Darwin's evolutionary science?

Let me show you a good article in Scientific American: 15 Answer creationism nonsense (by John Rainey) Answer creationism nonsense 15.

143 years ago, Darwin put forward the theory of evolution by natural selection, and scientists at that time had a heated debate about it. However, relying on a lot of evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other disciplines, the theory of evolution overcame other criticisms and was gradually established. Today, evolution has won in all fields-except, of course, public awareness.

Embarrassed, in 2 1 century, in the most scientifically developed countries in the world, the supporters of creationism can still deceive politicians, judges and ordinary citizens, saying that evolution is a problematic and unfounded hypothesis. They claim that creationism such as "intelligent design" should be on an equal footing with evolution in science classes. When this article was about to be published, the Ohio Board of Education was debating whether to take such measures. Some opponents of evolution, such as philip johnson, a law professor in Berkeley, California and the author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they hope to take the intelligent design theory as an opportunity to bring the discussion of God back to the science classroom.

Teachers and others who are troubled by this gradually find that they must stand up to defend the theory of evolution and refute creationism. Creationists' arguments are usually specious, or based on misunderstanding of evolution (even naked slander). These arguments are so varied that they can even confuse people who understand evolution.

In order to answer these questions, the following refutes some common "scientific" reasons against evolution. Then, it introduces more in-depth knowledge and explains why creationism has no place in the classroom.

1. Evolution is just a theory, which is neither a fact nor a scientific law.

Many people know from the primary school classroom that the theory is at the middle level of certainty-more certain than the hypothesis, but irregular. However, scientists don't see "theory" this way. According to the definition of American Academy of Sciences (NAS), scientific theory is "a completely provable explanation about some aspects of nature, which can be in the form of facts, laws, inferences or verified hypotheses". The law is only a descriptive generalization of nature, and the difference between it and the law is not the number of times of verification. So scientists think that evolution is a theory-in this sense, whether it is evolution itself or other related theories-does not mean that they doubt the truth.

Evolution itself means that organisms reproduce in change. Besides, people can also talk about the facts of evolution. NAS defines facts as "observations that can be repeatedly confirmed, and it will be accepted as' true' regardless of all practical purposes". Fossils and many other evidences prove that organisms have been evolving. Although no one has witnessed these changes, the indirect evidence is clear, definite and convincing.

All science often relies on circumstantial evidence. For example, physicists can't directly observe the particles inside the atom, but only observe the trajectory of these particles in the cloud chamber to verify. Although it is impossible to observe directly, the physicist's conclusion is conclusive.

2. The theory of natural selection is based on circular argument: the species with the strongest adaptability survives, and the species that can survive must be the most adaptable.

"Survival of the fittest" is only a daily description of the theory of natural selection, and a more professional description focuses on the level differences between survival and reproduction. In other words, the theory of evolution does not label a species as highly viable, but describes how many offspring a species may survive in a specific environment. Small beaked finches breed fast, while big beaked finches breed slowly. On an island rich in plant seeds, there are a pair of small beak finches and a pair of big beak finches. It won't be long before small-billed songbirds that breed faster can control more food sources. If the seed shell is much easier to bite with a big beak, the advantage may be on the side of the big beak songbirds. Peter R.Grant of Princeton University observed the change of wild population in his pioneering research on Galapagos Island (refer to his article "Natural Selection and Darwin's finches"); Scientific American magazine, 10 issue.

The crux of the problem lies in that the definition of adaptability can be irrelevant to survival: a large beak has advantages in breaking shells, but whether this characteristic has survival value in a specific environment is another matter.

Evolution is unscientific because it cannot be verified or falsified. The events it asserts have never been observed and cannot be reproduced.

Evolution can be divided into at least two fields: micro-evolution and macroevolution. The above general accusations ignore this important difference. Micro-evolution of species happens at any time-change may lead to the formation of species, which is the origin of new species. Macroevolution studied the changes of taxonomic populations at the species level. The evidence mainly comes from the comparison of fossil remains and DNA used to rebuild the connection between organisms.

In recent years, most creationists have realized that micro-evolution has been confirmed in laboratory (research on cells, plants and fruit flies) and field experiments (for example, Grant's research on the beak size of Galapagos songbirds). With the passage of time, natural selection and other mechanisms, such as chromosome changes, biological phenomena and hybridization techniques, will have a far-reaching impact on the population.

