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Note: This is one of a series of posts adapted from my book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
Charles Darwin set out to explain the origin of not just one or a few species, but all species after the first – in short, all the diversity of life on Earth. The correct word for this is not evolution, but Darwinism.
...living things may look as though they were designed, but if Darwinism is true then this is only an illusion.
...the most fundamental problem of evolution, the origin of species, remains unsolved. Despite centuries of artificial breeding and decades of laboratory experiments, no one has ever observed speciation through variation and selection.
To order The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, click here. To find out more information about the book, visit the book’s website here.
 I recently received an e-mail asking about the most recent Mars lander (Phoenix) and the implications for intelligent design (ID) if amino acids, proteins, or life were found on Mars. The person asked, "would this not mean that Neo darwinism is correct and that life occurs if you 'just add water'?" I've posted a modified version of my reply to this person's question below:
These are complex questions you ask, but a scientific "conclusion" is only as good as the starting assumptions that underlie the scientific reasoning involved in making that conclusion. Now I am all for searching out the universe to determine whether life exists outside of Earth. But at present, the research that searches for extra-terrestrial life — while valid and interesting — is heavy laden with assumptions. Once you understand the scientific questions at stake, and the assumptions behind the conclusions that origin of life (OOL) theorists want to take from this research, I think you'll see that it poses little challenge to intelligent design (ID).
First, you have to understand that most OOL researchers and astrobiologists assume that if life exists somewhere, then it must have evolved. A striking example of this sort of assumption is found in a recent article in the Washington Post where NASA astrobiologist Paul Butler asserts that, "[i]f any extraterrestrial life is found in our solar system and we can determine it has no relation to life on Earth, then the assumption has to be that life of all sorts is quite common throughout the galaxies." Of course the his entire chain of reasoning depends on the assumption that wherever life exists, it evolved.
Reasoning under similar assumptions, the entire basis for excitement about life on Mars is the assumption that if it does exist there, then it arose through blind natural processes, thus proving that life can arise naturally. Do you see some logical jumps there, perhaps even some circular reasoning? OOL researchers want to find evidence of life on Mars because for them, it helps validate their belief that life evolves whenever the conditions are right. But if it is found there, how do they really know that it evolved naturally? That's a good question to which you won't get a good answer.
OOL theorists intuitively cannot deny that life is a highly improbable phenomenon. But somehow, they hope that if they find life elsewhere, then that means life is "less unlikely" to evolve, and they don’t have to worry so much about the empirical odds stacked against the natural formation of life. Even if they don't understand how life arose, they think that if life exists then that's proof that it readily forms without intelligent guidance. Their circular logic will now become even more apparent:
(1) OOL theorists think that life easily forms under the "right conditions," and therefore...
(2) ...if life exists on Mars, then for them that proves that life does form easily under the "right conditions"—after all, they know it formed naturally on both Earth and Mars, right?
No, that's NOT right: they never established a natural origin of life in the first place, and they ruled out the possibility of ID as a starting assumption. Were they to actually rule out ID on a scientific basis, they would have to independently demonstrate through laboratory studies that life can form naturally under completely natural conditions. In other words, as discussed further below, they would have to demonstrate that life's information can arise from a non-intelligent source. But they haven't done that—they just want to take for granted that the existence of life on other planets demonstrates that it evolved there, and therefore conclude that it evolves easily.
Mars as the Earth's Interplanetary Attic?
Second, if life is found on Mars, that doesn't necessarily mean that it originated there. Astrobiologists believe that Earth has very likely contaminated Mars with Earth-born microbes, as Earth rocks have been periodically ejected into space during meteorite impacts on Earth. In fact, the idea that other bodies like Mars or the Moon may serve as an "Interplanetary attic" for Earth rocks has been partly developed by Discovery Institute fellow Guillermo Gonzalez.
Just as we've found "Martian meteorites" on Earth, so Mars might have "Earth meteorites," in which case it is entirely possible that any life we find on Mars was in fact seeded—from Earth! (This is a lively possibility that is rarely stated by OOL researchers.) We have yet to find convincing evidence of any life on Mars (living or fossil), so it may be that Mars was given a helping of Earth's life, which apparently didn't take.
Many OOL researchers assume that (1) Life easily evolves under the "right conditions," and therefore (2) if life exists on Mars then that is simply further proof that (1) is true. Again, note the circular logic? To make their case, OOL theorists must independently prove (1) through laboratory studies before their theories can pose any threat to ID. (Note: This hypothesis might be testable: it may be possible to disprove an "Earth origin" for Martian life if hypothetical Martian life turned out to be significantly different, biochemically, from Earth life.)
The Origin of Life: "Just Add Water"?
Third, finding amino acids or other simple organic molecules is not necessarily equivalent to finding life or evidence of life's existence. Many such materials are readily produced through non-biological processes. Again, measure the Darwinist assumptions: (1) Life easily evolves under the "right conditions," and (2) therefore if we find amino acids, the best explanation is that it is the result of life that evolved. But if (1) is false then the conclusions that follow are worthless. We're back to circular logic. You have to independently prove (1) through laboratory studies before you can pose any threat to ID.
Thus, when asked whether originating life is more complex than "just add water," the answer is a resounding YES! Water is a necessary, but far from sufficient condition for the existence of life. Even if we could produce amino acids and all the other building blocks of life under naturally occurring conditions, that would not constitute life any more than putting all of the ingredients for a cake in a bowl and then letting it sit there would constitute a cake.
OOL theorists often dramatically oversimplify how life started when talking to the public. The famous origin of life researcher Stanley Miller, however, has been more candid in some of his statements. At an origin-of-life seminar I took from him during my undergraduate studies at University of California, San Diego, Miller plainly taught us that "making compounds and making life are two different things." Elsewhere Miller reportedly made a similar admission: "Even Miller throws up his hands at certain aspects of it. The first step, making the monomers, that’s easy. We understand it pretty well. But then you have to make the first self-replicating polymers. That’s very easy, he says, the sarcasm fairly dripping. Just like it’s easy to make money in the stock market--all you have to do is buy low and sell high. He laughs. Nobody knows how it’s done."
(Peter Radetsky, "How Did Life Start?" Discover Magazine at http://discovermagazine.com/1992/nov/howdidlifestart153/) During the seminar class I took from Miller, he outlined various specific steps that would be necessary to originate life: 1. Pre-biotic synthesis and the generating of a "primordial soup"
2. Polymerization of pre-biotic monomers into larger molecules.
3. Origin of a self-replicating molecule ("Pre-RNA World")
4. Evolution of the "RNA World"
5. Evolution of the "DNA / Protein World"
6. Origin of Proto-cells There are problems with each of these steps, but for now I'd just like to highlight the major problem with steps 3 & 4.
Steps 3 or 4 maintain that sometime during the origin of life, there arose an RNA molecule, or pre-RNA information-bearing molecule, that was able to clone itself. If there are occasional mistakes in the replication process, those that are better able to survive and replicate tend to make more copies, and so on, and Darwinian evolution evolves it the rest of the way.
This origin-of-life hypothesis is implausible for a few reasons: Aside from the fact that chemists have not been able to synthesize RNA or an RNA-like information-bearing molecule under natural conditions and that we've never observed such a molecule that can adequately clone itself, the odds of getting just the right sequence of nucleotides to create a self-cloning RNA molecule is astronomically low. Even if we assume a sea of randomly sequenced RNA molecules, since there are no physical or chemical laws that mandate the order of nucleotide bases in RNA, the odds of getting a useless sequence are just the same as getting the right one. These all represent astronomically improbable events.
