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.

---

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

[stultorum]

A man in love is bound to be bound.

[Quark2005]

There is far more evidence supporting the theory of evolution (and indeed it is a scientific theory) than gravitational theory.

Do you deny that gravity exists?

Heck, no! If you drop a rock off a cliff, it falls! If you drop a monkey of a cliff, it doesn't evolve into a man, it just goes *splat*!

[muawiyah]

Ichneumon, calm down. We can see the spittle flying from all the way over here.

[null and void]

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.

Ummmm, the telescope wasn't invented until millenia after children were sacrificed to Ba'al.

If you collapse 5 thousand years of sequentially recorded history like that, it's small wonder you can't keep track of events in a 13 billion or so year old universe...

[Ichneumon]

Especially Marx, 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.

Would you like to see how many times the KKK, slaveowners, and other distasteful groups approvingly cited the Bible as support for their positions?

Now, would you like to discuss the actual science, or would you like to keep playing sleazy and inexcusable "slur by association" games? Your behavior is completely unworthy of a conservative -- that's the kind of thing the liberals do.

[Ichneumon]

Ichneumon, calm down. We can see the spittle flying from all the way over here.

I'm perfectly calm, but your childish rejoinders, and DannyTN's juvenile taunts, do you no credit. Behold, the intellectual and emotional level of the anti-evolutionists.

[js1138]

David P. Mindell (coauthor of [14]): “The words enclosed in quotation marks are accurate. However , the quotes are entirely misinterpreted and taken out of context. This is just as the scientific community, and at least some of the public, has come to expect from the Discovery Institute.”

Possibly referring to another quote, but indicative of his contempt for creationists.

[Ichneumon]

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.

Yes, I know. What makes you think I didn't? I pinged everyone on the thread up to that point in order to alert them to a misrepresentation in the original post, don't take it personally if you had no interest in the topic of the thread.

Sheesh.

Sheesh indeed.

[MHGinTN]

That was uncalled for ... and I read Iche's post and saw it as quite thought provoking. In fact, I think maybe evolution IS to blame for tooth decay ... the bacteria responsible, as far as I know, is not found any place naturally other than the mouth and therefore the throat.

[Ichneumon]

Actually, evolution is a pseudo-scientific fairy tale. It gives real scientific theory a bad name.

Wow, are YOU confused... Let me guess, you've made the mistake of trying to "learn" about science from the creationists, right? This would explain why you're in such need of my tagline. Hint: Trying to "learn" about science from creationists is like trying to "learn" about conservatism from Michael Moore, and for exactly the same reasons.

To see how laughably wrong your comment is, start with post #61. Then read this. Then move on to this. Then try reading some actual science journals.

Get back to us when you've overcome your complete ignorance on this topic, and your head contains more than just the gross misreprentations of the creationists who are actively attempting to undermine science education. You only give ammunition to the liberals who claim that conservatives are ignorant and scientific illiterates when you say goofy stuff like this. Please stop it.

[muawiyah]

Saturn was visible to the ancients and was ordinarily associated with a powerful god concept.

Recalling that the skies were much clearer in ancient times than they are today, some people (not all) could see the rings as if they were horns, or a scythe.

[js1138]

Of course, for some reason they fail to mention Coyne's next paragraph:

As far as I know, there have been only two genuine commercial applications of evolutionary theory. One is the use of 'directed evolution' to produce commercial products (such as enzymes to protect crop plants from herbicides). The other is the clever use of insecticide-free 'pest refuges' to stop herbivorous insects evolving resistance to herbicides containing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins, a strategy derived from principles of population genetics. There will certainly be more of these to come. And evolutionary algorithms are used in designing computer programs, and may have uses in engineering and economics.

[stultorum]

Hey, Ichenmom, can I us your tag line?

I like it and need one.

[muawiyah]

Since I'm not an anti-evolutionist I really don't particularly care what kind of temper tantrums they throw.

On the other hand, you really can't defend science by calling taxpayers (who fund so terribly much of it) names.

You really have to learn to kiss tailbones to keep the grant money flowing.

[Ichneumon]

In fact, I think maybe evolution IS to blame for tooth decay ... the bacteria responsible, as far as I know, is not found any place naturally other than the mouth and therefore the throat.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. While the process of evolution has of course produced the bacteria responsible for tooth decay (and all other living things), what I was trying to say is that DannyTN and his buddies tend to blame the *theory* of evolution (i.e., the teaching of the principles of science) as somehow responsible for all of the world's ills. Darwin's publishing of a book on evolution didn't cause tooth decay or Marxism or Hitler, but the anti-evolutionists are nutty enough to try to claim that it did.

[Grig]

"Oh, yes, the market value of evolution is........?"

Giving people an excuse to discount the existance of God?

[muawiyah]

The tooth decay bacteria is little different than another bacteria (with which it can conjugate) that inhabits dogs' mouths.

Theirs does not, in fact, cause tooth decay.

The thought is we should kiss dogs every now and then for the sake of our dental hygiene.

It's been a long time ago but I read a piece about the abundance of flora and fauna in our guts that started out in dogs. Before we picked them up we were like gorillas, "a little loose poop, if you know what I mean", eh!

That's parts changing on a macro scale, but if tooth decay bacteria can conjugate with any other bacteria, then they are not really a separate species ~ just an evil cousin or something.

[js1138]

That was uncalled for ... and I read Iche's post and saw it as quite thought provoking. In fact, I think maybe evolution IS to blame for tooth decay ...

Evolution gets tooth decay, and God gets E.coli?

[Ichneumon]

On the other hand, you really can't defend science by calling taxpayers (who fund so terribly much of it) names.

If I ever try to do something that goofy, I'll be sure to refer back to your random comment.

[Suzy Quzy]

Riiiiiight.