Yes, but not in the way you think.
JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION, volume 16, number 1.
Spring 2002. ISSN 0892- 3310.
Book Reviews
Further Books of Note
Cancer Selection: The New Theory of Evolution by James Graham, Lexington, VA: 1992. xiii + 213pp. $35, cloth. ISBN 0-9630242-0-5.
What brought about the division between plant and animal kingdoms? James Graham's answer is, "Cancer". Graham, who is an amateur and not a professional scientist, published the idea in the early 1980s in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Disappointed that his insight was not taken up in the scientific mainstream, he published this book in 1992.
[snip]
In a nutshell, Graham argues that plants and lower life forms are relatively simple, with nothing like the complexity of animals, which have so varied a set of disparate tissues and organs. For so complex a creature to develop successfully from a single fertilized egg requires a most impeccable control of cell differentiation and multiplication. Cancer, of course, is uncontrolled cell division and multiplication. So for development to be successful, cells must be able to stave off any tendency to become cancerous. Thus the evolution of cancer defenses is what enabled the evolution of complex animals. The theory demands that all animal cells harbor potentially cancerous tendencies; and in point of fact it seems that all animal cells do indeed possess oncogenes which, when activated, cause cancer. Graham also presents other evidence for his theory and other potential tests of it. The book is well worth reading by anyone who has wondered how "normal gradual Darwinian" evolution could possibly have brought about a new genus or a new family, let alone a new kingdom like that of the animals. [snip]
Henry H. Bauer
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies
Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
TEST
Unfortunately, I couldn't help but notice some (read: many) of the hateful remarks lobbed at Gould. I can't believe some of you are actually mocking him. How sickening. And some of you call yourselves the "Moral Majority." Let the man rest in peace. "Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding; for the gain from it is better than gain from silver and its profit better than gold." – Proverbs 3:13. That was what was said at Westminster Abbey when Charles Darwin was buried more than a century ago. Pity that many of the followers of the text that passage was from cannot offer the same support to the late Gould. On a more lighthearted note, I personally liked what someone posted at the Secular Web forum:
"Wherever he [Gould] is now I'm certain he's explaining something to someone. God: So how did I do that thing with the platypus again? Stephen: Its easy. Lets use baseball as an example... " - Italics added
Many of you here are apparently proponents of creationism and therefore opponents of evolution. I would like to point a few things out.
1. Nowhere is it implicitly stated in the Bible that the Earth is only 6000 (6005 1/2 now, actually) years old. That figure was made in the mid-1600s by James Ussher using a method of retrocalculating generations, where he resulted in his determining of Earth's creation in October, 4004 B.C. It is pointed out in the book "Evolution" by Carl Zimmer that such a method does have implications of its own. The one the book mentions is that it results in only about 600 people on Earth at the time the Giza pyramids were built, based on one particular retrocalculation resulting in a 6300 year age for the Earth. I doubt that the whole populus was in Egypt then. How 'bout you? (Note: the info from Zimmer's book is not quoted verbatim. Go read the book to find out what he said exactly.)
2. Creationism also extrapolates to the universal level. A 6000 year old universe is outright refuted by observation. Take SN1987A for instance. It is about 170,000 light years away. that means that it would've taken place around the year 168,000 B.C., much longer than 6000 years. To combat this, there are only two solutions: 1) Reduce the size of the universe to a 6000 light year radius (centered on Earth's position) or 2) speed up the speed of light. Problems crop up immediately. Solution 1 requires stuffing all the mass we have measured into a very small volume, and that would produce large gravitational effects that just aren't observed. Solution 2 is just as problematic. Go to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c-decay.html for more on it.
3. Radiometric dating has placed a firm date of the Earth's origin at 4.5 billion years ago. This is not the result of examinations of one or two rocks. This had been replicated many thousands of times. Replication of experimental and/or observational results is a necessary part of the scientific method, so the 4.5 billion year age is on a very firm basis. I have yet to see a legit scientific refutation of this.
As for evolution itself, it has also been put on a firm ground by countless observation from many different fields of biological and geological study. Evolution is itself the centerpiece of all biological science. Remove evolution and biology collapses. Creationism can in no way provide a clear scientific understanding of how nature works. Some creationists even go as far as (through their own interpretation of scripture) advocating the long-discredited ideas of geocentricism and "flat-Earth theory." To advocate those two ideas is to reject everything we know about both Earthly and space navigation, as well as geometry. Creationists are, in fact, attacking the ENTIRE scientific enterprise, even if they think they are only attacking Darwin (or Copernicus, or whoever).
