What do people think of these comments by a commentator about the theory of evolution by natural selection?

Question

The said commentator has described ID as an 'interesting skeptical current'. He advanced the following points. What is wrong with each point?

1) "The theory of evolution by natural selection is not comparable to other major scientific theories (like the theories of flight, gravity and relativity) to which its supporters always link it. These can be used to predict events, and are testable. The theory of evolution by natural selection, however, is a theory about the distant past, unobserved and now unobservable".

2) "The proponents of the theory of evolution by natural selection confused adaptation within species - observable, undeniable fact - with evolution of species (is he referring here to speciation?), a wholly different thing extrapolated from adaptation but not demonstrable in action".

3) "There's a qualitative difference between adaptation within species, which is observable and as I said not in dispute, and what is required for far greater changes, like the development of the eye or the wing, or of the reptile into the bird and the sea-creature into the land-creature. How can they (advocates of evolution by natural selection) not tell the difference between a moth changing colour, while remaining a moth, and a sea-creature with gills developing legs and lungs and walking on land?"

Answer 1

1) ... is patently false. Of course evolution makes predictions. And of course it is testable. It predicts where we will find fossils, in what layers, in what parts of the world. It predicts that we will never find a rabbit fossil in a Precambrian layer, or a trilobite in a Jurassic layer ... that we will not find kangaroo fossils in North America, or Elephant fossils in Australia. It predicts that the certain *patterns* in DNA commonalities between living organisms. It predicts that we will find patterns of diminishing genetic relationship as we go out from *ANY* species to others in the phylogenetic tree. It predicts that we should find huge amounts of non-coding DNA as a result of millions of years of accumulation of new genetic material with very few mechanisms for getting rid of obsolete genetic material. It predicts that species will have organs, structures, and proteins in common that have different *functions* in each ... like the common bone structure of the human hand, the bat's wing, the horse's hooves, and dolphin flippers. It predicts that embryos will show signs of structures that have no purpose in the adult individual, but do have purpose in a shared ancestor with another species (such as gill folds in embryos of air-breathers, or leg buds in dolphin embryos).



Intelligent Design predicts NONE of these things.



In fact Intelligent Design predicts nothing at all. The concept is so ill-formed that Intelligent Design proposition is compatible with *ANY* possible observation. That is why Intelligent Design is not testable.



>"The theory of evolution by natural selection, however, is a theory about the distant past, unobserved and now unobservable".



This notion that any theory of the distant past is out-of-bounds for science is anti-scientific RUBBISH. To claim that it is "unobservable" uses such a limited notion of what "observation" means, that it eliminates almost *ALL* science! From archaeology, to geology, to all of paleontology, to astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Any science of the very large, the very old, or the very distant ... is just tossed aside by this scientifically impotent notion of what "observable" means.



I'll give you a *simple* example. How do we know that oak trees grow from acorns? Nobody has ever actually "observed" one grow from acorn to fullly grown oak tree ... a process that can take several hundred years. So how do we know? By *inference* ... putting together many separate observations into a single coherent theory about where oak trees come from. That is science.





2. No. The writer of these words is confusing *mechanism* with *consequence* (like confusing the engine of the car with the fact that it can result in us driving for 2 miles or 200 miles). The *mechanism* of evolution is adaptation. That is the entire point of the theory of natural selection! It is adaptation ... constant, relentless adaptation ... that *drives* evolution. Once you understand that adaptation drives evolution, sorry, you don't just turn it off and say "it can cause small changes within a species within human-observable lifespans of a few hundred years ... but on timescales of millions of years we know nothing at all." This is like saying that our car engine can take us 2 miles, but not 200 ... you have to show *WHY* there is some barrier.



He is trying to use wordplay to draw a line between 'adaptation' and 'evolution' ... and then exaggerate this into some sort of biological *barrier* in *nature* ... where there is none found.





3. No. There is no *QUALITATIVE* difference ... only a *QUANTITATIVE* difference between adaptation within species, and long-term evolution that can cause branching of species and large-scale differences. There is no *QUALITATIVE* difference that he can demonstrate.



