Feedback for February 1998

You are correct that the Talk.Origins Archive is funded and maintained by volunteers. The hardware itself is maintained by Brett Vickers; he has ultimate control over the content and appearance of the archive. The FAQs on the site are written and maintained by their respective authors; the feedback is processed by a number of volunteers, including myself. If you wish to provide financial support to the Talk.Origins Archive, contact Mr. Vickers.

The primary assistance you can provide the Talk.Origins Archive is to you find on the site. We try very hard to provide a site containing accurate and up-to-date information, as well as one that is easy to navigate and attractive to look at. Any suggestions in that regard are warmly appreciated.

A good way to become involved in the Evolution/Creationism debate is to participate on the newsgroup talk.origins. Being a scientific layman does not matter (as I am one). Being a thoughtful and active participant does.

We are always in search of new FAQs, even from us "laymen." FAQs on biology are always helpful, but we need FAQs on cosmology, history, philosophy, and plenty of other subjects as well. Read the newsgroup to see what FAQs might be needed. Even compiled lists of good journal articles or popular books can come in handy. Your association with a scientific library may give you access to materials not available easily elsewhere. Even good illustrations are in demand.

Just ask around in the talk.origins newsgroup. You're sure to get several suggestions for topics to research.

Oh, and I wouldn't worry about the Archive disappearing. If Mr. Vickers can no longer support it, I'm sure the torch will be taken up by others.

For lists of transitional fossils, see Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ. If this does not address your concern you will need to be more specific about what lack of transitionals you mean.

You are right about science "evolving", in the sense that scientific theories change with time. However, this kind of change is adaptive, in the sense that new theories deal with new observations but must continue to explain the same observations and evidence as the old theories. Old theories continue to give a good approximate explanation. Evolution as a theory is being extended and changed -- but this change does not invalidate all that has gone before. Common descent, selection and diversification will continue to be important aspects of any theory of how life forms arise.

Creation science is sometimes described rather unkindly in this archive; but in restrained terms it is enough to point out that it is not actually science, and it does not have any theory or framework for explaining evidence. It has been shown to be incorrect by the real observations and evidence available.

I am sure this reply will be unsatisfying to you; I recommend you look through the archive and the links to related creationist sites. Any more specific questions you have will be welcome.

You have, like so many before you, confused science and atheism. Science doesn't say, "God didn't do it." (How else could one explain the large number of scientists who are devoutly religious?) What science does say about the Big Bang is, "The laws of physics don't necessarily apply before the Big Bang." Since they don't necessarily apply, we can't use them to tell us, scientifically, what happened before that point. There may not even be any such thing as time "before" that point, since time is a property of this universe. All science can say is that our understanding of space and time and causation are not good guides to the creation of the universe. (Understand, too, that this is cosmology, not evolution, which deals solely with the diversity of life on Earth.)

The debate over evolution is not a battle between atheistic science and religion. It is between some claims of certain minority Christian sects about the physical world and the evidence from the physical world that contradicts those claims. Many scientists are devout Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc., who reconcile their religious beliefs with the science they practice and who accept evolution as the explanation of the diversity of life on Earth.

Your statement that a "true scientist" would not be threatened by ignorance is completely false. The practice of science is expensive. It often requires expensive and complicated equipment maintained by trained personnel. Funding for that must come from somewhere, and in most democratic nations, scientific funding comes primarily from the public. I have to live in a society controlled by voters, and I would prefer, for the sake of myself and the country I live in, that those voters be well-educated and make wise decisions based on reality and not lies, half-truths, or wishful thinking.

As for whether science is "correct this time," I can only say that the theory evolution has over a century of observations and experiments to back it up. It is as well established as any other theory in science. Millions of pages of biology journals recount experiments that depend on evolution in one way or another, and if it weren't true, it surely would have collapsed by now. Despite the lies of some creationists, all that science is doing now is tinkering with the edges, dotting the i's and crossing the t's. If there were serious holes in the theory of evolution that had good evidence to back them up, enterprising young scientists would have found them by now. Punching holes in established theories is, after all, the path to scientific fame and fortune.

Despite what you may have been told about science, new theories don't tend to wipe out well-established, experimentally verified old theories. They may be richer than the old theories, in that they explain more data, but the old theories still stand as a good approximation in most conditions. So even if a new theory came along to supplant evolution, evolution wouldn't be tossed out wholecloth. The new theory would have to explain the same set of facts as evolution, and would have to be similar enough to evolution so that evolution would be a good approximation for the data that we have now. The chances of that happening, though, are very slim.