Imagine trying to order a relatively short RNA molecule--200 nucleotide bases--just right, so that self-replication can occur--by pure chance and sheer luck. The odds are 1 / 4^200. This is what ID folks like to call the “Information Sequence Problem”: Making chemicals might be possible, but how do you generate the information required for life? This question confounds origin of life theorists because they do not accept that new information comes from an intelligent cause. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer explains this: [T]he need to explain the origin of specified information created an intractable dilemma for Oparin. On the one hand, if he invoked natural selection late in his scenario, he would need to rely on chance alone to produce the highly complex and specified biomolecules necessary to self-replication. On the other hand, if Oparin invoked natural selection earlier in the process of chemical evolution, before functional specificity in biomacromolecules would have arisen, he could give no account of how such prebiotic natural selection could even function (given the phenomenon of error-catastrophe). Natural selection presupposes a self-replication system, but self-replication requires functioning nucleic acids and proteins (or molecules approaching their complexity)—the very entities that Oparin needed to explain. Thus, Dobzhansky would insist that, “prebiological natural selection is a contradiction in terms.” … As noted above, the improbability of developing a functionally integrated replication system vastly exceeds the improbability of developing the protein or DNA components of such a system. Given the huge improbability and the high functional threshold it implies, many origin-of-life researchers came to regard prebiotic natural selection as both inadequate and essentially indistinguishable from appeals to chance.
(Stephen C. Meyer, "DNA and the Origin of Life: Information, Specification, and Explanation," pg. 246, Darwinism Design and Public Education (edited by Stephen C. Meyer and John Angus Campbell, 2004).) As Meyer's article concludes: "Experience affirms that specified complexity or information ... routinely arises from the activity of intelligent agents. A computer user who traces the information on a screen back to its source invariably comes to a mind, that of a software engineer or programmer. Similarly, the information in a book or newspaper column ultimately derives from a writer—from a mental, rather than a strictly material, cause. Further, our experience-based knowledge of information-flow confirms that systems with large amounts of specified complexity or information (especially codes and languages) invariably originate from an intelligent source—that is, from a mind or a personal agent." (Ibid., pg. 262) Thus life far more complex than "just add water," because adding water--or any other chemicals--will not magically generate the specified and complex information in life. In fact, we cannot understand how the information in life originated apart from understanding intelligent causes.
Taking a different approach, OOL researchers and astrobiologists find it much easier to just assume that life -- complete with its information-rich order -- can and does arise through blind chemical processes. And they know they're right, because they must be right, for life exists.
Joseph Bottum at First Things has an excellent essay on José Ortega y Gasset, the early 20th Century Spanish writer. In Ortega's masterwork, The Revolt of the Masses, Ortega describes a new sociological phenomenon: the "mass man." Bottum explains:
Ortega's accomplishment…was to identify a new sociological species: mass man. As The Revolt of the Masses explains, the mass man is not just an ordinary man, and he is not associated with any particular class. He is, rather, a product of European historical development, a kind of human being born for the first time in the nineteenth century…The description Ortega gives is not particularly enjoyable. The mass man lives without any discipline, and—as Ortega remembers from Goethe—"to live as one pleases is plebian." The mass man "possesses no quality of excellence." He demands more and more, as if it were his natural right, without realizing that what he wants was the privilege of a tiny group only a century ago. He does not understand that technological wonders are the product of an intricate cultural process for which he should be grateful. [Emphasis mine].
Ortega's paradigm of "mass men" certainly rings true, and seems particularly true of modern ideologically-driven materialistic scientific culture. What is perhaps most astonishing about the rhetoric of contemporary Darwinists such as P.Z. Myers, Steven Novella, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Larry Moran is their ignorance of the cultural and historical origins of modern science and medicine.
Bottum explains:
The danger … lies in mass man's lack of even a rudimentary understanding of culture. Here Ortega draws a critical distinction between civilization and culture. Civilization is the sum of the technical and technological tools that make life as we know it possible. And culture is that civilization's underpinnings—the set of ideas, motives, and religious truths that gave birth to civilization.
Bottum seems to speak almost explicitly of atheist ideologues who advocate crude versions of scientism:
So, for instance, mass man is oblivious to the fact that much of what is known in modern times as science started as a theoretical or theological game in the seventeenth century. The serious underpinnings of science were apparent to René Descartes, for instance. One of the founders of modern science, Descartes points out in several of his letters that his philosophical conception of God is indispensable for his new conception of science—since it is a view of God as capable of changing even the truths of mathematics…In other words, it was a new theological concept that ignited the scientific project.
Bottom points out that this ignorance and denial of the genuine Christian origins of modern science leads to dissolution of the civilization that was created by a theist understanding of man and nature:
Ortega admits that scientific civilization can go on living without being continuously propelled by culture. He warns, however, that if we exhaust our cultural resources, we will roll back to the level of barbarism. Civilization is like a vending machine, whose buttons we press to get a desired good, but after a while it requires maintenance: "History tells us of innumerable retrogressions, of decadences and degenerations. But nothing tells us that there is no possibility of much more basic retrogressions than any so far known, including the most radical of all: the total disappearance of man as man and his silent return to the animal scale."
Ortega observed that this arrogance and cultural ignorance heralds a radically new culture, and there may be no going back. Atheist materialism and its creation myth—Darwinism—were the basis for modern eugenics and were permissive and canonical, respectively, to the atheist-materialistic ideologies—Nazism and Communism—that laid waste to the 20th century. In the midst of the 20th Century we had a taste of "the total disappearance of man as man and his silent return to the animal scale." Most chilling is Ortega's suggestion that we have witnessed the mere premonitions of what materialist ideology may bring to mankind.
Eugenics and totalitarianism may be just the beginning of the transformation that materialism and the Darwinist understanding of man will bring to our civilization.
Many intelligent people use the "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" line—but they immediately get into trouble because, as I discussed in Part 1, the formal scientific definition of theory is typically understood to mean a "well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world." In other words, when talking to a scientifically minded crowd, calling evolution "just a theory" is not a good way to express scientific doubts about neo-Darwinism. As I noted in a previous post, an article recently in The Scientist observed that, "public discontent with classical evolution as an inclusive theory stems partly from an intuitive appreciation of its limits." Thus those who call evolution "just a theory, not a fact" are trying to communicate some legitimate underlying truth about their scientific criticisms of neo-Darwinism. They are simply using poor terminology to communicate their point.
Sadly, Darwinists often then ridicule or scold Darwin-skeptics who use the "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" line by treating them as ignorant or uninformed regarding the proper definition of theory. Let’s explore what people really mean when they say "evolution is just a theory, not a fact," and then I’ll offer some final advice regarding how Darwin-skeptics can effectively communicate their doubts about Darwin.
All I wanted to say is that I’m a scientific skeptic of neo-Darwinism. How can I convey such skepticism without getting stepping on a semantic land mine and getting scolded by Darwinists?