> "How can they (advocates of evolution by natural selection) not tell the difference between a moth changing colour, while remaining a moth, and a sea-creature with gills developing legs and lungs and walking on land?"



The ONLY difference is TIME.



It is no trivial matter for a moth to change color. A new gene needs to appear to produce a different pigment. Some selective advantage needs to be present that causes that color to propagate into the population.



Second, the "moth is still a moth" concept shows a phenomenal lack of knowledge of biology ... as if "moth" is a single species! There are over 180,000 *known* species of moths and butterflies(!) So to say that "a moth is still a moth" is a HUGE attempt to blur science into a cartoon.



So once you admit the above two mechanisms (mutation and selection) then you have admitted the *mechanism* of evolution ... natural selection. Then all that is needed is to add isolation and you have *speciation*.



The only thing other ingredient needed is TIME.





Sorry, but these 3 arguments only demonstrate why Intelligent Design arguments are really, pathetically BAD SCIENCE.

Answer 2

All three of these points are easily refuted.



1. People making this point have no idea what science actually is. All that a scientific theory has to do is make a prediction about something that we HAVEN'T OBSERVED YET. That something can be an event that happened in the past OR the future.... as long as we don't know about it yet, it is a prediction that has the potential to falsify the theory. Where the event falls on a chronological timeline is not nearly so important as our state of knowledge about it.



As an example, the theory of evolution says that ocean dwelling animals at one point evolved limbs that enabled them to start walking on land. Thus, the theory of evolution makes a PREDICTION: it predicts that we should find, at the proper place in the fossil record, a fish-like transitional form that has limbs for walking. A couple of years ago, researchers found EXACTLY that.... it's name is tiktalik, and it is found in the fossil record exactly where the theory of evolution predicts it should be. Now, tiktalik lived millions of years ago, but what matters is that at the time the prediction was made WE DIDN'T KNOW about tiktalik..... score yet another point for evolution!



2. People making this argument are just plain factually wrong. Speciation (the branching off of a brand new species from a pre-existing species) has been observed, both in nature and in the laboratory. (Easy to refute, huh?)



3. I like how this argument claims that there is a "qualitative difference" between adaptation within species and the evolution of new species, and then doesn't give any hint as to what that qualitative difference is. In fact, the only disctinction that is made is that the evolution of new species requires "far greater changes"! Yes.... that's right! Far greater changes is exactly what is required! What better to provide far greater changes than LOTS AND LOTS OF TIME... time that allows small changes to accumulate into big ones? Unless these folks are willing to identify some barrier that prevents changes from accumulating, making this argument is a lot like arguing that it may be possible to walk a yard, but it would be IMPOSSIBLE to walk a mile, because a mile is so much larger than a yard!

Answer 3

> What do people think of these comments by a commentator



The commentator wasn't a biologist. I mean, seriously. I do not comment on stellar evolution because I do not have the astronomy, physics, and cosmology background. Why should someone who's unqualified be commenting on biological evolution?



> about the theory of evolution by natural selection?



Someone's woefully out of date. We leave off the "by natural selection" part these days, because we know about mutation and genetic drift. (And no, I'm not forgetting "gene flow," in case you were wondering).



> ID as an 'interesting skeptical current'



I read through the Behe book, "Darwin's Black Box." Behe's conclusions are wrong, but the book made me think. Thinking isn't necessarily a bad thing.



> 1) gravity



LOL. We do not understand the mechanism by which gravitation is transmitted from one mass to another (sorry, Mr. Einstein, warped space doesn't do it for me, and neither do gravitons). We have a better understanding of how and why evolution works.



> predict events

> unobserved and now unobservable



I predict we will observe changes in allele frequencies in populations, and speciation events. Well, we have observed these things. Cool, eh? We've also got evidence that such things have taken place in the past.



> 2) not demonstrable in action



Speciation events have been observed to occur. You could even make one happen. Simply shoot every dog that isn't a mini-dachshund (selection). Et voila. Suddenly, mini-dachshunds would no longer be the same species as the gray wolf.



> 3) "There's a qualitative difference

> and what is required for far greater changes, like the development of the eye or the wing

> gills developing legs and lungs and walking on land?



