Posted on 05/29/2005 8:50:43 PM PDT by UnklGene
No need for scientists to be dogmatic about the existence, or not, of God -
Paul Johnson
It is always a delight when scientists talk sense. The Guardian quotes the gynaecologist Robert Winston saying last week that science and religion are ‘essentially both the same thing’. He denies that science is ‘about certainty, about absolute knowledge, about facts’. The truth, he adds, ‘is that science really is about uncertainty, and I think that religion is also about uncertainty’. This accords with my view. True religion has an element of mystery — greys, shades, shadows and doubts. Absolute religious certitude, of the kind exhibited by Muslim fanatics, is a sure sign of superstition and paganism. Equally, the arrogant certitude displayed by the Darwinian fundamentalists is a form of bad science. A true scientist, who puts truth before any theory to which he is committed, is ready to re-examine and even abandon his hypothesis if it is seriously challenged. This is the lesson I learnt from Karl Popper who contrasted Einstein, and his special and general theories of relativity, with pseudo-sciences like Marxism and Freudianism, whose theories were sufficiently elastic and imprecise to expand and accommodate fresh evidence which conflicted with their original formulation.
Of the three great systems which emerged in the mid-19th century, Comte’s Positivism began to unravel even before his death in 1857. Marxism was saved by the accident of the Russian revolution in 1917, which gave it another three quarters of a century of precarious existence until it crashed irretrievably in about 1990, but Darwinism has somehow managed to stagger on. Today very few people doubt evolution as such. But then Darwin was by no means the first to argue that species, including man, evolved. He stands or falls by his hypothesis that the main or even sole method of evolution is by natural selection. Why Darwin was so obstinate in making natural selection the dynamic of evolution I have never understood. I find it odd that, although Mendel presented his revolutionary findings about genes to the Natural Science Society in 1865, only six years after the publication of the Origin of Species, Darwin never showed any interest in his books. Mendel’s results were published in detail in 1866, and he sent a copy to Darwin, but the Great Scientist never even opened it. Perhaps he wasn’t such a Great Scientist after all? Mendel’s researches, just as original and brilliant in their own way as Darwin’s, were largely ignored until about 1900, partly at least because the Darwinians were determined to protect their master’s work. By then, they were committed to various forms of atheism or agnosticism, and I often think that what unites the Darwinians, even today, is not so much a love of scientific truth as a blind resistance to the idea of a God or Providence — any form of which operates outside what appear to be the laws of nature.
Personally I take the same view as Newton, whose views on God were set out carefully towards the end of his life when preparing the second edition of the Principia (1713). Newton rejected the idea that God’s true nature lay in his perfection. He insisted that God is ‘utterly void of all body and bodily figure; and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched’. His essential characteristic, Newton wrote, was what he called ‘dominion’ — God was all-powerful, the primal universal force. We know nothing about God except through his works, ‘by his most wise and excellent contrivance of all things’. Hence Newton could have had no difficulty in accommodating what we now know of the origins and history of the universe with his austere theology.
If, as we currently believe, the Big Bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and the future universe was largely determined by that initial event, it poses a serious problem to scientific atheists. First, it was an event without a cause, or an action without an agent. Second, it produced out of nothing not only something but everything. Both go against all the laws of physics. The explanation of the Big Bang thus lies in metaphysics. For Newton this raised no difficulty as he has his God or a force, power or dominion. But for the Darwinians, who have the evolution of Homo sapiens firmly embedded in a process of natural selection which has no ultimate cause or agent and no end or object, the Big Bang is an enigma. They cannot explain it, and they avert their gaze. Moreover, our growing knowledge of the history of the universe and our own planet threatens natural selection itself. It is a slow, blind and almost inconceivably clumsy process, unless it had an element of programming which, if admitted, could destroy the entire theory.