Great scientific claims must be backed by great scientific evidence. When most people claim that "evolution is just a theory, not a fact," what they really mean is that there is not convincing scientific evidence to justify the great claim that all life is related through universal common ancestry and that it evolved via an process of unguided natural selection acting upon random mutation. Doubts about neo-Darwinian evolution might stem from:
The failure of evolutionary biology to provide detailed evolutionary explanations for the origin of complex biochemical features (see Opening Darwin's black box for a brief discussion);
The failure of the fossil record to provide support for Darwinian evolution; (see The abrupt appearance of biological forms or Punctuated Equilibrium and Patterns from the Fossil Record for discussions);
The failure of molecular biology to provide evidence for universal common descent; (See Barking up the Wrong Tree for a brief discussion);
The failure of genetics and chemistry to explain the origin of the genetic code; (see Problems with the Natural Chemical "Origin of Life" (updated) or The origin of life remains a mystery for discussions);
The failure of developmental biology to explain why vertebrate embryos diverge from the beginning of development. (see Evolving views of embryology for a discussion).
But how does one simply communicate such viewpoints without getting into semantic trouble? As I explained in Part 4, I don’t recommend one-liner sound-byte arguments against evolution because they don’t communicate anything about the content of the scientific deficiencies of neo-Darwinism. Here's why:
When someone says "evolution is just a theory," it sounds like the speaker cannot cite actual scientific evidence against evolution, and that the only objection the speaker can muster is based upon appealing to postmodern rhetoric which asserts that we really can’t know if anything is true. The truth is that science is capable of studying the validity of historical scientific theories such as neo-Darwinism, but the "evolution is just a theory" line makes it sound like the speaker is not interested in studying or discussing that evidence. In the debate over evolution, discussions of evidence are what matter most. As stated previously, calling something a theory doesn't necessarily tell you about the state of the evidence. The best way to express dissent from evolution is to actually discuss its failure to explain the scientific evidence.
The "evolution is just a theory" line can come off as if the speaker really thinks "evolution is just a guess, so I don't have to believe it if I don't want to." In fact, neo-Darwinian evolution as a whole is not merely a guess and most Darwinian scientists will provide reasons why they think it is the best explanation for the diversification of life. If you’re like me, and you think that neo-Darwinian evolution has scientific problems, then you should be able to provide reasons beyond stating "it's just a theory." As noted above, the best strategy is for you to be prepared to give a few specific scientific reasons why you question Darwinian evolution.
But if you really must use short, one-liner sound-bytes to describe doubts about neo-Darwinian evolution, here is my advice: As we learned in Part 1, the technical definitions of theory do indeed mean "a more or less verified or established explanation," whereas a hypothesis has the meaning of "a conjecture put forth as a possible explanation." In this sense, when evolution is defined to include both universal common descent and a driving force of natural selection acting upon random mutation to produce the complexity of life (i.e. neo-Darwinian evolution), for Darwin-skeptics like me, such evolution is not a theory, nor is it fact. It is "just a hypothesis."
But as I noted above, it’s best to give more information than one-liner sound-bytes. So I don't recommend that Darwin-skeptics go around saying "evolution is just a hypothesis," even though such a phrase would more-accurately use the technical definitions of "theory" and "hypothesis." What follows is a slightly longer description of what one might say to communicate doubts about neo-Darwinism without falling into soundbyte arguments: When evolution is defined as mere change over time within species, no one disputes that such evolution is a fact. But Neo-Darwinian evolution—the great claim that unguided natural selection acting upon random mutations is the driving force that produced the complexity of life—has many scientific problems because such random and unguided processes do not tend to build complexity. According to the technical definitions of "theory," "fact," and "hypothesis," neo-Darwinian evolution is neither theory nor fact. It’s just a hypothesis." Closing Thoughts
In the end, my final advice for everyone is this: Whether you think "evolution" is "fact," "theory," or "hypothesis," or some combination thereof, it’s important to use all of these terms carefully and if possible, define them when you use them. It’s also important to have patience with those who may misuse these terms, for each of these terms can have multiple meanings, allowing ample opportunities for confusion and miscommunication in this highly-charged debate.
It isn't just the New York Times that ignores the facts when reporting about the debate over how to teach evolution. Not to be outdone by its competitor the Washington Post catches up today with an ill-informed opinion piece (Evolving Toward a Compromise) that yet again completely misreports what is going on in the upcoming review of Texas' state science standards. A proposal before the Texas Board of Education calls for including the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in the state's science curriculum. This initiative is understood by supporters and opponents to be a strategic effort to get around First Amendment restrictions on teaching religion in science class. First, there is no such proposal. The Texas state science standards currently state: The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to:
(A) analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information;
As we've already pointed out, no one is considering a proposal to add "strengths and weaknesses" language. It's already in there, and has been since the late 1980s. It's the Darwinists who are trying to remove the language.
The authors don't get that point, like they don't get much else about evolutionary theory and how it is taught, and go to make a laughable presumption. We presume that the Texas challenge will be found to violate the Constitution and that scientists will never accept the watering down of evolutionary concepts in the classroom. Well, since the language has survived twenty plus years in the state's science standards it doesn't look like it is violating anything. Except the Darwinist's dogmatic insistence that no one question Darwinian evolution, or mention any of its weaknesses.
Darwinists love to bash Darwin-skeptics who call evolution "just a theory, not a fact." The truth is that I rarely, if ever, hear people who are closely involved with the ID movement using this line to oppose evolution. The "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" phrase tends to come from the vox populi—intelligent people who studied this issue in their biology class or perhaps have read books like Darwin’s Black Box, Icons of Evolution, or Darwin on Trial, but otherwise don’t follow the issue very closely. As I discussed in Part 1, many of us who are closely involved with the ID movement actually agree with the Darwinists that the "evolution is 'just a theory', not a fact" line not only (in the technical sense) misuses the word theory but generally comes off as a meaningless statement. In this post I’ll offer four reasons why I think that Darwin-skeptics should not use the "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" line and answer the question, "Is it best for Darwin skeptics to call evolution ‘just a theory, not a fact’?"
Having taken over a dozen courses covering evolutionary biology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, I’m a scientific skeptic of neo-Darwinism. But I’ve long opposed using such a rhetorical line of "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" to oppose evolution because it gets you caught up in a semantic debate over the proper definition of fact and theory, and communicates very little about the most important component of this debate—the scientific evidence. (For an early example of my writings on this topic, see my Response to the ACLU ID FAQ.) I’ll start with criticism of people on my own side of this debate by offering four reasons why I oppose using the "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" line:
1. The statement "evolution is just a theory, not a fact," hopes to convey some kind of skepticism regarding evolution, but it fails to adequately define the term. As we learned in Part 3, no one doubts evolution when it is defined as "populations of living organisms change over time." Evolution so-defined is an unquestionable fact. But when evolution is defined as "natural selection acting on random mutation serves as the primary driving force that built the complexity of life" or even "all species share a universal common ancestor" (collectively called "neo-Darwinian evolution") then you’ve traipsed into more controversial definitions of evolution.
2. The "evolution is just a theory" line is simply not a good way of expressing skepticism about neo-Darwinian evolution because it assumes that a theory is something which necessarily lacks evidentiary support. As we learned in Part 1, the problem with this phrase is that the word "theory" can indeed mean a scientific idea that is well-backed by large amounts of scientific evidence.
3. When someone says "evolution is just a theory," it sounds like the speaker cannot cite actual scientific evidence against evolution, and that the only objection the speaker can muster is based upon appealing to postmodern rhetoric which asserts that we really can’t know if anything is true. The truth is that science is capable of studying the validity of historical scientific theories such as neo-Darwinism, but the "evolution is just a theory" line makes it sound like the speaker is not interested in studying or discussing that evidence. In the debate over evolution, discussions of evidence are what matter most. As stated previously, calling something a theory doesn't necessarily tell you about the state of the evidence. The best way to express dissent from evolution is to actually discuss its failure to explain the scientific evidence.
