The San
Francisco Chronicle
Nature’s
diversity beyond evolution
Debate over
intelligent design
Carl T.
Hall, Chronicle Science Writer
Sunday,
March 17, 2002
Leaving
fundamentalist dogma behind, a new species of anti- evolutionists has arisen
under the banner
of
"intelligent design" -- now at the heart of a bitter debate erupting
in Ohio about how science and
evolution
should be taught in the public schools.
Intelligent-design
advocates delve into the minutiae of biology in search of evidence that random
mutation and
natural selection are not enough to explain the wonders and diverse forms of
nature.
The result
has been a spate of books and academic papers trying to poke holes in Darwinian
theories
of
evolution, often with elaborately detailed examples of what some call
“irreducible complexity” - the
defensive
apparatus of the bombardier beetle, the fine bony structures of the mammal
inner car, the
ion channels
and pumps that underlie vision, the hairlike filaments that allow bacteria to
swim about,
the
exquisite biochemical cascade that causes blood to clot the instant an injury
occurs.
AU are said
to be examples of a designer’s handiwork. The question of just who - or what -
that
designer
might be is usually left open, in part to avoid charges that intelligent design
is little more
than a
stalking horse to sneak God back into the public schools.
It could be
space aliens, said William Dembski, a mathematician and philosopher at Baylor
University
in Texas and author of “No Free Lunch,” a new book on intelligent design.
“There are
many
possibilities.”
FUNDAMENTAL
PROBLEMS
He described
his main focus as a matter of elucidating some “fundamental problems with
Darwinism,
including
what he considers some big gaps in the overwhelming scientific consensus
supporting the
evolutionary
model.
Like most of
the others in the design camp, he steers clear of the so- called “young-Earth”
creationists
who argue
for a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. Instead, he talks of the
complexity found
in nature,
perhaps evidence for “systems that have no function until you have a whole
integrated package
in place.”
It takes a
leap of faith to conclude that this means someone or something must have
designed such a
system. The
Darwinist explanation, accepted by the overwhelming majority of biologists,
holds that
no such leap
is necessary - all it takes, instead, is enough time, random mutations, and a
process of
natural
selection to propagate the accidents that confer a survival advantage.
Ifs a heady
discussion that in some ways can be traced back to Aristotle’s musings on
acorns and oak
trees,
updated these days by a constant stream of academic cross talk on the Internet
and at science-and-
religion
conferences. Lately, it’s jumped from esoteric journals and books to the public
stage, too, after
Ohio’s
19-member state school board began revising science teaching standards.
PROPOSAL IN
OHIO
Some Ohio
school officials have proposed downgrading Darwinian evolution to allow - or
perhaps even
require
teachers to present intelligent design on more or less equal footing.
Legislation has been
introduced
that would put more of the decision-making power in the hands of elected
lawmakers.
With
passions rising, a school board hearing in Columbus last week attracted
national attention and an
audience of
1,500.
Beyond the
inevitable mudslinging, Darwin’s new critics insist they are engaged in
essentially scientific research,
parting
company with the mainstream only in that they are willing to question some
bedrock notions of modem biology.
“I’m not an
enemy of science,” - said Jonathan Wells, an embryologist and senior fellow at
the Discovery Institute, a Seattle
think tank
and the undisputed intellectual center for the intelligent-design philosophy. “I am a scientist.” “But I want science
to be an
open-ended search for the truth and not a dogmatic commitment to natural
explanations.... When I look at the evidence
for
evolution, I see very serious problems with it.”
Not
surprisingly, mainstream scientists and educators tend to dismiss much of the
intelligent-design movement as a
pseudoscientific
- and dangerous - masquerade.
The
Discovery Institute includes several subsidiaries, with the intelligent-design
component set up under something called the
“Center for
the Renewal of Science and Culture."
Eugenie
Scott, who champions the teaching of evolution as executive director of the
National Center for Science Education in
Oakland,
said the Seattle centers ambitious-sounding name reveals the true agenda behind
the Ohio controversy.