The study of macro-evolutionism is historical, and its materials come from fossils and DNA, rather than direct observation. In these historical sciences (including astronomy, geology and archaeology, evolutionary biology), the hypothesis can still be verified. We can verify whether they are consistent with the existing evidence and whether we can make verifiable predictions about future discoveries. For example, according to the theory of evolution, there should be descendants of primitive humans between the known primitive human species (which appeared about 5 million years ago) and anatomically recognized modern humans (about 6.5438 million years ago). Their physical characteristics are worse than those of apes, but they are more and more like modern people, which has been confirmed by fossils. But we shouldn't-and haven't-found modern human fossils in Jurassic strata (65.438+44 billion years ago). Evolutionary biology can often make more professional and accurate predictions, which can often be verified by researchers.

Evolution may also be falsified. If we can find complex creatures directly produced by inanimate matter, then at least some of these species should leave fossil records. If there are super-intelligent aliens who claim to have created life on earth (even special species), then the explanation of pure evolution is doubtful. But there is no such evidence at present.

It should be mentioned that the practice of taking falsifiability as one of the scientific attributes was put forward by the philosopher karl popper in the 1930s. In recent years, this view has been improved a lot, and the explanation of this principle is no longer rigid-otherwise it may conflict with many obvious scientific advances.

Scientists are becoming less and less convinced of the truth of evolution.

There is no evidence that evolution is losing its edge. Pick up a peer-reviewed biology magazine and you will see articles that support or expand the study of evolution or regard it as a basic concept.

On the contrary, we can't find serious scientific publications that refute evolution. In the mid-1990s, George W. Gelchrist of Washington University consulted thousands of publications, mainly literary publications, looking for articles about intelligent design or creationism. I consulted hundreds of thousands of scientific reports and found nothing. In the past two years, Barbara Forrest of Southwest Louisiana University and Lawrence M. Klaus of Catholic University in Washington have conducted independent research, and the results are still the same.

Creationists protest that scientists are closed-minded and turn a blind eye to their evidence. However, according to the information provided by editors of top journals such as Nature and Science, no one has ever submitted an article against evolution. Some authors who oppose evolution have published papers in serious journals. However, these papers hardly directly attack the theory of evolution or advocate creationism; At best, it only confirms the unsolved or difficult problems of evolution (no one denies this). In short, creationists have no reason for the scientific community to face them squarely.

The divergence of views among evolutionary biologists proves that there is almost no solid scientific support for the theory of evolution.

Evolutionary biologists have heated debates on many issues: the process of species formation, the speed of evolution, the ancestral relationship between birds and dinosaurs, whether Neanderthals are another branch different from modern humans, and so on. Such an argument exists in all other disciplines. However, in biology, it is universally applicable to regard evolution as a fact and a guiding principle.

Unfortunately, the cunning creationists' comments on scientists are taken out of context, which should be regarded as a denial of evolution. Anyone who knows the work of Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist at Harvard University, knows him. He participated in the creation of the punctuated equilibrium model, and was also the most eloquent defender and propagandist of the theory of evolution (punctuated equilibrium's theory pointed out that most evolutionary changes occurred in a short period of time in the geological sense, although it still took hundreds of generations to replace it, thus explaining the pattern of fossil records). Creationists, however, are keen to extract a short passage from Gould's long speech, which makes people feel that he is questioning biological evolution. They also explained punctuated equilibrium's theory that new species can appear overnight, or birds can hatch from the eggs of reptiles.

If you see quotations that seem to question the scientific authority of evolution, be sure to find the context. Almost without exception, saying these words is an attack on the theory of evolution and is wishful thinking.

6. If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there monkeys?

This question is very interesting and reflects some ignorance of evolution. The most obvious mistake is that the theory of evolution doesn't tell us that humans evolved from monkeys, it just shows that humans and monkeys have the same ancestor.

The deeper mistake is that such questions are similar to "If children are born, why are there adults?" New species come from old species, and if they get enough sustainable genetic differences and reach enough numbers to be different from the original population, they will form new species. Primitive species may continue to exist or become extinct.

