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

[muawiyah]

Actually, the resistant bacteria use conjugation to pass their resistance on to other bacteria.

More correctly we are looking at a bacterial immune system ~ and it works pretty much like ours.

The guys trying to stretch this into evidence of "evolution" are the same guys trying to revise the word to mean "change", as in "evolution your tire when it goes flat", or "evolution your underwear at least once a month", or "evolution your bed".

[editor-surveyor]

"What makes you think gravity is simple?"

Or, how would one even define simplicity when discussing such a poorly understood force?

[Liberal Classic]

You realize that no oil company bases its exploration research on the "theory" of non-biologic petroleum?

[editor-surveyor]

. :o)

[AndyJackson]

have yet to hear a good explanation for particle/wave duality

Particle energy = Planck's constant x wavelength. You want a simpler explanation, but that is as simple an explanation as there is, a single equation relating two variables by one constant. It is an observed fact, and a whole lot simpler than an apple falling on your head due to the hypothesized force of gravity.

Your problem is that you confound every day experience with simple. But, unless you squint your eyes and observe the diffraction through the slits of your eyes, wave-particle duality is not a part of your daily experience. In a laboratory it could be. Most everyday phenomenon are, in fact, far more complex. Wave particle duality only doesn't matter in those cases where there are so many waves interfering with each other that that wave interference effects all wash out and all you see is the gross features of the classical everyday world.

It is not wave particle duality that science has a hard time with, but trying to explain classical physics and the lack of time reversal asymmetry associated with the tangible world.

[stands2reason]

Thought it'd be a good time to remind everybody:

Please, don't drink and post. The life you save could be your own.

Thank you, and good night.

[js1138]

It doesn't. Bacteria do not live as single animals, but in huge colonies called a biofilm. Even if you tried to isolate one, you would not be successful, since they are constantly in the process of replication.

All you creationists and ID supporters out there: Is this your final word on the subject? Is this representative of anti-Darwinian science?

Anyone?

[muawiyah]

They do their research based mostly on where somebody else found oil.

[js1138]

They do their research based mostly on where somebody else found oil.

Ah, another great moment in creation science.

[stands2reason]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

[muawiyah]

Yes, the erratic time-dilation effect messes up every observation from any angle every single time.

[svcw]

Oh who knows, I meant evolutionist. Good grief talk about survival of the fittest.

[muawiyah]

Creation science? How about paying folks to pass on company secrets?

That's certainly not "evolution".

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

[Coyoteman]

and besides, there is NO evidence of the process of evolving....anywhere.

False. The example of flu virus mutations was given in the post before yours. Are you going to graciously accept last year's flu shot, or the one from the year before because you don't believe anything evolves?

Then there is this: This is a transitional. Note its position in the chart which follows (hint--in the upper center). Evolution occurred between these various species. You may not believe it, but scientists do and it is their opinions which count.

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Fossil: KNM-ER 3733

Site: Koobi Fora (Upper KBS tuff, area 104), Lake Turkana, Kenya (4, 1)

Discovered By: B. Ngeneo, 1975 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.75 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal, paleomagnetic & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Female (species presumed to be sexually dimorphic) (1, 8)

Cranial Capacity: 850 cc (1, 3, 4)

Information: Tools found in same layer (8, 9). Found with KNM-ER 406 A. boisei (effectively eliminating single species hypothesis) (1)

Interpretation: Adult (based on cranial sutures, molar eruption and dental wear) (1)

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=33

Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html

[RadioAstronomer]

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

Flapdoodle!

My father (PhD Geology) did oil exploration before switching to uranium exploration. I spent many an hour in the field with him. Believe it when I say he used all kinds of interleaved data to hunt for new oil fields.

He was good at it too. BTW, evolution was one of those data points.

[editor-surveyor]

"You realize that no oil company bases its exploration research on the "theory" of non-biologic petroleum?"

That statement is so ridiculous that it vibrates.

Go back through the posts of the late freeper 'texas cowboy' on the subject, and get educated. The places where oil is sought these days makes you look silly.

[stands2reason]

Giving people an excuse to discount the existance of God?

Which is why creos hate it so much...

[Coyoteman]

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?

Evolution does not predict that the strong survive.

[stands2reason]

The Church is based in Vatican City.

[muawiyah]

OK, so your dad did all the finding, and oil companies did all the drilling and pumping.

Fur Shur they do find it easier to navigate to KNOWN oil fields.