"The
cultural renewal part is really what motivates this whole effort" she
said. "These are people who are very concerned about
the amount
of secularism in American culture. They are theists. They believe America is
too secular and believe we need to bring
Christian
theism back into American life."
POSSIBILITY
OF SPACE ALIENS
She
dismisses the talk allowing for the possibility of space aliens as an agnostic
patina covering an inherently religious intent.
“I wish
these guys would just get real here,” she said. “Everybody knows they’re
talking about God.”
Those are
fighting words among such leading intellectuals as Michael Behe, a biochemistry
professor at Lehigh University and
author of
“Darwin’s Black Box,” one of the founding tomes of the intelligent-design
movement.
Belie coined
the term “irreducible complexity,” the idea that some natural structures, like
mousetraps, consist of many Parts
functioning
as an interlocking system. It’s
difficult to imagine how such systems might have evolved, although that is
exactly
what many
biologists spend their careers doing. But for Belie and his allies, it’s
illogical that biological mousetraps could have
gradually
formed from Darwinian "gradualistic evolution."
Behe’s
favorite example is the flagellums a whiplike structure that serves as a kind
of rotary propeller for certain cells, bacteria
and
protozoans. Although its functions
seems simple enough, a close look at the structural and biochemical details shows
there’s
nothing
simple about it. Where Behe parts company with most of his scientific
colleagues is his claim that the individual
components
of the propeller make no biological sense except as elements of the completed
molecular machine.
NO FOREBEARS
There seem
to be no obvious evolutionary forebears in nature, and certainly no fossil
record, to explain how such a machine might
have been
selected for through a series of random mutations in some simpler
flagellum-like structures.
“If you
don’t have intermediate structures, it could mean one of two things,"
Belie said. "Either we just haven’t found them, or they
are not
there. It’s a good bet, with these biochemical machines, that they are not
there."
Others
suggest the flagellum came about from cell structures that developed for other
reasons. But Behe concludes that
it
morphologically
happened as the result of a plan --
stuck onto the skin of some primordial bacterium by some clever
designer.
“We are arriving at this conclusion based strictly
on the physical evidence, the structure of these physical systems," Belie
said
"We’re
not quoting from the Bible.” He, too,
was a bit cagey as to who might have done the designing "Certainly, many
people
think the
designer is God,” he said, allowing that as a Roman Catholic himself, "it
seems natural to think that.... But I hasten to
add that the
identity of the designer is not inscribed in the cell."
Scott at the
National Center for Science Education makes no argument on that point. But she
does insist that most of the other
intelligent-design
arguments are wrong. "They want to change the ground miles under which we
do science for the last 200 years,"
Scott
said.
And even if
there is an element inspiring healthy debate among professional scientists, she
and most other mau6u,eam experts
suggest it’s
clearly not the sort of thing that’s appropriately taught to students in
publicly financed classrooms.
One of the
basic ground miles of science, Scott said, is to cede the realm of the supernatural
to theologians, focusing instead on
finding
natural explanations for natural phenomena, no matter how complex they seem to
be.
E-mail Carl
T. Hall at chall@.Sfchronicle-com.
C2002 San
Francisco Chronicle Page A - I
The Columbus
Dispatch
Evolution
debate raises issue: What’s “science”?
Sunday,
March 17, 2002
David Lore,
Dispatch Science Reporter
In sorting
through the claims for evolution and intelligent design, the state Board of
Education is being asked to do something even
more
difficult: Define science.
Actually,
that's exactly what an advisory committee to the board has done. But first some
background. Last week, the board
sponsored a
debate on whether Ohio's new school standards for science should provide for
the teaching of intelligent design as well
as
evolution.
Evolution is
the generally accepted scientific theory that natural selection has changed
living things over 4 billion years. It's nature’s
way of
adapting some species to survive while weeding out others. Intelligent design
rejects this, saying the complexity of biological
structures
required an intelligent creator, God or otherwise.
Much of the
debate, however, focused not on the biological evidence for each point of view
but rather on whether intelligent-design
could be
regarded as science. This is important because, although there's little support
for bringing the Bible into biology class,
everybody's
OK with exposing students to the scientific debate over evolution.
