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]

When you combine a couple of viruses together, you really don't know if you have a new biological organism, or if you even have an organism.

YOu don't know that doing so changes anything.

[My2Cents]

I'll admit this: Evolutionists certainly have a vivid imagination.

[Ichneumon]

Evolution Is Practically Useless, Admits Darwinist [...] One of Darwin’s own bulldogs said it for us: evolutionary theory is useless.

Wow, nothing like misrepresenting the comments of the person being quote-mined out of context. Gosh, an anti-evolution creationist distorting and misleading his audience, who'da thunk it?

Clue for the clueless: Coyne is saying that evolution hasn't had as much *commercial* use or impacted people's daily lives as, say, aeronautics. But anyone who has read anything by Coyne on the topic -- or heck, even read Coyne's quoted passages in this blathering piece by the creationists -- will see that Coyne in no way feels that evolution is "useless" within science or biology, because it isn't. Very much the contrary, in fact. Nice of the creationists to lie about his actual position, and of evolution's actual utility in science, eh?

I'm getting tired of seeing creationists attempt to constantly grossly mislead the public so badly. Have they no shame, no concern for truth?

Not even the liberals are as consistently dishonest and deceitful as the creationists are. How do they look at themselves in the mirror each morning? Don't they know that bearing false witness violates one of the Commandments?

And DannyTN, how do you excuse your promulgation of such Big Lie propaganda? Do you realize how horribly it reflects on Christianity (and on conservatism) when you folks behave this way? Are you *trying* to give people justification for all the worst stereotypes?

[RightWhale]

Some mutations are insignificant. Some are devastating.

Some are self-destructive. For example, a political party will tend to evolve and produce many mutations, most of which would lead to the demise of the party if they continued very far. We can see this in the Democrat Party in the past half century. Even now the survival of that species is in doubt.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

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

Well, it doesn't predict that the strong survive. It predicts that those species best adapted to their environment survive, and that changes in the environment can change the definition of "best adapted."

If so, then why do the enviros get so bent out of shape when some species die off, i.e. become extinct?

I'm not a watermelon, but I do get annoyed with the idea of humanity knocking off entire species either by accident or deliberately, if we can reasonably avoid doing so. This planet is, for the foreseeable future, our home; we should take care of it with the same diligence we should have in maintaining and cleaning our individual homes.

[mjolnir]

But Coyne isn't really even quibbling with evolutionary theory, just its over-selling. Regardless of whether one agrees with him that it IS oversold, one must (imo) admire his intellectual honesty.

Coyne is not attempting to debunk evolutionary biology--- he is attempting to strengthen it by ferreting out over-extensions of it, so that the whole is more useful, less easily attackable and more likely to be true. His main problem, it seems, whether in mainstream evolutionary biology or evolutionary psychology, are "just so" stories such as the one Richard Dawkins sells about the eye evolving from a light sensitive patch in "Climbing Mt. Improbable". So the point isn't that evolutionary theory is useless--- that would make his work as an evolutionary biologist useless--- but simply that it is limited.

Similarly, you're right to state that studying history is useful, but wrong to characterize it as Coyne's point. Sure, history is useful--- but the over-selling of history, whether in Hegel or Marx or what have you, does the rightly understood and executed study of history an insult.

H. Allen Orr makes a similar criticism of Daniel Dennett:

I should make it clear that I am not troubled by the possibility that your civility (as well as mine) reflects ancient genetic changes. It may well. But the notion that the diffusion of morality among humans must have involved natural selection is absurd. Imagine, for instance, that evolution blessed our hirsute ancestors with consciousness and language. But, alas, these immoral brutes -- who are kind only to their families -- have run out of genetic variation and, thus, no further evolutionary change is possible. What reason is there to think that social contracts, cooperation among hunters, and the other ingredients of an Ur-morality couldn't catch on among these thinking, speaking beasts? None as far as I can see. Is it obvious that genetic changes are required for such a thing? Where are Dennett's trusty memes when we need them?

The deeper point, though, is that this navel-gazing -- these endless attempts to theoretically reconstruct what "must have" occurred during the emergence of human morality -- is no more than academic exercise. The ugly fact is that we haven't a shred of evidence that morality in humans did or did not evolve by natural selection. We do not even know what such evidence would look like. We can, if we like, construct plausible adaptive scenarios ("What would happen to a gene that said be nice to strangers if . . ."). But, in the end, a thought experiment is not an experiment. We have no data.

