There Is No Theory of Evolution
| February 20, 2007 | Posted by Dave S. under Darwinism |
The major claims of evolution are the creation of novel cell types, tissue types, organs, and body plans. These are required to get from bacteria to baboons. No evolution of these by any means has been observed. They simply appear fully formed in the fossil record and can be observed fully formed in living things today. Given the definition of a theory as a well tested explanation there is no theory of evolution but rather only hypotheses of evolution. Until a hypothetical mechanism is observed doing that which it is claimed it can do these mechanisms remain hypothetical. Honest scientists admit this. For example:
“The history of organic life is undemonstrable; we cannot prove a whole lot in evolutionary biology, and our findings will always be hypothesis. There is one true evolutionary history of life, and whether we will actually ever know it is not likely. Most importantly, we have to think about questioning underlying assumptions, whether we are dealing with molecules or anything else.†Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, February 9, 2007, Source
On the other hand, dishonest scientists applaud suing a public school for adding the following disclaimer to a biology textbook
This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.
The school was even kind enough to call it a theory instead of an hypothesis. Amazing, isn’t it?
43 Responses to There Is No Theory of Evolution
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Jerry,
I guess it makes sense that they talk past each other, since they have completely different world views. It’d be like a hindu and a christian trying to discuss the afterlife. Their underlying assumtions are so different that they’re not going to get anywhere.
I remember watching a Doctor Phil episode (lol) where he pointed out that many couples argue about money when money is not actually the root issue. I think the same is true of this argument. Unfortunately there is too little evidence one way or another for either to drop their fundamental premise.
The ramifications for each party if they are wrong can sadly lead to the scathing, almost demoniac responses such as that of Dougs above, although perhaps this does serve to expose the underlying issues.
peanutaxis,
“Does anyone have any arguments for ID that don’t involve picking holes in other theories? I’d be interested.”
I think the core issue here is about coded information that we discovered in the biological systems in the past few decades.
Perry Marchall put it this way:
1. All languages, codes, protocols and encoding / decoding mechanisms that we know the origin of come from a mind – there are no known exceptions
2. DNA is a language, a code, a protocol, and an encoding / decoding mechanism
3. Therefore DNA came from a mind.
You can read further
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/infotheoryqa.htm
I can also recommend this book that can be found on line for free:
Werner Gitt: In the Beginning was information
http://clv.dyndns.info/pdf/255255.pdf
wingless
Let’s not accuse scientists of being dishonest.
If the shoe fits then yes, let us do just that.
j & bfast
Many worlds and multiverse hypotheses don’t pass the giggle test.
Inunison,
Ah, that is an interesting argument! Following the links I can see that the refutation will involve the first premise, and again goes back to whether information can pop out of disorder. (I am now wondering whether even the bonding of two hydrogen atoms involves information)?!
Nevertheless that is indeed a powerful argument. I think I may begin praying to the ID: Vishnu
Dishonesty is to me not about telling a lie in itself, but telling it with the purpose of deception.
Granted, there are probably some scientists who are dishonest, but I think that it’s wrong to generalize all who claim that evolution is a fact as dishonest.
Hi Folks:
Remember, once we are in the empirical world, we are dealing not with proof proper but with inferences to best explanation and associated comparative difficulties on factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory elegance vs simplisticness or ad hocracy.
Indeed, we cannot prove beyond all dispute that design produced say DNA — if we are willing to accept that lucky noise in some form can do somtehing so vastly beyond the probabilistic resources of the observed cosmos. But, at the same time if we accept that say the posts in this blog thread are credibly from agency not lucky noise, we are applying in effect the same sort of probabilistic explanatory filter that ID thinkers use on say DNA, with similar probabilities and digital strings.
So then we are being inconsistent, driven by worldview level questions being begged?
GEM of TKI
Dishonesty is to me not about telling a lie in itself, but telling it with the purpose of deception.
I think a lie is always dishonest. I’d phrase your definition as telling falsehoods only becomes a lie if you know they are falsehoods and intend to deceive.
Now, I’d agree that scientists who insist that evolution is an established fact may not be lying.
They may be delusional. A delusional person, of course, is every bit as untrustworthy as a dishonest one.
And probably more dangerous. A simple cheat, I think, wouldn’t risk everything to destroy another person’s life and career just because he’s expressing doubts about an orthodoxy.
PA, et al:
I was in a bit of a rush above, and now again I need to be off to chain myself to the other PC, the one at the “real” Cyber world of work . . .
Kindly examine the discussion here [also linked through my name], then come back on the balance of the case, starting from the functionally specific nature of and probbailities of getting to sufficiently complex information [which is by definition contingent] through lucky noise, and how we respond to the probabilities when our worldvies are/are not at stake. Remember, too, complexity can kick in at about 500 bits worth as a reasonable criterion, given the configuration space that results, ~ 10^150. DNA systems in life forms have three or more orders of magnitude of bit space beyond that, 300 – 500 k GCAT elements.