As a
congressional report in December suggested, "Where topics are taught that
may generate controversy (such as biological
evolution),
the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific
views .... “
But what is
meant by science and scientific views?
One definition, offered by both supporters and critics of evolution, is
that science
is what
scientists do. But that still leaves open to debate how they should be doing
it.
Science,
said evolutionists Lawrence Krauss and Kenneth Miller, consists of gathering
evidence, developing a hypothesis and then
subjecting
one's observational or experimental findings to the gauntlet of peer review.
Those findings that hold up over time to
rigorous
debate and criticism are science. Those that don't are history.
They accused
design theorists Stephen Meyer and Jonathan Wells of ducking peer review by not
defending their ideas before scientific
bodies or
publishing them in recognized scientific journals.
Meyer and
Wells, however, argued that the science game is rigged. New ideas in science
are rejected today by the reigning
establishment,
just as they were in Copernicus's time, they said. Top journals won't publish
articles on intelligent-design, said Wells,
a biologist.
So design advocates turn to writing books for the public, just as Charles
Darwin did.
Wells and
Meyer called for a broader definition of science that doesn't depend on
scientific acceptance.
'”We're
science in search of a hearing," said design advocate David DeWolf.
Meyer did
suggest that the teaching of intelligent design be optional in local schools
rather than mandatory. But he also said the state
should not
prohibit teachers from presenting all “scientific” views, including design.
Last month,
however, the board’s standards-writing team reportedly moved to close what it
perceived as a loophole by defining in the
standards
what the state means by science and scientific views. The exact language is
under wraps until April I but reportedly will
define science
fit for the science classroom as that offering “natural explanations for
natural phenomena.” Since that’s too
restrictive
for design
concepts, look for the battle to rage on.
David Lore
is Dispatch science reporter. Stem Rissing's column will resume next week.
The Toledo
Blade
Article
published March 17, 2002
Special
report: Evolution vs. intelligent design
By Michael
Woods, Blade Science Editor
WASHNGTON -
The myths of evolution: That great atheist Charles Darwin finally disowned evolution
as the devil’s handiwork
on his
deathbed in 1882. Most major religious denominations oppose teaching evolution
to children. Evolution is “only a theory."
There's no
evidence that evolution actually happens.
It's time
for a reality check for evolution, creationism, and 'intelligent design.
Those topics
preoccupied the Ohio Board of Education last week during hearings that
attracted thousands in Columbus. And
they've been
showcased elsewhere, including Kansas’ controversial 1999 decision to drop the
teaching of evolution from high
school
science classes.
The Ohio
board is the first in the United States to consider including intelligent
design in school science curricula alongside evolution.
By December,
the 19-member board will adopt new science standards that will decide what
students in 612 public school districts
learn about
life's debut on Earth.
"Attacks
on evolution in Ohio and other states have been pretty amazing,' said Eugene C.
Scott, executive director of the National
Center for
Science Education in Oakland, Calif. The nonprofit organization works with
school boards and others to increase public
understanding
of evolution. Ms. Scott said the
battering fosters increasingly common myths and misconceptions about evolution.
"The public
bears the critics,” she said, “but rarely gets the scientific facts.'”
Recent
Gallup polls document the situation. They show that 40 percent of Americans
think there is no scientific evidence to support
the theory
of evolution; 45 percent now accept creationist and intelligent design views
about humanity's origins; 68 percent favor
teaching
creationism along with evolution in public schools; 40 percent favor dropping
evolution altogether and teaching children
only the
biblical version of creation.
Evolution is
losing ground to two distinctly different beliefs about human origins.
Many
creationists believe that the Earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old. Humans, they add, were created by God six
days after the Earth
in one
place, the Garden of Eden.
Intelligent
design advocates believe that life involves processes too complex to have
occurred naturally. They say that an "intelligent
agent,” who
many personally believe to be God, directed the development of life on Earth.
Evolution
regards humans and other living things as the result of natural processes. In a
nutshell: Offspring vary from their parents.
