, “The occurrence of genetic monstrosities by mutation ... is well substantiated, but they are such evident freaks that these monsters can only be designated as 'hopeless.' They are so utterly unbalanced that they would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through selection. Giving a thrush the wings of a falcon does not make it a better flyer.... To believe that such a drastic mutation would produce a viable new type, capable of occupying a new adaptive zone, is equivalent to believing in miracles.”
The word miracle crops up again and again in mathematical assessments of the possibility that even very simple biochemical chains, let alone living organisms, can mutate into being by a process of random trial and error. For generations, Darwinians have regaled their students with the story of the monkey and the typewriter, noting that given an infinite period of time, the monkey sooner or later is bound to produce Macbeth purely by chance, the moral being that infinite time can perform miracles.
However, the monkey of random evolution does not have infinite time. The progression from simple to complex life forms on earth took place within a quite limited time. Moreover, when competent mathematicians considered the matter, they quickly calculated that even if the monkey's task were reduced to coming up with only a few lines of Macbeth, let alone Shakespeare's entire play, the probability is far, far beyond mathematical possibility. The odds of creating even the simplest organism at random are even more remote – Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, celebrated cosmologists, calculated the odds as one in ten to the 40,000th power. (Consider that all atoms in the known universe are estimated to number no more than ten to the 80th power.) In this sense, then, Darwinian theory does rest on truly miraculous assumptions.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the current situation is that while Darwin is treated as a secular saint in the popular media and the theory of evolution is regarded as the invincible challenge to all religious claims, it is taken for granted among the leading biological scientists that the origin of species has yet to be explained. Writing in Nature in 1999, Eörs Szathmay summarizes that, "The origin of species has long fascinated biologists. Although Darwin's major work bears it as a title, it does not provide a solution to the problem." When Julian Huxley claimed that "Darwin's theory is...no longer a theory but a fact," he surely knew better. But, just like his grandfather, Thomas Huxley, he knew that his lie served the greater good of "enlightenment
Branching, yes. As a species population grows, portions of it become isolated from other portions (through distance, intervening geography, etc.), and the lack of interbreeding allows each subpopulation to evolve off in its own direction, resulting in two or more different species where once there was only one.
This is no different than how we ended up with dozens of new breeds of dogs, from a much less diverse original stock -- different descendant lineages went their separate ways. The entire dog population didn't have to change together in only one way. Likewise for how we now have hundreds of varieties of roses, while the wild rose still continues to exist.
But the cool thing is, you don't just get intra-species diversity; e.g., Rottweilers and Cocker Spaniels, you get inter-species diversity; e.g., whales and hippos.
A: Claiming to read minds of the dead now? Fascinating.
Humm.. Darwin couldn't explain it, Mayr is no better, AND apparently, neither can you.
Darwin had the handicap of living a century and a half ago. Mayr and I are under no such disadvantage.
The Path from the RNA World Anthony M. Poole, Daniel C. Jeffares, David Penny: Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Massey UniversityAnd:Abstract: We describe a sequential (step by step) Darwinian model for the evolution of life from the late stages of the RNA world through to the emergence of eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The starting point is our model, derived from current RNA activity, of the RNA world just prior to the advent of genetically-encoded protein synthesis. By focusing on the function of the protoribosome we develop a plausible model for the evolution of a protein-synthesizing ribosome from a high-fidelity RNA polymerase that incorporated triplets of oligonucleotides. With the standard assumption that during the evolution of enzymatic activity, catalysis is transferred from RNA M RNP M protein, the first proteins in the ``breakthrough organism'' (the first to have encoded protein synthesis) would be nonspecific chaperone-like proteins rather than catalytic. Moreover, because some RNA molecules that pre-date protein synthesis under this model now occur as introns in some of the very earliest proteins, the model predicts these particular introns are older than the exons surrounding them, the ``introns-first'' theory. Many features of the model for the genome organization in the final RNA world ribo-organism are more prevalent in the eukaryotic genome and we suggest that the prokaryotic genome organization (a single, circular genome with one center of replication) was derived from a ``eukaryotic-like'' genome organization (a fragmented linear genome with multiple centers of replication). The steps from the proposed ribo-organism RNA genome M eukaryotic-like DNA genome M prokaryotic-like DNA genome are all relatively straightforward, whereas the transition prokaryotic-like genome M eukaryotic-like genome appears impossible under a Darwinian mechanism of evolution, given the assumption of the transition RNA M RNP M protein. A likely molecular mechanism, ``plasmid transfer,'' is available for the origin of prokaryotic-type genomes from an eukaryotic-like architecture. Under this model prokaryotes are considered specialized and derived with reduced dependence on ssRNA biochemistry. A functional explanation is that prokaryote ancestors underwent selection for thermophily (high temperature) and/or for rapid reproduction (r selection) at least once in their history.