It is fair comment to note that ID supporters and others who question evolutionatry materialism are not necessarily one or more of: ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.
[You may even like to take a stab at the closing section inter alia on issues of incoherence of such materialism, as say Plantinga often argues, most recently in his review of Dawkins.]
Heigh ho, heigh ho . . .
[Or, is it "I owe, I owe . . ."]
GEM of TKI.
PS Hi again T-7, I have been hanging around and couldn’t resist this one.
Some scientists, if not dihonest, really need to understand what the scientific method is about. I don’t pretend a deep understanding of the phylosophy of science by anyone who calls himself a scientist, but at least the elementary basics!
After reading again shameful statements of this kind:
“A scientific theory is an established and experimentally verified fact or collection of facts about the world. Unlike the everyday use of the word theory, it is not an unproved idea, or just some theoretical speculation. The latter meaning of a ‘theory’ in science is called a hypothesis.”
(from a “life science educational forum” called “What is life”)
or the infamous statement, so many times repeated by darwinists, even in peer reviewed articles, that:
“evolution is a fact, and not a theory”
and that, therefore, it is well superior to banal theories like gravitation and quantum mechanics,
my spirit of tolerance is seriously challenged.
Therefore, at the cost of seeming repetitive, i will state again that:
1) A scientific theory is never a fact.
2) Facts are observable things. A fact is always true, although its observation, quantification and description can be subject to errors.
3) Hypotheses and theories are of the same kind: a hypothesis is usually intended as the first phase of building a theory, to be veryfied by experimental tests, or just as a simpler form of theory.
4) Scientific theories are coordinated hypothetic models whose purpose is, by means of logical and mathematical modeling, to:
a) explain as best as possible known facts.
b) make previsions of new facts
5) A scientific theory can never be proved true. Indeed, such a kind of proof is reserved to logical and mathemathical theorems, and is intrinsecally deductive. Scientific theories are inferences, and can be more or less supported by facts (those already known, which caused the birth of the theory, and those which are discovered after, and which confirm the theory’s previsions).
6) According to Popper, a theory can be called scientific only if it is, in principle, falsifiable. But not everybody agrees about that.
6) A single, incontrovertible fact can falsify any theory at any moment, although common sense and caution should always be used before rejecting good theories, also in consideration of possible errors mentioned at point 2.
7) Scientific theories can remain valid even if not fully explaining all the known facts, or if their previsions are not completely verified, in the sense that it is always possible to discuss them or modify them, ot just use them as inspiration for further theories.
9) No scientific theory, although supported by facts, need be accepted by everyone. In that sense, ideal “true science” can never have any dogmatic “truth” (that follows from point 5).
10) Real, historical science, instead, is never independent from the culture which generates it. In that sense, it is always more or less biased.
11) Therefore, in real science, a lot of theories can, have been and are being considered “dogmatic truth” by part, often a very large part, of the scientific community, even if scarcely supported by facts (see evolution).
12) In that sense, many scientists are not “honest”, not in the sense that they want consciously to deceive, but in the sense that they are acting as scientists without understandig the nature and phylosophy of science, indeed contradicting its fundamental principles with their beliefs and actions (in other words, scientists are not perfect, and more specifically, they are not by definition objective).
13) A few scientists, obviously, may well be consciously deceiving others, to affirm their personal ideas, to defend their personal authority, to keep the echonomical power which comes from such an autority, or for any purpose you can imagine.
14) I don’t know the motives, but certainly stating that “a scientific theory is an established and experimentally verified fact or collection of facts about the world”, and arrogantly discarding the correct definition as a vulgar “everyday use of the word” is really beyond any justification.
PS: All the above points are obviously open to discussion. After all, they are theories, and not facts…
peanutaxis,
There is a definitely a root issue that underlies this argument and that is what it is really about. Some believe that the greatest driver of atheism in the world today is Darwin’s theory. It certainly drove Darwin to atheism and there is evidence from its greatest current proponents that they believe the two imply each other.
The atheists have used science standards as their justification for teach Darwinism so it is on that playing field that others are competing. Nothing more, nothing less. So knocking other theories is part of the game. Good defense beats mediocre offense all the time but only if the referees call an honest game. I have not seen honest dialect on this issue in the popular or science press.
ID would get a fairer hearing in the science community except it is heavily associated with fundamentalist Christian apologetics especially YEC. This forces many Christians or other non-atheists to line up reflexively with the atheists to defend bogus scientific explanations.
Dear Mr. Dembski or staff,
A high volume site is now linking to this article. Based on google hits, I think there has been over 200,000 views in very short time. The high volume will likely continue permanently although it may not be so dramatic.
Also, if Mr. Dembski or staff, could somehow “capture” the evolutionist website he links to (in case it disappears) that would be appreciated. http://mac10.umc.pitt.edu/m/FM.....#038;-Find