Darwin was no historian, to put it mildly, and never produced a chronology of the evolution of species through natural selection. But the creation of the universe by the Big Bang, and the evolution of living things on earth — and eventually Homo sapiens himself — were historical events, however remote, and therefore the proper province of historians like myself. In analysing events, the historian requires a chronology, and if those endeavouring to explain events cannot provide one, or provide one which does not fit, then their explanation is plainly erroneous. The trouble with natural selection, as advanced by Darwin, and defended and elaborated by his triumphalist followers today, is that it operates too slowly to fit in with the years available in earth-history. When challenged on this point, Darwinians become very slippery, and their answers are those of people defending a dogma or an ideology rather than of scientists looking for truth. There are five other weaknesses in natural selection as an explanation of how species evolve but the historical one is the most important and will eventually prove fatal. Why can’t the Darwinians admit it now, and throw the whole debate open, so that mankind can get at the truth?
The other huge area of incertitude, for both religion and science, is what happens after death. If Newton was right, and there is a power or force exercising ‘dominion’, then it seems highly unlikely that the end of earthly life is the end of everything. I have been reading a lot recently about Alfred Tennyson, who for the last 30 years of his life was obsessed by this problem — hence, among other things, his beautiful little late poem ‘Crossing the Bar’. Some scientists, unable to cope with uncertainty about an afterlife, take refuge in poetry. Tennyson related that he found himself sitting at an all-male dinner with Gladstone and Tyndall, a greater all-round scientist than either Darwin or his fugleman, Huxley. Tyndall talked ‘in his loose way’ about ‘this Poem or Poetic Idea — God’. Gladstone was furious and said ‘with severity’, ‘Professor Tyndall, leave God to the Poets and Philosophers and attend to your own business.’ Tyndall was stunned into complete silence. However, human nature being what it is, Tyndall was soon publicly denouncing Gladstone as the ‘wickedest man of our day and generation’.
interesting read ping
Interesting yes. But it was a bunch of BS and demonstrates a lack of knowledge in the sciences.
This analysis stinks.
A better description that's used to explain the big bang is to ask- what's north of the North pole? Nothing. Much like asking what came before the first moment.
As for throwing out natural selection, his justification is a non sequitur. One defines this logic, but its truth is pure opinion, and that "growing knowledge" (examples? none.) "threatens" some schools of either science or religion is his own selfish projection. Doubtful that he consulted with any such field experts - scientists or priests - on the subject; likely he simply dismissed them all from the start.
Johnson's touch here on science doesn't seem so bad to me. I don't think he's giving a seminar, but commenting rather on the passing scene.
I've heard physics described as the study of events. Or a description of events. And, as you note, in our current understanding, before the creation of the universe, there were no events, hence no time.
This still leaves the problem of what caused the first event, what changed? Before that... well, no events, no physics.
When writing a news article about religion/philosophy/The Scientific Method/evolution...etc, I (like the Guardian) always consult the highest authority available.
WhiteKnight
P.S. Darwin wasn't a very good scientist
Man is the only animal that needs a "faith". It was here before the "Christen Era" and is forever. Evolutionists let their hobby be used to attack religeon. They are fools.
But there's no "before".
As an aside, I'm not especially sold on the big bang nor any other theory. Imagine being naive in some ideal sense, then meticulously collecting data at a magic show to understand how things work. From your seat in the audience, you'd naturally derive a set of false conclusions but could also say with certainty that you followed science closely and therefore your observations can't be refuted.
Given the vastness of the universe and the absurdity of living for ~70 years only to die and become an eternal nonentity.... I'd guess our total knowledge is scant and there's no fallacy in making ourselves comfortable with supplementary truths ("lies", though they are not) while pursuing pure science that benefits humanity in fast cars and nuclear bombs.
Everything is contrived anyway. So why not?
Pure science can be boiled down to 3 or 4 fundamental forces, no? If I recall- strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagentic, and gravity. Religion, in essence, either denies their effects or claims that there's "more" (that being God, perhaps, or whatever is revealed in bible text). Science says those same matters of faith are demonstrably false, based on its small set of fundamentals.
