About Evolution?

Question

There is much controversy in the U.S. about the theory of evolution. Creation science and Intelligent Design supporters advocate the teaching of their alternative views in secondary school biology classes along with evolution. President Bush has weighed in essentially agreeing with the validity of these alternate views and advocating “teach the controversy.” A few weeks before her election as governor of Alaska, candidate Sarah Palin expressed the same position.

Questions:

1) Is there a scientific controversy regarding the theory of evolution, and if so, what is the

basis of the controversy?

2) Some people dismiss the theory of evolution as “just a theory.” Is it “just a theory” and if so what does that mean? Is it any less a theory than the theory of gravity?

3) What evidence supports the scientific basis for the theory of evolution?

4) Why are Creation Science and Intelligent Design not recognized as scientific theories?

5) Should view points that are not based on scientific findings be taught in any science

classroom on equal footing with science based information?

Answer 1

Oh, goody; five questions for the price of one. Here goes...

1. The scientific controversy has to do with the probability of macro-evolution happening. It is a mathematical impossibility. Also, there is the information issue. Life isn't just matter, it has information that organizes it. If you put a frog in a blender, you will not take away any of its matter, but you will disorganize it. That causes it to die.

2. Evolutionists try to liken their "theory" to demonstratible ones like gravity and atoms. Actually it is not a theory at all. Karl Popper, a prominent 20th century philosopher of science said that evolution was not a scientific theory, but a METAPHYSICAL research program. If you cannot falsify a hypothesis, than it is unscientific.

3. Again, evolution is not a scientific theory, but a naturalistic philosophy. That said, any evidence that comes around is interpreted according to the evolutionary paradigm. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between FACTS and INTERPRETATIONS.

4. Creation Science and Design are not welcome in the scientific community because they invoke the supernatural at some point. That contradicts the philosophy of naturalism. Evolution agrees with naturalism, therefore it is embraced by naturalists.

5. Origins is not a scientific issue. There is no way for science to answer where life, the earth, and the stars came from. Origins is a scientific non-question. It is a question for philosophers and theologians. Therefore, evolutionism and creationism are both non-scientific and should not be taught as science.

The scientific evidence should support either evolution or Creation, but not both. If the evidence is gathered correctly and properly interpreted, than it will vindicate one and debunk the other. So far there is much evidence that supports the idea of a world-wide flood and a young earth. There is also a wealth of information that supports the idea of a powerful and intelligent Creator.

Evolution is a political issue. Just like geocentricity was a big deal in Galileo's time, evolution is a big deal today. Soon, however, the rotting corpse of evolution will be buried.

Answer 2

1) Not that evolution exists.  There are some new ideas all the time about what is the engine behind the changes, dna mutation, sexual selction, etc...

2) "Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered"

-stephen jay gould

4) they are not falsifiable

5) no

Answer 3

Yes there is much controversy - not just in the US.

I is important to realise that everyone has exactly the same evidence - which exists in the present. Creationists and evolutionists interpret the same evidence in very different ways, due to their different assumptions and different worldviews.

Evolutionists tend to take a materialistic or naturalist approach - what we can see is everything there is. They try to explain everything in terms of the processes we see acting today.

Creationists believe that there is reality beyond what we can see.

Thus the hypothesis that God created the universe is dismissed by evolutionists a priori as 'unscientific'. What they have done is to define 'science' so as to exclude the possibility of creation. It is not a scientific approach to dismiss one possibility out of hand!

The answer above is a good example of the poor level of debate from evolutionists - mud slinging without engaging with the crux of the matter.

What we can do - and what creationists promote - is the presentation of all the evidence, and both the evolutionist and creationist models as explanations of the evidence.

Many people are surprised that the evolutionist model is so poor at explaining the evidence, and the creationist model is rather good at explaining the evidence.

But the ardent evolutionists will do and believe anything rather than admit the possiblity that God exists.

Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment. It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation—regardless of whether or not the facts support it.

‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Check here for much more on the subject

http://creationontheweb.com/content/view...