On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells William Martin and Michael J. RussellAnd:Abstract: All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life’s most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide-rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)-containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three-dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage-site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free-living prokaryotes. The known capability of FeS and NiS to catalyse the synthesis of the acetyl-methylsulphide from carbon monoxide and methylsulphide, constituents of hydrothermal fluid, indicates that pre-biotic syntheses occurred at the inner surfaces of these metal-sulphide-walled compartments, which furthermore restrained reacted products from diffusion into the ocean, providing sufficient concentrations of reactants to forge the transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. The chemistry of what is known as the RNA-world could have taken place within these naturally forming, catalyticwalled compartments to give rise to replicating systems. Sufficient concentrations of precursors to support replication would have been synthesized in situ geochemically and biogeochemically, with FeS (and NiS) centres playing the central catalytic role. The universal ancestor we infer was not a free-living cell, but rather was confined to the naturally chemiosmotic, FeS compartments within which the synthesis of its constituents occurred. The first free-living cells are suggested to have been eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 Gyr ago from their inorganic confines. We propose that the emergence of these prokaryotic lineages from inorganic confines occurred independently, facilitated by the independent origins of membrane-lipid biosynthesis: isoprenoid ether membranes in the archaebacterial and fatty acid ester membranes in the eubacterial lineage. The eukaryotes, all of which are ancestrally heterotrophs and possess eubacterial lipids, are suggested to have arisen ca. 2 Gyr ago through symbiosis involving an autotrophic archaebacterial host and a heterotrophic eubacterial symbiont, the common ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. The attributes shared by all prokaryotes are viewed as inheritances from their confined universal ancestor. The attributes that distinguish eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet are uniform within the groups, are viewed as relics of their phase of differentiation after divergence from the non-free-living universal ancestor and before the origin of the free-living chemoautotrophic lifestyle. The attributes shared by eukaryotes with eubacteria and archaebacteria, respectively, are viewed as inheritances via symbiosis. The attributes unique to eukaryotes are viewed as inventions specific to their lineage. The origin of the eukaryotic endomembrane system and nuclear membrane are suggested to be the fortuitous result of the expression of genes for eubacterial membrane lipid synthesis by an archaebacterial genetic apparatus in a compartment that was not fully prepared to accommodate such compounds, resulting in vesicles of eubacterial lipids that accumulated in the cytosol around their site of synthesis. Under these premises, the most ancient divide in the living world is that between eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet the steepest evolutionary grade is that between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front M. J. RUSSELL & A. J. HALL: Department of Geology and Applied Geology, University of GlasgowAnd:Abstract: Here we argue that life emerged on Earth from a redox and pH front at c. 4.2 Ga. This front occurred where hot (c. 150)C), extremely reduced, alkaline, bisulphide-bearing, submarine seepage waters interfaced with the acid, warm (c. 90)C), iron-bearing Hadean ocean. The low pH of the ocean was imparted by the ten bars of CO2 considered to dominate the Hadean atmosphere/hydrosphere. Disequilibrium between the two solutions was maintained by the spontaneous precipitation of a colloidal FeS membrane. Iron monosulphide bubbles comprising this membrane were inflated by the hydrothermal solution upon sulphide mounds at the seepage sites. Our hypothesis is that the FeS membrane, laced with nickel, acted as a semipermeable catalytic boundary between the two fluids, encouraging synthesis of organic anions by hydrogenation and carboxylation of hydrothermal organic primers. The ocean provided carbonate, phosphate, iron, nickel and protons; the hydrothermal solution was the source of ammonia, acetate, HS", H2 and tungsten, as well as minor concentrations of organic sulphides and perhaps cyanide and acetaldehyde. The mean redox potential (ÄEh) across the membrane, with the energy to drive synthesis, would have approximated to 300 millivolts. The generation of organic anions would have led to an increase in osmotic pressure within the FeS bubbles. Thus osmotic pressure could take over from hydraulic pressure as the driving force for distension, budding and reproduction of the bubbles. Condensation of the organic molecules to polymers, particularly organic sulphides, was driven by pyrophosphate hydrolysis. Regeneration of pyrophosphate from the monophosphate in the membrane was facilitated by protons contributed from the Hadean ocean. This was the first use by a metabolizing system of protonmotive force (driven by natural ÄpH) which also would have amounted to c. 300 millivolts. Protonmotive force is the universal energy transduction mechanism of life. Taken together with the redox potential across the membrane, the total electrochemical and chemical energy available for protometabolism amounted to a continuous supply at more than half a volt. The role of the iron sulphide membrane in keeping the two solutions separated was appropriated by the newly synthesized organic sulphide polymers. This organic take-over of the membrane material led to the miniaturization of the metabolizing system. Information systems to govern replication could have developed penecontemporaneously in this same milieu. But iron, sulphur and phosphate, inorganic components of earliest life, continued to be involved in metabolism.