4. The "evolution is just a theory" line can come off as if the speaker really thinks "evolution is just a guess so I don't have to believe it if I don't want to." In fact, neo-Darwinian evolution as a whole is not merely a guess, and most Darwinian scientists will provide reasons why they think it is the best explanation for the diversification of life. If you’re like me, and you think that neo-Darwinian evolution has scientific problems, then you should be able to provide reasons why you're a skeptic beyond stating "it's just a theory." As noted above, the best strategy is for you to be prepared to give a few specific scientific reasons why you question Darwinian evolution.
So if we shouldn’t call evolution "just a theory, not a fact" then how should us Darwin-skeptics refer to evolution? Theory? Fact? Hypothesis? Something else? I’ll explore this question in the final installment of this series, Part 5.
Darwinists claim that it is inappropriate to call "evolution a theory, not a fact" because a theory means "a well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world." In Part 1 and in Part 2, I discussed the fact that the word "theory" can have multiple meanings, ranging from a conjecture or guess (the soft definition) to "a well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world" (the hard definition). In this installment, I will address the question, "Is it correct to call evolution a 'fact'?"
A new article in Current Biology about Darwin Day celebrations quoted Johnjoe McFadden from the University of Surrey stating that "evolution is no longer just a theory. It is as much a fact as gravity or erosion. Scientists have measured evolutionary changes in scores of organisms." The leading 20th century evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr quite dogmatically (and wrongly) claimed that, "No educated person any longer questions the validity of the so-called theory of evolution, which we now know to be a simple fact." Similarly, according to the ardently pro-Darwin U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), evolution is a "fact":
Is Evolution a Theory or a Fact? It is both. But that answer requires looking more deeply at the meanings of the words "theory" and "fact."
(U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, pg. 11 (National Academy Press, 2008).) What these Darwinist authors miss is that the legitimacy of calling evolution a "fact" depends on the meaning of the word "evolution."
The debate over evolution can be confusing because equivocation has crept into the discussion. Some people use evolution to refer to something as simple as small changes in the sizes of birds’ beaks. Others use the same word to mean something much more far-reaching. Used the first way, the term "evolution" isn’t controversial at all; used the latter way, it’s hotly debated. Used equivocally, evolution is too imprecise to be useful in a scientific discussion. Darwin’s theory is not a single idea. Instead, it is made up of several related ideas, each supported by specific arguments:***
Evolution #1: First, evolution can mean that the life forms we see today are different than the life forms that existed in the distant past. Evolution as "change over time" can also refer to minor changes in features of individual species — changes which take place over a short amount of time. We can observe this type of evolution going on in the present and even skeptics of Darwin’s theory agree that this type of "change over time" takes place. Evolution in this sense is "fact." However, it is invariably the case that when Darwinists cite some present-day observations of change within a species, they will be small-scale changes that are not easily extrapolated to explain how complex biological features arose.
Evolution #2: Some scientists associate the word "evolution" with the idea that all the organisms we see today are descended from a single common ancestor somewhere in the distant past. This claim became known as the Theory of Universal Common Descent. This theory paints a picture of the history of life on earth as one great branching tree. While this meaning of evolution is not necessarily incompatible with intelligent design, there are many scientific skeptics of evolution who are skeptical of Universal Common Descent.
Evolution #3: Finally, some people use the term "evolution" to refer to a cause or mechanism of change, the biological process Darwin thought was responsible for the branching pattern. Darwin argued that unguided natural selection had the power to produce fundamentally new forms of life. Together, the ideas of Universal Common Descent and natural selection form the core of Darwinian evolutionary theory. "Neo-Darwinian" evolution combines our knowledge of DNA and genetics to claim that random mutations in DNA provide the variation upon which natural selection acts in a completely unguided fashion. It is this form of evolution that is the most controversial meaning of evolution.
So is evolution a fact? If by "evolution" one simply means "evolution #1," i.e. small-scale change over time within a species, then evolution is indeed a fact. No one disputes this kind of "evolution." Thus when Johnjoe McFadden states that "[s]cientists have measured evolutionary changes in scores of organisms" and therefore evolution "is as much a fact as gravity or erosion," he is stating the obvious because he is simply referring to evolution #1.
But Dr. McFadden is pulling a bait-and-switch: he is using relatively trivial examples of evolution #1 to bolster more controversial definitions of "evolution." Thus if by "evolution" one means universal common descent (evolution #2), or neo-Darwinian evolution (evolution #3), where the primary adaptive force building the complexity of life is unguided natural selection acting upon random mutations, then many scientists would argue that such "evolution" most certainly is not a fact.
A Final Look at the NAS’ Mistake
Finally, consider how the NAS defines evolution as a fact: In science, a "fact" typically refers to an observation, measurement, or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term "fact" to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing it or looking for additional examples. In that respect, the past and continuing occurrence of evolution is a scientific fact. Because the evidence supporting it is so strong, scientists no longer question whether biological evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur. Instead, they investigate the mechanisms of evolution, how rapidly evolution can take place, and related questions.
(U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, pg. 11 (National Academy Press, 2008).) I won’t dispute the NAS's definition of fact, but it’s clear that unless by "evolution" they mean evolution #1, then there are many scientists who will disagree with their claim that evolution is a fact. However, the NAS DID define evolution as evolution #3, i.e. being driven by natural selection acting upon mutation-caused variation:In the century and a half since Darwin, scientists have uncovered exquisite details about many of the mechanisms that underlie biological variation, inheritance, and natural selection, and they have shown how these mechanisms lead to biological change over time. Because of this immense body of evidence, scientists treat the occurrence of evolution as one of the most securely established of scientific facts. … The atomic structure of matter, the genetic basis of heredity, the circulation of blood, gravitation and planetary motion, and the process of biological evolution by natural selection are just a few examples of a very large number of scientific explanations that have been overwhelmingly substantiated.
(U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, pg. xiii, 12 (National Academy Press, 2008).) The NAS is wrong. Since the NAS defines "evolution" as full-blown neo-Darwinian evolution, there are many scientists who will not agree that it is a fact.
***Some parts of this post were adapted from the textbook Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism.
The blog site Little Green Footballs has slandered Discovery Institute, whether intentionally or not, by implying that we are in league with Islamic radicals in Turkey. They base this fantasy, apparently, on a CBC radio report of a year ago that was so poorly researched that it called Discovery Senior Fellow David Berlinski "Paul Berlinski" and referred to us as the "Christian Discovery organization." Then they interview a host of people of varying views in Turkey who are critical of Darwinism and imply that they are all connected. They seemingly imply Discovery's involvement in this situation based on the fact that Berlinski was invited to speak at a conference held by the municipal government of Istanbul last year. Big deal. (Berlinski, by the way, is a secular Jew, so work with that fact for a while, boys.)
If people at LGF think they can make the case that Discovery Institute is somehow soft on Islamic radicalism and terrorists, perhaps they should pick up a copy of our Senior Fellow John Wohlstetter's new book, The Long War Ahead: And the Short War Upon Us. It is published by Discovery Institute Press and I challenge the LGF folks to read it—or any of my own writings on the Iraq War and the war on terrorism generally—and continue contending that this institute would ever have any truck with people—Muslim or otherwise—who doubt the danger of Islamic fascism.
