There is a problem of threshold in this debate. There have been anomolies found in the fossil record that don’t seem to make sense, but they are not deemed extreme enough by the scientific community to warrant any damage to evolution. The hypotheticals you have suggested are very extreme, do they have to be that extreme to warrant a hit on evolution or can less extreme finds also warrant questioning? I would like to see the scientific community come up with more specific parameters as to what would be considered: A. minor damage to the theory, B. major hit on the theory, and C. evidence that would make the theory most likely untenable. We do this for almost every other science, except evolution.
My suspicion comes down to the fact that evolution is the natural conclusion of a world view that is part of a necessary dialectic. Either existence happened by chance, or by design. There seems to be no third or fourth way. We are limited to these two conclusions and nothing else. Therefore any hit on a theory that advocates one, is a support for the other. I think this pushes scientists (even sub-consciously) to view evolution almost as a belief system rather than a science.
Either existence happened by chance, or by design. There seems to be no third or fourth way. We are limited to these two conclusions and nothing else.
Does the structure of a crystal come about by chance, or by design? Does the demographic distribution of visibly identifiable subcultures within a diverse population come about by chance, or by design? If I reroll stats for my D&D character until I get one I like, does the resulting set of numbers come about by chance, or by design?
Which is to say: I reject your assertion that the middle is excluded here.
With respect to evolution in particular, there have been many “less extreme hits” on the prevailing theory of evolution over the last hundred years or so, and they have resulted in changes to the prevailing theory of evolution. It happens all the time.
That said, if (hypothetically) someone is looking for is a “hit” large enough to necessitate a change to the theory on the order of positing a goal-seeking selection process, then yeah, that would involve a pretty extreme outlier. Which is to be expected, as it would result in a pretty extreme change.
It usually takes a large “hit” to cause a large change, in any field, be it science or theology.
Lets focus on the chance vs. design conversation here first.
For all 3 of those examples you gave you would have to pick a conclusion of chance or design. Can you explain how any of those 3 could be conceived of as both chance and design at the same time? The only third option is to simply say I dont know.
All three of those options involve structures determined by “chance” (which is itself a more complicated idea than the simple word suggests, but that doesn’t really matter at the level we’re operating on right now), operating within a designed structure that constrains the possible range that chance can operate on. The end result is in fact determined by both design and chance, operating at the same time. A different design would create different results, even if “chance” operated the same way. The same design might create different results, if “chance” operated differently.
Can you name any of these anomalies which “don’t seem to make sense?”
There have been various evolutionary quandaries, where it’s not clear how this or that organism evolved, but many of these have been resolved by further discoveries, which clarified the line of descent. There are some lineages that are still hazy, the evolution of bats for example, where our record of their lineage is poor because their bones are delicate and do not fossilize readily, but cases like these are not a source of confusion.
All the allegations I’ve heard of anomalies which supposedly do not make sense have been put forward by creationist or intelligent design proponents, and they were all based on some sort of misconception. There may be some outstanding sources of confusion in the field of evolutionary biology, but if you have any in mind, you’ll have to clarify.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive review, but evidence against the theory of evolution could occur in such cases as
A: Minor: traits are found where it is unclear how they could have evolved by a natural process, but not highly implausible. These are found on occasion, but are generally resolved in time. Many traits where the evolutionary pathway was once obscure are now understood, so the evidence of any particular trait is weak.
B: Major: Organisms are found in the fossil record where it is highly implausible that they could have evolved from existing precursors. Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian fall into this category. Highly complex and unusual organisms with no apparent precursors, when we should expect their precursors to have left some sort of record, such as large organisms with radial symmetry and internal skeletons, would also constitute strong evidence.
C. Extremely major evidence. Events like seeing a monkey give birth to a human, or humans give birth to mutants with wings or the power to throw bolts of lightning. Any highly reliable observations of organisms developing major, complex adaptations in a single step. For all that many people with low levels of scientific literacy think that this is the sort of thing evolution entails, this is actually the kind of observation that would essentially falsify it outright.
As for whether “existence happened by chance or design,” the meaning of this assertion is unclear. What do you mean by existence? Do you mean species as they currently exist? The phenomenon of life itself? The universe? The nature of the discussion will depend on what you actually mean, but I’ll note that a dichotomy between “design” and “chance” is probably not an appropriate characterization. If you drop a rock, must the fact that it falls either be by design or chance? If something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance.