Obcells as Proto-Organisms: Membrane Heredity, Lithophosphorylation, and the Origins of the Genetic Code, the First Cells, and Photosynthesis (Journal of Molecular Evolution, Volume 53 - Number 4/5, 2001)Let me know when you get done reading those, and I'll give you some more.The universal ancestor was a thermophile or a hyperthermophile: tests and further evidence
On the RNA World: Evidence in Favor of an Early Ribonucleopeptide World
Inhibition of Ribozymes by Deoxyribonucleotides and the Origin of DNA
Genetic Code Origin: Are the Pathways of Type Glu-tRNAGln to Gln-tRNAGln Molecular Fossils or Not?
Johnston WK, Unrau PJ, Lawrence MS, Glasner ME, Bartel DP.RNA-catalyzed RNA polymerization: accurate and general RNA-templated primer extension. Science. 2001 May 18;292(5520):1319-25.
Ferris JP. (1999 Jun). Prebiotic synthesis on minerals: bridging the prebiotic and RNA worlds. Biol Bull , 196, 311-4.
Levy M, and Miller SL. (1999 Jun). The prebiotic synthesis of modified purines and their potential role in the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 48, 631-7.
Unrau PJ, and Bartel DP. (1998 Sep 17). RNA-catalysed nucleotide synthesis [see comments] Nature , 395, 260-3.
Roth A, and Breaker RR. (1998 May 26). An amino acid as a cofactor for a catalytic polynucleotide [In Process Citation] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A , 95, 6027-31.
Jeffares DC, Poole AM, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). Relics from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 18-36.
Poole AM, Jeffares DC, and Penny D. (1998 Jan). The path from the RNA world. J Mol Evol , 46, 1-17.
Wiegand TW, Janssen RC, and Eaton BE. (1997 Sep). Selection of RNA amide synthases. Chem Biol , 4, 675-83.
Di Giulio M. (1997 Dec). On the RNA world: evidence in favor of an early ribonucleopeptide world. J Mol Evol , 45, 571-8.
Hager AJ, and Szostak JW. (1997 Aug). Isolation of novel ribozymes that ligate AMP-activated RNA substrates. Chem Biol , 4, 607-17.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1997 Aug). Surprising fidelity of template-directed chemical ligation of oligonucleotides [In Process Citation] Chem Biol , 4, 595-605.
Lohse PA, and Szostak JW. (1996 May 30). Ribozyme-catalysed amino-acid transfer reactions. Nature , 381, 442-4.
Lazcano A, and Miller SL. (1996 Jun 14). The origin and early evolution of life: prebiotic chemistry, the pre- RNA world, and time. Cell , 85, 793-8.
Ertem G, and Ferris JP. (1996 Jan 18). Synthesis of RNA oligomers on heterogeneous templates. Nature , 379, 238-40.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 May 5). Prebiotic synthesis of 5-substituted uracils: a bridge between the RNA world and the DNA-protein world [see comments] Science , 268, 702-5.
Robertson MP, and Miller SL. (1995 Jun 29). An efficient prebiotic synthesis of cytosine and uracil [published erratum appears in Nature 1995 Sep 21;377(6546):257] Nature , 375, 772-4.
Breaker RR, and Joyce GF. (1995 Jun). Self-incorporation of coenzymes by ribozymes. J Mol Evol , 40, 551-8.
James KD, and Ellington AD. (1995 Dec). The search for missing links between self-replicating nucleic acids and the RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 25, 515-30.
Bohler C, Nielsen PE, and Orgel LE. (1995 Aug 17). Template switching between PNA and RNA oligonucleotides [see comments] Nature , 376, 578-81.
