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

[Mamzelle]

re: Lots of stuff in there to study from and expand one's knowledge)))

LOL

[RadioAstronomer]

Who the heck do you think he worked for?

[stands2reason]

...handle on the left....

You are good...

[muawiyah]

You mean "those guys" eh?!

[js1138]

The challenge was about how oil companies really go about finding oil ~ and, the answer is, they rely on somebody else's discoveries.

How about it you guys? You anti-evolutionists.

Is this the state of your science? Is this where you stand? Enquiring minds want to know.

[Mamzelle]

Posted three days ago by coyoteman--placemarker

[muawiyah]

You didn't say, but Fur Shur, you and your dad weren't Shell Oil ~ that's a really big company.

Here's one thing I know ~ other than finding buried reefs, under which heavy hydrocarbons can get trapped, I fail to see where any understanding of biological processes would be needed to find oil.

Besides, the first guys into drilling knew none of those things and found oil anyway.

[stands2reason]

"Straw dog?"

This is the closest thing in the dictionary to that...

straw cat

Pampas \Pam"pas\, n. pl. [Sp., fr. Peruv. pampa a field, plain.] Vast plains in the central and southern part of the Argentine Republic in South America. The term is sometimes used in a wider sense for the plains extending from Bolivia to Southern Patagonia.

Pampas cat (Zo["o]l.), a South American wild cat (Felis pajeros). It has oblique transverse bands of yellow or brown. It is about three and a half feet long. Called also straw cat.

[Coyoteman]

Beliefs of creation by God are not a default. Rather they have always been the rule and have a lot more study and investigation on their sides than science does.

One of my favorites:

Crow Creation Story

In the beginning, Old Man Coyote stood alone with water surrounding him. Two ducks swam by, and Coyote asked if they had seen anyone else. The ducks said no but thought that something might exist under the water.

Coyote asked if they would travel underwater for him and report on what they saw. The ducks did as they were asked, finding nothing. He asked again, and the ducks returned with a root. On the third try, they found mud and Coyote was happy. He told the ducks that they could build with it, and he began to shape and mold the mud into an island. He blew on it, and it expanded. He blew again, and it grew into the earth. The ducks said they did not like the earth's emptiness, so Coyote created grass and trees out of the roots that came from the water.

Coyote and the ducks loved the earth, but it was flat. They wanted rivers, valleys, mountains, and lakes. So it was done. Soon Coyote and the ducks made a perfect earth, but they grew lonely, with only the three of them to sit and enjoy the land. So Coyote molded dirt to form men and then more mud to create many types of male ducks. Soon, they realized that without women, the males could not have children. So with more dirt he made women and female ducks to populate the earth.

One day Old Man Coyote traveled upon the land and was surprised to find another Coyote. When asked where he came from, the younger brother, named Shirape, said he was unsure of his origin and only knew he existed. As the two traveled along, Shirape wanted Old Man Coyote to make other animals, for only ducks, humans, and the two Coyotes had been created. The elder Coyote agreed, and as he spoke the new animals' names, they were created. He said "Elk" and an elk appeared. He said "Bear" and a bear appeared. This is how it was until all animals were created.

[stands2reason]

Do you, or have you ever worked for the post office?

[fabian]

that's an odd statement when so many present day scientists see through the wide holes in evolution and many of the famous scientists of past were strong believers in a creator. Sir Issac Newton was a famous one.

[js1138]

How about you, Mamzelle?

Do you agree that bacteria can't be isolated into a single individual?

Do you agree that petroleum geologists don't study evolution and use it in their work?

I'd like to see some anti-evolutionists go on record on some of these things.

[muawiyah]

Very good, and the next story up was about the time Coyote was walking along and feeling a bit horny, and he spied the duck sisters out in the lake..........

These tales are really, really, really old.

[muawiyah]

Had a great job. Just watch them work. Write it down. Fix it.

I quit counting postal facilities after I'd visited over 1,000 of them.

[js1138]

Sir Issac Newton was a famous one.

Sir Isaac had a lot of opinions. Among them that the Trinity was absurd.

[freedumb2003]

FRiends don't let FRiends post drunk. Are you OK?

LOL!! I am in Vegas and feeling a Dino/Sinatra mood. But when I pinged PH it was too early for that sort of thing.

The headline qnd article was so silly it deserved a silly ping.

(and if they didn't let FRiends post drunk we would get like 6 posts a night after 7:00 PM or so ;) )

[stands2reason]

See post 167

[Coyoteman]

There is NO science behind evolution!!

False. Where did you learn your "science?" Jack Chick comics?

Your statement betrays either your lack of understanding of many sciences (not just biological sciences) or a completely closed mind. In either case, you do yourself little credit with such utterances.

[stands2reason]

SEE POST 167.

[Liberal Classic]

Being from Houston, I've familiar with his posts, and Texas Termite threads, too. I know you said goodbye to him on his memorial thread. So did I. But I think it's cheesy to drop his name like that. When I figure in that you believe western medicine is unable to cure anything, it means that I'm not going to take your statements at face value at all.