Both the LGF blog and the CBC story have a naïve and simplistic understanding of the politics of Turkey today. As it happens, on most issues, including foreign policy, the more leftist party in Turkey is the "secularist" one that is now out of power. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), known as an Islamist party, is the more moderate party. That doesn’t mean that they are ideal. But it does mean that they are more willing, ironically, to advance freedom in the economy and religion and to support the U.S. in the war against terrorists. Christians overall backed that party in the last elections, which tells you which party they think is most tolerant. Prominent Jews have found them easier to work with. (Turkey recognizes Israel, by the way.) The European and American press, by and large, preferred them in the last elections. The secularists in Turkey, in contrast, for several decades have been the most repressive against all religions, as well as the more xenophobic on international affairs and trade.
Incidentally, the government has recently arrested members of an extreme Islamist group that it claims were planning a terrorist attack on the government!
I realize that this picture doesn't accord with one’s expectations—or, maybe I should say, prejudices. It also doesn’t mean that issues, like whether women in universities and businesses will be allowed to wear headscarves, are trivial. But it does suggest that there is nothing wrong with attending conferences put on by the Turkish government.
Within Turkey there also are different people who are anti-Darwinian—just as in the U.S. Some are, indeed, creationists and could be called fundamentalists within Islam. Many are not. There is one controversial creationist who goes by the pen name Harun Yahya and has published a lavish book against Darwinism and has raised the ire of the government on other grounds, but we have no connection with him or his products.
In contrast, we definitely do appreciate knowing Mustafa Akyol, a very different writer whose columns appear in the Turkish Daily News in Istanbul and the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard in the U.S. He is cited favorably by such publications as Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. For a time, Akyol volunteered with Harun Yahya’s group, but he broke with it in 2003, sharply disagreeing with many of its views, especially its link to anti-semitism. Akyol is not a creationist and he does support intelligent design. He also is pro-West, pro-religious tolerance, pro-free markets and anti-terrorist. The Economist rightly describes Akyol as "an advocate of reconciliation between Muslims and the West who is much in demand at conferences on the future of Islam" and who believes in "the compatibility between Islam and Western liberal ideals, including human rights and capitalism." (By the way, the Economist erroneously says that Akyol had a "fellowship at Discovery Institute." Akyol has not received funding from Discovery, but he did help organize the city-sponsored conference where Berlinksi appeared.)
Would LGF like to smear Akyol because they disagree with his support for design? Are they willing to smear Discovery because we know and like Mustafa Akyol? It is bizarre!
In his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, atheist author Christopher Hitchens calls intelligent design (ID) "tripe" and "a huge menacing lurch forward by the forces of barbarism." While supporting the evolution of humans, he asserts that there is "[n]o divine plan" and that "[e]verything works without that assumption." Hitchens laments the existence of religion because "millions of people in all societies still prefer the myths of the cave and the tribe and the blood sacrifice." (pg. 282) In his debate against Jay Wesley Richards, Hitchens reportedly argued against God by alleging that God would not create certain features we observe, to which Richards aptly replied, "A sneer is not an argument." Unfortunately, Hitchens is still using sneers as arguments. What’s more, it now seems that it is Hitchens who prefers myths about caves.
In a recent article published on Slate.com, Hitchens claims that intelligent design is refuted due to the presence of vestigial eyes on blind cave salamanders. He even got Richard Dawkins to back him up, saying: "Vestigial eyes, for example, are clear evidence that these cave salamanders must have had ancestors who were different from them—had eyes, in this case. That is evolution. Why on earth would God create a salamander with vestiges of eyes? If he wanted to create blind salamanders, why not just create blind salamanders?"
Ignoring the fact that Hitchens and Dawkins misconstrue ID in theological terms, the problem with the argument is that ID fully accepts that varying degrees of Darwinian evolution can take place, and in fact ID proponents regularly point out that evolution is quite good at effecting loss-of-function. While random mutations usually fail miserably at creating new complex biological functions, they are in fact quite good at messing up complex biological functions (or doing nothing). When natural selection occasionally prefers the "messed up" state, it's quite capable of preserving it. But the neo-Darwinian mechanism is not good at producing new complex functions. As I wrote earlier this year regarding species that live in caves:
[E]xamples of loss-of-function in organisms may be best explained by natural processes of random mutation and natural selection. In this regard, features like functionless eyes on blind cave fish are probably best explained by Darwinian evolution. This poses no challenge to the validity of intelligent design in other cases. ID is far more interested in explaining the GAIN of biological function rather than loss of function.
("Another Intelligent Design Prediction Fulfilled: Function for a Pseudogene") In his book The Making of the Fittest, biologist Sean B. Carroll uses such "loss of function" examples to explain how the "fittest" are "made." As I wrote in response to Carroll: Carroll gives a few other examples in his chapter explaining "the making and evolution of complexity." The first involves the fact that single mutations in various genes can abolish eyes or the pelvis in fish. These are simple mutations which turn off regulatory genes, thereby preventing an organ structure from forming. His second example deals with the loss of wing spots on butterfly wings. Again, the mechanism is a simple mutation which turns off the wing-spot genes. These examples all invoke loss of function by turning of pre-existing genes. Exactly how are the fittest made? Carroll’s examples don’t answer that question.
(Casey Luskin, "The Evolutionary Gospel According to Sean B. Carroll".) Hitchens, Dawkins and Carroll can have all the evidence they want that the neo-Darwinian mechanism can mess things up, turn genes off, and cause "loss-of-function." No one on any side of this debate doubts that random mutations are quite good at destroying complex features. Us folks on the ID side suspect that random mutation and natural selection aren’t good at doing very much more than that. And the constant citations by Darwinists of "loss of function" examples as alleged refutations of ID only strengthens our argument.
Meanwhile, ID proponents seek to explain a far more interesting aspect of biological history: the origin of new complex biological features. Despite his quotation of Michael Shermer on the evolution of the eye, Hitchens has yet to do that.
In Part 1, I assessed the question of whether Darwinists are correct to define theory as a "well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world" or a "comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence" (the hard definition of theory). I found that they are correct to use such a definition, but that Darwinists sometimes overly downplay the fact that theory can also legitimately mean merely "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural," "contemplation or speculation," or "guess or conjecture" (the soft definition of theory). As I observed, Darwinists are also wrong to imply that scientists never use the term "theory" to mean "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural."
Previously I quoted Bruce Charlton, editor-in-chief of the journal Medical Hypotheses, observing that "[a]n old joke about the response to revolutionary new scientific theories states that there are three phases on the road to acceptance: 1. The theory is not true; 2. The theory is true, but it is unimportant; 3. The theory is true, and it is important – but we knew it all along." Charlton goes on to contend that those who propose new revolutionary theories face difficult battles: The defining feature of a revolutionary theory is precisely that it seeks to replace the assumptions of an already-existing theory – so a new theory cannot be evaluated on the basis of the assumptions of the old theory. This is why a new and revolutionary theory will almost invariably strike people as false. … The path to fame as a theorist surely is long, winding and replete with pitfalls. It seems clear that scientists can use the word "theory" to mean "conjecture," but it is also fair to say that typical circumstances, when scientists say "theory," they mean the hard usage of the term: "a more or less verified or established explanation."
This thus leads to the question, under such a strong definition of the term, does evolution qualify as a theory?
Assuming that we are using the hard definition of theory, different people will give different answers to that question. Under such an understanding of the term, if we define theory as "a more or less verified or established explanation," then theory is in the eye of the beholder. Darwin-skeptics will not agree that neo-Darwinian evolution is "a more or less verified or established explanation." But Darwinists will agree. So the question over whether neo-Darwinian evolution should be called a "theory" is not the core question of this debate. A better question would be: "Is neo-Darwinian evolution ‘a more or less verified or established explanation’?"