Dennett's treatment of evolutionary ethics is symptomatic of the problem plaguing his entire book. He is forever suggesting that the universal acid of natural selection may be involved here or there. Natural selection of alternative universes may explain why we live in a world having just these physical constants (I spared you this one). Selection may explain the rise and fall of ideas and songs. Selection may explain why "strong" artificial intelligence is destined to work (nature got semantics out of syntax, so digital computers can too). Selection may explain the spread of ethical codes among humans. But at each milepost the skeptical reader grumbles, "But maybe not." After all, the evidence for each claim ranges from non-existent (alternative universes, origin of morality) to negative (Darwinian evolution of memes). All Dennett really shows is that -- if one squints hard enough -- one can sort of see how Darwin's dangerous idea might play a role in this, that, or the other. Although he has produced a provocative and intermittently entertaining book, Dennett's chief claim is unconvincing. Darwinism may have little to tell us outside of biology.

Again, Orr is not criticizing Darwinin's theory of evolution through natural selection--- he is simply acknowledging that it is not a "universal acid" and thus has limits to what it can explain and what it can reasonably be applied to.

[muawiyah]

What a bunch of meaningless drivel. Here we have a country with more folks with more education in the biosciences per capita than just about any on Earth, and the guy says we are woefully without educated people in the biosciences.

I get the same feeling when I come across religious dogma not grounded in Scripture.

Or, even worse, boilerplate on a government contract.

[cowdog77]

"Evolution makes an atheist comfortable with his atheism (to paraphrase Richard Dawkins)."
___________________________

And that's why they break out into such a sweat over it!

[muawiyah]

So what? Hey, you're the guy who said we must be concerned with viral evolution lest it cause disease.

I merely suggested that there are such an enormous number of viruses that the task is beyond comprehension.

[indcons]

"I'll admit this: Evolutionists certainly have a vivid imagination."

LMAO....this coming form a creationist??

BTW, what is the status of Mustapha Aykol - that rabid Islamist who was used by creationists in Kansas as a scientific authority on "creation science"??

Considering the lies, anti-Semitic rubbish, and pro-Koranic nonsense that he spouted the last time, I don't think you all will use him as a source anytime soon.

[AndyJackson]

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

That is not what evolution predicts. Evolution discusses fitness in particular "landscape" AND robustness to changes in the landscape. Your immune response, raising your body temperature to 104 degrees, depends upon bacteria that thrive at 98.6 not doing so well at elevated temperatures - for instance. Dinosaurs did well until the mass extinction, at which point mammals, which were less fit for survival in competition with dinosaurs suddenly were a lot more fit under this cosmic nuclear winter. Strong and weak are relative terms. Mice are weak against all of their competitors. They reproduce to compensate.

[freedumb2003]

I'll admit this: Evolutionists certainly have a vivid imagination.

Proof and substance be damned.

Willful ignorance is NOT a Conservative value.

[muawiyah]

Bunch of groupies for sure.

[AndyJackson]

the task is beyond comprehension.

No it isn't.

[ClaireSolt]

" the automatic default setting is not "God did it" (although that answer sure would make getting 100% on science tests easy). Leave the medieval thinking to the Taliban and the Jihadists." This statement assumes that contemporary man must be superior. It is a sort of modernist chauvanism. Beliefs of creation by God are not a default. Rather they have always been the rule and have a lot more study and investigation on their sides than science does.

[PatrickHenry]

I'm getting tired of seeing creationists attempt to constantly grossly mislead the public so badly. Have they no shame, no concern for truth?

But Ich ... they're creationists. You gotta have compassion.

[mjolnir]

I'm not a watermelon, but I do get annoyed with the idea of humanity knocking off entire species either by accident or deliberately, if we can reasonably avoid doing so. This planet is, for the foreseeable future, our home; we should take care of it with the same diligence we should have in maintaining and cleaning our individual homes.

But is species extinction in itself such a problem? I agree that there are many species I would not like to see become extinct, but there are also many species I would enjoy seeing gone--- the tsete flies mosquitos, rinos...

[AndyJackson]

Even now the survival of that species is in doubt.

My concern is that it will mutate into something much more virulent - if such be possible.

[be4everfree]

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution

29 ? WOW

[freedumb2003]

___________________________

And that's why they break out into such a sweat over it!

Understanding this branch of science has either no discernable affect on us Christian's beliefs OR enhances it as a clear sign of how truly awesome God is. Why would an atheist need any particularly science to confirm or deny their belief system?