The Most Common Misunderstandings About Evolution

Given its huge success in describing the natural world for the past 150 years, the theory of evolution is remarkably misunderstood. In a recent episode of the Australian series of "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here", former cricket star Shane Warne questioned the theory - asking "if humans evolved from monkeys, why haven't today's monkeys evolved"?

Similarly, a head teacher from a primary school in the UK recently stated that evolution is a theory rather than a fact. This is despite the fact that children in the UK start learning about evolution in Year 6 (ten to 11-year-olds), and have further lessons throughout high school. While the theory of evolution is well accepted in the UK compared with the rest of the world, a survey in 2005 indicated that more than 20% of the country's population was not sure about it, or did not accept it.

In contrast, there are not many people questioning the theory of relativity, or studies on the acceptance of the theory of relativity; possibly reflecting an acceptance that this is a matter for physicists to settle. Many studies have tried to determine why evolution is questioned so often by the general public, despite complete acceptance by scientists. Although no clear answer has been found, I suspect the common misconceptions described below have something to do with it.

heterosupremacist: "Darwin admitted the obvious - no geological evidence supported his theory."

Darwin's understandings of geology, biology, genetics & evolution, etc., circa 1860 was less than 1% of what we know today.
Nevertheless, his basic ideas about evolution are confirmed daily by scientists working in related fields.
To pick geology, for example, radio-metric dating and plate tectonics (neither of which Darwin had any clues about) provide innumerable confirmations of basic evolution theory.

heterosupremacist: "Since the publication of 'origin of the species' there has been no factual corroboration, although many scientists claimed to have found irrefutable proof, they have all been exposed as hoaxes..."

You obviously are very misinformed about both science in general and evolution specifically.
Theories such as evolution are not "proved", they are confirmed or falsified by new evidence and experiments, which either match, or don't, what the theory predicts.

In the example of evolution theory, here is a partial listing of predictions confirmed by later found evidence.

heterosupremacist: "I submit the theory doesn't even meet the criterion of a theory, rather; it only carries the scientific weight of a myth... Grrr!"

And that is also the argument of Creationists like Ken Ham, but it is based on their own unique re-definition of the word "science" to include only what can physically be observed.
Like you, Ham calls radio-metrically dated fossil evidence of evolution "myth", since we cannot actually see the past to confirm it.

The truth of the matter is that Ham & you are free to believe whatever you wish, so long as you don't assert or imply that your version of "science" has anything to do with modern natural-science.
It doesn't.

glennaro: "Bottom line for me: After all these many decades of intensive study, the 'theory of evolution' remains just a theory (yet it is taught in many places as scientific fact)."

dmz: "You may want to do a teensy bit of reading of what constitutes a theory when in scientific circles."

Evolution is both theory and fact, in this sense:

What can be observed and confirmed is, by definition, fact.
In the case of basic evolution theory, both "descent with modifications" and "natural selection" are daily observed & confirmed, making them facts.
Unobservable explanations and predictions are hypotheses, which can either be confirmed or falsified by discoveries or experiments.
If strongly confirmed, a hypothesis graduates to the level of theory.
Evolution of new species is an innumerable-times confirmed theory.

The often-repeated claim that there is no evidence of new species is falsified by innumerable fossils, careful morphological comparisons and detailed DNA analyses.
Indeed, there's nothing unusual about speciation, since by definition of the term, whenever two populations of the same species no longer interbreed, they have become separate species.
Examples can be found throughout nature, and are even, on a very simple basis repeatable through experiments.

TangibleDisgust: "macro-evolution, on the other hand, is not testable by the scientific method.
we cannot devise a test to show that a bacterium can evolve into a blue whale.
so it's just a theory, and should be taught as that.
it may or may not be true.
but it's beyond science's ability to verify at this point."

But the truth of this matter is that science does verify, more and more each day.
Indeed, all the basics of evolution theory are confirmed daily by scientists working in related fields, including innumerable predictions, such as these.

Astronomical and geological observations confirm the Deep-time scales required for evolution.
Physics and chemistry confirm natural "complexification" of organic molecules.
Biology confirms both the processes (DNA modifications & selection) and results (speciation) of evolution.

All that together makes evolution increasingly observed fact, explained by innumerable-times confirmed theory.

As for your straw-man argument that "no bacteria evolved into a whale", of course not.
But bacteria apparently did evolve into Eukaryotes, about two billion years ago, which became multi-celled animals around 800 million years ago, arising into mammals circa 225 million years ago which branched out into today's 5,500 living species, including whales.

That's the theory: innumerable small changes accumulating and selected over eons of time too large to even imagine.

What's ridiculous is any suggestion that all this happened strictly by random chance, with no Divine plan or interventions.
Nature is, after all, God's creation.

“Indeed, there’s nothing unusual about speciation, since by definition of the term, whenever two populations of the same species no longer interbreed, they have become separate species.”