Just because science is "ever-changing" as time passes doesn't mean that everything gets thrown out and we start from scratch.

The Great Human Diasporas : The History of Diversity and Evolution by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Francesco Cavalli-Sforza, Sarah Thorne, Addison-Wesley Pub Co, 1996, ISBN: 0201442310

The History and Geography of Human Genesby L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza, Published by Princeton Univ Press, 1996, ISBN: 0691029059

Humans are a single species with high diversity, and there is no evidence that one ethnic or regional group is any more or less fit than any other.

One can be a devout Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, or Hindu and accept evolution as the best scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. Many people do, including many paleontologists, zoologists, and botanists. After all, evolution has nothing to say about what constitutes moral and ethical behavior.

It is true that the findings of science contradict the religious beliefs of some people. What is contradicting those beliefs is not science itself, but the reality underlying those scientific findings. For example, some people choose to believe that the world is flat and not a sphere, despite all the evidence to the contrary. If people choose to believe things that contradict reality, there's not much that science can do to avoid "dissing" them, except to encourage better scientific education in general.

However, in all cases, it has meant that taxa, and especially species, change, and in the views of the post-Lamarckians it has meant that the diversity of modern life developed over time from previous distinct forms. Darwin probably took the term from von Baer, through the influence of Spencer, who used the term before the Origin was published. I think that Chambers also used it in the Vestiges.

In the FAQ Darwin's Influences and Precursors I distinguish several hypotheses of Darwin's, one of which is the hypothesis of (to use Darwin's phrase) the transmutation of species. This is not original to Darwin, and can be found in numerous earlier authors including the great French biologists Buffon and Bonnet. This sense of "evolution" is constant.

In the Macroevolution FAQ, I outline the distinction actually used by evolutionary biologists between microevolution (evolution within species) and macroevolution (evolution of species). This is not a new definition of "evolution" but an attempt to clarify how words are used to avoid confusion in scientific work. Many of those who give to the term "macroevolution" the sense of very large evolutionary changes (that is, bigger than the evolution of a new species) are also not Darwinists, such as Goldschmidt. However, even these "macroevolutionists" are still evolutionists, and all that is at issue is the mode.

Web pages are best for presenting information. Interactive debate takes place in the news group talk.origins. This site was set up to address common questions, confusions and errors which recur in that debate.

In the past few days several comments have been made on Taxacom about the "type specimen" of the nominal species Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758. I should like to contribute to this discussion, but only to point out that, under the Code of Zoological Nomenclature, it is not necessary for a species to have type specimen(s) fixed, either by the original author or subsequently. In many, or most, cases it is of course very desirable. All that is necessary is that a description of the taxon (or, in the case of pre-1931 names, an illustration), or a reference to such, be given by the original author [see Articles 12 and 13]. In the case of H. sapiens a lengthy description was given by Linnaeus but no "specimens" were mentioned (the famous remark "Nosce Te ipsum" - recognize yourself - hardly qualifies!).

The type series of a new nominal species consists [Art. 72b of the Code] of all the specimens included in the species by the author. In the case of H. sapiens this would be all persons living or dead (in 1758). Any such specimen (syntype) can be designated as a lectotype [Art. 74], but it cannot seriously be argued that "designations" of Carl Linnaeus himself have been made for the only relevant scientific purpose, i.e. in order to differentiate H. sapiens (modern man) from other hominids! Still less scientific or valid are the "designations" of a "neotype" (such as E.D. Cope, Raquel Welch(!) ...) which have been made. No designation of a neotype for H. sapiens meets the requirements of Article 75 of the Code.

In short, there is no name-bearing type specimen of H. sapiens.

Philip Tubbs
Executive Secretary, I.C.Z.N.
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
c/o The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW7 5BD
U.K.

This criticism displays the error of reading back into the past the standards of today. Criticisms of creationists with faux or the wrong degrees to be speaking in a discipline are applying the standards of today to today's people.

