Two Evolution Myths Busted
Posted: Wednesday, February 11, 2009
by Ben Morrish
http://alltruism.blogspot.com
Evolution Myths Busted
Evolution is often attacked by people who, for whatever reason, cannot accept it. Attacking an idea is a good way of testing it ideas that are weakly founded will crumble and should be discarded, and ideas that pass through the attacks unscathed can be trusted a little more, their strength having been demonstrated. It is by this constant testing of ideas and rejecting those that fail that science itself can evolve and progress, filtering out the weak ideas and moving on to stronger ones.
Sure, this "straw man" version of evolution is easy to score points against, but since no-one actually thinks or argues that the straw man version is true, this is something of a pointless exercise, leaving the real evolution unscathed
In order to challenge evolution and evolutionary theory you first have to understand it, otherwise all you can really challenge is your own misunderstanding of it. I'm certainly no expert, but I have spent some time studying the basics, and I'd like to bust a few of the most common misconceptions about evolution.
Myth # 1: Transitional Forms
One of the most common misunderstandings about evolution concerns transitional forms. When scientists tell us that mankind's distant ancestors were fish, some people make the false assumption that there must therefore be evidence of some strange half-fish half-human creature along the way a kind of "missing link" resembling both the distant ancestor and the modern-day descendant.
This is not how evolution works. The false assumption here is the belief that evolution always proceeds along a straight path, for example: from A (the fish of the distant past) to Z (the human of today), and deducing, based on this misconception, that creature M, midway between A and Z, will always resemble some kind of hybrid of A and Z, and that as we move from A to Z our ancient fish will become steadily more human-like.
Evolution cannot see into the future it can't set a distant goal and work steadily towards it. Natural selection always selects what works best NOW. With countless environmental factors pulling in different directions at different times, the path evolution takes is rarely a straight one, at least for long!
The famous example of the "crocoduck", a strange and entirely fictitious half-duck half-crocodile creature, is a good example of related misunderstanding of evolution writ large.
Evolution tells us that modern birds, including ducks, and modern reptiles, including today's crocodiles,share a common ancestor.
The crocoduck is the result of a misunderstanding about what conclusions we can draw about that ancestor from the relationship between the two modern species.
Birds and crocodiles share a common ancestor - but that ancestor was not a bird and was not a crocodile.
The misunderstanding comes from the false assumption that the features of this distant ancestor must therefore be a mix of the features of the two modern descendants - the modern crocodile and the modern duck.
Evolution does not say that "once upon a time there was a crocoduck, and it had two children, one of which was a duck and the other was a crocodile". The above assumption fails to take into account the vast amount of time..the huge number of generations...between the ancestor and the two modern descendants - time in which both lineages have been gradually and independently changing - diverging along different paths, becoming increasingly different not only from the common ancestor but also from each other.
Evolution lets us look back along those paths, into the deep mists of the ancient past, all the way back to the distant time where they join - the time when the common ancestor of modern ducks and modern crocodiles lived. What would evolution suggest this common ancestor have looked like?
First of all, unlike the crocoduck, it almost certainly didn't have feathers. These evolved much later than the time of the common ancestor, a long way down the path that happened to lead to modern birds. Expecting the distant common ancestor to have a combination of the features of its modern descendants is a little like expecting the Model T Ford to look like a combination of the Ford Mondeo and the Ford GT-90.
There will likely be some core features in common between the ancestor and the descendants, basic features that remained essential to functionality throughout the changes in the environment over time (such as eyes and wheels in these examples), but many of the features present in the modern examples simply didn't exist back in the ancestor's day.
It is possible for a common ancestor of two very different-looking modern species to closely resemble one of those modern species and not the other - part of the ancestor species' population could branch off into a different environmental niche (and over time become very different in appearance) while the rest stay where they were and change very little over the millennia (if there environmental niche remained largely unchanged, and there was no selection pressure from predators for example).
As it happens, the common ancestor of the crocodile and the duck would have looked a lot more like a crocodile than a duck, largely because it was been a quadrupedal reptile.