The difference is time. Accumulated changes over generations can bring about new readily observable traits. Over a huge number of generations, complex structures can come about. The progression from dinosaur forelimb to bird wing is a logical progression. For gills and fins to lungs and walking, check out the modern example of the mudskipper: if the terrestrial habitats weren't already occupied, you can imagine descendants of this little guy being fully terrestrial in only a few tens of millions of years.

Answer 4

They are out in force today with their usual circular reasoning. If you read these evolutionist answers carefully it is evident that the only science behind PROGRESSIVE evolution is pseudo science.



I use the word 'progressive' because we keep getting the usual rubbish from these people that micro and macro evolution are the same thing. The word 'evolution' simply means change, and no one denies that genetic change happens. What is really important is not so much the degree of change, it is rather whether the change is progressive, neutral or regressive. For example, the loss of genetic information is claimed by evolutionists as support for evolution, when it is actually nothing of the sort. If microbes became man (progressive evolution) then what you certainly don't need is a loss of genetic information, you need cumulative gains of a massive amount of NOVEL information.

A loss of Information can cause speciation, for example; the blind cave fish is an example of the loss of information which has created a separate species, but it is not progressive evolution. It is degenerative evolution or devolution. The loss of information for sight may be of no consequence in dark caves, but it is a gross disadvantage in other environments, and certainly does not improve the gene pool of fish. Most adaptive variation is caused merely by the selection of genetic information already existing in the gene pool, not by the creation of NEW information. Where this happens (as in the peppered moth) the effect is fairly neutral, and information may not be completely lost, but unless there is a net gain of new, useful information any changes are just cosmetic/behavioural and a moth will always remain a moth, a cat will remain a cat, a microbe will remain a microbe.

If this is all that evolutionists mean, then there is no disagreement, but evolutionists pretend that such small changes will create much bigger and progressive changes over millions of years, which is a clearly a nonsense without a definite addition of entirely new, beneficial information. So the changes we see in adaptive variation cannot be extrapulated to account for one creature changing into a completely different creature or ultimately microbes to men.

The two things are not even connected, because the key to the dispute with creationists is not whether there are changes in the gene pool, it is whether new information can be added to the gene pool and where that information comes from?



So the dispute is whether mutations (copying mistakes) can turn microbes into men. Observation and commonsense tells us they can't.



The acid test is, if evolutionists think that mutations are so good and are the engine of progressive evolution, why don't scientists encourage environmental factors which increase mutations in order to give evolution a helping hand? I don't see any evolutionists queing up to be bombarded with radiation or noxious, mutation causing chemicals.

We all know why? Mutations are to be feared (as we would expect from mistakes) like all mistakes they are likely to be detrimental not constructive, so to postulate that they could ever turn microbes into men is just plain crazy.



So progressive evolution has no credible mechanism. If we also add the fact that life could not have arisen from a fortuitous mix of sterile chemicals of its own volition, a mixture which had zero, genetic information to begin with, it is obvious to all (except evolutionist zealots) that progressive evolution is a completely, unscientific non-starter and no better than a mythological fable.

Answer 5

1) The theory of flight? I know that there is a lot of physics involved, and it is well understood. But flight is just a well accepted fact. Bernoulli's principles of lift and drag etc, and a fine example of Newton's 2nd law in action. Gravity, while accepted as self evident, is not well understood, and there is still conjecture as to why two bodies with any mass will attract each other while being millions of miles apart. If anyone knows how this can be explained so that it can be widely understood, I would like to hear it. Explanations begin with high level physics, meander into quantum mechanics and end somewhere in superstring theory, I think. It is also linked to relativity in the same way, it is not well understood, although it seems well accepted, probably because there is no religious implications to gravity and relativity. If there were, I'm sure the same people who invented I.D. would conjure up a "theory" of their own to counteract it.

As to predictive value, Darwin himself made a prediction using only the theory of evolution by natural selection. He found a Madagascan orchid with a flower cone about 30 centimetres long, and, even though he had no physical evidence, predicted that there existed an insect with a very long proboscis which had coevolved with the flower to allow for feeding and pollination. Sure enough, 40 years after Darwin's death, it was later found - a moth in Madagascar with the properties as described.