Answer 4

I think I would laugh my head off if it were to be found that they are BOTH wrong and the REAL truth turned out to be some other explanation that no one has discovered or even thought of yet!

Answer 5

there is no scientific controversy.

There is a small but loud group of religious people who tried (and failed) to put creationism into schools.

They do not understand the different between "Theory" (an proven and accepted explanation) and "Hypothesis" (a suggested explanation)

Evolution is based on facts and logic.

Creationism is based on abstract arguments.

It is a curious bit of philosophy, but has nothing to do with biology.

Answer 6

1) There is no controversy within the realm of science, Evolution is accepted as truth.  The only people who choose to fight this theory are the religious types.  This is because evolution mostly offends them and their beliefs but their arguments ultimately do not disprove the overwhelming evidence in support of Evolution.

2) Evolution is a theory however many people misunderstand what the scientific definition of theory is.  Many people believe Theory is the same thing as Hypothesis and this is not true.  A Theory is very hard to reach and it takes an extreme amount of proof.  Gravity is still a theory as well, yet no one would argue that gravity is not real.  A theory is the ultimate end of the scientific process and it is a very rough process.

3) The amount of evidence is staggering.  There are proven genetic links as well as transitional species such as Australopithecus which exist.  Many people misunderstand the theory of evolution as saying that we evolved from monkeys, this is not true either.  The theory states that we share a common ancestor,  Many people try to argue that how can evolution have occurred when chimpanzees still exist, well that fact is that we didn't evolve from chimpanzees, we shared a common ancestor.  

4) Creationism and Intelligent Design cannot be scientific theories.  They do not base their claims on physical proof and their ideologies are largely based on speculation and faith.  They believe that we should accept the fact that we are too complicated to have evolved naturally or that the universe is too complicated to have evolved naturally and those are fundamentally flawed arguments.  They support the idea of an ultimate creator which is religious and speculative in nature.

5)  I believe that non science needs to be left out of a science classroom.  If schools want to teach these ideas, then they need to make a separate class for it.  Just because the dominant religion in this country is offended by science doesn't mean they can come into a classroom and violate separation of church and state.

Answer 7

You need to watch Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, when it comes out on April 18.

So many people these days are confusing biblical creationism with intelligent design.  "Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence" (Dr. William Dembski). That's it; it says nothing of who the creator is and how he/she/it/they did it. Intelligent Design encompasses every "creation" story, even aliens seeding life on this planet.

Although it has been around, in one form or another, since the time of ancient Greece, William Paley is probably the most famous for using the design argument.  In 1802, he came out with a treatise called Natural Theology.  He began by arguing that if one were to discover a watch lying in the middle of nowhere and they were to examine that watch closely, the person would logically conclude that it was not an accident, but had purpose; it had a designer.  He went on to argue that the overwhelming design in the universe is evidence of a Grand Designer.

Now, is this a valid argument?  Well, we detect design all the time. If you find an arrowhead on a deserted island, you assume it was made by someone, even if you can’t see the designer. We can tell the difference between a message written in the sand and the results of the wind and waves on the sand. The carved heads of the presidents on Mt. Rushmore are clearly different from erosional features.  Any time we find information, whether it is in the form of a hieroglyphic inscription, a newspaper article, or a computer program, we know there was an intelligent agent behind that information.

And the thing is, reliable methods for detecting design exist and are employed in forensics, archeology, and data fraud analysis. These methods can easily be employed to detect design in biological systems.

As Dr. Stephen Meyer said (when being interviewed by Nightline), “From the evidence of the information that’s embedded in DNA, from the evidence of the nanotechnology in the cell, we think you can infer that an intelligence played a role.  In fact, there are sophisticated statistical methods of design detection that allow scientists to distinguish the effects of an intelligent cause from an undirected natural process. When you apply those statistical measures and criteria to the analysis of the cell, they indicate that the cell was designed by an intelligence.”

The four main areas the ID movement focuses on: Information Theory, Irreducible Complexity, The Anthropic Principle, and The Design Inference.

