22: Ten Arguments against Evolution and Why They re Wrong in VS .NET

Draw QR Code JIS X 0510 in VS .NET 22: Ten Arguments against Evolution and Why They re Wrong

the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real Time and again, for pretty much whatever the ID camp claims couldn t have evolved incrementally, evolutionary biologists have identified the intermediate steps that led to the complex structure Two classic examples of highly complex structures that evolved precisely through intermediate steps are the eye and blood-clotting factors Just because a system is made up of a series of parts doesn t mean that those parts evolved to perform the functions they now perform Take, for example, bacteria that have evolved to break down polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are new to the environment Until humans made them, these very nasty chemicals didn t exist But some bacteria have evolved very complicated biochemical mechanisms for breaking down these compounds As it turns out, the biochemistry that allows these bacteria to degrade PCBs is kludged together from a series of other biochemical pathways that serve other functions Such PCB-busting biochemical mechanisms seem irreducibly complex, but the individual parts are advantageous in ways that are not related to PCB degradation

ID proponents argue that the theory of evolution isn t the only theory explaining how life on Earth came to be; therefore, in the interest of fairness and balance, ID should be taught along with evolution in the science classroom The issue isn t what should be included in the school curriculum, but what should be included in a science class This statement may sound like hairsplitting, but science instruction isn t about a simple accumulation of facts and data (even though facts and data are accumulated in the process of doing science) Science is a way of asking questions by coming up with ideas and then trying hard to shoot them down The ideas that scientists can t shoot down even after lots of trying become theories about how things work And if at some point, other scientists come up with evidence that refutes these theories, they shoot the theories down

Although the ID argument is compelling to many people, it isn t science In fact, it turns the entire scientific process on its head Instead of trying to shoot down their own premise that a designer is responsible for the complexity of the universe, ID proponents use the very complexity that they claim requires a designer to prove the existence of the designer This reasoning is circular (and an error in logic); it s not science The ID argument relies on a particular world view that demands a designer In essence, it promotes the religious viewpoint that something beyond natural processes created the world and the creatures in it Evolution, on the other hand, is a scientific discipline; it doesn t concern itself with anything beyond what can be seen or observed in the natural world That one deals with the supernatural and the other with the natural is the key difference between science and religion and why they don t have to be at odds

Evolution is a central part of modern biology In fact, making sense of most of biology concepts in the absence of an evolutionary perspective is difficult One of the most important things that an understanding of the evolutionary process provides to the study of biology is a way to understand the effect of history This historical perspective is important for fields as diverse as agriculture, conservation biology, and medicine Doctors, for example, don t worry about removing an appendix, because they have a framework in which to understand that it s a vestigial organ that is, it may have served a purpose once, but that purpose is long gone, even though the organ isn t And understanding how organisms evolve continues to be vital in the fight against infectious diseases (see s 18 and 19 to find out why) Conservationists seeking to save species also need to preserve biological diversity Without genetic diversity, endangered species even those that are making headway in the numbers game remain vulnerable to extinction By understanding natural variation in the evolutionary process, conservationists better understand what their conservation goals should be and how to meet them It s probably better to save a few spotted owls from a bunch of different forests than all the spotted owls from one isolated forest, for example