I have decided to write a letter to the editor. Not that I have ever been published, but who knows. I suspect unless the paper is generous my letter is a wee bit too long. Actually its most probably very long. So perhaps help on how to cut down, or check if I made any mistakes would be appreciated.
Preliminary draft
In the intelligent design / creationism vs evolution debate, I asked myself, do I believe in evolution? I no more believe in evolution than I believe the sky is blue. Unlike religion, reality does not require my belief. It exists and happens regardless of whether I believe in it, or not.
Reading through previous letters it is obvious a lot of people don’t understand the first thing about evolution. It is not the theory of how the universe came from nothing. (That’s Genesis, as described in a book of fairy tales known as the Bible). It is not the theory of how life came from non life as W.J. Francis, letters 16/8 seems to think (That’s abiogenesis, but since Creationists never bother to study the theory they “debunk” its understandable they tend to get confused). Its is not a purely random process as Paul Hammond, letters 15/8 believes – it is a combination of random mutations and NON RANDOM natural selection.
Evolution to put it in layman’s terms, is the changes which occur in the population of a species over time. It is both a fact and a theory. We have seen bacteria become antibiotic resistant. We have seen insects become resistant to pesticides. This demonstrates one part of the evolutionary process known as anagenesis. The other part of evolution, speciation occurs when little changes build up and the species evolves into another one. Andrew Sneddon, letters 16/8 asks “has anyone experimentally reproduced one species evolving into another”?
The answer is a resounding yes. We have isolated 2 populations of worms (the same species) into different environments and over time find that the two populations are markedly different. We have done the same to fruit flies and found the same result. How do we tell the populations have become a different species? Because as any high school student who studied biology can tell you, the two populations can no longer interbreed with each other, but can breed among themselves. Ergo evolution is an observed fact. While scientists have been gathering information to increase our knowledge, the Creationists have put their hands over their ears singing lah lah lah lah.
The theory of evolution is the explanation of how evolution (the observed fact) works – through a process of random mutations (which have been observed) and non random natural selection – where those individuals with genetic advantages survive to pass their genes onto their offspring. Like any scientific theory which has been tested it is considered a fact as well, but with the proviso that it can be modified or even discarded as new evidence comes to light. There is nothing “just a theory” about a scientific one.
After more than 100 years increasing our knowledge, the how it works (Darwin did not know about mutations), the how fast it works and even what something has evolved into has been modified, but the core tenant that species will change over time and eventually become divergent has stood the test of time. The dyslexic Creationist will jump up and down and say, “hah, when a human becomes resistant to drugs what does he evolve into?” Remember the definition; changes which occur in the POPULATION of a species over time. Individuals do not evolve (that only occurs in the children’s cartoon Pokemon), populations do. Populations evolve because the descendents are vastly different from their ancestors (due to different genes and the frequency of these genes in the population - just like antibiotic resistant bacteria) and not because the ancestor magically changes his DNA to pass this change down to the offspring (by the way, if the Creationist actually bothered to do research they would know that we become drug resistant because our liver synthesizes more enzymes to metabolise said drug).
Evolution is a science. Like all sciences, it begins with OBSERVATIONS / MEASUREMENTS. Its is then followed by a HYPOTHESIS, an untested explanation. This explanation is then tested by making PREDICTIONS and seeing whether EXPERIMENTATION will show these predictions. Once it has passed these tests it is the accepted theory. Using this scientific method we have eliminated theories which just didn’t cut it. This is why we no longer accept the Sun orbits the Earth; this is why Lamarckian theory of evolution has been confined to the footnotes of history, while Darwinian theory of evolution persists. This is why evolution is not, nor should it be taken on faith. Valerie Graham, letters 20/8 doubts whether teachers apply the scientific method to the science they teach. That is irrelevant as scientist have already done so. The teachers’ job at high school level is to teach the findings and how to apply them.
Creationism and Intelligent Design (hence forth dubbed ID) is a pseudoscience – the art of using scientific terms to describe unscientific ideas. Such people seem to think that a science merely compose of using numerous scientific sounding jargon. If that was the case, an episode of Star Trek would be considered scientific. But whilst Star Trek never pretends to be any thing more than a work of science fiction, Creationism / ID advocates actually believe their ideas have grains of truth to them. Unlike the scientific method, Creationism works from the opposite direction. It assumes the theory is correct (rather than what is observed), and any observations that don’t match the theory are ignored, or explained away, even when said explanation has no evidence to support it. Both Creationism and ID rely on a variable which cannot be observed, quantified yet alone tested. In the former case God, in the latter God, er I mean the Intelligent Designer. These ideas claim to be scientific, yet they don’t subject themselves to the scientific method. It is through this method and not fancy jargon that makes an idea scientific.
Creationism is the belief (taken on faith because it hasn’t got any evidence to support it) that creation occurred as describe in the Bible. It is a theory (not a scientific one) in that it can make predictions (which are shown to be false). For example the Noah’s Ark story and how life was repopulated after a global flood devastated the world. We can predict the size of the ark construction (false because purely wooden boats cannot reach that size because wood is not strong enough), we can predict that all a male and a female of the known species will fit into the ark (false – the dimensions given in the Bible are too small), and we can predict there should be enough water to cover the Earth (false – that much water has not been observed), and this is just to name a few of the obvious flaws with the Noah’s ark story.
ID is the belief that an Intelligent Designer set things in motion. Unlike Creationism, ID does not even make any predictions. Remember, a theory must make predictions, so ID isn’t even “just a theory”. ID’s argument is based on the “irreducible complexity”, where something being complex cannot have evolved naturally so it needed a helping hand. Not only is the idea of using a variable which has not been observed either directly or indirectly (the Intelligent Designer) to explain something logically fallacious, the idea that something complex could not have evolved from simpler things was old even during Darwin’s time, and arguments existed even then to refute it.
ID and Creationism have tried to play with sciences rules, but are unable to compete against real scientific theories. So their advocates now attempt to debate in the public arena rather than the scientific ones. There has been no scientific peer review paper published arguing either of them, perhaps because they realise they would be laughed at by the majority of real scientists. But its much easier to convince the public arena isn’t it? Its much easier to get people who don’t even take the time to learn what evolution really is to take your side. Its much easier to appeal to the intellectually lazy people, who cry that because the world is beautiful (and they are too lazy to figure out how it came about) lets just assume God did it. Can you imagine if police just shrugged when a crime has been committed, don’t bother to elicit who did the crime but just said “Satan did it”. Or Doctors who just shrug when an unclear disease afflicts a patient and say “Nature’s doing it”. How far would those professions get if they put every mystery into the “too hard basket”. How far would humanity have come, if every unexplained phenomena was simply attributed to God instead of trying to elicit “what” and “how”. And Creationist wonder why rational people treat them like they are stupid.
WHY is the public arena more qualified to decide what is scientific than real scientists? Can any one demand they be selected to play for the Eagles when they can’t play properly just to preserve “balance”. Perhaps then Creationist won’t mind giving sceptics equal time in the Church to air their views in a bid to preserve balance? Sorry, but the purpose of the science class is to teach science, and the truth, not fairy tales and falsehoods. Although I don’t mind Creationism / ID being mentioned in science class as an example of a pseudoscience and ridiculed by teachers.
No doubt there will be some Creationist out there believing I have obviously been blinded by Satan and they will kindly pray for me. That’s nice. In return I will think for them.
