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

[RadioAstronomer]

Ignorance is bliss placemarker.

(Off to the lab for a while)

[Ichneumon]

If evolution predicts that the strong survive, then doesn't that imply that the weak die off? If so, then why do the enviros get so bent out of shape when some species die off, i.e. become extinct?

Because a) that's a really lousy description of evolution, and b) evolution, like science in general, describes what happens in nature. That in no way requires humanity to follow suit.

For example, the fact that epidemics occur in nature doesn't mean that we ought to idly sit by while diseases run rampant.

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.

[AndyJackson]

But is species extinction in itself such a problem?

Well, yes. In an ice age or a period of global warning, a species might become extinct that might be your favorite food group or favorite source of shelter from the sun or warmth from the cold during the next cyclic extreme.

[muawiyah]

Did you read your source. It points to the handful of disease organisms and their changes as proving the benefit of the entirity of evolutionary theory.

We've all been through this business before of trying to deal with the problem of "speciation" in bacteria and viruses.

It does take us beyond Darwin's book about "The origin of species" you know, 'cause all those changes in the disease bugs don't give us new species ~ just bugs better able to defeat our own immune system ~ not that they are trying to defeat it ~ they just don't want to git'et by our white blood cells.

Point being that changes in immunology are only by the greatest of stretches described as "evolution in action".

[RightWhale]

A positive aspect to evolution of a firestorm virulence is that it burns out. Sure it's harsh on part of a population, but it is quickly over and done.

[freedumb2003]

At our meetings we pass out Electronic Ignorance Divining Rods that slip into our USB ports (thank God for the new generation -- the old analog Ignorance Divining Rods were really cumbersome).

When the light goes on and the alarm rings we know that Willful Ignorance is on the march.

[muawiyah]

You watch, the Democrats will come back as the Whigs.

Like I said, some changes are no different than cats into dogs, and dogs into cats.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

But is species extinction in itself such a problem?

It can be, if it eliminates redundancy in a critical ecospheric niche, because you're then hoping that some virus doesn't evolve to wipe out that last remaining "system" in that niche.

[Ichneumon]

[29+ Evidences for Macroevolution]

29 ? WOW

Yes, 29+ separate and independently cross-confirming lines of evidence indicating the validity of macroevolution, and in each of those 29+ lines of evidence are thousands to millions of individual pieces of evidence, observation, and research findings.

Wow indeed.

If you're being sarcastic, on the other hand, you're just making it really obvious that you didn't even bother reading the material before getting childishly snotty about it. Read my tagline.

[muawiyah]

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

[freedumb2003]

If evolution predicts that the strong survive, then doesn't that imply that the weak die off?

I did a KILLER version of that song last night at Kareoke. It was the original Billie Holiday mix and I pitched it an octave low and did a few riffs (but not too many).

It will now be part of my permanent song rotation.

[dagoofyfoot]

I haven't had and influenza vaccination in over 15 years.


I've never had one and never will.

I'm 49 years old and I could count all the flu's I've ever had on hand....


so any evo who wants mine can have at it.

[SandRat]

Al Franken Looks Like You.

Answer truthfully, is Al Franken ascended from Chimpanzees?

[RightWhale]

why do the enviros get so bent out of shape when some species die off,

They don't. They don't even know if and when that happens. What they don't like is the IDEA that some species die off. Even though 99% of all species that ever existed have died off.

[Ichneumon]

At our meetings we pass out Electronic Ignorance Divining Rods that slip into our USB ports (thank God for the new generation -- the old analog Ignorance Divining Rods were really cumbersome). When the light goes on and the alarm rings we know that Willful Ignorance is on the march.

Speak for yourself -- I saw the Platypus Signal beaming its message onto the clouds, so I hopped into my MonotremeMobile and sped right on over here. How do you like the duckbill on my mask?

[mjolnir]

No doubt species extinction CAN be a problem--- but my point was that it is not intrinsically a bad thing, or even if it is intrisically a bad thing, there are times when the negative of species being extinguished is far outweighed by the positive-- the tsete fly being (it seemed to me) an example almost as obvious as rinos.

Wouldn't you both agree the elimination of the tsete fly would be a net benefit to humanity?

[RightWhale]

That is probably true. They have a long history and have changed style now and then. Blame it on Darwin, but that monk with the pea plants is what got them started.

[stultorum]

"Evolution Is Practically Useless, Admits Darwinist

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

[RightWhale]

the elimination of the tsete fly would be a net benefit to humanity

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

[RightWhale]

Evolution is very highly useful to those who have to make catalogs of plants and animals. There is no better way to organize the catalog, although there might be other ways such as by weight.