It becomes a simple battle for definitions, or who gets to author the english dictionary... and since all elements of an amalgam (ie, words into language) have zero substantiation when considered individually, I see nothing invalid about re-writing the universe in ever more absurd terms that suit you. "Apple" isn't what we've accepted for centuries, it's "xxxUUUjjUI", or whatever abstract nonsense I slowly convince you to accept over time.
So when Catholics say 'bread-to-body' or 'wine-to-blood', I'm not about to argue with them.
Suppose it was proven that the Hindus had it right. Wouldn't non-Hindu clerics suffer a crisis of faith as well?
That would depend on whose version of an afterlife was determined to be true and if it was proved to be exclusively true. Personally, I am not worried because coming back as a bug or a tree. Both seem perverse and extremely unlikely -- and don't get me started about the Muslims.
Not to beat a dead horse, but the subject of quantum mechanics is greatly exploited by quacks and queers. I credit James Randi for warning me of the games they play -- and the money they make playing them.
But if some connection does exist between the hard realities we know and a supernatural world, then that's a logical field to explore.
That would depend on whose version of an afterlife was determined to be true and if it was proved to be exclusively true.
Ok, suppose the Hindu version of the afterlife was proven to be exclusively true. Wouldn't non-Hindu clerics suffer a crisis of faith as well?
Most of the people I see who believe this are creationists. It would seem to be the idea behind attempts to discredit Darwin the man. ("Kill the man, the theory will fall.") It could be part of why creationists think lists of quotes mined out of context are somehow "damning" of a theory with 150 years of evidence for it and none against. Arguments in religion are advanced if not settled by such means. Arguments in science are settled by more research. The other tactics in the context of science questions look simply dishonest.
If, by some extraordinary stroke, a group of scientists with impeccable credentials came forward with utterly convincing proof of the existence of human afterlife, most people would be exhilarated.
True enough. -- But I would wager that millions of both religious & nonreligious people would simply refuse to be convinced.
But many scientists would adamantly refuse to accept any such proof and some would be deeply distressed that scientific materialism and atheism had been discredited.<.I>
You assume proof of an 'afterlife' would prove theism & disprove science. Isn't it possible that once self conscientious, a being could transfer conscientiousness at death "by some extraordinary stroke", -- some natural process, explainable to science?
Any cleric would instantly recognize the distress of such scientists for what it was: a crisis of faith.
Yep, and I could envision many clerics having a 'crisis of faith' upon finding that an afterlife was a provable natural process.
No doubt that would happen.
And would the following also be true:
Many non-Hindu clerics would adamantly refuse to accept any such proof and some would be deeply distressed that their religious doctrine had been discredited.
And there would likely be adverse consequences to their employment, whereas the scientists who made this discovery would likely get the Nobel Prize.
For something that big, wonderful, and promising, I don't think anyone would cry over the loss of their religion. Rather they would ecstatically look forward to death and a proven afterlife.
I think this is worth a (((Creationist Ping))) although it may be more of an Intelligent Design. Still raises good concerns about evolution.
You have been pinged because of your interest in matters of Creation vs. Evolution, Creation trumping evolution, and evolutionary fraud. Freep-mail me if you want on/off this list.
Colossians 1:16 "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him."
Thanks for the ping!
Like Clinton, Darwin's legacy of brilliance is not good. Fools need to be called fools as Johnson eloquently points out by his comparisons. Jesus didn't mince words in this regard. Kum-By-Ya is for the girlie men.
Mat 23:17 [Ye] fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
Mat 23:19 [Ye] fools and blind: for whether [is] greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?
Luk 11:40 [Ye] fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also?
Luk 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Mat 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Mat 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Mat 23:33 [Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Luk 3:7 Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Mat 23:27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness.
Mincing wasn't one of the things He would be known for.
I've been close to exactly two. They make me cry, so I don't think of them very much.
