PaulK wrote:
"According to dictionary.com "relativity" is "the state or fact of being relative". So it seems that all your points apply to Relativity as much as to Evolution. Does this mean that Relativity is not science ? I think that there are a good many physicists who would disagree with you."
Sorry, I'm sticking by the rules - this thread is on the subject "Is evolution science?" and that's all I'm prepared to discuss.
As far as my previous comments are concerned, I said:
"Evolution is not a science for one very simple reason - the only universally agreed definition of 'evolution' is:
Evolution = Change"
I take my lead here from (amongst others) Douglas Futuyma, author of "Evolutionary Biology", who appears to be held in pretty high regard by his peers. Futuyma writes:
"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve."
"Evolutionary Biology" (1985, 2nd edition)
He then goes on to say that BIOLOGICAL evolution - which is maybe what you had in mind, but you didn't actually say so:
"is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual."
Another version, from Lawrence Moran, professor of biochemistry at the University of Toronto, is:
"When biologists say that they have observed evolution, they mean that they have detected a change in the frequency of genes in a population."
Now I'm not suggesting that these two men would disagree with weach other's definitions. And quite possibly most evolutionists would agree with both descriptions. There are, however two problems:
1. (apparently minor) the two descriptions don't in fact quite match up. Moran only specifies a change in gene frequency - no mention of it causing changes to the population. Futuyma's explanation specifies actual changes in the population. In other words, Futuyma expects the genetic changes to take effect; Moran's only calls that they will exist.
2. Futuyma goes on to claim that:
"Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."
In a word, though many evolutionists hate the distinction, Futuyma is outlining micro-evolution (slight changes) and macro-evolution (an accumulation of successive alterations).
Of course microevolution used to be openly acknowledged, under the label "adaptation".
Adaptation, I happily agree, is entirely open to scientific investigation. Thousands of experiments (hundreds of thousands?) have demonstrated the reality of adaptation - whether brought about by natural selection or human selection.
But "successive changes", or "accumulated changes"? Where's the science there? It's pure pie in the sky. What experiments we have (such as growing extra bristles on a fruit fly) only show that the accumulation of adaptive changes are limited in their extent.
Of course various explanations have been offered, but no evidence has been produced to demonstrate that these boundaries can be overcome.
So, I say again, some aspects of evolution - and more specifically biological evolution - can be supported by scientific investigation. And some are purely hypothetical. And insisting that something MUST have happened, when there's no evidential support for it, and definite evidence against it, is not "scientific" - it's plain wishful thinking.
Anyone who has read "On the Origin of Species" will know that Darwin himself was well aware of this problem. He reported stories from pigeon breeders who effectively told him that breeding for difference was limited in its possibilities, and that even after such breeding had been successfully achieved, if the offspring were left to their own devices then subsequent generations began to revert, physiologically, to their ancestral type (as did the "hairy" fruit flies in more recent trials).
So has it been "scientific" to ignore the evidence and constantly struggle to show that the Darwinian model - already invalidated before it was first published - must be right?
If that's "science" then the definition seems to have changed quite radically since I did a "minor"in the basics of genetic heredity at university.
Be well
Andy Bradbury
™ Version 4.2
