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

[Coyoteman]

You guys can call me all the names you want but you show me not a CRUMB of evidence ...show me the ACTUAL evolution of something...anything....WAITING!!!

See post #254.

[Physicist]

that's an odd statement when so many present day scientists see through the wide holes in evolution

So it's your contention that evolution should be rejected because it is not widely accepted by scientists?

and many of the famous scientists of past were strong believers in a creator. Sir Issac Newton was a famous one.

He was a famous Arianist heretic, too. How does your church feel about the Nicene Creed?

But anyway, Newton's opinion about evolution is as relevant as Aristotle's opinion about Newtonian mechanics.

[stands2reason]

"Every organism has as many descendants as it can"; "Anything that hurts chances for survival will be rooted out by the process of natural selection"; "People who are prosperous and fortunate will have more children than the poor and disadvantaged"

The first statement is oversimplistic to the point of being erroneous, the answer to the second is "not necessarily", the third is flat out ludicrous and not at all any part of the Theory of Evolution.

And Dawkins has a lot of misconceptions about how ToE is applies to Theology. He is mistaken in his assertion that ToE is evidence for "no God." And that still has no effect on the scientific theory.

[freedumb2003]

OK, tell me this: What are all those links and drawings suppose to prove? Boil it down to one sentence. Tell me what it's all suppose to prove. Man's ascent from slimemold? Tell me the bottom line, then I'll look at your links, and tell you whether you've proven your point.

There is overwhelming evidence that shows a path from modern man to early Hominids and before that from proto-human animals. There is even MORE overwhelming evidence on speciation.

That is the summary. You need to do the research to refute it. All of the articles and links point to recognized and respected and peer-reviewed science journals.

BTW, what has blind adherence to evolution got to do with conservatism?

Like "blind adherence" to physics, astronomy, chemistry, and all those other evil satanic practices. Yes, you are right. The Earth is flat and the Universe is 6,000 years old. And that EVIL telescope must be removed so no comets ever hit Springfield again.

Your social allies seem to be the leftist mainstream media, and you legal ally [sic] seems to be the ACLU.

There is no "social" issue here. If you think that kids should be taught that Angels keep airplanes aloft (which I assume to be your stance) then I guess you can get that listed as science, once it passes scientific muster.

I just find it saddening and maddening that so-called "conservatives" want our children to be ignorant and years behind their peers in advanced countries like Turkey.

[editor-surveyor]

Truly pathetic!

Get some sleep.

[freedumb2003]

I guess what I was trying to say is that sometimes a species dies out due to no fault of man. Humans are not the cause of every single extinction that ever happened.

I guess you never saw Michael Moore up close.

;)

[Coyoteman]

Intelligent design based on biochemistry is the new paradigm, as a mechanism that can be applied by science, roaring into Dodge like the old freight trains. Such is life.

Intelligent design is a dodge developed after the Supreme Court bombed creation "science" out of the classrooms in the late 1980s.

The clever folks at the Discovery Institute said, "Aha! Well change things around a bit and see if we can fool people." So they came up with a strategy.

They called this The Wedge Strategy. But whoops!

Somehow it got leaked and posted on the internet, and that gave the whole ballgame away.

Its not about science. It is about overriding science with a particular narrow religious belief.

[ga medic]

My mom married a geologist who was in minerals exploration - uranium. I had to spend 4 weeks is a place called Uravan in Colorado, at a uranium/vanadium mine. I heard they closed it down, and have blocked off the entire area because of contamination. It is rare to meet anyone in uranium exploration now days.

[Coyoteman]

Waiting for EVIDENCE that I asked for...notice Not ONE of these posters have sent anything.

See post #254.

[DannyTN]

"Their vaccination porduction is tied to existing strains because that is what they can produce. Public health officials anticipate mutation and worry that vaccines for last years strains will be ineffective against what appears this year. They do the best they can. Unfortunately anticipating that something will mutate is different than being able to develop a vaccine to protect against what the virus will mutate into."

Exactly. So evolution's not producing anything except worry.

And even if Corkoman was right, which I seriously doubt, that the CDC anticipates specific mutations and proactively prepares for them. Knowledge of mutations is not the same as evolution. We believe we've seen strains of the flu leap from animals to man (i.e. Swine Flu). But that's not evolution either. It might be micro evolution but it's not anything on the scale of Darwinian macro evolution.

And even should the bird flu make the leap, it's still flu, it may mutate, but it hasn't evolved into anything other than the flu.

[Boiler Plate]

Has anyone read "The Biology Of Belief" by Bruce Lipton?

[stands2reason]

There are a lot of myths that could use clearing up, all right. "Survival of the fittest" is one. Sounds like this fella is taking them on. He seems to have issues with the social philosophy of "Darwinism", something which I see no empirical evidence to support. We certainly agree on that.

Does he reject the Theory of Evolution in toto, or just the humanist social movements that attached themselves to it like barnacles?

[Coyoteman]

Waiting for a crumb of evidence of evolution that I asked you for....waiting....waiting.

See post #254.

(I'm catching up as fast as I can!)

[George - the Other]

"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."

The author of the article not only has entirely missed the point, as an evolution/Darwin hater, he represents the dark-side of conservatism and functions on the same psychological level as the liberal Bush-haters.

[DannyTN]

"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?"

Yeah, you would think, the enviros would simply say that's natural let it be. But of course since everything is man's fault and in particular Bush's fault, they'll never view it that way.

Actually, Scientists tell us there have been hundreds of extinctions in our lifetime. And something on the order of 1/3 of all bird species have gone extinct in the last 2000 years. So where are the new species, to keep up? We discover new species in extreme environments that have probably existed for ages. But I know of only two that proposed as "recent" new species. And they are just mosquitos and moths that have become isolated so long that they have lost the ability or will to mate with others of their species.

It seems like at current rates, we would see a lot of extinct species in the fossil record, which we do. But extinction without many new species is consistent with a cursed earth instead of evolution providing ever more diversity.

[stands2reason]

Remember to tag your sarcasm posts!


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

[Dustbunny]

God is sitting up there laughing.

[Liberal Classic]

Sarcasm tags are for wusses.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Ridiculous. Evolution has been useful in giving mankind a reason to ignore his nobility, and to blame chemistry and chance for his behaviour. ;-)

[therut]

I refuse to be a member of the trade association called the AMA. Many physicians are not members. For many reasons. Abortion, gun control etc. They are just another trade union they do not have any more truth than me.