Many non-Hindu clerics would adamantly refuse to accept any such proof and some would be deeply distressed that their religious doctrine had been discredited. Agree or disagree?
And there would likely be adverse consequences to their employment, whereas the scientists who made this discovery would likely get the Nobel Prize. Agree or disagree?
I have a family member who, even after several years, still feels guilty over an extended episode of precognition that he did not act on. Even now, he must wear a tooth guard at night lest he grind his teeth to stubs. Rationally, he knows he is utterly blameless because he could not have done anything to deter the event, but is still paying a price for not trying.
I think the scientists would be a slam dunk for the Nobel Prize, but I pretty much agree with your analysis of the effect on religions. That said, I'd be investing in those red dots that go on the forehead.
Condensed version...Darwins basic premise would require that matter be created from nothing with no energy needed.
And it's always annoying when non-scientists talk nonsense about science.
Equally, the arrogant certitude displayed by the Darwinian fundamentalists is a form of bad science. A true scientist, who puts truth before any theory to which he is committed, is ready to re-examine and even abandon his hypothesis if it is seriously challenged.
Every single "Darwinian" I know is "ready to re-examine and even abandon his hypothesis if it is seriously challenged." What the author and other anti-evolutionists mistake for "arrogant certitude" is not certitude, it is confidence in a theory that is supported by literally mountains of evidence, has passed countless verifications tests, and survived countless potential falsification tests. We're always open to re-examining the theory, and in fact do so continuously (check any issue of any biology-related science journal), but contrary to the author's wishes, we are *not* going to wring our hands and consider chucking the whole thing just because some people like the author of this essay have their own personal doubts about it. If that gets mistaken for "arrogant certitude", well, tough.
[...] but Darwinism has somehow managed to stagger on.
It has "somehow" managed to "stagger on" because vast amounts of evidence along multiply independent lines of investigation indicate that it's a valid theory, and one of extremely rich predictive power (i.e., it works).
Today very few people doubt evolution as such.
Again, because it is extremely well-supported by the evidence and testing.
But then Darwin was by no means the first to argue that species, including man, evolved.
No one claimed he was.
He stands or falls by his hypothesis that the main or even sole method of evolution is by natural selection.
To dispel the myth that Darwin ever considered that natural selection might be the "sole" method of evolution, one needs only read this passage from the 1872 edition of On the Origin of Species:
As my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position—namely at the close of the Introduction—the following words: "I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification." This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.
Why Darwin was so obstinate in making natural selection the dynamic of evolution I have never understood.
Because that's the direction the evidence indicated. Duh.
It never ceases to amaze me how often "evolution skeptics" seem to think that evolutionary biology is just some sort of "ideology" or "philosophy" wherein the tenets are determined by personal whim or preference. They never quite seem to grasp the idea that it's a field of science, and the reasons for its tenets are not ideological or dogmatism, but instead are based on the evidence and the results of testing, like any other science.
I find it odd that, although Mendel presented his revolutionary findings about genes to the Natural Science Society in 1865, only six years after the publication of the Origin of Species, Darwin never showed any interest in his books.
No one else did either. Mendel's works were unfortunately overlooked by just about everyone, and their existence and value were only recognized decades later. For the first thirty-five years after they were published, Mendel's work was cited by other research only about three times, total, by anyone. It's silly to single out Darwin in this regard.
Mendel’s results were published in detail in 1866, and he sent a copy to Darwin, but the Great Scientist never even opened it. Perhaps he wasn’t such a Great Scientist after all?
Oh, puh-leaze... By 1866, seven years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, he was incredibly busy with lectures, correspondence, research, writing his subsequent books, and so on. Yes, Darwin had a copy of Mendel's book, but the pages were uncut, meaning that Darwin had never even had the time to open it. He undoubtedly received countless pieces of mail at that time in his life, and did not have time to sit down and examine every one of them on the off-chance they might be a significant breakthrough. One unopened unsolicited book is a really cheap excuse for implying that Darwin "wasn't such a great scientist after all", especially when Darwin's stature in science is founded not on whether he had opened all of his mail, but on his body of work across his lifetime, which is broad, deep, and brilliant, and goes far beyond just the origination of the theory of evolution.