7. Evolution can't explain how life appeared on the earth.

The origin of life is still a big mystery, but biochemists have understood how the original nucleic acids, amino acids and other components that make up life are combined and organized into self-replicating and self-sustaining units, which is the basis of cell biology. Astrochemical studies show that these components may have originated in space and fell into the earth with comets, which may explain how these components appeared in the typical environment of the earth shortly after its birth.

Creationists sometimes accuse science of failing to explain the origin of life at present, and then deny the theory of evolution. But even if life on earth came from non-evolutionary origin (the first cell may have been brought by aliens billions of years ago), numerous microscopic and macroevolution studies can confirm that evolution began from then on.

Strictly speaking, it is hard for us to believe that something as complex as protein can happen by accident, let alone people or living cells.

There is contingency in evolution (for example, accidental mutation can produce new features), but evolution does not depend on contingency to produce new organs, protein or other entities. On the contrary, natural selection, as the most important mechanism known in evolution, will certainly retain the "needed" (adaptive) features and eliminate the "unnecessary" (unsuitable) features. As long as the influence of selection exists, natural selection can push evolution in one direction and produce complex structures in an unexpected short time.

For example, the existing sequence "TOBEORNOTTOBE" consists of 65,438+03 letters. Suppose there are millions of monkeys, and it takes 78,800 years for each monkey to choose a phrase from 26 13 possibilities every second to choose such an arrangement. However, Richard Hardison of Glendale College wrote a program in the 1980s, which can randomly generate sequences while ensuring that the letters that have appeared in the correct position will not change (which is a bit like Hamlet). Note: It took me half a day to understand this sentence. This program only needs an average of 336 iterations to generate the above phrases, and the time is less than 90 seconds. What's even more amazing is that it only takes four and a half days for Shakespeare's whole play to be reborn.

9. According to the second law of thermodynamics, with the passage of time, the system will become more disordered. Therefore, living cells cannot be produced from inanimate matter, and multicellular life cannot evolve from protozoa.

This accusation misunderstood the second law of thermodynamics. If this reasoning can be established, crystals and snowflakes can't exist because they are naturally generated by disordered elements.

The second law of thermodynamics shows that the entropy of a closed system (no matter and energy enter or leave) will not decrease. Entropy is a physical concept, which is usually roughly described as disorder, but it is actually very different from what we often say.

More importantly, the second law of thermodynamics allows a situation in which the entropy of one part of the system decreases while the entropy of other parts increases. Therefore, the earth as a whole can become more complicated because the sun transmits light and heat to it; Compared with the change of the earth itself, the entropy of the earth is more closely related to the nuclear fusion of the sun. Simple organisms can consume inanimate matter or other forms of life and develop in a more complex direction.

10. Mutation is the focus of evolutionary theory, but mutation can only destroy features, but can't produce new features.

On the contrary, biology has recorded a large number of new features caused by gene point mutations (changes in the exact location of biological DNA)-such as microbial resistance to antibiotics.

Mutations in homeobox genes (Hox) family, which are specific to growth in objects, will bring complex consequences. Hox gene directly specifies the growth position of legs, wings, antennae and trunk. Take the fruit fly as an example. Antennal feet can cause legs to grow where tentacles should grow. The limbs thus grown have no practical function, but it can be proved that genetic variation can produce complex structures, and natural selection can test the possible uses of these structures.

In addition, molecular biology has also found the genetic change mechanism other than gene point mutation, which can also bring new characteristics. Functional modules in genes can be connected in abnormal ways. In some cases, genes in organisms can be completely copied, and the copies can be mutated at will to produce genes corresponding to new complex characteristics. By comparing the DNA of many organisms, we know that this is the evolution way of globulin gene family in blood protein for millions of years.

1 1. Natural selection may explain micro-evolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species or higher life forms.

Evolutionary biologists have explained how natural selection produces new species. For example, according to the "allopatry" model proposed by Ernst Mayr of Harvard University, if a certain number of populations are isolated by geographical environment, they may face different selection pressures, and changes will accumulate in the isolated populations. If the change is significant enough that the separated population can't (or usually can't) normally mate with the original population, the separated population will reproduce independently and start to produce new species.