The line that lead from the common ancestor to the modern crocodile retained the quadrupedal stance over the millennia, whereas the line that lead from the common ancestor to the modern duck gradually evolved a bipedal stance, with the front limbs (now upper limbs) becoming first arms, and then wings, becoming birds. This line also evolved feathers, which greatly changed its appearance compared to the common ancestor, whereas the crocodile line remained featherless (although their scaled hide evolved over time too)
Evolution does not lead us to expect the ridiculous half-and-half hybrids (combinations of two modern species) that opponents of evolution often mock it for.
Myth #2: Darwin's theory inspired the Nazi's evil eugenics / genocide
Eugenics is a form of artificial selection an intelligently directed process to achieve a particular purpose (a horrific purpose in the case of the Nazis).
Darwin's theory explains how species have changed over time without the need for artificial selection - the core of Darwin's theory is natural selection .
It is the lack of a need for an intelligent director in Darwin's theory that made it so controversial it explains how complex life forms can arise from simple beginnings without an intelligent designer, without any artificial selection.
As such, Darwin's theory of natural selection cannot reasonably be said to be the inspiration for the artificial selection of Nazi eugenics. Artificial selection was known (and practised) by humans for many centuries before Darwin was born it is through artificial selection (selective breeding) that humans shaped dogs and farm animals to better suit human purposes.
Darwin's theory tells us that in nature beneficial traits are more likely to be passed on to future generations than negative traits, due to natural selection (I.e. Without any intelligent direction or conscious choice).
It does not tell us whether what happens in nature is morally good or bad Darwin's theory is amoral (not immoral!), just like Newton's theory of gravitation. It cannot be used to help us judge what is right or wrong, or to tell us how we should behave, any more than Newton's Laws of Motion can tell us how we should behave (it tells us how we DO behave if we fall of a cliff, but it doesn't tell us that the falling is morally good or bad and couldn't reasonably be blamed if someone decided to throw others off cliffs).
Therefore anyone attempting to use Darwin's theories to morally justify genocide is fundamentally misunderstanding Darwin's theory and its scope they are misapplying biological principles onto the realms of ethics and politics. To jump from Darwin's "this happens in nature" to "therefore it is morally good" is to commit the naturalistic fallacy.
As it happens, Hitler made no mention of Darwin, but even if he had claimed to have been influenced by Darwin's theory it would have been his own misunderstanding of Darwin's theory that lead him to his despicable genocide he would have been committing the naturalistic fallacy, and failing to understand that Darwin's theory is about natural rather than artificial selection.
There's many and relating to evolution, but I hope the above goes some way towards correcting those two particular oft-repeated misunderstandings.
The natural world is complex and beautiful, and all the more so as our understanding of it increases.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)and.........dolphins evolved from cows..true.Meanwhile, I once read once that biological life may have evolved from a virus, which presents a difficult conundrum given that virus's require biological life forms to exist...I also read that it is virus's that generally prompt an evolutionary change and thus when we as humans kill off virus's that we are in danger of, we are in a way preventing our own further evolution.Fascinating topic"and.........dolphins evolved from cows..true."
Yep. From fish to reptiles to land mammals to sea mammals that resemble fish. It's a funny old world ;-)"Meanwhile, I once read once that biological life may have evolved from a virus, which presents a difficult conundrum given that virus's require biological life forms to exist..."
Life didn't evolve from a virus - as you suggest this would be impossible, since virii, by definition, cannot reproduce without "hijacking" the machinery in an existing living cell.
However, the original replicators would have been simpler than even the simplest single-celled life forms, so would be closer in form to virii than to cell-based living things.
It is increasingly believed that the eukaryotic cell (which is the sort of which we are composed) may be the result of having incorporated viral DNA in the distant past. Our mitochondria have their own genome."I also read that it is virus's that generally prompt an evolutionary change and thus when we as humans kill off virus's that we are in danger of, we are in a way preventing our own further evolution."
Well, it is true that virii can sometimes trigger mutation, and that life-forms that are more resistant to harmful virii in their environment will be favoured by natural selection, but killing virii isn't going to have a detrimental effect on our evolution in general terms.
Mutations will still occur (cosmic rays are the cause of many), and selection will still occur. If we eliminated harmful virii it is possible that our immune system's effectiveness against virii would diminish over time, so if a new virus suddenly appeared we'd potentially be more at risk than if we'd been struggling with viral infections in the mean time. But the lack of waging an arms race with virii might lead to progress in other areas, so its all quite speculative."Fascinating topic"
Very!