It is not Adam that requires redemption; it is sin. Sin exists in this world, by any reasonable definition of the word. Because humans sin, we require redemption and salvation by God. How that sin came about really isn't important. The existence of an actual person named Adam, created from dust to be the first person on Earth, just isn't necessary to the point being made. After all, Jesus spoke in parables; why can't the Bible do so as well?

By focusing on the truth or falsity of specific details of the Adam story, one loses sight of the larger picture, namely the point of the imperfection of man and the necessity of redemption and salvation.

I think you have several misunderstandings about evolution and how it applies to humanity. The first is that there is no "ladder" of evolution, no "higher" or "lower" points. Anything we define as being "higher" or "lower" is merely our subjective viewpoint; evolution is concerned only with differences, survivability, and reproduction in a particular environment.

I don't know where you got the 200,000 year figure from, and I can't comment on its accuracy or inaccuracy. I can state, however, that racial features such as hair and skin tone are a minute part of the entire human genome. The vast majority of the human genome is shared by all of us. Moreover, there is more than enough genetic mixing among all human populations to ensure that we all remain part of one species. (There's not really any such thing as a "place" in evolution, but this is the closest that I can come to answering your question.) As far as your genes are concerned, race is of little consequence as compared with other genetic differences.

Brain size has much less correlation with intelligence than it does with body size. See the Brain Sizes section of the Fossil Hominids FAQ for more information. Furthermore, despite the arguments made in The Bell Curve, the differences in IQ averages amongst racial groups is better explained by social and educational differences than by any innate mental disparities.

You might be interested in Stephen Jay Gould's 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man, published by W.W. Norton, which deals with many misconceptions regarding human evolution and races. You should also see the Creationism Implies Racism? FAQ.

In short, no, that is not the "evolutionary way." For one thing, altruistic behavior plays a role in a number of evolutionary theories. But more importantly, the theory of evolution, like every other theory in science, makes no statement about morality. It doesn't say that deceit is "good" any more than it says deceit is "bad."

People who accept evolution as the explanation of the diversity of life on Earth are, like the rest of the population, moral people for the most part. In fact, many of them are devout adherents of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other faiths. They recognize that science is not a source of morality and look for that morality elsewhere.

There are some who might try to create a moral philosophy from the theory of evolution. What they are doing, however, is not science. I quote Richard Dawkins, from The Selfish Gene:

I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave. I stress this, because I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.

(Emphasis added.) Deceit by creationists is not good or bad because of the theory of evolution. It is bad because it obscures the truth. Discovering and disseminating the information of science is difficult enough without having liars spread disinformation and simplistic half-truths.

That we have not made life is irrelevant. We have not made a volcano either, and yet we have a pretty good idea how they originate.

You are correct that watches do not evolve; they do not even reproduce.

Grass does not "know" how to make more grass. It simply does so naturally and unconsciously, with no indication of any special intervention into the natural working of the universe required.

If you choose to believe in a creator you may find it helpful to consider that the creator's activity is exactly what we see when we study the world. Hence, for example, you are created using processes studied in embryology, and diversity is created using processes studied in evolution.

The reason people buy into evolution is the same reason they buy into any other scientific theory: it is overwhelmingly supported by all available evidence. No rejection of a creator is required: though you may need to ditch some simplistic ideas about how the creator manages the job.

The hand and the eye are wonderful and complex structures, which give clear indication of their evolutionary origins.

The more complex reason is that mainstream science views creationism as a combination of religion and poor science. That is to say, where creationism does make testable predictions, those predictions have been demonstrated to be false. As the home page for this site states, this site is dedicated to presenting the views of mainstream science on the questions of origins.

As to why some people want creationism taught in public schools, the reasons vary with the individual. I think that many creationists feel that the theory of evolution (or at least their understanding of it) attacks their religious beliefs and that they don't want their children exposed to it, or at least want someone teaching their views to "counter" what evolution says. I personally feel this reflects an ignorance of science, poor theology, and flawed educational pedagogy, but that's just my view.

You might look through the Talk.Origins Archive's list of other web sites to find some creationist sites and see what they have to say.

2. Evolution theory predicts that there will have been billions of transitional organisms. It does not predict that all these organisms will have been preserved as fossils. Consider how many animals that are killed by cars each year are left with no trace in a matter of weeks. However, we do see a reasonably smooth continuum of forms in both the living world and the fossil record; the emphasis being on the word "reasonably".

