Evolution is a fact, but evolution by natural selection is not a fact; it is a faith, or a pseudo-science.
Dr. John Rennie:
I read your article on Scientific American website entitled Cowardice, Creationism and Science Education: An Open Letter to the Universities.
The article starts with following phrases:
Suppose we have a petition here that says, As university presidents, we affirm that evolution by means of natural selection is a demonstrated fact of science?
I am disappointing to find out that you misunderstand one of the most important issues in biology, evolution and the mechanism of evolution.
The idea of evolution or biodiversity by natural selection and variations or mutations is the core of Darwins theory. Evolution (new species was evolved from parental species) has been accepted by the consensus of scientific community since Darwin proposed it. Few have ever doubted that natural selection occurs within species. It has been doubted whether natural selection plays any major role in the creation of new species.
Since Darwins book, almost all cases of speciation or biodiversity are to falsify (disprove) his idea. For example, lateral transfer in bacteria, polyploids in plants, generation of asexuals from sexual animals (virgin births), generation of SARS or HIV and many virus, incorporation of mitochondria by symbiosis, etc. they all fall into instantaneous biodiversity, not gradual one.
It is true that natural selection (NS) does function to remove less favorable organism, the result of NS will make organism more adaptative. However, adaptation is total different from speciation.
By scientific standard, Darwinism is not even a scientific theory or hypothesis; it is a faith and religion. This is the reason:
I quote definitions on
http://www.ediacara.org/jargon.html
Hypothesis: (n) 1. A statement that proposes a natural mechanism for
a phenomenon, where the mechanism is amenable to test, provides explanatory and predictive power, and is conditionally held on review of further observations and experiment.
Theory: (n) 1. A statement which proposes a natural mechanism for a
phenomenon, where the mechanism is amenable to test, provides
explanatory and predictive power, is conditionally held on review of
further observations and experiment, and has accumulated supporting
observations and experimental results.
By Darwinian evolutionists, there are several mechanisms of speciation (biodiversity): genetic drifting, natural selection, geographical isolation, sexual selection and instantaneous speciation. However, they cannot tell which organisms come into beings by which mechanism. Did giraffes, cats, dogs, human arrive by natural selection or geographical isolation or sexual selection? Did 10%, 1% or .000001% species evolve by NS or geographical isolation? It is totally up your imagination.
Can anybody predict which organism or animals by which mechanisms evolved? Does speciation take a millions years or millions seconds by these mechanisms?
Without any workable prediction, how do you falsify it? I am asking how to disprove NS as the mechanism of speciation, not disprove changes of allele frequencies by NS/geographical isolation or evolution itself.
So these mechanisms have no predictable power, and cannot be disproved. By the above definition, Darwinian theories should not be considered as a scientific theories or hypothesis, it only should be taken as a faith or religion. The battle between Creationism/ID and evolution by is a religious war, a war between two faiths. They both should not be taught in science classes.
In your article, you mention evolving antibiotics resistance and the emergence of new infectious disease as evidence of Darwinian theory, which is totally improper.
There was an article published Nov. 2004 in National Geographic by David Quammen. He discusses evidences for natural selection speciation. He made similar mistakes. Can you tell me how arrivals of HIV, Ebola, SARS and drug-resistant bacteria occur by natural selection from the parental viruses or bacteria?
1) Generally speaking, bacteria and virus are asexual organism, bacteria resistant to drug are never considered a new species, they are just a strain which happen to be resistant to a particular drug. A strain means organism with similar property, in this case, they are resistant to a drug.
2) Drug-resistance can be generated by different mechanism even for one type of drug. DNA mutation in bacteria can affect receptor for drug, metabolism of drug; drug-degrading enzyme can be introduced into bacteria by a plasmid carrying enzyme-generating DNA fragments, etc. The mutation or infection (plasmid) occur every seconds without antibiotics. So they might be pre-existed even before production of any drug in manufacture.
These mutation or infection provides a few bacteria within sea of bacteria drug-resistant property. Without application of drug, these bacteria would have to compete with billion of others for nutrients. When application of drug or selection, it would kill all other bacteria, and drug-resistant would get much more nutrients and proliferate. Without NS, they might be there, just there is no way to find out them.
One of Darwinists claims is that most of biologists accept NS as the major cause of evolution, so it must be true. It is just a misleading.
Doing science is not like electing the President; winners come out by popularity. Overwhelming majority of biologists does not study evolution as their career. They only have some exposure of evolution theories (of course, Darwinian theories) at high school or college levels, and then move into different directions.
If ones study Christian bible every Sunday morning, majority of them would grow up as Christians, so do Muslims, Hindu, Buddhists, and Communists. Popularity has nothing to do with scientific correctness.
Another impression that Darwinian evolutionists always make is false dichotomy: i.e. there is a debate only between Darwinian evolution and fundamental Creationism. If ones do not agree with Darwinism, ones must be aligned with Creationism. So one either chooses Darwinism or Creationism, only one of them is correct. As serious author in the popular magazine, why did you not even mention somebody could have an idea of pro-evolution and anti-Darwinism? Do you try to hide something from the readers? Or are you ignorant of many dissents in the field?
I quote Lynn Margulis marks in the end:
The hegemony of R. A. Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright is gone forever, and their latter-day saintsRichard Dawkins and J. Maynard Smith, or at least their studentswill have to learn something chemistry, microbiology, molecular biology, and paleontology, and the air.
(Acquiring Genomes, pp. 201-202).
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