Thanks for reading!
Ben, it all stared somewhere and they can go as far back as they want but in this case nothing begot something. Check you vitamin bottle and you will see what we are. "Remember man that thou are dust and to dust you shall return." Oh, how hard a pill or many if not most to swallow. Best Wishes."Ben, it all stared somewhere and they can go as far back as they want but in this case nothing begot something. "
Non-replicating materials came into a combination that happened to possess the property of self-replication.
Evolution and the Bible agree in that - we were shaped from inanimate material. The difference is in the process - naturalistic abiogenesis or divine intervention.
""Remember man that thou are dust and to dust you shall return." Oh, how hard a pill or many if not most to swallow. Best Wishes."
I agree with this completely - we were born of "dust" and will one day return to that state. A difficult pill to swallow, but such beauty is available to us during our brief time between the dusts!Ben,Here's the scoop: You have a choice. God is not down on his knees begging for you to believe in Him. He gave man; i.e., civilized man, homo sapien sapiens as described in the story of creation in the Bible, free will.If you did believe, you might understand alot of the metaphors used in the Biblical story, and the specific culture which he is describing." In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." and then He proceeds to say "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters"Now, here you have him saying that he created the heaven and the earth, but then speaks about an earth already in existence as a metaphor: it was " without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the earth" This metaphor is describing a place without God's intervention, darkness is a strong symbol of evil in ancient times. So, therefore one might conclude an earth full of dinosaurs and neanderthals, etc..whatever that was uncivilized and without God.Christians believe that homo sapien sapiens was this creation of man that he was talking about that was in His image - their image. So, we believe than man was a separate creation, not an evolved species.But, as I said: you have a choice to believe in God, God's or no God. But to believe in nothing, no one, and that all of this beauty on our earth was created by mere accident, and that there is no one looking out for you is a dark place. But if you do not find it so, is your business.But this monotheism and Christianity is an extremely complicated story, much more so than an average person might understand. And it is a pity that way.All I am saying, is that I hope that you might not debunk the alternative, without first coming to understand it correctly.For you, I recommend reading N.T. Wright's "Simply Christian." N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham, England. I think you would enjoy his perspective, which to me, is the absolute correct one.Jennifer"You have a choice. God is not down on his knees begging for you to believe in Him. He gave man; i.e., civilized man, homo sapien sapiens as described in the story of creation in the Bible, free will."
Isn't the choice believe and worship or burn in hell for eternity?
That doesn't sound like a free choice to me!
"If you did believe, you might understand alot of the metaphors used in the Biblical story, and the specific culture which he is describing."
There's no need to believe to understand the metaphors (although perhaps one needs to believe to know which bits are meant to be literal and which are meant only metaphorically, although even among believers there seems to be little agreement!)"This metaphor is describing a place without God's intervention, darkness is a strong symbol of evil in ancient times"
A place without God's intervention? So a place not created by him?
"So, therefore one might conclude an earth full of dinosaurs and neanderthals, etc..whatever that was uncivilized and without God."
One might well conclude that anyway, since there's no evidence of civilization or God from that time. I'm not sure I'm understanding you though, the metaphor seems to be being used as a literal statement now - are you saying the world existed for billions of years without God, with dinosaurs and so on evolving without him?
"Christians believe that homo sapien sapiens was this creation of man that he was talking about that was in His image - their image. So, we believe than man was a separate creation, not an evolved species."
I know, but the evidence indicates extremely strongly that we are an evolved species, and are not fundamentally different from the other species in any way. Our genome and physiology indicates common descent and shared ancestors with other species."But to believe in nothing, no one, and that all of this beauty on our earth was created by mere accident, and that there is no one looking out for you is a dark place. But if you do not find it so, is your business."
This universe is a wondrous place, and I am part of it, and awed by it. Lack of belief in God does't mean someone believes "in nothing, no one". It doesn't mean there's no-one looking out for me either - I have friends and family who do just that (and I for them). There's no evidence that God "looks out" for people on earth - for example, Christians don't have better survival rates in natural disasters, traffic accidents etc than non-Christians. If God was looking out for them here on earth, there would be evidence of it!"But this monotheism and Christianity is an extremely complicated story, much more so than an average person might understand. And it is a pity that way."
