Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Great article, Roswell, thanks!

An open letter to Mississippi lawmakers
(By Julie Shedd, Hattiesburg American, January 15, 2009)

Respectfully, sirs and madams: Are you trying to make Mississippi the state with the least well-educated and most helpless population in this country?

Last week we learned that due to disastrous and disproven abstinence-only education, we have the nation's highest rate of teenage pregnancy. Now we have House Bill 25, which aims to place stickers on science textbooks questioning the validity of evolutionary theory.

Current challenges to evolutionary theory are not based on science. They are based on religious beliefs and the ideas of so-called "think tanks" such as the Discovery Institute, which studies the pseudoscience of "intelligent design." Therefore, they have no place in science classrooms, let along our public school system.

I could go on an infuriated rant, but instead, I'll take apart some of the stickers' claims.

"The word 'theory' has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations."

Here we have the first refuge of the ignorant-of-evolutionary-science. In science, "theory" has only one meaning. It denotes a hypothesis which has been tested so often and in such varied ways that it can be relied upon.

Yes, the theory can change if new scientific observations are made. That's the beauty of science. This does not mean that every challenge to a theory can be taken seriously.

"This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things."

This theory is not controversial; at least, not among those who have a working knowledge of the theory. And if the phrase "some scientists" refers to "the vast majority of reputable, knowledgeable scientists," then sure, "some scientists" are behind it.

"No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered a theory."

Incorrect. Mere statements about life's origins should be considered ideas, or at best, hypotheses. As stated above, theories have been tested.

"Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things."

Scientific theories are often not complete explanations of everything that ever happened. Yes, there are unanswered questions. There are billions of years of history behind us, after all. At least two of these claims, however, have been reliably disproven.

First of all, the common creationist/"intelligent design" claim that we have no transitional forms. We have thousands of them. Ever hear of Archaeopteryx? Visit a museum. Secondly, the issue of a set of instructions: There is none. Why would there be? Living beings are not transistor radios or IKEA bookshelves; they do not come with instructions.

"Study hard and keep an open mind."

That's not easy to do when you're closing it for me.

People who take issue with evolution usually do not have a complete knowledge of how evolution works.

Mississippi's children will carry this incomplete knowledge with them if this sort of thing is what we teach them. Without understanding evolutionary theory and other scientific concepts, we are set up to remain not only the poorest and most pregnant state, but also the least-educated.

People: Please follow the lead of other states in this matter and do not support this bill. Debate it if you must (preferably in church, which is where the anti-evolution debate belongs), but please, allow your children to learn.

Respectfully, sirs and madams: Are you trying to make Mississippi the state with the least well-educated and most helpless population in this country?

Last week we learned that due to disastrous and disproven abstinence-only education, we have the nation's highest rate of teenage pregnancy. Now we have House Bill 25, which aims to place stickers on science textbooks questioning the validity of evolutionary theory.

Current challenges to evolutionary theory are not based on science. They are based on religious beliefs and the ideas of so-called "think tanks" such as the Discovery Institute, which studies the pseudoscience of "intelligent design." Therefore, they have no place in science classrooms, let along our public school system.

I could go on an infuriated rant, but instead, I'll take apart some of the stickers' claims.

"The word 'theory' has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations."

Here we have the first refuge of the ignorant-of-evolutionary-science. In science, "theory" has only one meaning. It denotes a hypothesis which has been tested so often and in such varied ways that it can be relied upon.

Yes, the theory can change if new scientific observations are made. That's the beauty of science. This does not mean that every challenge to a theory can be taken seriously.

"This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things."

This theory is not controversial; at least, not among those who have a working knowledge of the theory. And if the phrase "some scientists" refers to "the vast majority of reputable, knowledgeable scientists," then sure, "some scientists" are behind it.

"Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things."

Scientific theories are often not complete explanations of everything that ever happened. Yes, there are unanswered questions. There are billions of years of history behind us, after all. At least two of these claims, however, have been reliably disproven.

