XXXXXXXXX@aol.com Wrote:
hi, i am chris and i just have one question about darwin.why do they
say hes dead and can you give my some facts about disproving his
theorys? because my thrird period teachers loves him and his work.
thank you for your time.
Fredric L. Rice replies:
Greetings, Chris!
Yes, this is a fairly silly thing that some people say and it's predicated
upon a profound ignorance of evolution and simple biology. Any biology
text you're likely to run into will cover evolution so when you hear
somebody say "Darwin is dead," you'll know that there's really
no excuse: public libraries are open to the public and such ignorance is
inexcusable.
A small percentage of Christians will say "Darwin is dead" because
they are unwilling to accept the fact of evolution which Darwin observed
and codified in his book, "The Origin of Species." Some believers
in gods have a problem accepting the fact of evolution because they
mistakenly believe it adversely impacts their faith.
Science concerns itself with testable claims, however,
and as such gods and goddesses, warewolves and vampires just don't factor
into science. Science doesn't concern itself with religious faith so it's
silly when believers in gods feel threatened by science. They should be
comfortable with their faith, you see, rather than try to attack science due
to their inability to understand science. That's the whole swatting idea
of faith, after all!
It's an unfortunate misconception to begin with since evolution is an
undeniable fact just like gravitation is yet a few percentage of Christians
who have a problem with evolution try to pretend that evolution is some kind
of religion and as such they may ignore the overwhelming evidence which shows
evolution to be fact. It's rather like trying to pretend that everyone who
accepts gravitation is part of a religion which "believes" in
gravitation -- never mind the fact that gravitation, like evolution, is
a directly observed phenomena.
Most theists accept the findings of science. A few have problems with
science -- as you can see with what theists did to Galileo. It took the
Vatican 360 years to "forgive" Galileo his "crime"
of observing the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun.
I find it somewhat amusing that the few remaining Christians who are
unwilling to accept the fact of evolution say "Darwin is dead."
It's an attempt to try to pretend that evolution is a religion and that
Darwin was some kind of god to those who accepted his observations.
Saying "Darwin is dead" is an attempt to say that people who
accept evolution are worshipping a dead god.
As far as disproving evolution, that's kind of difficult since evolution
is a directly observed phenomena. One would have to discount entirely the
change in allele frequency in a population over time which is observed
in species in the span of human lives. One could observe evolution and
argue the how of how it takes place but it would be a logical
absurdity to deny that it does in fact take place.
One major step toward disproving evolution would be to find fossils in the
earth's strata which are out of sequence in its geological collumn. If
there were trilobytes, for instance, mixed in with mammals in sites around
the world, that would disprove everything that's known about the history of
speciation and would eventually be a horrible wound to evolution; scientists
would need to find better explanations for the observed fact of changeing
allele frequencies in a population over time.
Evolution is both a fact and a number of closely-related theories.
(Gravitation is also a fact and there are two closely-related theories
which attempt to explain it.) Evolution is a directly observed phenomena
not subject to belief or disbelief. (Sure, it's subject to acceptance
and denial but that's not science's fault.)
Evolution is also a number of theories which seek to explain how evolution
takes place. The contemporary synthesis is called "Punctuated
Equalibrium" or "Punk Eeek." It's a minor variation on
the theory which has predominated paleontology, biology, and evolution
for several decades.
The fact that scientists debate the theory of evolution doesn't mean that
the fact of evolution is in dispute: no scientist speaking within his or
her area of education denies the fact that evolution takes place. It's the
same for physicists working on gravitation. The fact that gravitation
exists is undeniable even though there are two theories of gravitation
which physicts argue over.
So, in summary, find a fossil bed where trilobytes appear in the same strata
as mammals and one will have put a knife in the back of evolution. One will
also need to find fault with a bewildering amount of field work and lab work
which record observed speciation events and changes in the allele frequencies
of a population under investigation. That's a fdaunting task to say the
least.
It's an interesting subject, I think. Paleontology, geology, biology,
and even cosmology and astronomy factor into the theories of how evolution
works.
And you might dump this note of mine to paper and run it through your
instructor since your instructor will have a great more technical data on
hand than I currently have.
Carl Sagan said that any visiting aliens from other planetary systems will
determine the intelligence of the Human species by whether they have
discovered the fact of evolution or not. Humanity suspected that species
evolved long before Charles Darwin codified his observations. Darwin was
just the first to organize his observations and provide testable
explanations on what people have observed for centuries before him.
Darwin thought that natural selection was enough to explain evolution: it's
not. Science had to wait unti Mendel worked with his pea plants to discover
genetics at which time it was learned that genetic mutation and allele traits
changes also drive evolution.
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