The history of monotheism and its evolution from earlier forms to modern Christianity, Islam and Judaism is long and complicated, but any average person who wants to understand can do so if they make the effort to study the available materials."For you, I recommend reading N.T. Wright's "Simply Christian." N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham, England. I think you would enjoy his perspective, which to me, is the absolute correct one."
Thanks for recommendation. He wrote "we can't ever earn God's favour by our own moral effort'", and that isn't a perspective I can enjoy - a God that doesn't favour people who lead good, moral lives isn't a God I'd want anything to do with!
Thanks for reading!OK.Believe what you want to believe..There is free choice..you've learned an incorrect interpretation.What is incorrect about it, and how do we judge which interpretation is correct?If you search for it, God will show you the Truth. And you will know it when you hear it. My next article will be about alot of the symbology in Genesis through to Leviticus. The Bible itself is quite fascinating. It is somehow true and at the same time metaphor. It was spoken ( or written, divinely inspired) in the past, in present tense ( with the exception of prophecy ), to be read and understood in the future ( now) or upon it's completion through Jesus Christ, who was all along part of God's rescue plan for humanity after the fall.Wright is correct to say that salvation is not by works, it is by faith that you become saved and the Holy Spirit fills you. But you must first give belief a chance, with a true heart. This leads to inevitable good works when you understand the philosophy, and the Holy Spirit resides within you.And when God told this to Adam that he will turn to dust, this is also a metaphor. From out of nothing he was made, and to nothing he will return. And note that he was pre-flood, pre-covenant.I can only say this once to you, because you won't understand until you are ready and willing. If not, you can always hold onto atheism, which is your free choice.Take care,Jennifer
Ben, I only read your title. Evolution is a scientific fact. Accept it.I do accept evolution....very much so in fact! It was myths about evolution I was trying to bust :)It is a theory and not even the highest most intelligent scientists even take a second look at evolution anymore. Man has been proven to be wrong! I love how evolutionist say that it is a fact but if they would take what they teach that something that is a fact (law) has to be recreated over and over and get the same results and this does not. They were not there so they use fluffy words like "imagine" or "we think", or "might have been", which does not sound like fact to me. It takes more faith for you to believe we came from some slime or the bang then it does to believe we came from God. How can you explain the billions of cells that we have that need to work exactly perfect for us to live and have it happen by chance? A single cell works like "New York City" and it all has to work correctly for the cell to survive. It could not be incremental changes because if one little part does not work properly, we die. It is a way for people to have no moral code and believe they can live how they want without any repercussions and I will pray for all Atheist to see the error of their ways. Also, you can't be an evolutionist and a Christian because if you believe in millions of years, then death and disease came before the "Fall" and then their would be no need for Christ.Firstly, you don't seem to understand what the term theory means in relation to science - it does not mean mere conjecture or hypothesis, but rather a model that fits observed data and has stood up to critical scrutiny.
Secondly, "not even the highest most intelligent scientists even take a second look at evolution any more" is demonstrably untrue.
Almost all of the "highest" and most highly respected scientists in every field of science accept the fact of evolution, and accept that the mechanism of evolution is natural selection. You can see a list of a few of them if you google "Project Steve".
This includes many religious scientists. Can you name any notable, credible scientists who reject evolution? Can you name any credible scientific institutions that reject evolution?
With regard to evolution, it is something that has been observed repeatedly (and the theory has made many testable predictions which have been later confirmed to have been correct), so we don't need fluffy language like "might have been" when talking broadly about evolution because we know - we know beyond reasonable doubt that evolution occurs - in part because we have seen it happen under controlled circumstances.
Evolution is a very broad theory - there are many specifics within it that are still subject to speculation (e.g. the precise lineage of a particular organism) - for those it is appropriate to use language like "we think", but that's why science is still going on - it's not done yet, and there's always more to find out.
It takes no faith to accept evolution, all you need is a willingness to go where the evidence leads, and in the case of evolution the evidence is overwhelming.
You say "How can you explain the billions of cells that we have that need to work exactly perfect for us to live and have it happen by chance", but this just shows a common misunderstanding of evolution - evolution does not suggest ordered complexity comes about through mere chance.