I would be converted to Creationism if they would like to correctly predict the next creature to be created. I'm sure this simple exercise would silence the millions of scientists worldwide who accept evolution.



2) Ahh, the old "micro versus macro evolution" debate. There is no confusion, adaptation is adaptation. If adaptation can occur within a species, what would happen if that species was split in two, and separated for a long time? Would the exact same adaptations occur

simultaneously? Of course not. The two groups may well drift apart genetically. Adaptation is evolution, the scale is irrelevant. Eventually this drift would result in speciation.



3) See 2) plus, given time and separation, speciation will occur. Adaptive pressure will ensure that species will change over time, some will become extinct, favourable characteristics will be preserved and unfavourable characteristics will die off, along with those that possess them.



Just because the champions of Creationism (in any of its myriad forms) refuse to accept evidence, does not mean that evolution is wrong.



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Answer 6

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Based on evolutionary theory and geological knowledge, researchers predict rock strata in which they could find new fossils of particular interest to them. And, often, their predictions are correct. This is precisely how early whale fossils from Pakistan turned up. Furthermore, the same researchers were simultaneously testing the contents of the Eocene strata they were excavating. Evolutionary theory is used for predictions, and is testable.



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This will be a surprise to microbiologists as they observe evolution occurring as a normal part of their work.



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Speciation has been observed to occur. Assuming the mysterious commentator is indeed referring to speciation, then they're plain wrong.



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I wonder which advocates of evolutionary theory the mysterious commentator is referring to. If they're truly incapable of distinguishing between such differences of degree of development, then they must be astonishingly unobservant.

Answer 7

ID isn't a skeptical position. It's a position of outright denial.



1) False. Evolution does make testable predictions. All fossils are now found using its predictions. All of genomics and bioinformatics uses it. It works.



2) They are the same. We have observed speciation, so it is a moot point.



3) Because they are the same. In both cases mutations caused a change in the genome of the organism.



Whoever this was, they didn't get the memo. ID is supposed to not comment on common descent. They want to keep the support of the more traditional creationists while not having the scientific community laugh at them (that part of the plan failed).

Answer 8

I can't speak for theists due to the fact that I don't personally believe in a deity, but I think people in generally like to feel that something or someone is in control of things that they have no control over. Maybe not necessarily a loving, etc. god, but one that does have some responsibility of knowing what someone does not know. People are uncomfortable with the fact that everything happens by chance and/or is a fluke or whatever you'd like to call life. There is no need for a deity. We choose our own way through life with the little control that we have over the things around us. Other things can overcome that control and *blam*... someone gets hit by a bus. Back to the first few lines of the question... The 'clockwork' god is nice, but holds no water. 'What was the first mover?' question is invalid. Science has not gotten to the beginning yet, but it has gotten to within theoretical milliseconds of the beginning of the universe (big bang). What was there before is a rather foggie idea and quite mind boggling, but some theories exist for that too. Ideas are nice, but without scientific proof or evidence, they are not worth much more than lip service.

Answer 9

While other answers have pointed out the predictive value of evolution applied to paleontology, I want to point out it's value in predicting future events. Evolution can predict that with the proper alleles, whether originally found in the population like uncommon color patterns in a moth population or introduced by mutation, will survive and thrive in the presence of selective forces that favor that phenotype or act against another phenotype.



Thus, evolution can predict that microbes will eventually become resistant to antibiotics, weeds will become resistant to herbicides and insects will become resistant to pesticides.



One of the students had a class project while I was in college. She took a brand new antibiotic, never exposed to bacteria before, and exposed a bacteria colony to it with sub-lethal levels at first, and gradually increased the dosage. By the end of the semester the bacteria were totally immune to a brand new antibiotic.



The thought that our medical decisions will be made by politicians who cling to notions that this is unpredictable, terrifies me.



Furthermore, evolution predicts that such changes will occur more rapidly in creatures who reproduce faster. Thus, we see that bacteria, who can reproduce about every 20 minutes, and insects who lay thousands of eggs are becoming resistant to our attempts to kill them, while birds eggshells are becoming too thin to survive and frog and honeybee populations are dying out from the use of poisons used to control various types of pests.