Darwinists have the right to believe that neo-Darwinian is a verified and established explanation--i.e. that it meets the hard definition of theory. But they do not have the right to insist that Darwin-skeptics must call evolution a "theory," so defined. While Darwinists are correct that the technical definition of "theory" means a well-established and verified explanation, they should not insist that evolution can never be called "just a theory." When they do this, they are actually imposing onto the debate their conclusion that evolution must be considered by all to be a verified and established explanation. Were they to tolerantly allow Darwin-skeptics to dissent from the orthodox neo-Darwinian position, Darwinists would not insist that Darwin-skeptics entirely abandon the phrase "evolution is just a theory."
However, given that the technical, scientific, hard definition of theory does typically mean a well-established and verified explanation, then it is best if Darwin-skeptics take the high road and avoid calling neo-Darwinian evolution "just a theory." And as we shall see in the next installment of this series, the question "is evolution a 'more or less verified or established explanation'"? is also a complex question, for it can also depend on the definition of "evolution."
Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who endured the horrors of Auschwitz, astutely commented on the way that modern European thought had helped prepare the way for Nazi atrocities (and his own misery). He stated, "If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted," Frankl continued, "with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment--or, as the Nazi liked to say, of 'Blood and Soil.' I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."
Continue reading The Dehumanizing Impact of Modern Thought.
 Click here to listen to an IDTF podcast featuring part of Stephen Meyer's opening remarks from this event.
What do intelligent design, evolution, information and purple people eaters all have in common? Well, they all took front stage at Freedomfest in Las Vegas last week when ID proponents Stephen Meyer and George Gilder squared off against Darwinists Michael Shermer and Ronald Bailey in debating whether there is scientific evidence for intelligent design in nature. 
The debate was civil, and the audience appreciated the back and forth between the speakers and enjoyed being able to ask questions at the end of the formal debate—and even beyond that. For the rest of the evening following the debate itself Meyer and Gilder patiently answered questions and discussed the debate over evolution with conference attendees. At the end of the formal debate a poll of the audience showed them to be split pretty evenly for and against ID being science.
Stephen Meyer laid out a compelling case for intelligent design being a scientific theory. He briefly explained some of the things that design proponents point to as evidence for intelligent causation—the fine tuning of the laws of physics, the complex machinery at work in the cell, and information-rich digital code in DNA. Finally he explained
that intelligent design, like Darwinian evolution, is an historical science and should be compared in the same way. If you're going to explain an event from the past, you need to know that the explanation you're invoking has the power to produce that effect currently, and you need to know it based on your present experience, meaning that our present experience with cause and effect should guide our inferences from the past. Meyer asked: "What is the cause now in operation that produces information? Is there any cause that we know can produce information? And of course there is one, and only one, and that is intelligence." Thus the ID argument is not one from ignorance, but rather an argument based on what we do know and understand already, namely, how intelligence produces information. Not only is there evidence for ID, but the evidence is based on a scientific method of reasoning that Darwin himself used.
Michael Shermer has debated Stephen Meyer before, and as usual took the debate seriously and engaged in a vigorous attack on ID and defense of evolution. He eschewed the motive mongering that often comes up in debates like and stuck to arguing that intelligent design is not science.
Whether or not ID is religious is irrelevant, argued Shermer (*gasp!* — yes, he essentially said this). The bottom line is that ID isn't testable or falsifiable, claimed Shermer, and ID proponents haven't done enough research and science to develop ID into a testable scientific theory. His example was Lynn Margulies spending the last 35 years grinding out work on her endosymbiotic theory—research, experiments, publishing papers, presenting at conferences and so on. Shermer feels that ID scientists haven’t done this for their theory. It's up to ID scientists to make the case and sell it to the rest of the scientific community, said Shermer. "Science isn't a thing. Science is a thing that you do. It's something you actually go out and do. And so that's the bottom line." I guess he's not familiar with the Biologic Institute, or the lab research being done by scientists like Scott Minnich, Ralph Seelke and others.
Shermer's argument boiled down to this: even if you discover that life was designed, say by extra terrestrials, that just prompts another question. Who designed those guys? According to Shermer: "You see at some point you have to have some bottom up natural forces to answer the question where did life come from, where did all this complexity come from in the first place. Positing something from the top down simply begs the question, yeah interesting, but where did that come from? And where did that come from? At some point to do science you have to have some bottom up forces at work here." It would seem that no matter what evidence was presented to him, he would simply argue against any intelligence being the ultimate origin of information and design in the universe. For Shermer, there is no getting away from the presupposition that there must have been a materialistic cause.
Along the way, Shermer admitted that Darwinian evolution doesn't provide many answers, and then proceeded to throw Darwinism under the bus to show that ID isn't a satisfactory replacement theory. According to Shermer, just because Darwinian evolution doesn't stand up to scrutiny doesn't mean that intelligent design is the answer. ID has to stand or fall on its own merits regardless of Darwinism. "Even if that's the case, A is wrong, that doesn't make B right. B stands or falls by itself on its own evidence."
He repeatedly emphasized how much we don't know, arguing that we may someday find the answers to many of the questions as yet unanswered by modern evolutionary theory. After all, he reminded the audience, science is only 400 years old!
Stephen Meyer and George Gilder discuss ID with conference attendees.
George Gilder took a bit different approach in arguing that universe itself is contrived to produce humankind, and talked about the idea of some scientists that the entire universe is a quantum computer "pregnant with intelligence." He also explained that his skepticism of Darwinism came from his study of economics. Just as contemporary evolutionary theory rejects intelligence as the source of design in the universe, demand side economic theory rejects human intelligence as the source of new ideas, new things. "Demand side economic models leave no room for the entrepreneur as a creator, as an inventor, as an imaginative source of new ideas and new things." Gilder has often talked about this materialist superstition, which you can read more about here and here.
Ronald Bailey opened his presentation by saying he would take intelligent design seriously, and then proceeded to disrespect his audience by mocking it for the rest of his talk, instead going off about purple people eaters. If you want to punish yourself, you can read his remarks here.
Many members of the general public who are skeptics of Darwinian evolution are intelligent people with a decent understanding of some of the scientific weaknesses with neo-Darwinian evolution. In fact, a recent article in The Scientist suggests that, "public discontent with classical evolution as an inclusive theory stems partly from an intuitive appreciation of its limits." (Eric Smith, "Before Darwin," The Scientist, June 2008:32-38.) But in this highly nuanced debate, such Darwin-skeptics must avoid semantic land mines if they are to accurately, clearly, and effectively communicate their views. I have often seen that some people who oppose neo-Darwinian evolution are fond of calling evolution "only a theory" or "just a theory, but not a fact." After using such a phrase, they are immediately scolded by Darwinists, who tell them that "a theory" is a "well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world" and that evolution should be considered "both fact and theory." Ken Miller just wrote a book titled, "Only a theory," basically opposing people who use such an argument. Similarly, an opinion article recently condescended: One of the greatest misconceptions about evolution is embedded in the misuse of the word 'theory' in its application to science. The common antecedents that result in this misuse of the word are manifested in either genuine ignorance, or disguised ignorance. People are either genuinely mistaken of the word's intent, or they are well aware of the word's scientific definition, but still use the nonscientific definition in an effort to spawn doubt. … Evolution, because it's a theory, is a higher form of knowledge than a fact. Similarly, the NCSE's Glenn Branch recently co-wrote an article taking the condescending approach: it labeled those who use the "evolution is 'just a theory' line as being "pejorative" and favorably cited a Darwinist who scolded, "To claim that evolution is ‘just a theory’ is to reveal both a profound ignorance of modern biological knowledge and a deep misunderstanding of the basic nature of science."
