Evolution Is Practically Useless, Admits Darwinist

Creation Evolution Headlines ^ | 08/30/06 | Creation Evolution Headlines

[DannyTN]

Evolution Is Practically Useless, Admits Darwinist    08/30/2006  
Supporters of evolution often tout its many benefits.  They claim it helps research in agriculture, conservation and medicine (e.g., 01/13/2003, 06/25/2003).  A new book by David Mindell, The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life (Harvard, 2006) emphasizes these practical benefits in hopes of making evolution more palatable to a skeptical society.  Jerry Coyne, a staunch evolutionist and anti-creationist, enjoyed the book in his review in Nature,¹ but thought that Mindell went overboard on “Selling Darwin” with appeals to pragmatics:

To some extent these excesses are not Mindell’s fault, for, if truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits.  Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say.  Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably.  But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding?  Not very much.  Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’.  Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties.  Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.

Coyne further describes how the goods and services advertised by Mindell are irrelevant for potential customers, anyway:

One reason why Mindell might fail to sell Darwin to the critics is that his examples all involve microevolution, which most modern creationists (including advocates of intelligent design) accept.  It is macroevolution – the evolutionary transitions between very different kinds of organism – that creationists claim does not occur.  But in any case, few people actually oppose evolution because of its lack of practical use.... they oppose it because they see it as undercutting moral values.

Coyne fails to offer a salve for that wound.  Instead, to explain why macroevolution has not been observed, he presents an analogy .  For critics out to debunk macroevolution because no one has seen a new species appear, he compares the origin of species with the origin of language: “We haven’t seen one language change into another either, but any reasonable creationist (an oxymoron?) must accept the clear historical evidence for linguistic evolution,” he says, adding a jab for effect. “And we have far more fossil species than we have fossil languages” (but see 04/23/2006).  It seems to escape his notice that language is a tool manipulated by intelligent agents, not random mutations.  In any case, his main point is that evolution shines not because of any hyped commercial value, but because of its explanatory power:

In the end, the true value of evolutionary biology is not practical but explanatory.  It answers, in the most exquisitely simple and parsimonious way, the age-old question: “How did we get here?”  It gives us our family history writ large, connecting us with every other species, living or extinct, on Earth.  It shows how everything from frogs to fleas got here via a few easily grasped biological processes.  And that, after all, is quite an accomplishment.

See also Evolution News analysis of this book review, focusing on Coyne’s stereotyping of creationists.  Compare also our 02/10/2006 and 12/21/2005 stories on marketing Darwinism to the masses.

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¹Jerry Coyne, “Selling Darwin,” Nature 442, 983-984(31 August 2006) | doi:10.1038/442983a; Published online 30 August 2006.

You heard it right here.  We didn’t have to say it.  One of Darwin’s own bulldogs said it for us: evolutionary theory is useless.  Oh, this is rich.  Don’t let anyone tell you that evolution is the key to biology, and without it we would fall behind in science and technology and lose our lead in the world.  He just said that most real progress in biology was done before evolutionary theory arrived, and that modern-day advances owe little or nothing to the Grand Materialist Myth.  Darwin is dead, and except for providing plot lines for storytellers, the theory that took root out of Charlie’s grave bears no fruit (but a lot of poisonous thorns: see 08/27/2006).
    To be sure, many things in science do not have practical value.  Black holes are useless, too, and so is the cosmic microwave background.  It is the Darwin Party itself, however, that has hyped evolution for its value to society.  With this selling point gone, what’s left?  The only thing Coyne believes evolution can advertise now is a substitute theology to answer the big questions.  Instead of an omniscient, omnipotent God, he offers the cult of Tinker Bell and her mutation wand as an explanation for endless forms most beautiful.  Evolution allows us to play connect-the-dot games between frogs and fleas.  It allows us to water down a complex world into simplistic, “easily grasped” generalities.  Such things are priceless, he thinks.  He’s right.  It costs nothing to produce speculation about things that cannot be observed, and nobody should consider such products worth a dime.
    We can get along just fine in life without the Darwin Party catalog.  Thanks to Jerry Coyne for providing inside information on the negative earnings in the Darwin & Co. financial report.  Sell your evolution stock now before the bottom falls out.
Next headline on:  Evolutionary Theory

[longshadow]

If humans enjoyed things happening according to the laws of nature, and didn't have our own ideas about how conditions could be improved, we'd still be living in caves.

