How does Evolution theory fit with science?
Evolution, creation, theistic evolution - statistics
When I first explore for evidences of evolution, it is quite interesting to see the bold statement that evolutionists often make in regards to the number of people who believe in evolution. One of the self-claiming support towards evolution suggested that evolution is “accepted by most biologist, apart from the delusional theist scientist”. For a minute there, this statement sounds like a declaration that cause readers to think that evolution has so many supporters. The evolutionists often use that carefully framed statement to make the oppositions feel small. One thing that we might forget is that the “theists” are actually the majority of world population.In terms of statistics, 90% of Muslims rejects evolution, 60% of Christian rejects evolution while 38% of others believes God’s creation though still consider evolution as part of the plan. And so, where does this takes us in terms of overall statistics of evolutionist population? Gallup’s statistic shows that materialistic evolutionist population never exceeds 17%.
However, let’s not throw away evolution based on population statistics alone. Statistic alone is not what defines truth. Something true does not require a lot of people’s acknowledgement to make it true. There are two things that catch my interest in regards to evolution theory. The first interesting thing about evolution theory is its ability to survive in the last 160 years even under slow general public reception. The second interesting thing is that even as a mere hypothesis, it possesses the ability to shake the mature existing theistic belief at that time to create a new compromised worldview such as theistic evolution.
Evolution evidence
So what makes the evolution theory so convincing and persuasive? Could it be possibly true after all? Since the nature of evolution’s evidence is evidence for a hypothesis, I did a bit of research on what the proper scientific methodology approach should be. Scientific methodology directs that hypotheses be tested in controlled conditions which can be reproduced by others. The scientific community's pursuit of experimental control and reproducibility diminishes the effects of cognitive biases. For example, pre-existing beliefs can alter the interpretation of results, as in confirmation bias; this is a heuristic that leads a person with a particular belief to see things as reinforcing their belief, even if another observer might disagree. Let us see whether evolution theory is simply a hypothesis seeking confirmation bias? Or can it be proven to be objectively true?
Evolution typically provides scientific evidences based on fossils, variation, adaptation, mutation, speciation and similarities of DNA, attributes and structure. To put it into simple words, since there are fossils, scientists assume that there are creatures that live billions of years ago. Variation, adaptation, mutation, and speciation suggest that creatures could actually have slightly altered traits and attributes that are different from their parents caused by a set of hereditable variations in DNA or the environment they live in. Similarities that we can see between different species wrap it up together to suggest that these creatures might share a common ancestor. These entire evidences when put together say something like: “Over billions of years, creatures get altered bit by bit. Thus from single universal ancestor, we got these varieties of species through a long process of evolution.”
As more and more fossils are found, evolutionists have more selection of creatures for them to make a narrative of. These fossil findings are another evolution’s evidence that can be used to show how various species came into existence. The more fossils they find the more creature variation pool to choose from. Say for example, if in the past, to explain whale evolution, scientists can only show an evolution model with huge leaps, nowadays they can show such evolution in a smoother manner.
For evolutionists all of these things are counted as evidence. For these reasons evolutionists insist that evolution theory is true. They even believe that evolution theory is more appropriate to be considered as a fact already instead of mere theory. Unfortunately, as for the rest of the world (non-evolutionists) these things are seen as wobbly conclusion, a confirmation bias, or even a logical fallacy. From the same “evidence”, we could come into entirely different conclusions. Non-evolutionist scientists as well as scientists prior to Darwin could accept fossil findings, variation, adaptation, mutation, speciation and similarities between species but without accepting evolution.
For example, the fossils being found could simply show that there is a possibility that there are other animals that live in the past that possess different bone structure to what we have today. It could also imply that God created a mature universe, instead of starting everything from infancy. Stephen J Gould, a Harvard University geologist, in an article called “Evolutions Erratic Pace” published in 'Natural History Vol. 5' May 1977 concludes that the well-known evolution tree, found in almost all school biology textbooks, that draws on supposed 'evidence' from the fossil record is in reality made up by 'inference' not evidence. In other words, because there is no fossil evidence, they have just guesses, or to be more precise, made it up! He commented, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of palaeontology” (palaeontology = scientific study of prehistoric life).
As for the variation, it shows that each creature was made unique – not mass produced goods. The speciation, adaptation, and mutation show that creatures have God-given innate adaptive traits that allow them to survive different environment. And for the similarities between creatures, just like comparing any two items, you will find some similarities and some differences. Sometimes you find more similarities, sometimes you find more differences. The similarities could be caused by coincidence (Your teeth look like corn), common ancestor (e.g. between family members), common designer (e.g. painting), common inspiration (e.g. Mario bros mushroom), or even common creator (e.g. Vivaldi’s music).
Scientific objections against evolution theory
On top of that, there are layers of scientific objections that non evolutionists tend to argue. Firstly, there are logical contradictions between the appeal to consider evolution theory as a fact and the fact that evolution theory is still changing. As many of you will experience, it is quite difficult to get the exact theory of evolution. The evolution theory that most evolutionists believe today is no longer the same as the evolution theory proposed 160 years ago by Charles Darwin. In fact, even up to this day, scientists are still studying the various aspects of evolution theory.
