Friday, September 16, 2011

Evolution and Evolutionism, Microevolution and Macroevolution

Although this was provoked by a private e-conversation, I think it needs to be part of the general policy of this blog: Evolution and evolutionism are not the same thing.

Evolution is a scientific fact. We can watch it happening; we can even make it happen. We can breed annual plants selectively and cause them to evolve toward the genetic type we prefer. Some scientists refer to the phenomenon of evolution within the genetic potential for a species as "microevolution."

Evolutionism is a controversial scientific theory that postulates that, at some hypothetical time in the past, instead of evolving back toward the basic genetic type for their species, some species evolved into completely different species that can no longer breed back into the original gene pool. Some scientists refer to this hypothetical phenomenon as "macroevolution."

Macroevolution may be possible, but it's never been scientifically documented. Descendants of living creatures that have mutated, or evolved, toward an extreme within their species' genetic potential, show "regression toward the mean." Sweet, juicy domestic carrots evolve back into woody-rooted Queen Anne's Lace; lovable dogs evolve back into coyotes; tall people who marry each other are more likely to have normal-sized, not super-tall, children.

Evolutionism was deliberately worked up as a substitute for traditional religious beliefs back when people were trying to promote scientific humanism as a religion. Religious people retaliated by generating a scientific theory for creationism. This alternative theory is also based on people's emotional needs rather than on scientific facts.

Although my feeling is that creationism is easier for the mind to accept because it requires fewer suspensions of disbelief, this comes under psychology, philosophy, or religion. Science has nothing to do with it.

Both theories rest on rather unusual treatments of the facts. For example, evolutionists postulated that certain fossils of extinct creatures could be considered "more primitive" and ought to be older than other fossils. Carbon "dating" supports the theory that the "more primitive" fossils were over, and was accepted as reliable because it fits into evolutionary theory so neatly. Carbon dating has been shown not to work for objects recent enough that their approximate age can be guessed even within a millennium.

The poet Robert Graves, a student of history, ancient languages and literature, and mythology, once re-constructed a hypothetical religious/poetic culture of ancient Britain. Although the actual history for this culture is scanty and does not support Graves' reconstruction, and specifically there's no evidence that Graves' "sacred symbolic" tree/rune alphabet was actually used, the symbolism in The White Goddess fits together very neatly. It is a stunning piece of concentrated individual thought, and a delightful read. However, linguists and historians have rejected Graves' attempt to reconstruct lost folklore and languages as "unscientific." If biologists were as rigorous as linguists and historians, they would have rejected carbon dating as "unscientific" too.

The origin of life is not a question that can be scientifically studied, unless and until scientists are able to build completely new planets and originate life on them.

Science is the study of things that can be observed as they happen, or caused to happen, in the present time. Evolutionism and creationism must therefore be classified together as science fiction, or mythology...neither has much to do with actual science.

As books are added to this site, I'll be writing more in praise of books that explain how things really work and creatures really live--scientifically--as opposed to maundering on about how they might have evolved (or been created, or been shipped here from our ancestral solar system, or whatever). Even when a writer's goal is to write something "inspirational," I'd rather read a celebration of how the parts of our environment do fit together than a speculation about how they might have been put together. This is a personal preference, but it's based in a disciplined view of science as a pursuit of objective facts.

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