Here is a brief overview of the scientific case for ID: http://www.arn.org/docs/positivecaseford...

And for those who put so much faith in peer-review, check this out: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/...

Here is a growing list of scientists who signed “A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism”: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/...

Here is a helpful reference guide with the Neo-Darwinian view next to the Intelligent Design view: http://www.arn.org/docs/Redeeming%20Darw...

What about teaching it in school?  Whatever you may think of George Bush, he was right in this: "Both sides ought to be properly taught so people can understand what the debate is about.  Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.”  

Good science teaching should include controversies.  But, whenever you mention this kind of stuff, evolutionists jump from their trees and start behaving as if someone had stolen their bananas.  Apparently, academic freedom is for other subjects.

As Cal Thomas has said, “Why are believers in one model—evolution—seeking to impose their faith on those who hold that there is scientific evidence which supports the other model?  It’s because they fear they will lose their influence and academic power base after a free and open debate.  They are like political dictators who oppose democracy, fearing it will rob them of power.”

And as the Chinese paleontologist J. Y. Chen said, “In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin.”

Most Christians I know don't want biblical creationism taught in science classes (they would butcher it). What we want is for molecules-to-man evolution to be taught with all its warts (they are not even allowed to present evidence that would put evolution in a poor light).  And we want intelligent design to at least to be presented.  Unlike leprechauns and a flat earth, etc., a significant percentage of the (tax paying) population believes in ID.

Many people have the problem of not making a distinction between the evidence and the implications. ID may have unsavory theological implications, and so many people simply reject it or dismiss it as religion.  But implications don't decide the truth of theories—evidence does.  As Dr. Stephen Meyer has said, “The evidence is one thing; the implications are another.  We want you to settle the discussion on the basis of the evidence.”

Dr. Stephen Meyer, “I think that the key thing that many folks in the media and many people in the general public miss, and I think this has been a somewhat unhelpful aspect of the debate, is that they have confused the idea of evidence with the idea of implication. The evidence for design is as I said this nanotechnology that we’re finding in the cell, this information embedded in DNA, for example, but the implication of the discussion does raise larger philosophical issues – and that’s true for Darwinian evolution as much as it is for its now chief competitor, the theory of intelligent design.  Richard Dawkins has said that Darwinism has made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

Answer 8

"Teaching the controversy" is cutting it close because the basic problem is legal.  Our government can not show preference for one religion over an another.  We keep religion out of government for the same reason we keep it out of science, it limits.  Yet, I think that we forget the saying of Jesus, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's".  I may not always trust the government or science but there is one that I do trust.

Answer 9

1) "Controversy" may be a little strong.  There are different theories of natural selection, but the theories don't debate the existence of natural selection.  The evidence is too overwhelming for that, both current and past.  The debates are instead about rates of speciation and the exact mechanisms of natural selection or how these rates and mechanisms would and do manifest in the fossil record.

For example, does relatively sudden change in species in the fossil record occur because of gradual local change accumulating over thousands of generations, only of few of which had a fossil representative, thus giving an illusion of suddenness, or is it because of migration from someplace where more gradual change occurred? or because of geographic isolation that was suddenly (on a geographic scale) removed?

2) It is both.  The mechanisms of natural selection are less well understood than for nonrelativistic gravity, and certainly can't be written down in merely four (idea-packed) vector equations.

It is fact in that it has been observed.  Artificial selection is a significant part of our farming history.  Natural selection is a significant part of our recent history in fighting mutating pathogens.  The evidence for its having occurred in the past is overwhelming.  To look at about 30 predictions of evolutionary and how the evidence supports them, start here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/...

So where does the theory part come in?  See my answer to the first question to answer that question.  It's a debate of pinning down EXACTLY what the mechanisms are, how they are balanced, to produce what rates of speciation and extinction are observed.  The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution, and that's where the theories lie, to reconcile these controversies.  In other words the controversies are a result of the high standard of exactness that evolutionary scientists hold themselves to, compared to their ID detractors.  They aren't a result of a question of how  natural selection itself could be reconciled with the evidence.  