Upon receiving such a scolding, the Darwin-skeptic who said that evolution is "just a theory, but not a fact" may feel quite bad. She innocently had no intent to violate any rules of semantics or misuse any terms; she merely wanted to communicate her skepticism of neo-Darwinism. In this tangled web of ambiguously defined terms, the Darwin-skeptic is then confronted by a number of confusing questions of rhetoric and semantics: 1. Are Darwinists correct to define "theory" as "a well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world" or "a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence"?
2. Under such a strong definition of "theory," does evolution qualify as a "theory"?
3. Is it correct to call evolution a "fact"?
4. Is it best for Darwin skeptics to call evolution "just a theory, not a fact"?
5. All I wanted to say is that I’m a scientific skeptic of neo-Darwinism. How can I convey such skepticism without stepping on a semantic land mine and getting scolded by Darwinists?”
These are all good questions. In a series of five posts, I will attempt to answer all five questions, exploring the argument that evolution is "just a theory, not a fact" and providing criticism of people on both sides of this debate, as well as some friendly communications advice for Darwin-skeptics. And from the outset, I should state that I have always opposed using the "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" line to communicate one’s skepticism regarding neo-Darwinian evolution.
Question 1: Are Darwinists correct to define "theory" as "a well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world" or "a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence"?
According to the 1998 edition of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, a theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, and tested hypotheses." In 2008, the NAS released a new edition, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, stating that a theory is "a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence." Darwinists routinely invoke these and other similar definitions of "theory" when scolding Darwin-skeptics for calling evolution "just a theory, not a fact." Are Darwinists correct to define "theory" in this fashion? The answer to this question is both yes and no.
"Theory" can have multiple definitions. When I look up "theory" in my 1996 edition of Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (WEUDEL), the word “theory” has 7 or 8 different entries: 1. a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.
2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
3. Math. a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.
4. the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice: music theory.
5. a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles.
6. contemplation or speculation.
7. guess or conjecture. According to entry #2, "theory" can mean "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact." Similarly, entries #6 and #7 define "theory" as "contemplation or speculation" or "guess or conjecture." We’ll say these comprise the soft definition of theory and represent the definitions that the average person has in mind when they say, "evolution is just a theory, not fact."
The upshot of the soft definition of theory is that Darwinists who imply that the term "theory" can never mean that "conjecture or guess" are in fact wrong, because "theory" can in fact mean conjecture or guess. On the other hand, if you’re a Darwin-skeptic who thinks that "theory" necessarily means "conjecture" or a "guess" and can never mean a verified scientific explanation, then you are wrong: After listing these entries, my 1996 edition of WEUDEL elaborates on proper usage of the word "theory" within the scientific community: 1. THEORY, HYPOTHESIS are used in non-technical contexts to mean untested idea or opinion. The THEORY in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena: the theory of relativity. A hypothesis is a conjecture put forth as a possible explanation of phenomena or relations, which serve as a basis of argument or experimentation to reach the truth: This idea is only a hypothesis. Within technical scientific discussions, the term "theory" typically is understood to mean "a more or less verified or established explanation." We’ll call this the hard definition of theory. But is this hard definition of theory the only way that scientists use the word "theory"?
When a Darwin-skeptic says "evolution is a theory, not a fact," Darwinists often pounce and assert that the colloquial or "pejorative" (Glenn Branch's label) usage of "theory" can mean "conjecture" or "guess," but scientists never use the word "theory" to mean conjecture or guess. For example, Branch favorably quotes Ken Miller's 2007 edition of the textbook Biology, implying that there is a united front and complete conformity within the scientific community regarding proper usage of the word "theory": "In science, the word theory applies to a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations." Such Darwinist claims of unanimity within the scientific community are also questionable.
While scientists do typically imply the "hard" definition when using the word "theory," they don't always use it in that sense. If scientists always meant the "hard" definition of "theory," then scientists would virtually never use the phrase "new theory" because an idea does not attain the status of a theory until it becomes well-established and verified, withstanding many tests until it is no longer "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural." Yet a quick search of PubMed for the phrase "new theory" reveals dozens and dozens of hits from the technical scientific literature where scientists offered "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural" but called that explanation a theory.
Three recent examples of such usage of "new theory," where theory represented an unverified idea, will suffice.
In the April, 2008 issue of the journal Medical Hypotheses, editor-in-chief Bruce G. Charlton uses the phrase "new theory" multiple times. The meaning implied by the term "theory" in this case was a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. As Charlton observes: An old joke about the response to revolutionary new scientific theories states that there are three phases on the road to acceptance: 1. The theory is not true; 2. The theory is true, but it is unimportant; 3. The theory is true, and it is important – but we knew it all along. ... Theory for scientists is like water for fish: the invisible medium in which they swim.
(Bruce G. Charlton, "False, trivial, obvious: Why new and revolutionary theories are typically disrespected," Medical Hypotheses Vol. 71:1–3 (2008).) Charlton goes on to say, "When a new theory is revolutionary, then it is perceived as an observation which is incompatible with the old theory. From this perspective either the new theory must be rejected, or else the old theory abandoned." Clearly Charlton uses the word "theory" as if it can, in some circumstances, mean a new idea that has not yet undergone widespread testing and verification, and may not have experienced widespread acceptance.
As a second example, a recent sociology paper from Archives of Suicide Research states, "Although the study has offered some support for the new theory, future research with more rigorous quantitative data needs to be conducted to further test the theory on a more comprehensive level." (J. Zhang, D. Lester, " Psychological Tensions Found in Suicide Notes: A Test for the Strain Theory of Suicide," Archives of Suicide Research, VOl. 12(1):67-73 (2008).) Clearly this study uses the word "theory" to describe a new idea that has not yet been fully verified nor accepted.
Finally, even within the context of evolutionary biology, theory can mean a new idea that does not yet have widespread verification or universal acceptance. A recent article in Current Biology entitled "Social Evolution: The Decline and Fall of Genetic Kin Recognition," by Andy Gardner and Stuart A. West of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, contains a subheading which asserts, "New theory confirms that genetic kin recognition is inherently unstable, explaining its rarity." Yet the article goes on to describe a vigorous scientific debate between evolutionary biologists about whether kin selection is a genetically viable explanation to account for the evolutionary origin of altruism and cooperation. According to the article, a new study concludes that "there is relatively poor empirical support for this mechanism in nature" because "[a] new theoretical study of genetic kin recognition … reveals that, left to its own evolutionary devices, this mechanism will drive itself to ruin." But other leaders in that field disagree, implying that this theory is not "a well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world" or "a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence."
There are many other examples from the technical literature where theory is used in a similar sense, and it does not mean "a more or less verified or established explanation." It should be clear that scientists sometimes DO use the term "theory" to refer to a new idea that has not yet undergone extensive testing and is simply "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural."
Conclusion
In closing, we must return to the question, Are Darwinists correct to define "theory" as "a well-substantiated scientific explanation of some aspect of the natural world" or "a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence"? The answer is yes, but they are not entitled to claim that such a hard definition is the exclusively acceptable usage of theory both for scientists and non-scientists. Darwinists are wrong to imply that scientists always necessarily use the hard definition of theory, because even scientists occasionally use theory as if it means new idea, or a "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural."