Now here's a question for the supporters of Creationism. Everything I've read or heard about creationism offers a whitewashed version of Christian doctrine. No technique that can research the past, whether carbon 14 dating or using dna studies to judge the age of species, is considered reliable for events over 6000 years in the past, when God is supposed to have created everything.



My question is, where is their research to eliminate the other theories of creation?



Every culture that has ever lived, has had their own creation theory. The Sumerians thought the Earth was created when their Gods slew the dragon, Tiamat, and made the earth from her body. Thus, dino bones were actually the children of the dragon and evidence supporting their theory. The Greeks thought the earth was made from primal chaos. Reminiscent of the "big bang" theory, perhaps?



So how did the creationists narrow down all these "creation theories" to one? I've never seen this proof in creationist doctrine.

Answer 10

The Creationists answering are just jealous cause evolution got me a Charizard while they're stuck with a Bulbasaur.

Answer 11

There is nothing wrong with these statements. They are absolutely true.



1) "Operational" science which is subject to the scientific method MUST be observable, repeatable and measurable. The theory of evolution can do NONE of those things because you cannot observe, repeat or measure the past. This should be patently obvious. Proponents of evolution that say it can make predictions are simply using smoke and mirrors. For example, evolution predicted that that the coelacanth developed into land dwelling creatures by walking on its fins and therefore disappeared 80 million years ago. Yet, we have found living coelacanths today which swim with their fins like any other fish. The significance of this cannot be understated. This means that just because you don't find an organism in the fossil record, does NOT mean it wasn't living at the time! Just because you don't find fossils of men with dinosaurs, doesn't mean they weren't living at the same time. We live with lions today but do you find fossils of men with lions?



Evolution predicted that it takes millions of years for speciation to occur. Current discoveries of rapid speciation have shocked evolutionists (this is well documented). This evidence is strong support for creation theory since the variation we see today must have occurred within the last 6000 years. Overall, the concept of evolution is so ill-formed that it is compatible with any possible observation. That is why evolution is not testable.



On the other hand, creation theory predicts where we will find fossils, in what layer, in what parts of the world. It predicts genetic commonalities and homology between living organisms because they have a common designer. ID predicts that we will see components of living organisms that are irreducibly complex. It predicts we will find huge amounts of non-coding DNA as a result of design and degradation of information over thousands of years of mutations. Evolution predicts NONE of those things. Therefore, they have to make things up like embryonic recapitulation where embryos stages were faked by its proponents and supposed vestigial organs that have now been shown to provide valuable functions. Evolutionist insisting theories regarding the distant past are just as scientific as present day operational science are being hypocritical by rejecting creation theory since it is just as scientific as the theory of evolution.



2) This is absolutely true. Natural selection along with mutations have been shown by scientists to be incapable of producing the information gaining change and the increase in specified complexity necessary to change a molecule into a man. All observed changes have been "downhill" (genetic degradation, loss or neutral reshuffling) which is not the kind of change that evolution demands. The LOSS of eyesight in cavefish or the LOSS of wings in beetles are not examples of evolution because nothing was GAINED. To simply play a bait and switch game and imply these changes can be extrapolated to include the creation of completely new kinds of life is simply wishful thinking without evidence. I can extrapolate all I want, but a bicycle will never take me to the moon. It is not the KIND of transportation required.



3) This comment is related to (2) as well. How convenient for evolutionist simply to say that the only thing necessary is TIME. Here again is why evolution is not observable. Let's just place all our observations into the unforeseeable future by requiring lots of TIME! I'm sorry but no amount of time will change a moth into a bird because the KIND of changes we observe are not capable of doing that. It is only wishful thinking. The changes we observe in moth color have NOTHING to do with evolution. The different colored moths were ALWAYS present in the population (no new gene needed to appear). The frequency or dominance of a particular color arose because of natural selection. This is the same thing that occurs in bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. Resistant bacteria are already in the population to begin with. Bacteria frozen before the advent of antibiotics show resistance, so they did not "evolve". This is a fact. Facts ignored by evolutionists. These arguments show that evolution is pathetically BAD SCIENCE.