Also, your statement that evolution is a way for people to have no moral code, that is clearly nonsense - many people who accept evolution are religious and follow the same moral codes as others of their faith.
Furthermore, the atheists who accept evolution are demonstrably at least as moral as their non-atheist counterparts - check out the percentage of atheists in the prison population for example - they are massively under-represented there, especially for crimes of violence. The evidence is very clear that atheists are no more likely to commit immoral acts - in fact it suggests they are, generally speaking, less likely to.
Your suggestion that atheists think they can live how they want without repercussions is obviously flawed - atheists may not believe in God, but they do believe in the existence of, for example, the police. And given that most atheists don't believe in an afterlife, they are particularly unlikely to want to spend this earthly life in a prison cell!
You can accept evolution and be a Christian - there are millions of Christians who accept evolution - the Pope being one example, the Archbishop of Canterbury being another. Your version of Christianity is not the only one!
That was a great article, and I can appreciate that Jen spoke her mind clearly and respectfully, though I don't agree with her position.A few years ago there were people riding all over Los Angeles with bumper stickers that said "Jesus Is God - Read the Bible!" I always wondered if that meant "Jesus is God, oh and by the way, read the Bible" or "Jesus Is God - and if you don't believe me, than just read the Bible and it'll PROVE it to you." But if you don't believe Jesus is God, than what the Bible says would have no...ah, nevermind.Christians like Jen always puzzle me. How can they quote Genesis, then distance themselves from the violent, narrow-minded, sadistic, bloodthirsty killer who by his own admission annihilates people because he is angry and jealous? If Jesus was who he said he was, he should have taken God on first. Lucifer was a Care Bear compared to Jehova, who had cities burned and pillaged, women raped, children slaughtered, who launched pestilence and plague and horrific suffering on humanity at even the slightest provocation. Satan deceived, God wiped people out by the thousands. He would have been a true revolutionary teacher's first opponent. Of course, if you believe Jesus was SENT by him, therein lies the conflict. Maybe God had an epiphany and realized HE was actually the world's devil, had a change of heart but couldn't humble himself to say "Ooops. Sorry 'bout all the mass murder and stuff" and so instead sent/hired Jesus to do some PR. Probably not though.I love that the guy who posted just above me took the time to read only your title, and then spent more time typing a response than he initially took to even explore your posting. That's the human being for you, taking more time to criticize their misinterpretation of your ideas than they do to review them. Just like Kirk Cameron's kindergarten crusade against the crocoduck.You obviously know nothing about Scripture and what God is about....God is a loving, fair, and just God, who like your parents, punished you when you were bad. He made us perfect in the beginning but because of the "fall" we became sinful and fell away from God. He made us to Love Him and glorify Him. We have death and disease in the world because of what we did in the "Fall" and when Jesus comes back; He will raise us up and take those who believe to Heaven. I pray that all people that do not know Jesus will follow Him, because at the end of the day, if you are wrong, what a huge mistake.
By the way, Jesus is God. Look at Scripture.....Gen 1; John 1:1 and I could list another hundred that prove that. And you to rip on other people that post on here when you are ranting about things you have no idea about makes me laugh. Please do your research.You say God is fair and just, yet you then go on to say he put death and disease in the world, and allows them to remain today, as punishment for the sins of Adam and Eve. Countless innocent children die horrible deaths every day due to disease. That is very clearly unfair and unjust - the people being punished are innocent of the supposed crime.
Also, if we were made perfect, we could not possibly have fallen... it must have been an imperfection that lead to imperfect choice and sin.
That the scripture says Jesus is God doesn't make it so, and is not evidence, never mind proof, that Jesus is God. It is merely unsupported assertion.
I have no doubt God created the world and life on it. It's "HOW" he done it, I don't believe in the biblical version of Adam and Eve. I don't leave some theories of evolution out of the picture. Will anyone ever know for certain?Evolution certainly doesn't rule out a divine creator of the universe, or of the first life.It just explains how the first, simple life became the diverse and often complex life we see today. As you say, a divine being could have used evolution as the process for getting to complex life.We will probably never know *anything* with absolute certainty, but evolution is about as certain as we can get.Thanks for reading David!
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