Slashdot Mirror
Darwinism Must Die So Evolution Can Live
Pickens writes "MacArthur fellow Carl Safina, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, has an interesting essay in the NYTimes that says that equating evolution with Charles Darwin opened the door for creationism by ignoring 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution — Gregor Mendel's patterns of heredity, the discovery of DNA, developmental biology, studies documenting evolution in nature, and evolution's role in medicine and disease. Darwinism implies an ideology adhering to one man's dictates, like Marxism, says Safina. He adds that nobody talks about Newtonism or Einsteinism, and that by making Darwin 'into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching.' By turning Darwin into an 'ism,' scientists created the opening for creationism, with the 'isms' implying equivalence. 'By propounding "Darwinism," even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one theory,' writes Safina. '"Darwinism" implies that biological scientists "believe in" Darwin's "theory." It's as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.'"
I don't think many popular science writers, or whoever it is that shapes the public understanding of scientific issues, have read, let alone endorse, The Origin of Species. It is truer that most of them do endorse the so-called Modern Synthesis, a synthesis between evolution-theoretic ideas and genetics, which cristallised around the mid-40s and is, arguably, not the last word in the theory of evolution. But I don't see how having Darwin's name associated -in all justice- to the Modern Synthesis cluster is any more harmful to the theory than having Einstein's name associated -in all justice- to the theory of relativity.
On the other hand, from TFA:
"Using phrases like "Darwinian selection" or "Darwinian evolution" implies there must be another kind of evolution at work, a process that can be described with another adjective. For instance, "Newtonian physics" distinguishes the mechanical physics Newton explored from subatomic quantum physics. So "Darwinian evolution" raises a question: What's the other evolution?
Into the breach: intelligent design."
Of course. This is just as it should be. Intelligent design is a powerful source of evolution. Or how does the writer think Airbuses emerged from the Wright brothers' prototype? The passage I just quoted implies that there is no legitimate evolution that is not Darwinian. This is plain silly.
Then listen better. Even here in Europe there's people spewing this crap.
At the moment, here in the Netherlands there's a huge discussion going on on Dutch TV between a broadcasting organization (EO, Evangelical Broadcasting org, lit.) and 'the rest'
Though a lot of the people even working for said EO are quite intelligent and don't spew crap at all, quite a few (chaired by their former director) are even MORE insane than the US creationists like Kent Hovind and the people from Answers in Genesis
Darwin did make predictions based on his observations. He observed a flower with an extremely long distance to it's store of nectar, up to a metre if I recall. He predicted a wierd kind of insect (maybe a moth) that must have a massive, metre long tongue to drink the nectar as an example of the two organisms evolving together. The moth was observed and catalogued about 20 years later if I remember right.
Also, other, bigger scale "experiments" over evolution have been made and passed: astronomers at the time rejected the idea of evolution because the earth couldn't possibly have been around for long enough to allow the process to take as long as suggested. Of course, that statement was based on the idea that the sun was a ball of fire (ie, combustion) and there wasn't enough fuel in there to make the fire burn that long. When the two scientific theories were put against each other, astronomy lost: they eventually figured out that stars work with nuclear processes and, therefore, last that much longer.
Any theory that can not explain how to both validate and falsify its claims in this manner can not be taken seriously.
Carl Popper thoroughly dismantled that idea in his 1935 book "Logic der Forschung". You should try reading it; the English translation of the main text is quite accessible. Looking at the problems you have with logic you may struggle with some of the appendices, but they're not necessary for the main argument. It may help bring your thinking from the 19th to the 20th century. Incidentally, I am aware about the controversy in science regarding falsification, but it doesn't apply here -- I'm not aware of any serious scientists who claim that what Popper described isn't science (isn't to "be taken seriously"); the controversy is whether Popper's method is the only thing science is.
Unfortunately, Darwin never properly demonstrated how to falsify his theory, which means evolution has not properly been proven
A perfect illustration of what the RA was saying. You think the claim that Darwin didn't do it is the same as the claim that it hasn't been done. You think work stopped on the subject 150 years ago.