Mendel’s researches, just as original and brilliant in their own way as Darwin’s, were largely ignored until about 1900, partly at least because the Darwinians were determined to protect their master’s work.
THIS IS COMPLETE HORSE MANURE. Mendel's research was simply overlooked, not "suppressed" in any way, by "Darwinians" or anyone else.
And the notion that the "Darwinians" would have any reason to "protect" Darwin's work from Mendel's work is simply ludicrous. There's no clash between them, and in fact it was evolutionary biologists who were among the first to seize upon the value and utility of Mendel's work when it finally resurfaced. One thing Darwin himself bemoaned when he wrote On the Origin of Species was a specific mechanism of inheritance by which the variations of a species could be passed on to offspring. Mendellian genetics (and later, the discovery of DNA) *strengthen* the theory of Darwinian evolution, not weaken it, by providing specific mechanisms by which variations/mutations are acquired and passed on to subsequent generations.
This "conspiracy of Darwinians protecting the theory" crap is a frequent theme of anti-evolutionists, and they frequently fantasize cabals of evolutionists undermining "opposing" views (just as the author does here), but it's just so much claptrap.
By then, they were committed to various forms of atheism or agnosticism, and I often think that what unites the Darwinians, even today, is not so much a love of scientific truth as a blind resistance to the idea of a God or Providence — any form of which operates outside what appear to be the laws of nature.
Yawn. This is yet another common theme of the anti-evolutionists, but it's just as much a paranoid myth as the other ones. The notion that evolution somehow is equivalent to or tied to atheism is nonsense. In the US, for example, the *majority* of people professing belief in evolution are *Christians*, not atheists.
We know nothing about God except through his works, ‘by his most wise and excellent contrivance of all things’. Hence Newton could have had no difficulty in accommodating what we now know of the origins and history of the universe with his austere theology.
Nor do most people. It seems to be only the rabid anti-evolutionists who think that one "must" be an atheist to accommodate evolutionary biology. The "evolutionists" certainly are under no such delusion, and again, most American evolutionists are people of faith.
If, as we currently believe, the Big Bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and the future universe was largely determined by that initial event, it poses a serious problem to scientific atheists.
Horse manure. I know of no "scientific atheists" who have any problem at all, much less a "serious" one, with the Big Bang.
First, it was an event without a cause, or an action without an agent.
First, this is a misrepresentation of the Big Bang theory. Second, even if it were true, that wouldn't be a problem for atheists -- atheists are not under the mistaken belief that everything must be causal, or that if some things aren't, that a deity must have been involved in them. The Big Bang generated space and time itself (at least as we know them), and obviously causality is intimately intertwined with time (since it involves the notions of "before" and "after"). It's no stretch to conceive that the Big Bang also generated causality as we know it, and that whatever rules or laws were at work in the formation of the Big Bang event, they needn't follow our in-this-Universe notions of causality, and indeed it would be naive to expect that they would.
Second, it produced out of nothing not only something but everything.
EERRNT! Wrong. The Big Bang theory does not suggest that things started from "nothing". That's a popular misconception, but it's just wrong.
Both go against all the laws of physics.
This is the author's assumption, but he has not actually demonstrated it. And certainly, there are competing hypotheses (string theories, etc.) in which the Big Bang complies with the laws of physics (or at least a subset/superset of them) just fine. Further research is required to determine whether any/all of them are correct or need to be reworked, but the point is that the Big Bang is not necessarily "beyond physics" as the author mistakenly presumes.
The explanation of the Big Bang thus lies in metaphysics.