Over the
eons, offspring better adapted to the environment (because of sharper claws, a
broader wingspan, a keener brain) will
survive and
reproduce. Through those two processes - termed "random variation"
and "natural selection" - primitive life forms
evolved into
modern forms over the 4.5 billion years that Earth has existed.
Today's
clash between creation and evolution involves what should be taught in school
science classrooms. Creationists and
intelligent
designers want their ideas presented.
Evolutionists say some of the beliefs may be true, but they are rooted
in religious
faith, not
science, and should be taught outside the science class.
Science is
limited to explanations based on actual observations and experiments that can
be repeated and verified by anyone who uses
the same
method. Faith goes beyond what can be tested and proven in the world.
Dr. William
Thwaites said fallout from the scrap gives the impression that most religious
denominations officially oppose evolution.
He is a San
Diego State University biologist who gives public lectures on creation and
evolution.
“Most major
religious denominations do not oppose the theory of evolution, or teaching it
in public schools,” Ray L. Hart, professor of
religion and
theology at Boston University, said in an interview last week. Among them, Dr.
Thwaites said, are the Roman Catholic
Church, most
Protestant Christian denominations, and conservative and reformed Jews.
In 1981 and
1996, for instance, Pope John Paul H said that evolution is compatible with
Catholicism, and that the biblical account of
creation was
not intended to be taken literally. "Any other tea clung about the origins
and makeup of the universe is alien to the
intentions
of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes
to heaven," the Pope said in Ins 1996
message to
the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
This was not
the first time the Catholic Church had tackled the thorny issue of evolution
and theology. Pope Pius XIIl in 1950 issued
the
encyclical Humani Generis, which stated that the teaching authority of the
church did not forbid “research and discussions ... with
regard to
the doctrine of evolution.”
“ Pope John
Paul H referred to this earlier encyclical in his own 1996 message: “The
encyclical Humani Generis considered the
doctrine of
evolution a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study,”
but he added that evolution cannot address
the “soul
that the whole person possesses." Pius XII stressed this essential point:
“If the human body takes its origin from
pre-existent
living matter the spiritual soul is immediately created by God," stated
Pope John Paul III.
Judaic
teachings on evolution parallel that of Christianity. Liberal or Reform Jews
believe that evolution does not conflict with the
Torah or
Bible, according to Rabbi Sam Weinstein of the Temple-Shomer Emunim in
Sylvania, while Rabbi Yossi Shcmtov of
Chabad
House-Lubavitch, a conservative Jew, said the account of creation in Genesis is
to be taken literally.
Is evolution
”only a theory”? Dr. Thwaites said
individual members of the major denominations often make up their own minds
about
evolution,
and ignore official teachings on the topic. Indeed, many are not even aware of
the official teachings of their churches, he
added
"Thas why you have such a huge number of Americans in the anti-evolution
columns in the Gallop polls," he explained.
Dr. Bruce
Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, addressed the same
topic in a 1999 report on science and
creationism.
The academy is the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, chartered
by Congress to advise the federal
government
on science and technology. "Demanding that they be combined distracts from
the glory of each," he said in the
report to
the public on evolution's scientific underpinnings.
The
'devil-made-him-do-it' myth about Charles Darwin also is making a resurgence on
the Internet and elsewhere. It depicts
Darwin as a
staunch atheist who recanted his theory on his deathbed. Biographers, however, describe Darwin as an
”agnostic,"
who felt it
was impossible to know whether there is a God-. Darwin's daughter, Henrietta, was at his death and said he never
disavowed
evolution.
Darwin had
no reason to recant. The Church of England was among several dominations in the
1880s that found no conflict
between
evolution and church teachings. The church even allowed Darwin's burial in
Westminster Abbey, Great Britain's most
famous
church.
What about
the claim that evolution should be taught along with intelligent design or
creationism because it is “only a theory?”
The National
Academy of Sciences report emphasized that the word "theory" has a
different meaning in science than in general
usage. A
scientific theory is not a guess or speculation. A guess in science is called a
hypothesis. A theory is a carefully documented
explanation
based on facts, observations, and experiments.