3. I'm not able to answer this in detail, but I understand that there were animals in the sea that fit the body plan of insects. I'm sure that the topic is discussed in a textbook on insect paleontology.

4. (and 13., 17.) Numbers such as these are essentially meaningless. For a start, the likelihood is not that an entire DNA sequence plus all the machinery needed top make it work would self-assemble, but rather that something much simpler would self-assemble and more complex forms evolve over time. See Steps Towards Life By Eigen and Schuster, 1992 for details of the best reconstruction. See the The Probability of Abiogenesis FAQ for a brief discussion and pointer to other sources.

5. Nobody says they evolve by chance, so the question is meaningless. You might like to read Richard Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable 1996 for a discussion of these very topics.

9. Sexual reproduction could have evolved in a number of ways, but it probably evolved from selection for the ability to exchange genetic material, for sexually reproducing species seem to resist extinction longer than asexual species. John Maynard Smith wrote a book called (I think) The Evolution of Sex. For what it's worth, I think that sexual reproduction evolved initially as an accident due to the diploid nature of the DNA material, and was conserved in later lineages, but I'm no expert. I recall that it is thought to have evolved several times.

16. Yes, in the right circumstances, but it is not inevitable.

17. How are we sure that the only way proteins can be produced is through DNA? There are debates about the likely early chemistry that are not yet resolved. Disagreement in the absence of strong evidence is normal in science, if not in theology.

19. Oh, they do, all the time. But they tend not to spend their time debating dead issues.

The rest of the questions: These are not topics of evolutionary biology, or indeed any biological discipline.

I have never even heard of an "evolutionary theory of the moon's origin". I suspect you are lumping all sciences that involve a natural origin for anything together, and concude that this is because you have determined, a priori, to only believe in divine causes. That is your prerogative, but it is no challenge to modern science.

What you are discussing is not evolution, but research into abiogenesis. Although the work of Pasteur and others did demonstrate the falsity of spontaneous generation, abiogenesis is not spontaneous generation. Abiogenesis predicts that the first cells came from the self-organization of molecules and cellular parts (such as organelles) according to the laws of chemical reactions subject to the environment of the early Earth. For more information, you should see the Abiogenesis FAQ.

Moth, by the way, is not a species, but a very large number of related species.

Fruit flies likewise consist of a very large number of different species. Experiments have been quite successful in showing incipient speciation in a laboratory.

The various human races are all one species. We interbreed with alacrity and enthusiasm, and there is no clear boundary between racial types.

Sarcasm will backfire if it is founded on ignorance. I invite you to review the actual meaning of evolution, and the overwhelming evidence in its support.

For basics of evolution, read Introduction to Evolutionary Biology and What is Evolution?.

On the the species concept and speciation, you may like to read the Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ, which also lists a number of experiments on different species of fruit fly, and indicates what has and has not been achieved.

Some of the evidence for evolution is listed in Evidence for Evolution: An Eclectic Survey.

You are yourself a remarkable being -- and you grew from a tiny fertilized cell over the last several decades. The processes of your growth and development are studied in sciences of biology, embryology, genetics, human development and so on. I presume you do not consider this study is a denial of God's artistry -- which makes it rather mysterious why you should set up the study of evolution as being in opposition to God's artistry.

Briefly, macroevolution is evolution at species level or higher. This involves, at a minimum, speciation - the splitting of one species into two. Because even more derived varieties of evolution, such as the appearance of new families, occur above the species level, they are also "macroevolutionary", and Eldredge's book referred to covers the dynamics of evolution at that level.

So, since speciation has been seen, macroevolution has been seen. Since some kinds of macroevolution occur at very long periods, some kinds have not been seen. For example, the original ancestor of a new family would be very similar to other species it shared an ancestral species with. The fact that it has some novelty that forms the basis for a large number of species many millions of years later would not (then) be apparent. You'd have to wait until the large number of species evolved to find out that it was a family-producing novelty. And so forth for higher taxa.

So, to observe macroevolution of that kind, where it involves millions of years of data, you have to dig, literally, into the past, and since some sorts of information get lost over time (ie, behavioural) you have to infer rather than observe. But the converse is also true, that nobody can demonstrate that the sorts of small-scale macroevolutionary changes we do see in the period of biology known as the Recent, or Neontological, period are not capable of producing the paleontological patterns we find in the fossil record, and there is every empirical reason to think that they do.