Top Ten Myths About Evolution (And One Extra)
Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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1. Humans Evolved From Monkeys
Humans and great apes had a common ancestor about 5 million years ago Humans and monkeys had a common ancestor about 50 million years ago. Nowhere, except in the most illiterate anti-evolution literature, will you find a claim that humans evolved from monkeys.
2. It’s Only A Theory
“Theory” does not mean “hypothesis” or “guess” “Theory” means an organized set of related ideas. If you have a set of previously disconnected observations, and you come up with a possible explanation, you have an organized set of related ideas - a theory. A theory that hasn't been confirmed is a hypothesis. People commonly but incorrectly talk as if theories and hypotheses are the same thing. All hypotheses are theories, but all theories are not hypotheses.
- Number Theory is the branch of mathematics that deals with the properties of numbers. Theories don't get much more proven than this.
- Quantum Theory is the theory that describes how and why atomic particles behave as they do. It has allowed us to build computers and lasers. There's nothing "theoretical" about it.
- Stress Theory is what engineers use to build buildings, bridges, and keep the wings on airplanes. It works.
- Music Theory illustrates another use of the word "theory," to mean the underlying principles of a subject as opposed to actual practice. Music Theory is the set of accepted conventions used in European music. Other conventions are possible. That's why Asian music sounds so different from ours.
- The Phlogiston Theory was the notion that heat was a substance that reacted with materials to explain combustion. It's wrong. But it's still a theory. The term "theory" has nothing to do with whether the ideas in question are right or wrong.
3. If Nobody Saw It, We Can’t Be Sure It Happened
If you find your house trashed and your TV and stereo missing, will you hesitate to call the police because nobody saw it happen? Would you want the judge to dismiss the case just because you only had forensic evidence, but no witnesses?
4. Science Can’t Say Anything About Origins
Maybe not. But once the origin happens, everything after that is history. And historical evidence is preserved in the physical record.
5. Obsolete Concepts
Critics of evolution are fond of citing Piltdown Man or Nebraska Man (actually the tooth of a fossil pig erroneously claimed to be human). These both happened about 100 years ago. They can't cite any cases of false claims of ancient human fossils since then.
“Survival of the Fittest” was borrowed by Darwin from the economic writings of Herbert Spencer. What does “fittest” mean? It's not just a tautology, like saying "the winner of the Super Bowl is the team with the most points." There are objective features that make some creatures fitter than others. If you need to move fast in the water, there is one shape that works best and it's shared by squid, sharks, tuna, dolphins, ichthyosaurs, and nuclear submarines.
6. There Are No Intermediate Fossil Forms
This is a claim for which there is a monosyllabic definition: lie. Not error, which implies honest ignorance, but lie, because the people who make this claim are generally fully aware of the fossil record and simply choose to misrepresent it. Archaeopteryx, the earliest known fossil bird for a long time (some recent finds may be earlier) has a thoroughly reptilian skeleton with a bony tail, teeth, and four paws with jointed fingers (not merely the horny skin growths at the middle joint that a few modern birds have). And it has feathers. If that's not an intermediate, what is? More recently, evidence is accumulating that some dinosaurs had hair and feathers. If we'd lived 100 million years ago, we might have put birds, mammals and reptiles in the same class or at least put the divisions very differently from today. Therapsids are the intermediates between reptiles and mammals, crossopterygians and ichthyostegids are the intermediates between fish and amphibians, and so on.
7. Evolution Is Not Testable
Darwin suggested birds had evolved from reptiles in 1859; Archaeopteryx, a creature with a reptilian skeleton but feathers, was discovered in 1862.
Piltdown Man, the famous early fossil man hoax, actually vindicated evolution. The alleged fossil was controversial from the start precisely because it didn’t match evolutionary expectations. It had a modern human skull but an ancient apelike jaw (altered by someone who knew what he was doing), rather than a mix of features on both parts. It was like trying to fake a 1950 car by mixing parts from a 1980 car and a 1920 car. As more and more hominid fossils surfaced, Piltdown Man was increasingly seen as a side branch even if it did turn out to be genuine. It just didn't match the other finds.
8. Evolution Means Humans are Just Animals
Are you a vegetable or mineral? Humans have hair and nurse their young just like all other mammals. Traits like nurturing, cooperation and monogamy are often favored by evolution because they enhance survival of the species.
9. Evolution is Just Random
Is the following number sequence random: 592653589793238462643383279? It not only looks random: it is random. But lacking in meaning? No. These are the digits of pi beginning with the fourth decimal place.