Among various evolutionary mechanisms, natural selection is the most fully studied, but biologists are also willing to accept other theories. Biologists often evaluate the potential of abnormal genetic mechanisms that produce new populations or complex characteristics. Lynn margulis of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and other researchers strongly point out that some organelles, such as mitochondria that produce energy, evolved through the fusion of ancient organisms. This shows that the scientific community welcomes the study of evolution caused by forces other than natural selection. But these forces must come from nature, not from mysterious intelligent creatures-in scientific terms, the existence of this factor has not been confirmed.

12. No one witnessed the evolution of new species.

The emergence of new species is quite rare, and in many cases, this process takes hundreds of years. In addition, it may be very difficult to identify new species that are forming, because biologists sometimes have different views on the method of species definition. According to the most widely used definition, that is, Meyer's concept of biological category, a species is a population that can reproduce independently-the creatures in this population usually do not or cannot mate with the creatures outside the population. In the real world, this standard may be difficult to apply to distant populations, geographically separated populations, or plant populations (fossils obviously cannot reproduce). Therefore, biologists usually distinguish populations according to their physical and behavioral characteristics.

However, there are obvious speciation reports about plants, insects and worms in the scientific literature. In most of these experiments, researchers selected organisms according to various criteria-anatomical differences, mating behavior, habitat preference and other characteristics-and found that organisms that could not mate with other species could also be produced. For example, experiments by William R. Rice of the University of New Mexico and George W. Salt of the University of California, Davis show that if fruit flies with a preference for a certain environment are selected and bred independently for more than 35 generations, these fruit flies will not mate with other fruit flies with different environments.

13. Evolutionists can't give any fossils of transitional species-such as creatures that are half reptiles and half birds.

In fact, paleontologists have mastered many fossils of transitional species between populations. For a long time, the most famous is Archaeopteryx, which has both the unique bone structure and feathers of birds and the characteristics of dinosaurs. People also found a large number of fossils of feathered creatures, which have different relationships with birds. According to a series of fossils, modern horses evolved from apes. The ancestors of whales had four legs and lived on land. Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus can explain this change (please refer to Kate Wong's article "Mammals Conquering the Sea" published in the May issue of Scientific American). Shell fossils have witnessed the evolution of mollusks for millions of years. There are about 20 kinds of hominids that fill the gap between modern humans and Australopithecus Lucy (not all of them are our first ones).

But creationists abandoned these fossil research results. They claim that Archaeopteryx is not a chain between reptiles and birds-it is just an extinct bird with reptilian characteristics. They asked evolutionists to create mysterious and absurd monsters that did not belong to any known species. Even if a creationist admits that a fossil corresponds to a transitional species between two species, he may still ask to see the fossil remains between the transitional species and the original two species. This unreasonable demand will never end, and it is unbearable for the incomplete fossil record.

However, evolutionists can get further evidence from molecular biology. For all living things, most genes are the same, and according to the theory of evolution, the structure and products of these genes will be different according to the evolutionary relationship and species. What geneticists call a "molecular clock" records this process, and these molecular data also explain the transition relationship of species in evolution.

14. Organisms have incredibly complex features-whether at the anatomical level, the cellular level or the molecular level-and if the complexity is reduced a little, they can't work normally. The only valid conclusion is that they are the product of wisdom creation, not the result of evolution.

This "design argument" is the core of the recent attack on evolution, but it is also the oldest. 1802 theologian William Paley said that if someone finds a watch underground, the most reasonable conclusion is that the watch was dropped by others, not created by natural forces. Paley said that by analogy, the complex structure of living things must be directly created by God. Darwin gave the answer in the Origin of Species: he explained how the power of natural selection gradually produced complex organic structures through the inheritance of characteristics.

Generations of creationists have tried to refute Darwin with the example of eyes, proving that organs cannot be produced by evolution. These people say that the eye can produce vision, which depends on the perfect combination of its parts. And natural selection can't provide a transitional form in the evolution of eyes-is it half an eye? Darwin foresaw this criticism a long time ago. He pointed out that even "imperfect" eyes can bring benefits (such as helping organisms recognize light), and then they can be further improved. Biology confirmed Darwin's statement: researchers found primitive eyes and photosensitive organs in the animal kingdom, and even described the evolutionary history of eyes through comparative genetics (eyes have evolved independently in different biological groups at present).

Today's intelligent creationists are smarter than their predecessors, but their arguments and goals have not changed much. They all attack the theory of evolution by trying to prove that it can't explain the known creatures, and then point out that the only feasible explanation for the existence of this creature is that it was created by an unproven intelligent creature.