I think the author -- a historian -- would be better off leaving physics to the physicists. They're less likely to make elementary errors on the topic, as the author has. And as for the notion that atheists have a "serious problem" with the Big Bang, the author obviously didn't bother to do his homework before he blurted out his presumptions on that topic. If he had he couldn't possibly have overlooked such commonly cited articles as:
The 'Big Bang' Argument for the Existence of GodBut for the Darwinians, who have the evolution of Homo sapiens firmly embedded in a process of natural selection which has no ultimate cause or agent and no end or object, the Big Bang is an enigma. They cannot explain it, and they avert their gaze.
The author seems to enjoy his fantasies, but the actual views of "Darwinians" bear little if any resemblance to the author's armchair presumptions about them. No "Darwinian" I know, and I know many, need to "avert their gaze" from Big Bang physics. On the contrary, I know a lot of ANTI-evolutionists who kick and scream whenever the Big Bang is brought up (although not all do).
Moreover, our growing knowledge of the history of the universe and our own planet threatens natural selection itself.
No it doesn't.
It is a slow, blind and almost inconceivably clumsy process,
True enough, but it still works.
unless it had an element of programming which, if admitted, could destroy the entire theory.
Hardly. Whether or not there is "an element of programming" somewhere in the history of life, the validity of Darwinian evolution still stands on the strength of the evidence for it. In other words, the discovery of some element of "Intelligent Design" would not invalidate the vast amounts of research which indicates that Darwinian evolution still does indeed take place as well. An "element of programming" would not "destroy the entire theory", it would just be accomodated into the existing body of knowledge.
Darwin was no historian, to put it mildly, and never produced a chronology of the evolution of species through natural selection.
He did remarkably well given the poor tools of his day, actually. Paleontology was still in its relative infancy, radiometric (and other) dating methods were unknown, and DNA analysis wasn't even dreamt of.
But the creation of the universe by the Big Bang, and the evolution of living things on earth — and eventually Homo sapiens himself — were historical events, however remote, and therefore the proper province of historians like myself.
It's more appropriately the province of the scientists who study those events. Historians are poorly equipped.
In analysing events, the historian requires a chronology, and if those endeavouring to explain events cannot provide one, or provide one which does not fit, then their explanation is plainly erroneous.
Of course. But the chronologies of physics and biology fit just fine. And no, the Cambrian Explosion is not an exception.
The trouble with natural selection, as advanced by Darwin, and defended and elaborated by his triumphalist followers today, is that it operates too slowly to fit in with the years available in earth-history.
This is complete nonsense -- yet another example of the author's fantasies being presented as if they were facts. No, there has never yet been a serious mismatch between the speed of evolutionary change and the times of specific evolutionary milestones. For example (the following is from 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent):
Prediction 5.7: Morphological rates of change
Observed rates of evolutionary change in modern populations must be greater than or equal to rates observed in the fossil record.
Confirmation:
Here I can do no better than to quote George C. Williams writing on this very issue:
"The question of evolutionary rate is indeed a serious theoretical challenge, but the reason is exactly opposite of that inspired by most people's intuitions. Organisms in general have not done nearly as much evolving as we should reasonably expect. Long-term rates of change, even in lineages of unusually rapid evolution, are almost always far slower than they theoretically could be." (Williams 1992, p. 128)
In 1983, Phillip Gingerich published a famous study analyzing 512 different observed rates of evolution (Gingerich 1983). The study centered on rates observed from three classes of data: (1) lab experiments, (2) historical colonization events, and (3) the fossil record. A useful measure of evolutionary rate is the darwin, which is defined as a change in an organism's character by a factor of e per million years (where e is the base of natural log). The average rate observed in the fossil record was 0.6 darwins; the fastest rate was 32 darwins. The latter is the most important number for comparison; rates of evolution observed in modern populations should be equal to or greater than this rate.
The average rate of evolution observed in historical colonization events in the wild was 370 darwins—over 10 times the required minimum rate. In fact, the fastest rate found in colonization events was 80,000 darwins, or 2500 times the required rate. Observed rates of evolution in lab experiments are even more impressive, averaging 60,000 darwins and as high as 200,000 darwins (or over 6000 times the required rate).