Is there
evidence that evolution did occur?
There is so
much evidence that evolution ranks as one of the strongest and most important
theories in science, according to the
Academy of
Sciences. The academy's report quoted the renowned Russian-American geneticist
Theodosius Dobzhansky: “Nothing
in biology
makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
The evidence
stems from hundreds of thousands of fossilized remains of plants and animals;
technology for dating fossils and rocks
which shows
that life first appeared 3.5 billion years ago; striking similarities between
the skeletons, genes, and biochemistry in
animals as
different as mice and humans, and other sources.
“Molecular
clocks” have added some of the newest and strongest evidence. Based on changes
that occur over time in the genetic
material
DNA, molecular clocks establish when one species started to diverge and evolve
into another. They also bolster the evidence
that
different organisms had common ancestors.
Millions of
people experience evolution.
How do
scientists know that the Earth has been around long enough for evolution to
happen? The estimate of 4.5 billion years for
Earth's age
is based on measurements, such as the rate at which certain radioactive materials
in rock “decay” or change into different
chemical
forms. The universe's estimated age - 10 billion to 15 billion years - is based
on other measurements, including the distances
separating
galaxies, which are moving away from each other.
Has anyone
ever seen evolution occur?
Unfortunately,
millions of people experience evolution, with a sometimes deadly outcome. Among
examples of evolutionary
forces
observed in everyday life, the academy report cited antibiotic-resistant
bacteria, insects that shrug off the effects of
existing
pesticides, and parasitic diseases like malaria.
Evolutionary
forces enable bacteria to adapt and survive in the presence of once-lethal
antibiotics. Pesticide-resistant insects emerge
in the same
way. Malaria is on a rampage in tropical areas, with 300 million annual cases,
because the malaria parasite has adapted,
and older
drugs are no longer effective.
Doesn't life
involve structures and processes too incredibly complex to have evolved
naturally, step-by-step, without a master
designers
“My theory would absolutely break down,” Darwin said, "if anyone can
demonstrate that any structure exists in Nature
that could
not have arisen by natural selection.”
In 1996,
Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe took on Darwin's challenge in a
popular book, Darwin's Black Box: A
Biochemical
Challenge to Evolution. He cited examples of organs and systems so complex that
God must have created them in a
single
stroke. One, for instance, was a series of at least seven chemical reactions
that must occur for blood to clot and stop a wound
from
bleeding. The National Academy of Sciences said blood clotting and other
biological processes can be explained through natural
selection.
Structures and processes that appear complex often are not on closer
inspection, it added.
So why the
great evolution debate that's now under way? Myth, says the Academy of
Sciences. And myth, again.
Evolution is
one of the most widely accepted concepts in science. There is no great debate
in the scientific community, and no serious
challenges
are being posed in scientific journals or conferences. “I’m a theologian,”
Boston University's Professor Hart said, “but I'm
still
comfortable with science. And evolution is the best science we have about human
origins."
The
Associated Press
Saturday,
March 16, 2002
Second
science-standard draft keeps evolution focus
Only
“natural” processes in this Ohio version
By Liz
Sidoti, The Associated Press
COLUMBUS - A
second draft of new state science standards, to be released April 1, takes a
stronger stance on evolution by including
a definition
of science that advocates for "intelligent design” say would prevent the
teaching of alternative ideas.
"It
says that all science deals with are natural processes. In other words, the
natural world,” said Pat Barron, leader of the 41-member
team writing
the guidelines for what Ohio's schoolchildren should learn about science.
The state
Board of Education is struggling to rewrite the standards by year's end. Controversy
erupted after the December release of
the writing
team's fag draft; some board members complained it included evolution, but not
alternative ideas.
In the
second draft evolution remain the only explanation of how life developed. The
definition of science includes the word "natural,”
thereby
eliminating supernatural possibilities.
During a
panel discussion before the school board Monday, prominent advocates for
intelligent design, Seattle-based-Discovery
Institute
fellows Stephen Meyer and Jonathan Wells, urged the board not to adopt a
definition of science that would prevent the
discussion
of ideas they say are contrary to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.