Connell GJ, and Christian EL. (1993 Dec). Utilization of cofactors expands metabolism in a new RNA world. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 23, 291-7.
Nielsen PE. (1993 Dec). Peptide nucleic acid (PNA): a model structure for the primordial genetic material? Orig Life Evol Biosph , 23, 323-7.
Lahav N. (1991 Aug 21). Prebiotic co-evolution of self-replication and translation or RNA world? J Theor Biol , 151, 531-9.
Ekland EH, Szostak JW, and Bartel DP. (1995 Jul 21). Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences. Science , 269, 364-70.
Or if you'd like the Cliff-Notes version, here's a schematic:
Any other questions?
"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."
Oh, CYTD, did you back the wrong horse. Will creationists' misrepresentations never end? A simple search would have revealed the following:
Doubting Darwinism Through Creative License
In October and November 2001, the Discovery Institute (DI), a Seattle-based public policy institute, placed advertisements in at least three periodicals, including The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard. The advertisement in The New York Review of Books appeared under the headline "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" followed by this text:
Public TV programs, educational policy statements, and science textbooks have asserted that Darwin's theory of evolution fully explains the complexity of living things. The public has been assured, most recently by spokespersons for PBS's Evolution series, that "all known scientific evidence supports [Darwinian] evolution" as does "virtually every reputable scientist in the world."
The following scientists dispute the first claim and stand as living testimony in contradiction to the second. There is scientific dissent to Darwinism. It deserves to be heard.
After this brief statement is a gray box taking up the majority of the page which contains in small print a list of names followed by the names of the institutions at which the signatories work, previously worked, or attained doctoral degrees. In a cleared space in the middle of this display is an area containing the statement to which the signatories attest:
We are skeptical of the 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.
Under close examination, the text of both the leading paragraphs and the statement attested to appear to be very artfully phrased. The first paragraph tells readers that spokespersons for the PBS series Evolution have assured the public that "all known scientific evidence supports [Darwinian] evolution." But notice that "Darwinian" appears in brackets. That "all known scientific evidence supports evolution" is a different claim than "all known scientific evidence supports [Darwinian] evolution." Exactly who is equating Darwinian evolution and evolution? In the same vein, the signatories to the second declaration are described as dissenting from "Darwinism" - but do they reject evolution as well? NCSE decided to go to the source to ask the questions.
The Quote
On October 31, 2001, Mark Edwards of the DI responded to an e-mail request for the source of the quote. He stated that he did not know offhand the source of the quotation in the first paragraph but would make an effort to track it down. As of this writing, he has not supplied that information.
Personnel from public television station WGBH, the coproducer of the PBS Evolution series, were unable to find the exact quotation in any of their published literature. An internal memorandum providing background information on the Evolution series to PBS stations nationwide contains an almost identical sentence: "All known scientific evidence supports evolution." - without the word "Darwinian".
Let us assume that this internal memorandum (described on the DI web page) is the source of the quote used in the advertisement. If the word "Darwinian" does not occur in the original quote, why was it added here? In the rest of the paragraph from which the quote was evidently taken there is a discussion of "new discoveries over the past 150 years", including much of the fossil record, DNA, and the process of genetic replication. The paragraph goes on to state that any of these discoveries could have potentially discredited evolution, but they did not. In fact, they have provided even more evidence for descent with modification and common ancestry. The paragraph concludes by acknowledging that there certainly are things about evolution we do not yet know, just as with "all comprehensive scientific theories, from the theory of gravity to quantum mechanics."
We believe that the Discovery Institute intentionally modified the sentence and thereby changed its meaning. The original PBS sentence focused on evolution - the thesis that living things have common ancestors. It would not be equivalent to say that "all known scientific evidence supports Darwinian evolution"; by adding "Darwinian", the meaning of the quotation is changed. Is there healthy scientific debate about the role natural selection plays in evolution? Absolutely, and this is widely recognized. The discoveries of genetics have led to a better understanding of the sources for variation, and the latter half of the 20th century has witnessed a vigorous debate about the roles of proposed additional mechanisms - including genetic drift, gene flow, and developmental processes. These are some of the most interesting topics in modern evolutionary science. But arguments within the scientific community about how evolution occurs should not be confused with arguments - conspicuously absent from the scientific community - about whether evolution occurred.