As said before; if something is not false, it must therefore be true
That's not what you said before. What you said before was "if it can be shown that something is not false, it must therefore be true" (my emphasis), which is a completely different statement.
The whole issue of what is valid science and what isn't is a fascinating one, and you touch on some important issues, but you bury them in such sloppy logic it's no wonder you've been modded down. If you really care about this stuff -- and it seems you do -- then, seriously, take a philosophy 101 course where they'll teach you the basics of how to put an argument together (and how to take one apart.
For the moment, it might be worth a look at this article, which addresses some of the issues you raise and describes more current thinking on those issues (although it's a bit unfair to Popper: it claims that "One thing [Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos] thought in opposition to Popper - there was no point that could be ruled off as the dividing line between 'rational' science and 'non-rational' non-science." In fact, Popper argued the same thing: "My criterion of demarcation will accordingly have to be regarded as a proposal for an agreement or convention" (Carl Popper, "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", Routledge Classics 2002, p15, author's emphasis) -- in other words Popper doesn't believe the dividing line to be absolute either).
Come back when you can discuss coherently the 21st century questions about the relationship between evolutionary theory and the scientific method, instead of the 19th century questions.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Well, the other part is that scientists use Darwinian, not Darwinism. This is like Einsteinian and Newtonian in physics. Nobody kvetches about those. I have yet to hear an evolutionary scientist mention Darwinism when discussing the topic.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
If evolution be not true, the only explanation for the appearance of varied life on the planet is intelligent design.
Uh, no. There are other "theories" with just as much evidence as intelligent design.
For instance, there's my "poof" theory. In the "poof" theory, all of the life forms on earth "poofed" into place from another universe. Or universes. Doesn't matter. Anyway, my "poof" theory explains the variety of life on earth, because these alternate universes from which life is "poofing" have much more variety than Earth does. How come we don't see it happening now? We do, actually. Haven't you heard of unicorns? Not everything that poofs into place survives, and you don't always get a breeding pair, either.
What's that? Intelligent Design is better? Nope. We have exactly as much evidence for your Designer and your Designer's methods as we do for my "poof" theory. Sure, I can't show you my alternate universes, but you can's show me your Designer, His Workshop or anything else.
For that matter, there are plenty of other whackos out there who've got a theory with just about as much evidence as mine, such as Michael Cremo (author of "Forbidden Archaeology" and sort of a Hindu creationist), the late Fred Hoyle (panspermia), or Periannan Senapathy (author of "Independent Birth of Origins"). You have to show your Intelligent Design is better than them, too.
I thought that "Darwinism" was a term thought up by the religious anti-evolution side.
Ideas are easier to attack when they can be pinned to a particular individual, and the attacks made ad hominem. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's a tactic most often used by conservatives. For example, I find it difficult to discuss global warming with conservatives without veering into a debate on the merits of Al Gore and whether he invented the Internet. Similarly, debates on other matters have been "settled" with assertions that Michael Moore is undeniably fat and doesn't dress nicely.
You'll start hearing about "Newtonism" and "Einsteinism" the moment that some conservative (most likely religious) constituency realizes that modern physics challenges their worldview every bit as much as evolutionary biology. After all, Relativity is only a theory, and why should anyone listen to a guy who can't comb his hair properly?
But don't listen to me - I didn't shave today...
It's not just a straight copy paste, every time this is posted it's slightly different. After a few thousand posts, it may turn into a cogent argument!
I have to agree with you. Whatever else is scientific about the theory of evolution, in the matters you discussed, it is not. I have made the same criticism myself, though obviously not in the academy.
I don't think you responsed to the mainstream explanation for peacock's tails though (taken from the Wikipedia "Handicap principle" article): The large tail is a signaling mechanism. It says, "look, I can survive ... even with this big tail dragging me down". Thus, what the peacock loses in agility, it gains in being able to send accurate fitness signals and thus weed out those with less robust survival mechanism.