First of all, the common creationist/"intelligent design" claim that we have no transitional forms. We have thousands of them. Ever hear of Archaeopteryx? Visit a museum. Secondly, the issue of a set of instructions: There is none. Why would there be? Living beings are not transistor radios or IKEA bookshelves; they do not come with instructions.

"Study hard and keep an open mind."

People who take issue with evolution usually do not have a complete knowledge of how evolution works.

Mississippi's children will carry this incomplete knowledge with them if this sort of thing is what we teach them. Without understanding evolutionary theory and other scientific concepts, we are set up to remain not only the poorest and most pregnant state, but also the least-educated.

People: Please follow the lead of other states in this matter and do not support this bill. Debate it if you must (preferably in church, which is where the anti-evolution debate belongs), but please, allow your children to learn.

And such a dramatic history, with such insights into the evolutionary process . . . the photos were astounding.

A scientific theory is an attempt to bind together in a systematic fashion the knowledge one has of some particular aspect of the world of experience. The aim is to acheive some form of understanding, where it is usually cashed out as explanatory power and predictive facility. The traditional analysis, going back to the Greeks and most recently championed by such logical empiricists as Carl Hempel and Ernest Nagel, sees theories as ' hypothetico-deductive systems', meaning that one has sets of laws bound together through the fact that, from a few high-powered axioms or hypotheses, everything else can be shown to follow as a deductive consequence. Explanation therefore is a matter of showing how things happened because of the laws of the theory. Prediction is a matter of showing how things will happen in accordance with the laws of the theory. Most significant is the fact that really successful theories bind together information from many hitherto disparate areas of experience, thus exhibiting what the philosopher William Whewell characterized as a 'consilience of unductions'.

In recent years, this picture of theories has come under some considerable attack. Although it may apply fairly well to such a theoy as Newton's theory of gravitational attraction, something like Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection seems not to be as tightly integrated (deductively) as is supposed. Moreover, while such a theory as Darwin's certainly has some predictive power, it can hardly be said that this is a compelling attraction. Hence, rather than relying on the traditional excuses ('biology is immature' and so forth) an increasing number of thinkers have started to promote a view of theories which (they claim) pays far greater attention to the actual practice of science. Supporters of this 'semantic view' of theories argue that theories should not be seen as overall systems trying to cover, at one move, major areas of experience. Rather, more informally, they should be considered as sets of theoretical models which are given empirical meaning only inasmuch as they can be applied directly (semantically) to certain limited areas of empirical reality. The virtues of the theory (like explanation and prediction) are not prescribed beforehand, but are very much a function of the particular model in use at the time.

Debate continues, but undoubtedly at least part of the divide is between an older philosophy of science which sees the task to be that of prescription of the ideal form of science, and a newer philosophy of science which rests content with a description of the way in which science is actually performed.

Most significant is the fact that really successful theories bind together information from many hitherto disparate areas of experience, thus exhibiting what the philosopher William Whewell characterized as a 'consilience of unductions'

But there is at least one other genetic model that has been put forth to explain the evolution of new forms. This view postulates that many major features exhibited by organisms are "threshold" traits, meaning that they are determined by many converging influences which add together and -- once the level of influence exceeds a threshold -- generate the trait. The model predicts that certain invariant (i.e., never-changing) traits would nevertheless exhibit significant genetic variation, since evolutionary selection is acting on the overall trait and not on the individual genetic influences that are added together. Hence the implication that...
...populations contain substantial cryptic genetic variation, which, if reconfigured, could produce a discrete shift in morphology and thereby a novel phenotype. Thus, evolution would not be dependent on rare mutations, but on standing, albeit cryptic, genetic variation.
--from Nick Lauter and John Doebley, "Genetic Variation for Phenotypically Invariant Traits Detected in Teosinte: Implications for the Evolution of Novel Forms," Genetics 160:333-342, 2002.

Especially since plants have played such a huge part in human culture and survival (even more so than animal husbandry).

Thats pretty much it.