The Statement
The signatories appear to attest to a statement about the ability of natural selection to "account for the complexity of life" - in other words, a statement about how evolution takes place. Given the anti-evolutionary tone of the introductory paragraphs, a layperson reading the advertisement might well assume that the signatories objected to evolution itself, rather than to the universality of natural selection as its mechanism. But did the scientists themselves object to evolution? Any of them? All of them? Or were some of them only questioning the importance of natural selection? Many scientists - including many associated with NCSE - could in good conscience sign a statement attesting to natural selection's not fully explaining the complexity of life!
The Signatories
The list consists of 41 biologists (over half of whom are biochemists), 16 chemists, 4 engineers, 2 geologists/geophysicists, 8 mathematicians, 10 medical professionals, 4 social scientists, 15 from physics or astronomy, and 3 whose specialties we were unable to determine. Few were from biological subfields associated with organismic and population-level biology - the divisions of biology most closely associated with the study of evolution. None was recognizable as a prominent contributor to the scientific literature debating the role of natural selection in evolution. (The list published on the review evolution web site, which we analyzed, originally contained 103 names. The ads published in the print media contained 105 names, with the addition of the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, the creationist arm of the DI, President Stephen Meyer and Fellow Paul Nelson, both of whom hold PhDs in philosophy.)
NCSE contacted a sample of the signatories and asked them specific questions about their attitudes concerning evolution, namely whether or not they accepted "evidence for common ancestry, meaning that different species today shared common ancestors in the past," and whether or not they were convinced "that humans and chimps both share a common ancestor."
We anticipated that signatories working for Christian anti-evolution ministries - especially those who are young-earth creationists, such as David A Dewitt, PhD, an adjunct faculty member at the Institute for Creation Research - would answer in the negative, but responses from some of the other signatories were quite revealing. One signatory responded to each of the two questions with "I don't have a problem with this," then went on to elaborate that his "dissent mainly concerns the origin of life." But, of course, evolution is not a theory of the origin of life, nor was "Darwinism" in any of its forms; evolution concerns what happens after life appears.
Although another signatory responded that "the definition of species is very troublesome," he added that "I certainly do accept that SOME (perhaps most) modern species shared at least a recent common ancestor." On the question of whether chimps and humans share a common ancestor, he said, "I believe the genetic evidence is overwhelming for the morphology." Another signatory has elsewhere written, "I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent."
Therefore, although the signatories represent a diverse range of opinions about the role of natural selection in evolution, the list is nothing more than careful word play - what is known as "spin." Should one draw the conclusion from the advertisement that there is a growing movement of scientists who doubt evolution? Hardly; many of the names on the list are not new to anti-evolutionary activity. Ironically, if one were to conduct a survey of scientists who accepted evolution, the size of that list would swamp by tens of thousands this list assembled by the Discovery Institute!
It is regrettable that the public is likely to be confused by these advertisements and be misled into thinking that all of these scientists reject evolution, or that there is a groundswell of scientists rejecting evolution. Neither is true.
The National Center for Science Education is a nonprofit organization, based in Oakland, California, dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools. On the web at www.ncseweb.org.
For information contact Skip Evans, NCSE Network Project Administrator.
April 8, 2002
Very nice. I wish that I thought the facts actually made a difference.
Hee hee.
One of these days the creationists will buy a clue and not rely on parroting stuff off their favorite creationist websites. Honestly, it only takes a few minutes to find the stuff that debunks the stuff the creos post; if I can do it, they can too.
They will promptly cease being creationists. By definition, those who remain creationists are ... well, clueless.
"Festival of Mirth" placemarker
Yes.
And this time please answer it.
(1) the ORIGIN OF LIFE (i.e. THE EVENTS that first gave rise to the remarkable cooperative functioning of nucleic acids and proteins)
How did acids & proteins come into being ? YOU use "after the fact" explanations to describe complex, interlocking biological systems. But, your saying it's (Darwin's) Evolution Theory of Natural Selection that "put's" it all together, YET you still avoid the How life Began Question ? Those acids & proteins just didn't appear out of Nowhere?
Well, what are the options? Really only two. It all depends on your premises and presuppositions. Everything comes down to one of two alternatives, summed up like this:
"In the beginning, GOD CREATED the heavens and the earth," (Genesis 1:1) and, "By FAITH we understand that worlds were framed by the Word of God so that which is seen does not owe its existence to that which is visible." (Heb. 11:3, Weymouth Translation)
AND,
Once upon a time, perhaps two and a half billion years ago, under a deadly sun, in an ammoniated ocean topped by a poisonous atmosphere in the midst of a soup of organic molecules, a nucleic acid molecule came ACCIDENTALLY INTO BEING that could SOMEHOW BRING ABOUT the existence of another like itself.