15. Recent studies have confirmed that even at the micro level, the complexity of life cannot be generated through evolution.

Michael J. Behr of Lehigh University, the author of Darwin's Black Box: The Challenge of Biochemistry to Evolution, believes that evolution cannot explain "the complexity that cannot be simplified". Behe gave an example in daily life-a mousetrap. Without any parts, the mousetrap will fail, and these parts are useless elsewhere. Therefore, Behe thinks that this is the case with mousetraps, especially the flagella of creatures, which is a whiplike organ used to generate thrust, similar to the external motor on a ship. Protein, which constitutes the flagella, has formed engine, universal joint and other parts needed by engineers in an incomparably ingenious way. Behe pointed out that the possibility of producing this complex structure through continuous evolution is zero, and it must come from intelligent design. He believes that this principle can also be applied to blood coagulation mechanism and other molecular systems.

Evolutionary biologists have answered this question. First of all, the form of flagella is simpler than the example given by Behe, so all organs are not needed for flagella to function. Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University and others have long pointed out that the complex organs that make up flagella existed in nature before. In fact, the flagella itself is even too simple compared with the organ used by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that produces bubonic plague, to inject toxins.

The crux of the matter is that Behr thinks that the various components of flagella are of no value elsewhere and can actually provide many functions conducive to evolution. The final appearance of flagella may only come from the reorganization of complex organs that have evolved in other directions. Similarly, according to Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California, San Diego, the mechanism of blood coagulation comes from protein's refining, and protein was originally for digestion. Therefore, some complex examples of Behr supporting intelligent design theory are not completely irreconcilable.

William A. Dembski of Baylor University supported the cornerstone of intelligent design theory in Design Inference and No Free Lunch, which is another kind of complexity-"designated complexity". His main argument is that no dominant stochastic process can produce biological complexity. So he repeated Paley's point of view 200 years ago, and the only conclusion was that supernatural wisdom created life.

Dembski's argument is problematic. We can't assume that there are only two explanations: stochastic process and intelligent design. Researchers studying nonlinear systems and cellular automata at the Santa Fe Institute and other institutions have found that simple non-dominant processes can also produce very complex patterns. In other words, the complexity of some creatures may be caused by some natural phenomena, but these phenomena are still incomprehensible. But this is by no means to say that complexity will not happen naturally.

abstract

The name "creative science" is self-contradictory. One of the core principles of modern science is methodological naturalism-it tries to explain everything with observable or verifiable natural principles. Physics describes the nucleus with special concepts about matter and energy, and these descriptions can be verified by experiments. If the previous description is not enough to explain the observed phenomenon, physicists will introduce new particles such as quarks to enrich it. However, they will not give new particles some properties at will. On the contrary, the definition of new particles is quite strict, because they must be able to be incorporated into the existing physical framework. On the contrary, when intelligent design theorists explain mysterious phenomena, they always introduce fuzzy concepts with infinite ability for convenience. Therefore, the explanation of the phenomenon ends here, and further scientific exploration is impossible (how can omnipotent intelligent designers not exist? )

Many questions cannot be answered by intelligent design theory. In the history of life, when and how did intelligent designers appear? Is it to create the first DNA? Or the first cell? Or the first person? Is every species designed, or only the initial life comes from intelligent design? Supporters of intelligent design theory are usually unwilling to put down their airs and answer these questions. They don't even want to really try to sort out the supernatural views of intelligent design theory. On the contrary, they use exclusion to demonstrate-belittle the explanation of evolution, think it is too far-fetched or incomplete, suggesting that we have to choose design theory.

Logically speaking, this doesn't work: even if the naturalistic explanation is flawed, it can't reach that conclusion. On the contrary, it can't even show that intelligent design theory is more reliable than other theories. These heckled listeners need to fill the gaps left by themselves. On this issue, some people are bound to believe in science and give up religious interpretation.

Science has repeatedly proved that naturalism of methodology can eliminate previously unexplained ignorance and mysterious phenomena-the nature of light, the causes of diseases and the working principle of the human brain, and science can gradually find more detailed and meaningful answers. The same is true of evolution, which hopes to explain the formation of the biological world. Creationism, like its name, has no intellectual contribution to it.