Scientists tend to treat evolution as something that is essentially not in question because our evidence for it is overwhelmingly comprehensive. While there may be some instances of confusion, they are very minor in comparison with our existing body of evidence, so while further observations might alter our understanding of the process in some way, they do not threaten the entire edifice of evolutionary theory any more than the Pioneer Anomaly (which was in fact recently explained without any change to our understanding of physics) threatened to undermine the idea that gravity exists.
There can be any number of anomolies that can be discussed, lets just name the Cambrian Explosion as one of the main ones, albeit a very general one. Where would you put the problem of the Cambrian Explosion? A, B, or C? But more importantly, why?
Not sure what you mean by ‘if something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance’. All you would have to do is keep going back to the source of the rocks behavior in order to see if it was by chance or design. Are those rules you are talking about designed or by chance? And so on....If you agree that those rules that govern the falling of the rock, and the rock’s existence itself, (and yes, any rules that governed how it came to existence) came about by chance then you hold one side of the dialectic; that is you have a world-view that believes existence is produced through chance. You can’t say I dont believe in that because I believe existence has come about through natural laws, and so on, because in the end you would have come to some kind of conclusion as to whether those laws are by chance or designed.
You cannot escape these two conclusion, you must pick one or the other. If you pick the chance worldview, you are heavilly reliant on evolution to validate your worldview.
Well, we don’t know the exact cause of the Cambrian explosion, but there are a large number of plausible hypotheses, so I’d be hesitant to describe it even as A. I’d be more likely to put it in the same category as the lineage of bats, not known, but not particularly confusing either.
As to whether the laws of nature and so forth come about by chance or design, why would design resolve anything? Did the designer come about by chance or design? It just inserts another complex entity and pushes the question back a step.
If you pick the chance worldview, you are heavilly reliant on evolution to validate your worldview.
No, not at all. Evolution is one aspect of one field of one discipline. One can argue that existence came about by chance (and I’m not comfortable with that term) without referring to evolution at all; there are many other reasons to reject the idea of a designer.
See Desrtopa’s reply, below, regarding chance and design and whether a designer helps here. S/he said it better than I could!
There have been anomolies found in the fossil record that don’t seem to make sense, but they are not deemed extreme enough by the scientific community to warrant any damage to evolution. The hypotheticals you have suggested are very extreme, do they have to be that extreme to warrant a hit on evolution or can less extreme finds also warrant questioning?
This seems to indicate a very confused thought process about how scientific theories work and are tested. A scientific theory that is wrong shouldn’t have data that almost but doesn’t quite fit. If evolution were wrong we would expect to see all sorts of bad data. Almost correct data with a few minor issues that we don’t yet understand is exactly what one would expect for a scientific theory. To use a different example, there are some definite anomalies about gravity and how it functions (the apparent presence of dark matter is one of the more obvious examples). Will you make similar comments about gravity? If evolution and gravity are treated differently in this context, it is worthwhile to ask why. If the sole reason is that evolution has theologically uncomfortable implications, then what does that mean?
I would absolutely include the standard model in physics as a problem as well. When the contemporary scientific explanation of the cosmos can only account for 3% of the universe (about 97% is dark energy or dark matter) then I would say there is a problem. Maybe even more of a problem than evolution.
We seem to be sticking to our current understanding of physics, once again, because of a world-view. That view being that our universe needs to be mathematically harmonious all the way through, at all levels. This is the bias that is also behind string theory and any attempt to unify physics.
Evolution is much the same way. The worldview that there is no purpose/meaning/agency/design (choose your word, but its the same concept) in the universe is pushing scientists to continually ignore or explain away anomally.
Lets say that the evidence seems to point towards design in the universe. Should we ignore that because we think a chance-world view would bring us more scientific achievement? If we do such a thing, would there be a good chance that what we call scientific achievement today would turn out to be delusion in the future because it is based on a forced world-view?
I would like to see the scientific community come up with more specific parameters as to what would be considered: A. minor damage to the theory, B. major hit on the theory, and C. evidence that would make the theory most likely untenable. We do this for almost every other science, except evolution.
I think we do this for evolution as much as any other part of science. In any, the judgment of the severity of a “hit” is possible if you understand the relevant concepts. An understanding of the concepts lets one see what separates minor issues from fossil rabbits in the Precambrian; what’s a detail, and what’s central to the theory—some things would necessitate a modification, and some would cast the entire theory into question. Think of what it took to overturn any other well-established theory in history, or what it would take to overturn relativistic physics.
