Feedback for December 1997

Darwin and his critics; the reception of Darwin's theory of evolution by the scientific community, David L. Hull. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1973.

This book has excerpts from contemporaries and later of Darwin with an introduction by Hull on the significance of each piece.

A readable overview of Darwin's impact is found in

Charles Darwin: The Man and his Influence, Peter J Bowler Blackwell, Oxford, 1990

Literary and philosophical responses are given in

Appleman, Philip, ed. Darwin., New York, Norton, 1970

which is still in print. Appleman also has a book of poetry on Darwin:

Darwin's ark: poems by Philip Appleman; illustrations by Rudy Pozzatti. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1984

A handy social background to the scientific debates is

The Darwinian revolution: science red in tooth and claw, Michael Ruse. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1979

The philosophical impact of Darwinism is dealt with in many books. The most accessible is

The triumph of the Darwinian method with a new preface, Michael T. Ghiselin, Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1984, c1969

If you want to understand the background to the social Darwinism movement read

Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860-1945: nature as model and nature as threat, Mike Hawkins, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997

I haven't read this yet, but it supercedes the older book by Hofstadter.

The influence of Darwinism on eugenics is admirably covered in detail by

In the name of eugenics: genetics and the uses of human heredity by Daniel J. Kevles, New York : Knopf, 1985

I think that you are right that information (which is defined in Shannon-Weaver information theory as the number of bits required to specify the message in a given protocol, that is, the number of binary decisions to reach the final state of the message) is relative to the interpretation. This is, after all, what the protocols of computer networks do; they specify how the packets of information are to be encoded and decoded. And that's what the DNA code does for enzymes and polypeptides and the like that go to make up an organism; it interprets the code in physical terms.

Your creationist conversant might like to reflect on "noise" and "error propagation" as well; if we think of genes as messages, then mutations are the noise in the transmission, which can get propagated if the circumstances are right, and eventually even become the message (if it makes more "sense" in that protocol).

Humans are one among many large organisms, but we may or may not survive for very long, in evolutionary terms. Certainly the effect we have on the environment is evolutionarily important, but there is no real evidence that we are changing our genetic makeup in any significant manner and even if we engineer new genetic information in some humans, the bulk of humanity is likely to be pretty much the same as it has been for tens of thousands of years.

Humans are still subject to natural selection (which operates over periods of time far longer than mere cultural timescales), and evidence of that is clear in the research done into, for example, sickle cell anemia in regions where malaria is endemic. The gene frequencies for this condition conform to the predictions of natural selection, called the Hardy-Weinberg Equiblibrium.

If all humans were exterminated tomorrow, evolution would continue to proceed, with some organisms adapting to the new environment and others becoming extinct. We do not "cap" evolution, even though we think of ourselves as the "final" stage.

What evolution proposes is that imperfectly reproducing entities will, given enough time, diversify to a wide range of forms. Since your books are not reproducing entities, they are not a good analogy for evolutionary processes.

I am glad that you have found the information here to be useful.

The Talk.Origins Archive is indeed maintained by many people. The computer carrying the site is maintained by Brett Vickers, so he has final determination over the contents of the site, quite obviously. The various FAQs found in the archive are written and updated by their respective authors. Responses to feedback (such as this one) are given by a number of people, including myself and Mr. Vickers. Each of us has our own viewpoints, of course, but we all try to respond in the spirit of the archive's charter as stated on its home page:

This archive is a collection of articles and essays, most of which have appeared in talk.origins at one time or another. The primary reason for this archive's existence is to provide mainstream scientific responses to the many frequently asked questions (FAQs) and frequently rebutted assertions that appear in talk.origins.

We try to be as objective as possible about the prevailing scientific evidence on the questions of origins. This does mean that we do not satisfy everyone, and we are often accused of bias or a lack of objectivity. Our response is that the creationist viewpoint is best presented by the creationists themselves, and to that end we provide a large list of links to other sites, including many creationist Web sites.

Regarding your comments on faith, I would point out that the only "faith" involved in examining scientific evidence is the faith that one's eyes and ears are not deceivers, a "faith" which is just as necessary for religious belief--indeed, which is necessary for sanity--as it is for making scientific observations.

At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble, though it remains the "official" position of most Western evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between Bauplane are almost impossible to construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do not count). (Eldredge and Gould, 1977)

See Chris Nedin's article, Archaeopteryx, the Challenge of the Fossil Record, for the full context and an explanation.

Note that this fact of evolution is distinguished from the theory of evolution (actually, theories). Theories in evolutionary biology are like theories in any other branch of science; they are models based on evidence that make predictions about future observations. See the Evolution is a Fact and a Theory FAQ for more information on the distinction between the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution.