The writing
team's life sciences subcommittee had already adopted, on Feb. 8, language that
states: “Scientific knowledge is limited
to natural
explanations for natural phenomena (material world perceived by our senses or
technological extensions)."
“What that
definition does - the purpose of it - is to exclude design theory,' said John
Calvert a Kansas lawyer and founder of the
Intelligent
Design Network, who has pushed for broader standards.
The first
draft has a more vague definition that does not include the word
"natural."
Supporters
of intelligent design argue that living things are too complex to have occurred
through random genetic change and,
therefore,
must have been designed by some purposeful being. The nature of that being is
not specified, but backers acknowledge
it could
have been a biblical God, supernatural or extraterrestrial.
Critics of
the concept argue that intelligent design is not science and that it is a
disguise for creationism, winch credits the origin of
species to
God and has been barred by courts from public schools. They say adding the word
"natural' to the standards only reinforces
that science
by definition is the study of natural processes.
Robert
Iattimer, a writing team member who supports intelligent design and founded
Ohio Citizens for Science Excellence, said he
believed
science needed to be defined and told that to his fellow team members.
"But I didn't like what they came up with,' Mr.
Lattimer
said. “It eliminates other explanations for life at the outset."
Some writing
team members did not believe the definition was needed because it's commonly
understood that science operates under
the limits
of the natural world, said Scott Charlton, a science teacher at Lebanon High
School who is on the writing team.
However, he
said, others wanted to provide a clear definition of what constitutes science
and some wanted to keep nonscientific ideas,
such as
intelligent design, out of science classrooms.
Jennifer
Sheets, the board's president, noted that the standards still are in the draft
stage and will be revised several more times.
The writing
team, made up of volunteers including science teachers and scientists, has
indicated it is opposed to writing intelligent
design into
the standards. Some members have said they will resign if they are told to do
so.
Lynn Elfner,
director of the Ohio Academy of Science, which supports evolution, said
defining science as natural is redundant. "But
it's
probably needed in this case to clarify what we're talking about - science as
opposed to supernatural phenomenon," he said.
The Columbus Dispatch
Evolutionists struggle with growing debate
Sunday, March 10, 2002
David Lore, Dispatch Science Reporter
It was an evolutionist's nightmare: the Rev. Freddie Dutton, a
Freewill Baptist, lecturing for two hours on biblical creationism
before a tax-supported science class.
Rolling out 15 "scientific arguments for creationism," a
volley of
unverifiable anecdotes and his own unshakable faith in biblical
truth, Dutton said all the "good science" supports his
view that God
created the universe about 6,000 years ago and populated it with
people about 4,400 years ago.
Any questions?
Most of the students in the Ohio State University biology class
seemed dumbstruck by Dutton's dismissal of what they'd always been
taught was solid evidence of evolution during the past 4 billion
years.
Their response was not unusual. Scientists accustomed to
explaining
life down to the molecular level find it difficult to respond to
those who don't play by their rules.
That's why OSU plant biologist Andria Wolfe invites a number of
anti-evolutionists to speak during her course "Creation and
Evolution: Differing World Views."
OSU is one of many public universities exposing science students
to
creationist arguments, hoping to prepare them for what they're
likely
to hear once they leave the campus.
The problem with teaching creationism in high school, Wolfe said,
is
that it gives beginning science students the impression that these
are scientific ideas before they know much about biology,
evolution
or the scientific method.
Still, the current debate at the State Board of Education over the
teaching of evolution baffles Wolfe and other scientists who
considered the issue settled decades ago.
"It's very frustrating for me," said Jeffrey McKee, an
OSU
paleontologist who has written two books on human evolution.
Raised as a Lutheran, McKee recalled "coming to confirmation
in my
church at the same time I was coming to grips with
evolution."
A 1997 poll by the University of Georgia found that about 40 percent
of working physicists and biologists hold strong religious
beliefs.
Conflict results when fundamentalists want religious viewpoints
taught as science.