A more recent paper evaluating the evolutionary rate in guppies in the wild found rates ranging from 4000 to 45,000 darwins (Reznick 1997). Note that a sustained rate of "only" 400 darwins is sufficient to transform a mouse into an elephant in a mere 10,000 years (Gingerich 1983).
One of the most extreme examples of rapid evolution was when the hominid cerebellum doubled in size within ~100,000 years during the Pleistocene (Rightmire 1985). This "unique and staggering" acceleration in evolutionary rate was only 7 darwins (Williams 1992, p. 132). This rate converts to a minuscule 0.02% increase per generation, at most. For comparison, the fastest rate observed in the fossil record in the Gingerich study was 37 darwins over one thousand years, and this corresponds to, at most, a 0.06% change per generation.
Potential Falsification:
If modern observed rates of evolution were unable to account for the rates found in the fossil record, the theory of common descent would be extremely difficult to justify, to put it mildly. For example, Equus evolutionary rates during the late Cenozoic could be consistently found to be greater than 80,000 darwins. Given the observed rates in modern populations, a rate that high would be impossible to explain. Since the average rate of evolution in colonization events is ~400 darwins, even an average rate of 4000 darwins in the fossil record would constitute a robust falsification.
Prediction 5.8: Genetic rates of change
Rates of genetic change, as measured by nucleotide substitutions, must also be consistent with the rate required from the time allowed in the fossil record and the sequence differences observed between species.
Confirmation:
What we must compare are the data from three independent sources: (1) fossil record estimates of the time of divergence of species, (2) nucleotide differences between species, and (3) the observed rates of mutation in modern species. The overall conclusion is that these three are entirely consistent with one another.
For example, consider the human/chimp divergence, one of the most well-studied evolutionary relationships. Chimpanzees and humans are thought to have diverged, or shared a common ancestor, about 6 Mya, based on the fossil record (Stewart and Disotell 1998). The genomes of chimpanzees and humans are very similar; their DNA sequences overall are 98% identical (King and Wilson 1975; Sverdlov 2000). The greatest differences between these genomes are found in pseudogenes, non-translated sequences, and fourfold degenerate third-base codon positions. All of these are very free from selection constraints, since changes in them have virtually no functional or phenotypic effect, and thus most mutational changes are incorporated and retained in their sequences. For these reasons, they should represent the background rate of spontaneous mutation in the genome. These regions with the highest sequence dissimilarity are what should be compared between species, since they will provide an upper limit on the rate of evolutionary change.
Given a divergence date of 6 Mya, the maximum inferred rate of nucleotide substitution in the most divergent regions of DNA in humans and chimps is ~1.3 x 10-9 base substitutions per site per year. Given a generation time of 15-20 years, this is equivalent to a substitution rate of ~2 x 10-8 per site per generation (Crowe 1993; Futuyma 1998, p. 273).
Background spontaneous mutation rates are extremely important for cancer research, and they have been studied extensively in humans. A review of the spontaneous mutation rate observed in several genes in humans has found an average background mutation rate of 1-5 x 10-8 base substitutions per site per generation. This rate is a very minimum, because its value does not include insertions, deletions, or other base substitution mutations that can destroy the function of these genes (Giannelli et al. 1999; Mohrenweiser 1994, pp. 128-129). Thus, the fit amongst these three independent sources of data is extremely impressive.
Similar results have been found for many other species (Kumar and Subramanian 2002; Li 1997, pp. 180-181, 191). In short, the observed genetic rates of mutation closely match inferred rates based on paleological divergence times and genetic genomic differences. Therefore, the observed rates of mutation can easily account for the genetic differences observed between species as different as mice, chimpanzees, and humans.
Potential Falsification:
It is entirely plausible that measured genetic mutation rates from observations of modern organisms could be orders of magnitude less than that required by rates inferred from the fossil record and sequence divergence.