Well, that’s just a truism. If you simply define “species” so loosely as to be able to claim “new” species based on simple accidents of circumstance, of course you will be able to cite “new” species being created. However, that doesn’t prove Darwin’s central thesis that species are endlessly malleable and can transform from single celled organisms to the variety we see today merely through the mechanisms of evolution.

ShadowAce: "Last I heard, it takes about a million years for each major advancement."

An arbitrary number, perhaps based on the natural length of time for complete speciation, but of no relevance to early single-celled life, or the speed of evolution generally.

ShadowAce: "...explain to me how non-sexual-reproducing life (multi-cell amoebas) can produce sexually reproducing life, not once, but twice, and in the same neighborhood on the planet, in the same lifespan, and each of the (at least) two then be sexually compatible (not two males, and not two females)."

Let me suggest to you two books on my current reading list:

Pross from 2012 and Lane from 2015:

ShadowAce: "Then explain how that is possible within only 2 billion years--roughly 2,000 advancements."

See my answer to your first comment above.

Blood of Tyrants: "The complexity of just a single cell argues that there is no way it could evolve by chance."

Of course.
I don't believe anything in the Universe happens, or happened, "by chance", but rather according to the original Plan and Will of God.
Of course, we don't know -- we can't know because we weren't there -- how much Divine miraculous intervention was required to get us from "Big Bang" to today, but the Bible says there was plenty, and I have no reason to doubt it.

However, the natural-scientific enterprise is all about finding & confirming natural explanations for natural processes, and it does seem there are such explanations, increasingly detailed & confirmed, including for origins of life and evolutions of species.

my argument is not a strawman. to call it such is to cheapen reasonable discussion. i chose an example to illustrate the inherent problem with applying the scientific method to macro-evolution.

if you prefer a narrower focus, then please devise an experiment where we can see one species evolve into another species. i’ll define species as organisms sufficiently changed as to no longer be able to interbreed successfully.

Boogieman: "If you simply define 'species' so loosely as to be able to claim 'new' species based on simple accidents of circumstance, of course you will be able to cite 'new' species being created."

Sorry, but I need to ask if you grasp the basic concepts of biological classifications, which start with breeds, races & varieties at the bottom end of the scale and advance up to phylums, kingdoms and domains at the top end?

By definition, separate species (i.e., horses & donkeys) are populations which don't naturally interbreed, whereas sub-species, breeds and varieties of the same species can & do interbreed (example: human "races").
And, separate species of the same genus can sometimes be forced to interbreed (for example, in captivity, producing mules).
However, different genera in the same biological family normally cannot interbreed under any circumstances (i.e., Indian & African elephants).

My point is: populations' ability, or inability, to interbreed is one basis for all such distinctions as breed, sub-species, species, genus, family, etc.

Boogieman: "However, that doesnâ€™t prove Darwinâ€™s central thesis that species are endlessly malleable and can transform from single celled organisms to the variety we see today merely through the mechanisms of evolution."

Of course, Darwin's theory says nothing about "endlessly malleable">
On the contrary, it insists that every evolutionary step must be a "baby-step", of small incremental changes each one of which must make the organism more favorable to natural selection.

So the appearance of "malleability" only results after untold millions & even billions of years of accumulating very small changes.

“all the politics around evolution has been inserted by those who refuse to accept it, for religious reasons.”

You may be surprised, and dismayed, to know that even more religious people, including myself, actually believe that evolution was among the many creations of God. We don’t disbelieve in evolution; much of it makes sense. What we don’t buy is the creation of everything from nothing, followed by evolution, which, by the nonreligious pushers of the concept, would have us believe that complex organisms evolved - slowly, oh so slowly, as you say - with no material foundation, seeking to completely ignore irreducible complexity.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but truly religious people accept that creation and evolution - true evolution - actually coexist.

TangibleDisgust: "please devise an experiment where we can see one species evolve into another species.
i'll define species as organisms sufficiently changed as to no longer be able to interbreed successfully."

In fact, such simple artificial speciation has been observed in bacteria and fruit flies.
But be careful about that definition of the word "speciation", since in normal scientific usage, two species of the same genus do not naturally interbreed, though may still be forced to in captivity.
It's not until we reach separate genera in the same family (i.e., Indian & African elephants) that interbreeding becomes biologically impossible.

My point is: difficulty in interbreeding is a sliding scale, from easy-breeds & varieties, up to impossible-genera.
Within that sliding scale, small changes in DNA can make big differences in interbreed-ability.
One of the most interesting examples is human races (breeds) which are genetically 99.9% identical and which all interbreed happily.
But now recently we've learned that the old Neanderthals were just 99.5% identical DNA, and did interbreed, occasionally, 50,000 & 100,000 years ago.
So they are no longer a separate species, just another human sub-species.
By sharp contrast, chimpanzees are circa 96% identical to human DNA, and biologically incapable of interbreeding.

Bottom line: speciation begins whenever two populations are separated and it accumulates, generation after generation, until separated sub-species can no longer interbreed, making them different species.

