The Dawn Treader

First let me point you to a news magazine for scientists that I highly recommend to my colleagues and any “Scientific American” reader: the-scientist.com . Though the publishers serve the mainline scientist market, they featured a provocative editorial by a grand old master chemist, Phillip S. Skell (www.the-scientist.com/2005/08/29/10/1) which asserts that Darwin’s theory is not useful for day-to-day research design and progress. The discussion in response to this (www.the-scientist.com/2005/9/26/8/1) was sharp and considerable. I agree with Dr. Skell and feel that he makes this case better than I do, but I’ll try.

The essential disagreement is whether homology = Evolution. In other words, does the fact that there are similarities between species mean that Evolution must have produced it? While it is reasonable, it is clearly begging the question to say so. The important thing is that, genetically and functionally, species are in fact similar in many ways. This is very useful in research. I would love to give examples, but no one would dispute this.

Evolution is a paradigm- a framework upon which one can hang observations in a way that makes sense- it is not a testable theory. We use homology to design experiments, but Evolution is an explanation for those homologies. It is not something that we can refer to when designing experiments.

Me: So you are saying that evolutionary theory is not falsifiable?

Steve: Yes, that is the crux of my point.  I respectfully disagree with those who say that Evolution is a theory like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  Einstein himself, along with many who followed, suggested experiments which would prove it wrong- falsify it. Such experiments simply cannot exist for Evolution. Accordingly, any theory that cannot be falsified is not a scientific theory.

While Evolution is an elegant idea and should be learned by all who study biology, I would argue that it is a paradigm not a theory.

Me:  Why do you capitalize Evolution?

Steve: It is my own indulgence, because I believe that vocabulary should be as precise and specific as possible to enable clarity of understanding. The word “evolution” predates the theory. I prefer to differentiate generic evolution (observed changes over some range of reference) from the famous idea proffered by Charles Darwin which seeks to explain the cause of what we now observe. Because it refers to a specific set of ideas, I think that Evolution should be capitalized. Unfortunately, micro-evolution (or adaptation) is also lumped into the term “evolution.” Evolutionists claim that this is the same process, but that is again begging the axiom as the conclusion and is simply not intellectually honest. The acquisition of drug resistance by a microbe is not the same as the Origin of Species.

Next: Regarding Behe- Steve gets in trouble with his ID friends...