When challenged on this point, Darwinians become very slippery, and their answers are those of people defending a dogma or an ideology rather than of scientists looking for truth.
Translation: The author is annoyed that there are valid albeit technical answers to such naive challenges, and the author apparently doesn't understand them.
There are five other weaknesses in natural selection as an explanation of how species evolve but the historical one is the most important and will eventually prove fatal.
Ah yes, the old "I have here in my hand a list of five other weaknesses of evolution, but I won't say what they are" ploy...
Why can’t the Darwinians admit it now,
There's nothing to "admit" -- the "challenges" from scientifically illiterate anti-evolutionists don't even make a dent in the actual body of science underlying evolutionary biology.
and throw the whole debate open, so that mankind can get at the truth?
The debate *is* open. It takes place all the time in the science journals, in the laboratories, in the lecture halls, and so forth. Contrary to the paranoid fantasies of anti-evolutionists, there is no "debate Gestapo" preventing debate. Lord knows there's plenty of debate on forums like this one, on the internet, in newspaper columns, and on and on. But contrary to the wishes of the author, the core points of evolutionary biology have been settled for many decades. There are a lot of details to be hashed out certainly, but the cornerstones have been verified a million times over in the past century, and aren't going to vanish in a puff of smoke just because some people find it incompatible with their own philosophies.
And although there's a lot of public debate about evolutionary biology, a lot of it -- just take this current essay as a prime example -- is based on ignorance or misinformation about what the science actually is and isn't. I wish there was a lot *less* poorly-informed debate, and more *informed* debate on the topic. It never ceases to amaze me that although most people would never presume to try to critique, say, quantum physics, at the same time people with practically no science or math background whatsoever, who wouldn't know a retroposon from a retrovirus, feel entirely qualified to denounce evolutionary biology or to "lecture" biologists on the topic. It would be laughable if it weren't so prevalent and presumptuous.
Don't quit your day job. No, that's not what the essay says, and no, "Darwin's basic premise" requires no such thing.
It is rare indeed to encounter people here on FR that have been made repositories of all knowledge. With that in mind, I have to wonder why such endowed people are here at all, surely there must be other outlets for such talented people.
Who are you trying to convince with such a long and desperate posting?
[Thunderous applause!]
By saying this over and over to yourselves, doesn't make it magically true. If this were true we wouldn't be having a discussion, and thousands of credential scientists wouldn't be openly disputing your conclusion. Darwinian Evolution is being sunk by the science it purports to rigorously adhere to.
Sorry my friend. If anything, it is the exact opposite.
I am most likely such a fool to be misreading the current revolution in science, but there are many much smarter than I who see this transformation for what it is. As with science throughout history, paradigm shifts in discovery are hard for those devotee's of the previous paradigm to come along with the progressives.
Absolutely. And we are seeing it with the backlash against evolution. Case in point: how painful was the transition from an Earth centered model to a Sun centered one.
Any true change that challenges the core religious belief structures have been vehemently apposed thru history. This is no different.
Also, religion has survived those upheavals; it will survive this one as well.
IMHO, in the future, these times will be looked at like that arguments against Galileo. Quaint but silly.
BTTT
It's interesting to note that the Big Bang was met with a great deal of resistance when initially proposed precisely because it declared a beginning and required a First Cause outside of natural explanation.
The problem is not that they don't need to be dogmatic about the existence of God, it's that they won't.
The religious have disagreed with TOE from it's inception. Our finally getting on the ball with hard science is what's upending the applecart. New discoveries and information science are the culprits. Information is massless and therefore not constrained by time.
Darwin argued that his theory worked only when free from intervention; human societies can, and do, in pockets, reverse the survival of the fittest through numbers by ostracism, force or humiliation.
It's amazing to see "social darwinism" in action. Sometimes I think it would be more civil to fight like apes to win a female, then drag her away by the hair, than it is to go find a woman the proper way by using the manners and lies that we've adopted.
YEC INTREP
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