I am grateful to be living in this country, for if this was the middle ages, I may have already been burned at the stake by religious fanatics. Though fundamentalists are seemingly intent on making the U.S.A. a theocracy, I don't think that'll ever come to be. At least I hope it doesn't. Of course, maybe we should all take George Carlin to heart when he said "Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself!" Good suggestion. Even I myself don't have a problem with any religion, just certain religious people (like creationists and others who feel it necessary to shove their beliefs in my face). So if you are a Christian (or whatever), don't think I am automatically opposed to you.
Cheers,
Stormblast,
Agnostic, freethinker, secular humanist, and amateur scientist
FURTHER READING
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/gould_fact-and-theory.html
http://www.sciam.com/2002/0202issue/0202skeptic.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/
"Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea" by Carl Zimmer
"Evolution and the Myth of Creationism : A Basic Guide to the Facts in the Evolution Debate" by Tim M. Berra
(Note: Believe it or not, I'm opposed to the Big Bang. Curious? Then ask.)
Now on to more important things.
Many people claim that evolution is evil ("evilution"). How this is, I fail to see. Some people see Darwin's agnosticism in his later years as proof. Nonsense. A theory's validity is in no way, shape, or form based on its formulator's personal beliefs. Its validity is based on how well it fits the way the world works. Evolution fits the way the world works in an exceedingly precise degree. Some say, "It's just a theory, not a fact." Well, atomic theory is "just a theory," as is the theory of gravity and the theory of continental drift. But it is safe to say that these are facts. Last time I looked, matter was made of atoms, things exert gravitational influence on each other, and tectonic plates move around. Facts are just facts, and evolution is fact. If you have a better explanation--a scientific one--then let me know. In any case, evolutionary theory was not made to undermine anybody’s beliefs.
As for acceptance of evolution as per personal beliefs, I would like to elaborate. Even among Christians, the stance of anti-evolution is hardly a unanimous one. The same applies for concepts like creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). Some have no problems with those things. Others have incorporated them as necessary to their belief. So who is right? Riddle me that. Of course, I like Galileo's old phrase "Religion teaches men how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." Even today, the Pope warns about confusing science and religion, as history shows us such confusion has led to disaster.
Different from facts are beliefs. Just as facts are facts, beliefs are beliefs. One can never be the other. For example, I don't "believe" in gravity, but I rather know it exists from experience. However, whether you believe in a God or gods, among other metaphysical things, is purely belief. There is no way to qualitatively prove such things. That's where we go to other means of proving our point. But such means are, to me, not so good at doing what they are meant to do. I am faced with a multitude of different religions--all with their own precepts, ideas, holy texts, and other pertinent things—each telling me that their belief is right. Such division is commonplace even among individual religions--we have denominations and sects each with their own interpretation of the basic infrastructure of their religion. They cannot, obviously, be all right. So who to believe. Since not a single one of them can offer me anything more than the same old rhetoric and references to their sacred texts, rather than solid proof, I have no logical motivations to believe any one of them. That includes atheism. I am, for all intents and purposes, agnostic. I just simply don't, indeed cannot, know for sure (and none of us can, really). Is the Sunni Muslim right? Is the Methodist right? Is the Mahayana Buddhist right? Is the Catholic right? Is the atheist right? I DON'T KNOW, and no logically thinking person can seriously say they can "know" for sure. But I do have sufficient reasons to not believe in Christianity (see links below for things summarizing why, as I don’t have time to go into it now). What I do know is that I am guaranteed my right to believe this by the first amendment.
f.christian (I think that's what his name was), despite his inability to write properly, put across something in his reply to me that I should point out. It doesn’t matter who created the “secular state,” fundamentalists today are trying to de-secularize it. Anything they consider “immoral” they wish to ban, whether it is evolutionary theory, violent video games, Harry Potter books, or homosexual rights, among many other things. Not only that, but they wish to establish what they consider “right” into American culture—prime examples being to force the 10 Commandments into being displayed in public institutions and trying to force “creation science” (which is not science at all) into the classroom. They seem to think that what is good for them must be good for everybody else. In fact, I’m pretty sure that many fundies want all non-theists deported (such was the opinion of several people who wrote letters to the editor to my local paper a few months back). A lot of the things I’ve heard straight from the mouths of fundamentalists seems like shadows of the oppressive Taliban regime—currently nowhere as bad, but could be if left unchecked by separation of church and state. Despite what f.christian thinks, atheists and other non-theists are trying to keep this country secularized. Secularism is by definition “The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.” I also fail to see how evolution has contributed to de-secularization. The only way I see this is that Darwin’s theory has done this indirectly and unwittingly. Fundamentalists who thought the theory was an attack on their belief saw it necessary to stick their noses into what is taught in public schools. So evolution has unwillingly provoked fundamentalists into trying to de-secularize public education. This was of course not Darwin’s intent when he formulated his theory. He was just a simple naturalist who put together a theory based on observation that would give us more understanding of living things than we have ever had and probably ever will.
~Stormblast
http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=192
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/index.shtml