Any change in the genetic makeup of a population of organisms over time is evolutionary by definition; and the peppered moth illustrates just such a change. It serves as a good example of how natural selection leads to such evolutionary changes, and how evolutionary change can be observed occuring at present.

If you think that this is not a valid example of evolution because it does not involve generation of new species or new organs, then you have not yet understood evolutionary theory, and you may like to consider those moths more carefully. Change is cummulative. Small rates of change, over long periods of time, can lead to arbitrarily large differences. The moths are a case of relatively rapid evolutionary change. Such natural selection, together with the observed continuous introduction of random genetic variation by slightly imperfect reproduction, is the theoretical basis for evolution.

The fact of evolution -- that all the present diverse forms of life arose over a long periods of time by descent and divergence from common ancestral populations -- has been established beyond any serious doubt. The theory -- the explanatory framework for that fact -- is founded on the notion of evolutionary change, which is change in heritable characteristics in populations over time. One process which affects that change is natural selection, and the moths serve as a good example of that evolutionary effect in operation.

Your "answers" appear to be speculations, without any reference to evidence, and precious little to the bible. Anyone can make up such "answers", but quite rightly they have no real impact on either theology or science.

1. The Catholic church recognizes the theory of evolution as a legitimate scientific theory.
2. Evolution is a complex and diverse set of scientific theories, with over one hundred years of amassed evidence and development. I hardly think a one-hour video can suffice to wholly refute it.

This archive is a collection of articles and essays, most of which have appeared in talk.origins at one time or another. The primary reason for this archive's existence is to provide mainstream scientific responses to the many frequently asked questions (FAQs) and frequently rebutted assertions that appear in talk.origins.

The Talk.Origins Archive makes no attempt to hide that it is presenting the mainstream scientific views on the questions of origins. It is the policy of the Talk.Origins Archive to allow "scientific creationists" to present their own views. As such, the Talk.Origins Archive has a large list of links to Web sites where creationists present their arguments.

As for "racist," I'm not sure what you mean. As racism is indefensible on scientific grounds, it is hard to see how a site committed to presenting mainstream scientific views could be promoting racism.

The "light decay" argument is a fallacy cooked up by "young earth" creationists to try to explain the fact that we see galaxies as they existed billions of years ago.

Please refer to talk origins faqs file The Decay of c-decay and Is the Speed of Light Slowing Down? of my web page for detailed information.

My advice is to accept what is supported by the factual evidence, and be skeptical of what is not. Don't be swayed by unsupported "expert" opinions and fallacious arguments.

The factual evidence does not rule out the existence of a creator God. It only rules out the dogma that creation occurred as described in the Book of Genesis.

One argument to give your protesting students is that they will continue to encounter people who have studied what biologists actually say about evolution, and that if they want to have a better chance of countering evolutionary ideas, it helps to know what those are first.

When I took the core sequence of biology courses in my undergraduate days, the first thing that my instructor addressed was the issue of origins. What he said then was that while some people preferred a religious explanation for origins, that the course would cover only what science so far had to offer, and that discussion of extra-scientific ideas would not be part of the course.

Ideas that we disagree with do not go away simply because we ignore them. The best course, it seems to me, is to examine them, and to that end I have read widely in anti-evolution books, although I have consistently disagreed with the ideas presented therein. I have found that it doesn't hurt to know your correspondent's arguments better than they do themselves.

It will be interesting to see the contents of L. Spetner's new book. Hopefully, he'll do better with this set of critiques than he did in claiming that Archaeopteryx was a hoax.

Secondly, understand that the sense of "theory" in "evolution is a theory" implies that all scientific knowledge is theoretical. All of it. Even the bits that drive your TV. After all, nobody's ever seen an electron, at least, not without some pretty highly derived equipment and theories of physics. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure even the most skeptical type doesn't want to test the theory of electricity by sticking their fingers into a power socket.

The Evolution is a Fact and a Theory FAQ gives some basic definitions. There are some serious collections of fact in evolutionary science and reconstructions, and the transmutation of species over time is as solid a conclusion as any other in science - all the evidence points to it. Moreover, natural selection, the mechanism Darwin posited as the cause for evolution, has been seen in action. It is no longer "just a theory" in any sense of the word. Everything that is generally included under the notion of evolution except for the origin of a new phylum or kingdom has been seen or is a very solid hypothesis.

Now, if we taught these sorts of fine semantic discriminations to primary and secondary school students, would we be helping them to understand science? Would we encourage them to take it up? Would we be equipping them to be able to enter into debates about public policy such as ecological issues from a position of knowledge? No, we would not. These are the aims of educating students about science. It isn't the "gee-whiz" factor; it isn't to find the "meaning of life" and it isn't to promote a moral or theological code. It is to aid in the understanding about the real world, the physical world, and to help us make decisions based on whatever public or private morality we may have that are at least grounded in fact. And make no mistake, evolution and natural selection are facts.