When ID proponents put forth this question, it's as if they are using the high standards of scientific discourse as evidence that it has low standards!...

3) To look at about 30 predictions of evolutionary and how the evidence supports them, start here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/...

Here's where to start reading examples of transitional forms:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/...

Here's where to start reading about molecular evidence:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/...

Here's where to find examples of embryonic evidence:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/...

4) Scientific theories get discarded when the evidence contradicts it.  Intelligent design "theory" arose from the ashes of creationism, since the evidence became so overwhelmingly against it even in the remotest backwater that it had to be discarded.  So in this sense, intelligent design "theory" is scientific.  However, that's as far as it goes.

ID's most common, perhaps only, argument is its god-in-the-gaps argument.  Unlike a theory, it hinges not on evidence, but lack of evidence.  It argues that gaps in the record indicate divine intervention.

This doesn't even rise to the level of a theory, for one reason because it is unfalsifiable.  As new evidence comes in that fills the gaps -- fossil or molecular -- the ID argument is simply put forth that the gap still exists.

Richard Feynman addressed this sort of evasion in his book "The Meaning of It All," except that he applied it to experiments with psychics.  In that case, the psychics would start off with scores well above chance.  Then the experiment would be modified to account for how the experimenters thought the psychics were cheating.  The experiments were rerun, and the scores were still above chance, but less so.  Further modifications led to lower scores.  So Feynman concluded the psychic powers in those subjects were real, but were instead just magic tricks.  

So was Feynman being a stick-in-the mud by dismissing psychics outright?  No, he stated that there were results that would prevent him from rejecting the hypothesis that the subjects had genuine psychic powers: if the psychics' advantage stopped shrinking as the experiment was modified increasingly to prevent cheating.

It is not enough to say there is a gap.  There must be some minimum gap size.  If the gap keeps decreasing as more and more is learned about Nature, then the "theory" is not genuinely descriptive and is neither scientific, predictive, nor explanatory.

It is implied in this criticism that ID proponents and Creationists, if not holding Nature in disdain, could at least hold it in a little higher esteem.

5) I'm not sure that this is really something that Creationists want.  They've worked so hard for so many decades to kick natural selection out of the classroom, that I don't think they want Creationism being taught with the same infrequency as natural selection.  I had biology in 8th and 10th grades.  Neither time was evolution taught.  (This was in Ky., so maybe it's different elsewhere.)

I have no problem with Creationism being taught in science classes, as long as natural selection is also taught.  I think that qualification would scare away a lot of Creationists.  After all, the survival of their beliefs in the popular consciousness depends on natural selection's not being taught.  That hole needs to be there for Creationists to fill.  If natural selection is already filling the hole, it's much harder to sway a child to their side.

That's really the source of the controversy between Creationism and natural selection in this country.  If natural selection was taught -- and that means including Darwin's enumerations of species examples of different stages of eye evolution, that evolution is a theory AND fact, a mind-numbing list of examples of transitional forms, the molecular evidence, the predictions one makes that the other can't, the whole ball of wax -- then publishers and other members of the media, teachers and politicians would have arguments more at their fingertips and be able to push back when ID/Creationists push their propaganda on their charge.

But this country has little esteem for science education compared to other industrial countries, even among publishers, politicians, and school boards.  I don't expect this to change anytime soon.  The natural selection proponents will continue their answers voted thumbs up in the biology forum and thumbs down in the religion forum for some time to come.

Teaching pseudoscience next to science would liven up the lessons, show how powerful science is, and how subversive it has been in history to those who bow to merely human authority.  It would help to teach BS detecting and what constitutes evidence and argumentative support.  It would afford students exposure to a higher standard of argument and reasoning than is afforded by the mere memorization that characterizes so many biology classes.

Answer 10

Three hundred or so years ago, there was controversy over the theory that the earth revolved around the sun.  Galileo was once as vilified as Darwin is today, ridiculed for his ideas that contradicted the church's accepted teachings.