More generally, if you have a whole bunch of evidence that points to one conclusion, it should take something fairly extreme to substantially sway you away from belief in that conclusion and make you re-evaluate all the accumulated evidence. (And there’s a lot of evidencefor evolution.)
There is a problem of threshold in this debate. There have been anomolies found in the fossil record that don’t seem to make sense, but they are not deemed extreme enough by the scientific community to warrant any damage to evolution. The hypotheticals you have suggested are very extreme, do they have to be that extreme to warrant a hit on evolution or can less extreme finds also warrant questioning? I would like to see the scientific community come up with more specific parameters as to what would be considered: A. minor damage to the theory, B. major hit on the theory, and C. evidence that would make the theory most likely untenable. We do this for almost every other science, except evolution.
My suspicion comes down to the fact that evolution is the natural conclusion of a world view that is part of a necessary dialectic. Either existence happened by chance, or by design. There seems to be no third or fourth way. We are limited to these two conclusions and nothing else. Therefore any hit on a theory that advocates one, is a support for the other. I think this pushes scientists (even sub-consciously) to view evolution almost as a belief system rather than a science.
Does the structure of a crystal come about by chance, or by design?
Does the demographic distribution of visibly identifiable subcultures within a diverse population come about by chance, or by design?
If I reroll stats for my D&D character until I get one I like, does the resulting set of numbers come about by chance, or by design?
Which is to say: I reject your assertion that the middle is excluded here.
With respect to evolution in particular, there have been many “less extreme hits” on the prevailing theory of evolution over the last hundred years or so, and they have resulted in changes to the prevailing theory of evolution. It happens all the time.
That said, if (hypothetically) someone is looking for is a “hit” large enough to necessitate a change to the theory on the order of positing a goal-seeking selection process, then yeah, that would involve a pretty extreme outlier. Which is to be expected, as it would result in a pretty extreme change.
It usually takes a large “hit” to cause a large change, in any field, be it science or theology.
Lets focus on the chance vs. design conversation here first.
For all 3 of those examples you gave you would have to pick a conclusion of chance or design. Can you explain how any of those 3 could be conceived of as both chance and design at the same time? The only third option is to simply say I dont know.
All three of those options involve structures determined by “chance” (which is itself a more complicated idea than the simple word suggests, but that doesn’t really matter at the level we’re operating on right now), operating within a designed structure that constrains the possible range that chance can operate on. The end result is in fact determined by both design and chance, operating at the same time. A different design would create different results, even if “chance” operated the same way. The same design might create different results, if “chance” operated differently.
Can you name any of these anomalies which “don’t seem to make sense?”
There have been various evolutionary quandaries, where it’s not clear how this or that organism evolved, but many of these have been resolved by further discoveries, which clarified the line of descent. There are some lineages that are still hazy, the evolution of bats for example, where our record of their lineage is poor because their bones are delicate and do not fossilize readily, but cases like these are not a source of confusion.
All the allegations I’ve heard of anomalies which supposedly do not make sense have been put forward by creationist or intelligent design proponents, and they were all based on some sort of misconception. There may be some outstanding sources of confusion in the field of evolutionary biology, but if you have any in mind, you’ll have to clarify.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive review, but evidence against the theory of evolution could occur in such cases as
A: Minor: traits are found where it is unclear how they could have evolved by a natural process, but not highly implausible. These are found on occasion, but are generally resolved in time. Many traits where the evolutionary pathway was once obscure are now understood, so the evidence of any particular trait is weak.
B: Major: Organisms are found in the fossil record where it is highly implausible that they could have evolved from existing precursors. Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian fall into this category. Highly complex and unusual organisms with no apparent precursors, when we should expect their precursors to have left some sort of record, such as large organisms with radial symmetry and internal skeletons, would also constitute strong evidence.
C. Extremely major evidence. Events like seeing a monkey give birth to a human, or humans give birth to mutants with wings or the power to throw bolts of lightning. Any highly reliable observations of organisms developing major, complex adaptations in a single step. For all that many people with low levels of scientific literacy think that this is the sort of thing evolution entails, this is actually the kind of observation that would essentially falsify it outright.
As for whether “existence happened by chance or design,” the meaning of this assertion is unclear. What do you mean by existence? Do you mean species as they currently exist? The phenomenon of life itself? The universe? The nature of the discussion will depend on what you actually mean, but I’ll note that a dichotomy between “design” and “chance” is probably not an appropriate characterization. If you drop a rock, must the fact that it falls either be by design or chance? If something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance.