This evolving science of evolution theory does not only produce problems such as various versions of evolution path (take a second look at the whale pictures from before - they are all different), but also results in having parts of the evolution hypothesis that are inconsistent with the initial Darwinian hypothesis.
For example, Charles Darwin himself recognized that the fossil record did not contain anything like the myriad of transitional species expected in his theory as quoted from Darwin’s own book:
“The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain. And this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be argued against the theory of evolution”
He suggested that the rarity of transitional species was because of the poor fossil record - that it preserved at the very most only a few percentages of the species that lived in the past. Basically, this view expects that a vast number of species must have formed in the past to arrive at the smaller variety of species we see today. For some strange reason, despite the fact that the number of species known through the fossil record is less than 5% of the number of known living species, evolutionists’ attitude is already at the level of “Woohooo!! We got so much evidence”
Another implication of evolution theory still being studied is that there are some portions of the old evolution theory that have become obsolete and have now been forsaken. For example, the evolution theory suggested an evolution path where scientist assumed that there is a trend towards increasing complexity in living organisms. More recent organisms, such as mammals, appear to be much more complex than older organisms, such as bacteria. This part of evolution theory, called “progress theory” has now become obsolete. Perhaps this is to deal with the fact that “progressive” evolution theory cannot stand its ground against the theory of irreducible complexity that appears in some creatures. Thus, they require some steps in evolution that actually step back or sideways, instead of constant growing forward towards stronger being. This is very concerning since initially the evolution theory is closely related to the survival of the fittest – which should suggest getting more complex and stronger inclination as the norm.
Another layer of objections against evolution theory is in regard to its incompleteness as a theory. There are many gaps in the details of evolution theory. I will only share four objections that non evolutionist scientist have against the evolution theory. There are plenty more scientific objections against evolution that we could find in magazines, google or wiki :)
First objection example, evolutionist can never clearly explain the miracle that happened to generate the first living organism. It is not easy to explain how a non-living objects, such as a chair or oxygen or water, could give birth to a living creature, like a bird or even a bacteria. The issue of the origin of life is not merely an issue of probability that require all the miraculous break through against all the unlikely odds. For amino acids and nucleotides to have formed in a primordial 'soup' the atmosphere would have to be void of oxygen, like in experimental labs, because oxygen would 'corrode' these essential building blocks for life. However if there were no oxygen there would be no ozone layer and the ultra violet radiation from the sun would have destroyed the amino acids and nucleotides. Michael Denton, an agnostic biochemist, in his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis' comments: “What we have is sort of catch 22 situation. If we have oxygen we have no organic compounds, the building blocks of life. But if we don't we have none either.” This is not an emotional argument against Evolution theory, but a scientific one.
Even if proteins and nucleotides could form by random chance, a potentially even bigger problem exists: information. You need intelligence to produce information. For example, a book consists of ink and pages. Even if the ink fell onto the pages and arranged itself by random chance into letters and words, it is still meaningless. Why? Because the only reason that we can read it, is because we know what the letter means. Each letter has a shape, which is meaningless unless there is a pre-agreed meaning for the shape. Now if someone were to write you a poem it would just look like scribble unless they had explained to you what the letters meant. How could evolutionists explain this intelligence that comes prior to the organism’s capability to think?
To top that complexity, DNA possesses error correcting mechanism as well as redundant backup gene. What does this mean? Although the error correction mechanisms are still not completely understood, scientist are still so amazed (and puzzled) in regards to how they achieve such remarkable accuracy. As simply put by one science writer, he explained, "Intelligent typesetters would remove the last few letters when they spot an error," and this is how the new research suggests the RNA polymerase machine corrects errors as well. The redundant backup gene is a case where biochemical function is redundantly encoded by two or more genes. In these cases, mutations (or defects) in one of these genes will have a smaller effect on the fitness of the organism than expected from the genes’ function. The main source of genetic redundancy was thought to be found in the process of gene duplication which generates multiplicity in gene copy number. However, recent studies have now confirmed that cooperating networks of unrelated genes contribute significantly more to robustness than gene copy number.
Just to conclude this issue with DNA, for our information, DNA is able to store an estimate of 4 x 375,000,000 = 1.5 G bytes of data. Amazingly, with all this hi-tech features, a base pair of DNA size is typically 0.34 Nano meters. For something that is so microscopic, how did it become so hi-tech? Let us judge for our self, can it be really caused by chance and natural selection? Former atheist scientist, Anthony Flew, in front of these enormous complexities has to submit to the reality of existence of an intelligent designer, a creator, that is God. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1e4FUhfHiU)
Thirdly, there is an unexplainable reason for evolution towards weak intermediate state. One of the backbones of evolution theory is the notion of survival of the fittest, only the strong ones survive etc. However when you actually stop to consider the implications, this is one of the strongest rebuttals to evolution theory possible. “Take for example a reptile evolving into a bird. In order for this change to take place, the reptile’s front legs must slowly become wings with feathers. As this supposed change takes place, the reptile reached a point where its front legs were not really legs impeding its ability to run away from predators, but they were not yet wings as well so it couldn't fly either. Nor could it hunt very successfully as its claws would by now have given way to its prototype wing structure. What has happened is that it had become less fit and less able to defend itself hence it would not survive. This same problem exists with every proposed transitional form; rather than becoming stronger, it would actually become less able and weaker as it hit the intermediate stage where it was neither one thing nor another.”