I suspect that in a few hundred years, Darwin will be as accepted as Galileo is today.  There aren't many people alive today who still insist that the sun revolves around the earth.  In the future, there aren't going to be very many people who still insist that the earth is 6006 years old either.

Answer 11

1) There is no scientific controversy.  Religious groups are trying to get around a court order of not teaching the religious idea of creation by using psuedoscience that masquerades as science and calling it intelligent design.

2) A purist would say that answers in science should never be absolute because new evidence could always turn up.  That is silly in the real world as the example of a flat world illustrates.  The "theory" of evolution is a fact minus the argument that some being only put all the evidence here to test our faith.  It would be ridiculous to look at the mountain of fossil evidence and conclude that changes haven't occurred or that new species haven't radiated out of existing ones.

3) The fossil evidence in its entirety, with several accurate dating methods, simply cannot be refuted.  

Recently, several methods of comparing DNA have demonstrated that we share ancestors with other animals.  One method looks at several locations where DNA was inserted by viruses.  It shows how segments of DNA that were inserted by viruses is maintained down lines of inheritance.  They are like markers of animals that inherited that particular marker.  All old world monkeys and apes have some markers. Others are only there on closer related animals.  There is also a relatively simple to understand method used that reinforces the first.  It basically sequences a non-coding section of the DNA of mitochondria called the hypervariable region or D-loop.  Since it doesn't code for protein, it can randomly accumulate mutations.  By comparing the differences between different animals it can be estimated how closely related two or more different species are.  It is unbiased and shows that two different animals share a common ancestor.  When you sequence up to 1000 base pairs on that region, as is now possible, the odds of you randomly getting a particular sequence are fractions with hundreds of zeros so you can't really say it could be just a coincidence.  

An oversimplified hypothetical example.  You sequence a section of the D-Loop of humans, chimps and gorillas.  The same sections contains 300 base pairs each.  When you count the differences, you find that humans and chimps differ at 30 base pair locations and gorillas differ from both chimps and humans at 45 locations in a specific way.  Many of the base pairs different on the gorilla are the same on both chimps and humans indicating that they share a common ancestor.  It is probably hard to visualize but in its basic form you just count the differences to get a relative distance to a common ancestor.

4) They are not scientific.  They use distortions of logic and extremely clever arguments that confuse the issue or mischaracterize the data.

5) Alternate theories to evolution should not be taught at all any more than it be taught that the Earth is flat.

Answer 12

1.  There are controversies within the scientific community about evolutionary theory, but they are generally not the sort of controversies that'd be taught in a high school science class.  There is no doubt that evolution happens.  We've got a decent idea of how it happens, but there are still bits to work out.

2.  The theory of evolution is "just a theory", but that has a different meaning in science.  A theory in science is an explanation of phenomena, and it has to be tested and verified.  Within science, the theories of evolution and gravity are equally valid.  In fact, we know more about how evolution works than we do about gravity.

3.  Oh, jeez, for this one, you really need to go to a library.  There are mountains of evidence.  Okay, here's one: drug-resistant tuberculosis.  When we developed TB-killing drugs, we changed the disease's environment.  Only the bacteria with mutations allowing them to live were able to reproduce, which has resulted in strains that are resistant to our drugs.  It's still TB, but that's definitely evolution.  And if that's happened in only, what, less than a hundred years, think what another few centuries could do to the organism.

4.  They don't follow the scientific method.  In science, you rely on your sensory input.  Creation "science" relies instead on a creator who is outside of nature and for whom there is no sensory evidence.  Them saying that logically, there must be a designer doesn't count as science, either.  The Greeks and Romans used to do that, and they came up with some logically sound theories that we know just aren't right.

5.  No.  The purpose of science classes is to teach kids the scientific theory and how to think like a scientist.  If it's not science, it doesn't belong there, just as I wouldn't expect an English teacher to teach algebra.  Also, calling this science is detrimental to children and the adults they will become.  Creationism is not scientifically sound, and by putting it on the same level as science, it confuses people.  We need to teach people to separate science and pseudoscience, not have our public schools confuse the issue.