"I spent 10 years overseas in South Africa digging up
evidence for
this (book), and I come back to Ohio to find all this opposition
to
evolution," McKee said. "It almost looks like the state
itself is
devolving."
Creationists say that God made all living things pretty much as we
find them today. In Ohio, opponents of the state's proposed school
science standards say they want students to learn not biblical
creationism but "intelligent design," the idea that life
is too
complex to have developed without intervention by an intelligent
designer, supernatural or extraterrestrial.
Dutton-style creationists view the idea of intelligent design as
an
unwise compromise of biblical truth.
Anti-evolutionists of all stripes accuse scientists of defending
their own brand of religious orthodoxy. They say scientists are
expressing a faith in materialism or naturalism when they rule out
God and say that life originated from chemical processes and
evolved
over billions of years in response to changes in the environment
or
the competition for resources.
These battle lines extend back nearly two centuries, before
Charles
Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 in England.
Since
Darwin, the theory of evolution has come as close to accepted fact
as
anything in science ever is.
There are exceptions, of course, even among biologists. One of them,
biologist and intelligent-design supporter Jonathan Wells, will
speak
before the board -- and at Ohio State -- on Monday. But they are a
distinct minority.
"Evolution has never been proven, but aspects of it have been
observed," McKee said. "But the theory of gravity has
never been
proven, either."
This point is often misunderstood because a "theory" in
science is
not a hunch but a well-developed set of ideas that survived
challenges over time while continuing to explain what we see in
the
natural world.
"It's all about testing a hypothesis," Wolfe said.
"Most people don't
understand that science is a process. You never actually arrive at
the 'truth.' You're actually exploring a continuum." And
because no
absolute truth exists, she said, scientists argue about evolution
all
the time, particularly about how it specifically works. There's
debate, for example, about whether evolution is a process of slow,
consistent change over time or abrupt interruptions of the status
quo.
Stephen J. Gould at Harvard University and Niles Eldredge of the
American Museum of Natural History have pioneered the theory of
"punctuated equilibria," which holds that most organisms
remain
unchanged for millions of years and are only occasionally forced
to
biologically adapt to changes in their environment or in
life-supporting resources.
Another issue is the purpose of evolution. Darwin never saw it as
an
engine to improve or perfect a species, but social Darwinists put
that spin on his teachings in the 20th century. "But Darwin
did say
lots of things that wouldn't be politically correct today,"
McKee
said. "He downgraded non-European races and predicted they'd
eventually go extinct. Obviously, that has turned out to be
incorrect."
On the other hand, Darwin thought the first humans emerged from
Africa, long before the first hominid skulls were found there in
the
1920s. "Darwin said Homo sapiens and apes shared a common
ancestor,"
McKee said, "but he had no time scale to work with, no
fossils, no
genetics."
A century-and-a-half later, many questions remain unresolved about
human evolution. Early hominids split off from the ape line about
6
million years ago, but no fossils have been found between about 4
million and 15 million years ago, McKee said. "We've
determined
there's a common ancestor, but we don't know what they looked
like."
Scientists also continue to debate whether Neanderthals were Homo
sapiens or a separate species. Many find it curious that only one
species of hominids survived.
Some scientists think that modern medicine has checkmated natural
selection among humans, overcoming defects that otherwise might
influence the characteristics of future generations.
Human evolution is now more likely in terms of culture than
biology,
McKee said. Even global warming is not likely to disrupt a species
that already has adapted to a range of climates, from polar to
tropical.
As for ultimate questions, such as the origin of life, it might be
too soon to expect answers from science. "Right now, the
origin of
life is more a matter of biochemistry than evolutionary
theory,"
McKee said. "Whether or not there was a divine spark is
really
irrelevant to science. Scientists are allowed to hold whatever
beliefs they want, but the statement 'God did it' is not a
scientific
hypothesis."
Gordon Aubrecht
Professor of Physics
OSU Physics (614)
292-2574, FAX (614) 292-7557
Marion Campus (740)
389-6786, ext. 6250, FAX (614) 292-5817
check out my web sites through my home page
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~aubrecht
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but
that's not why we do it. --Richard Feynman