“By definition, separate species (i.e., horses & donkeys) are populations which don’t naturally interbreed...”

Certainly, that’s the case now, but if you know anything about the history of taxonomy and its relation to this theory, then you should know species wasn’t always defined that way. The main proponent of using the more modern, looser definition of “species” was, of course, Charles Darwin. So to use his definition as a confirmation of his theory which led him to that definition is really just circular reasoning.

“Of course, Darwin’s theory says nothing about “endlessly malleable””

Oh it certainly does. This notion of endless malleability is a direct logical consequence of common descent. If all the diversity of species we observe today sprang from a common ancestor, then there must be no practical limit to
how far an organism can be modified.

“On the contrary, it insists that every evolutionary step must be a “baby-step”, of small incremental changes each one of which must make the organism more favorable to natural selection.”

This does nothing to detract from the notion that evolution requires no limit to the malleability of an organism or it would not work. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are since evolution posits constant variation and accumulation of those variations.

DPMD: "We don't disbelieve in evolution; much of it makes sense.
What we don't buy is the creation of everything from nothing, followed by evolution, which, by the nonreligious pushers of the concept, would have us believe that complex organisms evolved - slowly, oh so slowly, as you say -- with no material foundation, seeking to completely ignore irreducible complexity."

Many creationists accept what you call "micro-evolution", meaning small changes to DNA then subject to natural selection.
Such changes and selection in nature have been observed, confirmed and are not denied by most creationists.

What you refuse to admit is that these small, generation by generation, changes can accumulate over many millions of years, resulting in the many thousands of large species (and millions of smaller ones) we see today.
You insist that major changes cannot happen without "intelligent design", which most people "get" means Divine miraculous intervention.

But the basic problem is that in every case of alleged "irreducible complexity" which has been carefully studied, there have been instances of reduced complexity found.
An example which comes to mind is our eyes.

As for "creation of everything from nothing", that is just what classical Christian theology tells us God did -- ex nihilo -- in scientific terms, "the big bang".
What we'll never know, because we weren't there, is how much of the Universe's evolution since the big bang was included in God's original programming, and how much required His miraculous interventions.
My guess would be more of the former, fewer of the latter, but of course, we can't know.

Regardless, all of Creation points to its Creator, no matter how much our atheists might wish to deny that.

DPMD: "Somehow i don't think it was the religious people you cite as the politicizers who called for creationism and intelligent design to be criminalized in our schools..."

Over 100 years ago, two of my grandparents (a paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother) were public school teachers, in small one-room schools they began each day with a Bible reading and prayer.
They also taught science & history which doubtless in those days did not include mention of evolution.

But in those days, when evolution was taught in public schools it was often opposed on religious grounds, most famously resulting in the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial".

As a result of such anti-evolution challenges, US courts have been asked repeatedly to rule on evolution teaching in public schools.
Those rulings can be summarized as follows:

Evolution is science and can be taught in science classes.
Creationism or "intelligent design" are not science, they are religion, and so cannot be taught as science, but may, of course be taught as religion, wherever such is allowed.

Today, of course, there are no more Bible readings or prayers in public classrooms, and children all bus to large unionized schools, instead of walking to one-rooms of my grandparents' time.
Are they better off?
I doubt it, and don't think it would hurt to read the Bible & pray before school each day.
That would be an appropriate time to talk about God's creation & salvation.

Boogieman: "The main proponent of using the more modern, looser definition of 'species' was, of course, Charles Darwin.
So to use his definition as a confirmation of his theory which led him to that definition is really just circular reasoning."

You appear to argue that modern biological classifications are somehow less valid than those before or at the time of Darwin.
And this is because today's more accurately reflect the latest data on morphology & DNA of related species than did the older classifications?

Boogieman: "This notion of endless malleability is a direct logical consequence of common descent.
If all the diversity of species we observe today sprang from a common ancestor, then there must be no practical limit to how far an organism can be modified."

But of course, there are huge restrictions and limitations to evolution, beginning with the fact that there have been no new land phyla to evolve since the Cambrian Explosion over 500 million years ago.
Within the Cordates, mammals are the last class to evolve, some 225 million years ago, and within mammals, the first primate-like creatures didn't appear until 65+ million years ago.

Point is: there is not unlimited malleability.
Yes, ancient carnivors of 60+ million years ago did speciate into cats, wolves, bears & wolverines.
However, cats didn't become dogs, monkeys didn't become frogs, mammals didn't become fish -- those are evolutionarily impossible.

Boogieman: "This does nothing to detract from the notion that evolution requires no limit to the malleability of an organism or it would not work.
It doesn't matter how small the steps are since evolution posits constant variation and accumulation of those variations."

But natural selection limits all speciation to those modifications which work within their eco-system.
So, some fish fly, but they are not birds, and some birds swim, but they are not fish.
There are serious limits to what evolution can produce, limits placed by the nature and laws of the Universe itself.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.