This explanation has been applied to human contexts, like bungie jumping, dangerous jobs, and the "Ghetto caddy": basically, despite their danger, they give the appearance of being able to survive against overwhelming odds, which serves as a fitness signal, and thus women would be evolved to be attracted to it. Supposedly, this is also why holding your hands up in front of you (ready to defend) makes women uneasy.
But where I basically agree with you is that, in proposing such an explanation, you destroy the explanatory power of evolution. The handicap principle allows you to "explain" literally any feature: either it helps the organism survive, or it helps the organism signal how it can survive even when burdened. This permits anything, so it explains nothing.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
There was a brilliant Doonesbury on this irony a few years ago. A doctor discovers his patient has drug resistant TB, and asks him if he is a creationist (knowing the answer in advance, presumably from previous discussion). The patient says, "Why yes, I am. Why do you ask?" The Doctor replies:
It gets even funnier from there.
People who want to "believe" superstitious whatnot can certainly do so, but when they insist we teach this in schools, society should revoke their rights to use the fruits of science to sustain their standard of living, until they evolve their thinking. (That prohibition to include guns, which would remain strictly under the control of those who do not believe in armageddon or any other such garbage.)
They can have access to educational materials, but they really need to get back in touch with their superstitious roots, which include praying all winter for warmer weather, as structural engineering requires a scientific understanding of the world which is in conflict with their belief in a benevolent god who magically provides them with whatever they need.
Northern climates are effective at demonstrating that god (for lack of a better term) is ambivalent. Let's set aside a portion of a national forest where they can evolve their belief in science from first principles, like making fire and skinning bears with stone knives.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
That's not very scientific. It may follow logically that consciousness ends at death, but if you're going to be totally honest, you can neither prove nor disprove that there is life after death, because human consciousness post-death is not observable (and therefore not reportable).
Of course nothing about life after death is "provable", but then, nothing about the physical universe is provable either, except your own existence (your senses could be lying to you). At some point, we have to fall back on Occaam's Razor, which tells us that, all else being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the "best". And all the major religions of the world have absolutely no evidence for them. So if they're all equally likely, then the best conclusion is that they are equally false.
The simplest explanation is that life is exactly as it appears to be: a very, very complex self-reproducing chemical reaction that is powered by the sun. THAT is the simplest explanation that fits the facts that we have.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Of course, if you get too literal, you run into other problems. After all, there are passages in Genesis that make reference to God setting up the pillars that support the four corners of the earth... While I'm sure there were still plenty of them in Darwin's time, I doubt you'd find even the staunchest creationists today that still believe that the earth has corners. So somehow they have to pick and choose which parts are literal and which are not. I suppose they use the same logic that they used to decide that homosexuality is still a heinous sin, but the restrictions on eating pork and seafood, when it's acceptable to sell your daughter into slavery, and most of the other old testament laws no longer apply in today's society.
As far as dinosaurs go, maybe you just weren't paying attention... Most of them claim that our dating mechanisms aren't accurate. They claim that dinosaurs lived side by side with humans up until the flood or until the expulsion from Eden. Others claim that the dinosaurs never really existed at all, and that fossils are part of the earth God created, to test our faith (or planted by the devil to mislead us). I've also heard the claim that our current measures of time and human lifespan were not applicable until the expulsion from Eden, meaning that Adam and Eve may have lived happily in Eden for millions of years before the beginning of the supposed 6,000 year recorded history in the Bible. (Although, you're starting to get away from strict Creationism there, because that interpretation can also be stretched to imply that the "seven days" of creation actually lasted about 4 billion years by our current measurements.)
I am surprised to see a high ranking Scientist make a statement like this, though. I agree with the reasoning behind it, but I had assumed that the Scientific community had already gotten away from using the term "Darwinism". The only times I can ever remember hearing it used were either 1) Religious types who use the term as a sort of straw man for attacking evolutionary theory, or 2) attempts to apply Darwin's ideas to areas outside of biology, e.g. "Social Darwinism". Is "Darwinism" really still in widespread use among scientists? Or is this more of an attempt to convince non-scientists to give up a term that scientists have already abandoned long ago?
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?