Random does not mean “meaningless.” The scientific meaning of random is that something cannot be predicted with better accuracy than that predicted by statistics. The phenomenon is its own simplest description. Biological systems are far too complex to describe or predict mathematically. We have incomplete information, and significant events like climate change or asteroid impact are unpredictable.
10. Complexity Cannot Arise Naturally
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is often paraphrased as:
- ”Things always go from bad to worse”
- ”Disorder in the Universe is always increasing"
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is about entropy, which is defined as
(Heat Absorbed in a process)/Temperature.
Entropy can decrease locally if it increases elsewhere. Intuitive notions of “disorder” are of no relevance whatsoever. Any discussion of the Second Law that does not specifically define entropy and show how it relates to evolution is worthless.
Chemical reactions are not random. For example, the atoms in a crystal of table salt are arranged as below, with sodium and chlorine atoms in a strictly alternating square array. If we take the simple-minded approach that we have a one-half probability of getting a sodium or chlorine atom in each spot, the chance of getting 100 atoms arranged as below is (1/2)100 or one in 1.26 x 1030. That's roughly one followed by 30 zeros. According to this reasoning, table salt is impossible.
But of course the reasoning is ridiculous. The chances of getting that arrangement of atoms is essentially 100 per cent.
And we know DNA can arise from simpler chemicals because it does so every time your cells divide. Every haircut you get is proof of it. The missing half of the DNA strand is assembled from molecules in the cell fluids.
"But when cells divide, there's a pattern already available" say some anti-evolutionists. Try this: go to the lumber yard and buy the materials for a tool shed. Then put a set of plans on top of the pile, and let me know when the materials spontaneously assemble. I can pour gasoline onto a garbage pile and the molecules in the garbage won't suddenly get the urge to develop into gasoline, even though there's enough carbon and hydrogen to do it. The pattern means nothing. DNA replicates because it can spontaneously self-assemble.
And now, we actually have a study of entropy and evolution, <i>Evolution and Entropy</i> by physicist Daniel Styer, in the November 2008 issue of The American Journal of Physics. Styer makes assumptions extremely favorable to creationism by assuming that each century, a given organism is only 1/1000 as probable as the same organism preceding century. In other words, you are so different from your great-parents that there is only a probability of .001 of your having been born. He then generously overestimates the number of organisms on earth to estimate a total entropy change resulting from evolution. Finally he examines the entropy passing through the earth as a result of the earth absorbing short wavelength radiation and re-emitting long wavelength radiation, and shows that it is a trillion times greater. In other words the entropy decrease resulting from evolution is a trillionth of the amount of entropy increase the earth radiates into space.
As Styer points out, entropy decreases all the time. A hot cup of coffee left out to cool decreases in entropy. So does a cooling lava flow.
11. Evolution is a Religion
So what? Religions believe lots of things that are true. The prohibitions against stealing and murder all have a perfectly rational basis. Many religions run schools that teach the same things as the public schools. That doesn't mean that math, English and geography are religious doctrines. If evolution is true, what difference does it make that it's a religion for some people?
The Establishment clause of the Constitution forbids imposing practices that arise only from some religious doctrine. It does not prohibit:
- Teaching about the Bible as a collection of traditions assembled over time, edited by multiple authors, and incorporating material from outside sources, even if that approach clashes with the views of Biblical inerrantists.
- Restrictions on abortion, because the State has a rational interest in defining what constitutes human life and in erecting barriers to the easy termination of life. Roe vs. Wade was based on privacy concerns, not on the fact that many religions oppose abortion.
- Teaching that Indians are not descended from Israelites, that there is no evidence for a recent global flood, or that Mohammed derived many of his doctrines from Judaism and Christianity. Opposition to these views is based solely on the doctrines of some particular religion.
- Teaching that the Old Testament restrictions on eating pork and shellfish had a rational basis in preventing certain illnesses, or that the Catholic Church was correct in enacting the Gregorian calendar reform, or that medieval Christianity and Islam laid the foundations of the scientific world view. There's nothing whatever wrong about promoting religious ideas if they are objectively correct as seen from outside the religion.
So if evolution is a religion, so what?
- Is belief in evolution solely based on religious sentiment? Clearly not, considering that many people see no conflict between evolution and their religious faith. Opposition to evolution, on the other hand, is solely based on a desire to defend certain religious viewpoints.
- Even if evolution is based on religious sentiment, is it supported by objective evidence? Yes it is. Opposition to evolution, on the other hand, is not. The evidence advanced against evolution is always bad and very often fraudulent.
- Has there ever any basis for disbelieving in evolution other than on religious grounds? No. Scientific creationism and its illegitimate offspring have all been based on religious assumptions and propped up by religious organizations.
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Created 21 January, 2003, Last Update 24 May, 2020
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