Scientists tend to treat evolution as something that is essentially not in question because our evidence for it is overwhelmingly comprehensive. While there may be some instances of confusion, they are very minor in comparison with our existing body of evidence, so while further observations might alter our understanding of the process in some way, they do not threaten the entire edifice of evolutionary theory any more than the Pioneer Anomaly (which was in fact recently explained without any change to our understanding of physics) threatened to undermine the idea that gravity exists.
There can be any number of anomolies that can be discussed, lets just name the Cambrian Explosion as one of the main ones, albeit a very general one. Where would you put the problem of the Cambrian Explosion? A, B, or C? But more importantly, why?
Not sure what you mean by ‘if something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance’. All you would have to do is keep going back to the source of the rocks behavior in order to see if it was by chance or design. Are those rules you are talking about designed or by chance? And so on....If you agree that those rules that govern the falling of the rock, and the rock’s existence itself, (and yes, any rules that governed how it came to existence) came about by chance then you hold one side of the dialectic; that is you have a world-view that believes existence is produced through chance. You can’t say I dont believe in that because I believe existence has come about through natural laws, and so on, because in the end you would have come to some kind of conclusion as to whether those laws are by chance or designed.
You cannot escape these two conclusion, you must pick one or the other. If you pick the chance worldview, you are heavilly reliant on evolution to validate your worldview.
Well, we don’t know the exact cause of the Cambrian explosion, but there are a large number of plausible hypotheses, so I’d be hesitant to describe it even as A. I’d be more likely to put it in the same category as the lineage of bats, not known, but not particularly confusing either.
As to whether the laws of nature and so forth come about by chance or design, why would design resolve anything? Did the designer come about by chance or design? It just inserts another complex entity and pushes the question back a step.
No, not at all. Evolution is one aspect of one field of one discipline. One can argue that existence came about by chance (and I’m not comfortable with that term) without referring to evolution at all; there are many other reasons to reject the idea of a designer.
See Desrtopa’s reply, below, regarding chance and design and whether a designer helps here. S/he said it better than I could!
This seems to indicate a very confused thought process about how scientific theories work and are tested. A scientific theory that is wrong shouldn’t have data that almost but doesn’t quite fit. If evolution were wrong we would expect to see all sorts of bad data. Almost correct data with a few minor issues that we don’t yet understand is exactly what one would expect for a scientific theory. To use a different example, there are some definite anomalies about gravity and how it functions (the apparent presence of dark matter is one of the more obvious examples). Will you make similar comments about gravity? If evolution and gravity are treated differently in this context, it is worthwhile to ask why. If the sole reason is that evolution has theologically uncomfortable implications, then what does that mean?
I would absolutely include the standard model in physics as a problem as well. When the contemporary scientific explanation of the cosmos can only account for 3% of the universe (about 97% is dark energy or dark matter) then I would say there is a problem. Maybe even more of a problem than evolution.
We seem to be sticking to our current understanding of physics, once again, because of a world-view. That view being that our universe needs to be mathematically harmonious all the way through, at all levels. This is the bias that is also behind string theory and any attempt to unify physics.
Evolution is much the same way. The worldview that there is no purpose/meaning/agency/design (choose your word, but its the same concept) in the universe is pushing scientists to continually ignore or explain away anomally.
Can you explain how the view that there is purpose, meaning, agency or design in the universe helps us address any anomalies better? With examples?
Lets say that the evidence seems to point towards design in the universe. Should we ignore that because we think a chance-world view would bring us more scientific achievement? If we do such a thing, would there be a good chance that what we call scientific achievement today would turn out to be delusion in the future because it is based on a forced world-view?
No, let’s not just say that, let’s discuss the actual pieces of evidence, it’s much more likely to be productive.
I think we do this for evolution as much as any other part of science. In any, the judgment of the severity of a “hit” is possible if you understand the relevant concepts. An understanding of the concepts lets one see what separates minor issues from fossil rabbits in the Precambrian; what’s a detail, and what’s central to the theory—some things would necessitate a modification, and some would cast the entire theory into question. Think of what it took to overturn any other well-established theory in history, or what it would take to overturn relativistic physics.
More generally, if you have a whole bunch of evidence that points to one conclusion, it should take something fairly extreme to substantially sway you away from belief in that conclusion and make you re-evaluate all the accumulated evidence. (And there’s a lot of evidence for evolution.)
Do we? Could you show this for 3 other fields?