I would like to see a list of the scientists who are for evolution. I wonder how many hundreds of miles long that would be.
So you don't think that careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged?
Intelligent Design in Pennsylvania
The Associated Press reports that “high school students heard about ‘intelligent design’ for the first time Tuesday in the Pennsylvania school district that attracted national attention by requiring students to be made aware of it as an alternative to the theory of evolution.” Note, first, the phrase “theory of evolution,” “theory” being a standard term applied to evolution. But a federal judge last week forbade the school district of Cobb County, Georgia from retaining a sticker on science textbooks pointing out that evolution is a theory, not an established fact.
It is obvious that many opponents of Intelligent Design are unreasonably biased against its being taught:
The [Thomas More] law center is defending the [Pennsylvania] Dover district against a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of eight families by two civil-liberties groups that alleged intelligent design is merely a secular variation of creationism, the biblical-based view that regards God as the creator of life. They maintain that the Dover district’s curriculum mandate may violate the constitutional separation of church and state.
I love that: “a secular variation of creationism”! If its secular, then it’s not religious, right?
“Students who sat in the classroom were taught material which is religious in content, not scientific, and I think it’s unfortunate that has occurred,” said Eric Rothschild, a Philadelphia attorney representing the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit.
I fail to see how talking about very problematic holes in evolution—complexity theories, probability statistics, or other aspects of Id—is religious content. Unless you consider religious content to be anything at all that suggests there are serious flaws in a theory that asserts everything in the universe that we know, including ourselves, came about purely by chance and can be explained by the (chance) operation of physical laws. If that’s religion, then the secular state by default must be officially materialistic in its, well, philosophy, whatever that is, if it is allowed to have a philosophy at all.
ID critics are right: the dispute often is really not about science. It’s about philosophies, and the materialist are worried because theirs is being challenged.
That still doesn't excuse your posting of an outright misleading post.
And, it's no longer "Darwinian Theory." The Theory of evolution has advanced far past what Darwin first proposed (though the bones of his theory still are part of the Theory of Evolution).
While I was identifying myself as a Christian in Philadelphia, a Biochemist named Michael Behe at Lehigh University was writing a book on evolution. As a Biochemist, Behe found the evidence for Darwinian evolution to be very thin. In fact, when he looked at the cell from a biochemical perspective, he believed there was evidence of intelligent design. Behe sent his completed manuscript to The Free Press publishers for consideration. The editor was not certain that this manuscript was a good risk for publication. There were clearly theological issues at hand, and he was under the impression that these issues would be poorly received by the scientific community. If the tenets of Darwinian evolution were completely accepted by science, who would be interested in buying the book?The editor shared his concerns with his wife. His wife was a student in my class. She advised her husband to give me a call. So, unaware of all this, I received a phone call from the publisher in New York. We spent approximately 10 minutes on the phone. After hearing a description of the work, I suggested that the editor should seriously consider publishing the manuscript. I told him that the origin of life issue was still up in the air. It sounded like this Behe fellow might have some good ideas, although I could not be certain since I had never seen the manuscript. We hung up and I never thought about it again. At least until two years later.
After some time Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box (The Free Press, 1996) was published. It became an instant best-seller and was widely acclaimed in the news media. It is currently in its 15th printing and over 40,000 copies have been sold. I heard about it, but could not remember if this was the same book that I received the call about from the publisher. Could it be? In November 1998, I finally met Michael Behe when he visited Penn for a Faculty Outreach talk. He told me that yes, indeed, it was his book that the publisher called me about. In fact, he said my comments were the deciding factor in convincing the publisher to go ahead with the book. Interesting, I thought.
Google doesn't reveal whether Atchison has ever done or published any reasearch.
Exactly. What kind of idiot would do an article criticizing the state of the fossil record, mention Mayr and Gould, and use neither the words "allopatric speciation" or "punctuated equilibrium"? Your typical ignorant creationist idiot, that what kind of idiot.
Dawkins was right, "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane ...."
You only include the Jewish creation myth as an alternative to a scientific explanation. Please show your scientific reason for eliminating from consideration all of the hundreds, or thousands, of other creation myths from around the world. I assume you include the Genesis tale for a scientifically valid reason, and not simply because you want to believe it, correct?
We can't respond to your post with idiocy. You beat us to it.
Prime number placemarker.
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