The problem underlying debates over the proper usage of theory is that the term can have multiple definitions, even among scientists, ranging from "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions" to "a more or less verified or established explanation." But the upshot is this: Because the term "theory" can mean "a more or less verified or established explanation," it is inappropriate for a Darwin skeptic who is trying to communicate doubts about Darwin to use the "evolution is a theory, not a fact" line, because it ignores the truth that in many venues, theory does indeed mean, as WEUDEL explains, "a more or less verified or established explanation."
So was Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) secretly a fundamentalist Christian, a mad man, or just plain ignorant? The great novelist (Lolita, Pale Fire, Pnin) was, in his own telling, a "furious" critic of Darwinian theory. He based the judgment not on religion, to which biographer Brian Boyd writes that he was "profoundly indifferent," but on decades of his scientific study of butterflies, including at Harvard and the American Museum of Natural History. Of course, this was all before the culture-wide sclerosis of Darwinian orthodoxy set in.
As Boyd notes in Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, "He could not accept that the undirected randomness of natural selection would ever explain the elaborateness of nature's designs, especially in the most complex cases of mimicry where the design appears to exceed any predator’s powers of apprehension."
Boyd summarized the artist's scientific bona fides in an appreciation in Natural History. For most of the 1940s, he served as de facto curator of lepidoptera at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, and became the authority on the little-studied blue butterflies (Polyommatini) of North and South America. He was also a pioneer in the study of butterflies' microscopic anatomy, distinguishing otherwise almost identical blues by differences in their genital parts. Later employed at Harvard as a research fellow in entomology while teaching comp lit at Wellesley, Nabokov published scientific journal articles in The Entomologist, The Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, The Lepidopterists' News, and Psyche: A Journal of Entomology.
According to Boyd, Nabokov wrote "a major article," subsequently lost, "with 'furious refutations of "natural selection" and "the struggle for life."'" He completed the paper in 1941 but all that survives is a fragment in his memoir, Speak, Memory: The mysteries of mimicry had a special attraction for me. Its phenomena showed an artistic perfection usually associated with man-wrought things. Consider the imitation of oozing poison by bubblelike macules on a wing (complete with pseudo-refraction) or by glossy yellow knobs on a chrysalis ("Don’t eat me--I have already been squashed, sampled and rejected"). Consider the tricks of an acrobatic caterpillar (of the Lobster Moth) which in infancy looks like bird's dung, but after molting develops scrabbly hymenopteroid appendages and baroque characteristics, allowing the extraordinary fellow to play two parts at once (like the actor in Oriental shows who becomes a pair of intertwisted wrestlers): that of a writhing larva and that of a big ant seemingly harrowing it. When a certain moth resembles a certain wasp in shape and color, it also walks and moves its antennae in a waspish, unmothlike manner. When a butterfly has to look like a leaf, not only are all the details of a leaf beautifully rendered but markings mimicking grub-bored holes are generously thrown in. "Natural Selection," in the Darwinian sense, could not explain the miraculous coincidence of imitative aspect and imitative behavior, nor could one appeal to the theory of "the struggle for life" when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator's power of appreciation. I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception. Sounds like…intelligent design?
That’s what Amardeep Singh thought. He teaches literature at the same university (Lehigh) where Darwin-doubter Michael Behe has been made to feel very unwelcome. Singh comments in a blog entry that his students are startled to read the passage from Speak, Memory. I bet. My students, I was happy to see, were a little shocked that someone with Nabokov's way of seeing things would say something that might even remotely be construed as Intelligent Design-ish. And indeed, Darwinian natural selection, as I understand it, does have a fine explanation for the "miraculous coincidence of imitative aspect and imitative behavior": any mutant variety that doesn't exhibit a perfect imitation is going to get eaten. And if you have enough random-pattern butterflies getting eaten over time, eventually a strain that has a slightly better design is going to come around and not get eaten. Comforting! But Singh misses the point of Nabokov's question. It's not the perfection of the pattern that needs an explanation. The novelist/lepidopterist asked, if a particular artistic subtlety in that perfection is beyond the ability of a predator to perceive, how did nature select it?
Last year Rob Crowther reported on the "Altenberg 16" conference that was planned for Altenberg, Austria. Sixteen leading leading evolutionary scientists -- who do not support intelligent design but do have doubts about Darwinism -- were to re-evaluate the core claims of neo-Darwinism.
The conference apparently did happen, as scheduled -- last week. We still don't have any report on what took place, but that the topic definitely will continue to prove interesting.
In advance of the conference, one participant, Massimo Pigliucci, tried to downplay the importance, asserting that there is "not a sign of 'crisis'" at this conference over neo-Darwinian evolution: Now, did you see anything in the above that suggests that evolution is "a theory in crisis"? Did I say anything about intelligent designers, or the rejection of Darwinism, or any of the other nonsense that has filled the various uninformed and sometimes downright ridiculous commentaries that have appeared on the web about the Altenberg meeting? Didn't think so. If next week's workshop succeeds, what we will achieve is taking one more step in an ongoing discussion among scientists about how our theories account for biological phenomena, and how the discovery of new phenomena is to be matched by the elaboration of new theoretical constructs. This is how science works, folks, not a sign of "crisis." Of course no one here has been claiming that any Altenberg attendees support intelligent design (ID). But while the conference participants may not have been talking about ID as an alternative to neo-Darwinism (many of them prefer models of evolution driven by "self-organization" – models that have their own problems), Pigliucci's comment sure sounds like damage control. In fact, according to Suzan Mazur, a journalist experienced in covering evolution who was invited to report on the conference, there is patently politically-motivated damage control taking place. As Mazur shows, the National Center for Science and Education (NCSE) -- the Darwinist education lobby – opposed this scientific conference for political reasons. Self-organizational models are rife with potent critiques of neo-Darwinian models of evolution, so they don't like them: I decided to ask [NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott] some questions since I'd interviewed her colleague [NCSE President] Kevin Padian about the "evolution debate", and he'd hung up on me. ...
...When I introduced myself to Eugenie Scott, who was unfamiliar with my stories on evolution, I asked her what she thought about self-organization and why self-organization was not represented in the books NCSE was promoting?
She responded that people confuse self-organization with Intelligent Design and that is why NCSE has not been supportive. Pigliucci claims there's "no crisis" here, but Kevin Padian is hanging up on people and Eugenie Scott claims people will confuse the arguments of conference-attendees with intelligent design.
But what is most interesting is not just Pigliucci's failed attempt at damage control, but the NCSE's knee-jerk reaction against anything that isn't neo-Darwinian. It seems that the NCSE was indeed quite worried that this conference will do damage to neo-Darwinism. At the very least, this exchange exposes the NCSE's intolerant attitude towards non-Darwinian thoughts, even when the doubters don't support ID. Indeed, Mazur's reports reveal that various scientists and academics she has interviewed during her reporting about the conference have fundamental doubts about neo-Darwinism, but they are eschewed by the scientific community.
According to Mazur, there are "hundreds of other evolutionary scientists (non-Creationists) who contend that natural selection is politics, not science, and that we are in a quagmire because of staggering commercial investment in a Darwinian industry built on an inadequate theory." One of those scientists is evolutionary biologist Stanley Salthe, who Mazur reports "can't get published": Stanley Salthe, a natural philosopher at Bingham |