The posted "article" proves that some still are.

;-)

[freedumb2003]

How do you like the duckbill on my mask?

I thought it was a Penguin bill and you were helping stamp out non-Linux desktops.

Live and learn ;)

[somniferum]

Spot on.

I'm still waiting for a citation of Marx wanting to dedicate the 2nd edition of Das Kapital to Darwin.

Haven't heard that one before.

[FFIGHTER]

Science and math are tools of the devil. The earth is flat and the sun revolves around the earth.

[freedumb2003]

Naw, you guys are just trying to pick up smart chicks.

Last time I did that I ended up married to her (still am).

I should have known better than to marry up :)

[FFIGHTER]

Medicine is for those without faith. True believers find all they need in faith.

[muawiyah]

Well, long words first, short words last ~ there are many other ways!

[freedumb2003]

.The world doesn't need a Darwinist to admit evolution is useless junk science. We, except Darwinists, of course, knew that.

Shecky Stultorum, folks, here at Open Mike night at Darwin Central!

Give him a hand (or flap or wing or psuedopod) and don't forget to tip your Neanderthal.

[muawiyah]

Stuff happens.

[freedumb2003]

Stuff happens.

Mostly to me (/Early Childhood Catholic Guilt)

[stultorum]

"Evolution is very highly useful to those who have to make catalogs of plants and animals.

I think you're referring to botany, but I ain't no scientist.

[muawiyah]

Yup ~ a wise man once told me about his father, a member of the Apostolic Charismatic Church of the First Born. Said if his dad told him to jump off the top of a shed into his arms, he'd look for the ladder to climb down.

A disbelief in the utility of medicine is frequently associated with a variety of sociopathic personality disorders.

[ThinkDifferent]

This statement assumes that contemporary man must be superior.

Compared to those who brought us the Inquisition and their present-day philosophical comrades who are chopping off heads on videotape? Yeah, I'll take that bet.

[stultorum]

"Science and math are tools of the devil. The earth is flat and the sun revolves around the earth.

That's not true!

[muawiyah]

If AlQaida is getting to be as progressive as late Medieval Inquisition judges, we are in luck since that's a vast improvement ~ and it means Christianity must be spreading like wildfire in the Islamic sector of the world.

[FFIGHTER]

Some prefer to stay in the dark.

[mjolnir]

Maybe. Then again it might have a vital ecological function we are unaware of.

True, it might--- and I'm not saying we should blithely and blindly trample nature--- but neither should we, in my opinion, follow "the precautionary principle" (if the potential consequences of an action are severe or irreversible, in the absence of full scientific certainty the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action) that environmentalists use to stop all sorts of technological progress, such as in their fight against DDT and genetically engineered foods, since there while there will always be SOME chance of such irreversible consequences, the benefits of removing the tsete fly or malaria carrying mosquitos are both immense and proven.

[Pablo64]

You insectivore types need to lighten up a little. I was only posting a little light-hearted humor related to what would be the obvious direction of this thread.

Sheesh.

[FFIGHTER]

Forgot the /s

[Ichneumon]

Oh I think evolution has added a lot. It taught physicians that tonsils and appendixes were useless.

No it didn't. Please stop telling lies about evolutionary biology.

It even taught physicians that there should be no harm to removing tailbones to the unfortunate chagrine of those who had their's removed.

No it didn't. Please stop telling lies about evolutionary biology.

It taught us to focus only on protein coding aspect of DNA and to ignore the rest as "junk", "evolutionary leftovers".

No it didn't. Please stop telling lies about evolutionary biology.

It's added a lot that just wasn't true.

Such as? Try some real examples for a change instead of ideas that were held because that's what the evidence at the time indicated, and not as you falsely claim due to any fault of evolutionary biology itself generating false conclusions out of thin air or due to flaws in the evolutionary paradigm.

Look, just admit that evolutionary biology is the boogeyman to you, and that as a result you're going to blame everything from tooth decay to the Great Depression on it no matter how non-existent the connection.

You are lucky if you've managed to avoid the influence of evolution.

How would you know? You've managed to avoid the influence of an education on the subjects you spout off about.