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

[Liberal Classic]

Sorry, but you're incorrect. Traits can emerge under environmental pressure in populations in which they did not originally exist.

[muawiyah]

Sorry ~ but you are wrong ~ modern evolutionists mean change as slight as turning over to catch more rays.

Just read some of their pontifications right here in this thread.

Hocking a loogie is "evolution" in their minds.

[muawiyah]

They can?

Think areal hard ~ how does the critter know the pressures are there, and what does he do to adjust his genome?

[js1138]

You argued at length that what the Nazis did was not "evolution" at all, because it was not natural selection.

Show me a link to that. I have made mistakes, but I can't remember or imagine saying that.

I recall saying many things on those threads, but not that.

Among other things, I often point out that Darwin got the idea for natural selection from studying changes brought about through domestication of plants and animals.

I have pointed out many times that natural selection is exactly the same process as artificial selection -- just lacking human intervention.

What I said about the Nazis is that they were motivated by religion rather than science. A scientific breeder would not kill off the best specimens and breed the worst.

[mywholebodyisaweapon]

Beware of those of the 29+ evidences that rely on bootstrapping or other resampling techniques. They really prove nothing other than the biases of those who use them.

On the other hand, those of the 29+ evidences that deal with transitional fossils and correlation of the column with progression of species are quite compelling.

But to be fair to creationists, it should be acknowledged that evolution is a theory that has been evolving. It's rather difficult to critique a theory that morphs into something else before one's eyes.

[RunningWolf]

bump

[js1138]

Think areal hard ~ how does the critter know the pressures are there, and what does he do to adjust his genome?

Where has anyone on this thread said genomes anticipate need? That is Lamarckianism -- rejected in the last century.

But all populations have variation, and all populations acquire new alleles through mutation. During any period of environmental change, the frequency of alleles in the population shifts to accommodate the change. If the necessary traits do not exist, the population goes extinct.

[Physicist]

Just read some of their pontifications right here in this thread.

Point me to an example on this thread of a non-inherited change being called evolution.

In any case, individual posts on FreeRepublic can not necessarily be taken as proven representations of the consensus opinion of the scientific establishment.

[js1138]

Point me to an example on this thread of a non-inherited change being called evolution.

There's a lot of assertions being made on this thread that are simply, objectively untrue.

[muawiyah]

You just said "traits can emerge" that didn't already exist in the genome under "environmental pressure", and I'm disputing that "environmental pressure" causes previously non-existent traits to emerge.

Environmental pressure DOES NOT CAUSE changes in the genome.

[muawiyah]

You must have missed last evening. It was claimed that all change is evolution.

[stormer]

"...in fact he wanted to dedicate the 2nd volume of Das Capital (one of the pillars of world communism) to Charles Darwin. Darwin refused this dubious honor though..."

This is incorrect. Volume 2 of Das Capital was published by Engels in 1893, a year after Marx's death and 11 years after the death of Darwin.

[Physicist]

But to be fair to creationists, it should be acknowledged that evolution is a theory that has been evolving. It's rather difficult to critique a theory that morphs into something else before one's eyes.

The core issue to which the creationists object is common descent. That's the real target of their cultural cleansing campaign, and it hasn't moved one inch.

Beyond that, Darwinism hasn't really changed much at all. The details have been fleshed out, and sometimes debated vigorously, but I don't think there's anything in Darwin's Origin of Species that hasn't stood the test of time. Certainly the core arguments remain unaltered.

[Oberon]

By the same reason, studying history is useless.

Can you connect the dots for me on that one? I'm not seeing the analogy.

[Physicist]

You must have missed last evening.

So I did. Help me out with a link to such a post.

[js1138]

It's rather difficult to critique a theory that morphs into something else before one's eyes.

That would include all of science. Consider heliocentrism. Firs it included epicycles, then elliptical orbits, then universal gravitation, then general relativity. And it's not done yet.

Evolution is a forensic statement about the history of life, and it is a collection of phenomena and processes comprising a theory to explain the history. Few scientific theories have undergone less fundamental changes in the last 150 years than variation and natural selection.

[js1138]

Environmental pressure DOES NOT CAUSE changes in the genome.

Welcome to the club. You are not on board with mainstream science. Try googling "midwife toad".

[js1138]

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/midwife.html

[stormer]

"Saturn's "rings" were earlier seen as "horns", and because of that Saturn and his counterparts (Ba'al), became the god to whom children were sacrificed."

Odd, Saturn's rings were discovered in 1610 by Galileo. I didn't realize that folks were sacrificing children to Ba'al at that late date.

[js1138]

You must have missed last evening. It was claimed that all change is evolution.

This is thread stalking, and it is against FR rules. If you want to make such a claim, back it up with links.