Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 04, 2009, 13:49 (5560 days ago) @ David Turell

Many thanks to David Turell for a succession of interesting references. You asked, in relation to the complexities of DNA, and in particular sexual reproduction and its repair mechanisms, "how does Darwin's chance mechanism of evolution accomplish this? This is not chicken or egg and which came first? It must be chicken and chicken or egg and egg simultaneously. Any thoughts?" - My thoughts go back to: how about cock and chicken, sperm and egg, and all the relevant connections simultaneously? - As always, the great question mark lies over the creative ability of chance (though not, in my view, the developments that follow on from the new combinations). However, people keep talking about evolution as if it was a single block of thought which you either accept or don't. This was highlighted by a letter in today's Guardian from Professor Nicholas J. Radcliffe of Edinburgh University, commenting on an opinion poll and rightly criticizing the newspaper's misleading headline that only 25% of Britons believe Darwin's theory of evolution: - "You report that 25% say evolution is "definitely true" and another quarter say it is "probably true". But it is a basic tenet of science that theories can be disproved but not proved; no matter how great the evidence, or how personally convinced, many scientists would balk at saying evolution is "definitely true". Perhaps your respondents understand more than their interrogators." - Shades of the greatly missed whitecraw on this website! But the point I'm making is a slightly different one. Clearly the question the pollsters asked did not include the possibility that people might believe some parts of the theory and not believe others. Nor could they have made allowances for what people understand by evolution, since in so many minds it is now associated with atheism. Darwin himself was scrupulous in confronting the problems (see Chapter 6 of The Origin, "Difficulties on Theory"), all of which require separate analysis, and any one of which could undermine the theory. It shouldn't be presented to the reading public, TV audiences or schoolchildren as a scientific package deal.