Lastly, there is also inconsistency between the proposed timeline of evolutionary history of life with the actual population that we have now. According to the evolutionary history of life timeline, approximately 2.5 million years ago, was the appearance of the genus Homo. And approximately, about 200 thousand years ago was the appearance of what we consider as anatomically modern human.
Using the assumption of forty-three years for an average human generation, the population growth over a million years would produce 23,256 consecutive generations. When we calculate the expected population by starting with one couple one million years ago and use the same assumptions of a forty-three-year generation and 2.5 children per family….The evolutionary theory of a million years of growth would produce trillions x trillions x trillions x trillions of people that should be alive today on our planet. This number shows a hug gap when compared to the reality of current world population – currently close to 7 trillion human.
Overall, the evolution theory has, so far, failed to fulfil the requirement of proper science methodology for proving a hypothesis. “Scientific methodology directs that hypotheses be tested in controlled conditions which can be reproduced by others”. Mark Eastman, physician, former evolutionist on once said:
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” is a phrase that tends to be associated with a particular movie genre called: science fiction. It is an unproven and unprovable theory - not only because it cannot be reproduced, but because it never happened. In fact, such thing is more appropriate to simply be called fiction, as it has nothing to do with real science.
Survival of evolution Theory
At this stage, one might ask “why then then evolution theory is still in our biology text book?” and I will say “I don’t know, ask the minister of education…” - LOL :) To be more precise, I don’t know for sure however there are a couple of factors that sustain the evolution theory.
First reason for evolution to stay in biology text book is because its scope has widened over the years. And thus, scientists trying to reject the initial evolution theory are now confronted with the new wider scope of evolution theory that has been proven true even prior to 1850s. This is due to the inclusion of other previous proven evidence theories into the overall evolution theory.
If we look back prior to evolution theory, prior to the publication of the book On the origin of species in 1859, variation, adaptation, speciation, taxonomy are theories already existed separate of evolution theory. When the evolution term was first coined, it was defined distinctly from mere adaptation. Adaptation refers to the process wherein certain groups or individuals change their ways in order to be better suited to their environment and habitat. This is change is needed so that they can survive and maintain normal functioning in their community. Evolution, though, takes a long time. It is a process in which the genetic structure and physical anatomy change in relation to the changes happening in the environment. It does not occur overnight, but invokes generations in order to turn out into the best being suitable.
However, since Darwin published the evolution theory, these words receive a new definition that revolves around evolution (e.g. … is an evolutionary process that …). For example, in 1906, an evolutionist Cook O. F. redefined speciation as part of evolution. Robert Greenleaf Leavitt in the journal Botanical Gazette in 1909 introduced the terminology of “micro evolution” – and thus small changes that occur in a small scale is now become an evolution, too. Yuri Filipchenko in 1927 also expanded evolution scope by putting variation as part of evolution. The term adaptation has also been made part of evolution in around 1960s in one of Theodosius Dobzhansky‘s book. Thus, evolution is now defined simply as any change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.
By including these evidential terminologies into the scope of evolution theory, evolutionists are able to survive by proving the existence of variation, adaptation, mutation, speciation and microevolution to support the bigger scale version of macro evolution. That is, scientists can say “I have lots of evidence for speciation, therefore the whole evolution theory must be true, including macro evolution”. As a result, current scientists have to be careful when they reject evolution, or else they will be considered uninformed. “Are you saying that the taxonomy is wrong?” “Are you saying that speciation never occurs?” and so on… Thus to argue evolution in the academic sense, scholars have to be clear and specific. For example, they could say “I disagree that human comes through a long process of evolution from fish” or “I disagree that evolution could cause a new classification in taxonomy”
The second reason is more likely caused by the nature of evolution theory that offers more than science, but also a worldview. Since evolution theory suggested human origins, it infiltrated not only the biology, but also the psychology, sociology, and many other fields of studies including arts. For example, in music, pianists tend to say that human’s hands are evolved from monkeys’ and their main function is to grab branches, therefore keep your hands round while playing the piano. Moreover, evolution theory has penetrated deeply in our society and has affected our daily conversations.
The third reason is probably science rejection towards everything that cannot yet be understood by human ratio (e.g. love, philosophy, spirituality, etc). Since science requires everything to be observable, measurable, and reproducible, the alternative of evolution, which is creationism, doesn’t seem to fit to be taught in science class. Creationism is considered to be more proper to be placed in religious study. Furthermore if we bring up, creationism in the biology text book, science will have to deal of a much bigger issue than it could handle, i.e. Which God?
How will evolution theory fare in the next decade? We can’t tell. However, for evolution theory to be promoted to the level of truth there is still a lot of work required for evolutionist. Having said this, on the next article, I plan to explore the evidence for theistic creationism worldview. That way, I could do justice for those who disagree with the theistic creationism worldview.
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