Evolution's Flaw

By Tom Fairbank

The theory of Evolution is not scientific. Yes, the majority of scientists believe that humanity (and all of life) started as chemicals, then amino acids, then RNA, then DNA and eventually became the life currently on this planet. But simply having scientists believing in something does not make it scientific.

A scientific theory must be testable. Since science can never prove anything true, but only false, it must be required to imagine of a world where evolution does not exist. After this world is envisioned, the scientist makes observations to discover what reality exists. This all sounds good, but what would a world without evolution look like?

We don't know, scientists can't envision it, no one can. In an Anthropology course I took, the professor talked about how different species have different forms of menstruation. Humans have few outward signs of menstruation, while primates have large swelling. The professor said these vastly different adaptations were both useful. In humans this can lead to increased secrecy for what male fathered what child. In primates this can lead to increased competition among primate males during times of mating. While the professor is correct that these opposite adaptations could be useful from an evolutionary stand point, the fact that any adaptation that exists can be defended by evolution means that evolution is not testable.

Yes it can be shown that evolution has occurred with some plants who have mutated into a different species in the past 200 years. Yes, species diversify and mutate over time. But for every one who is critical of intelligent design because the theory is 'not scientific' please be aware that neither is evolution.

I asked Ben Rathert, the local Biology/Chemistry expert (okay to be fair he's an expert on a number of things) to comment on Tom's stance... just because I'm ill-equiped to make such arguments:

Alright Jeff, I can flesh this out more if you like, but here are my major thoughts in response to the article:

1.) Science is capable of proving truth or falseness. This is to say scientists can prove conclusively that a process or mechanism is definitely taking place. Contrary to the what the essay implies, in order to prove a theory, the theory's validity must be proven over a long period time, subjecting it and resubjecting it to experimentation. Experiments themselves are used to prove that a hypothesis is correct, not the other way around. So what I'm saying is that science doesn't rely on the "absence of a better theory" to "prove"
that a particular theory is better. The theory in question has to stand on its own merits.

2.) Evolution is a proven fact. Yeah, I know, back up Ben, you can't say that. Just bear with me. The process of evolution is based on two things: 1. Development of new, distinguishable traits within a population and 2. a selection process to separate the organisms with the new traits (Natural Selection). So what this means is not only must new traits develop, the traits must allow for organisms to be separated from the population from which they sprang. This process has been proven. It's commonly referred to as microevolution and is done with bacteria cells. The way these experiments are set up, bacteria colonies are allowed to grow and develop, which always results in some mutant cell developing as well. Then, an environmental factor changes like a temperature increase that would normally kill the wild type (non-mutant cells). After the temperature has been raised, if any of the mutated cells have survived because of some new trait they have developed, then microevolution has been proven successfully. In this situation you don't have a new species, but if you were to carry out this type of process with environmental changes over the course of say, a billion years, you're going to get enough mutations to develop new species.

3.) You can't say that evolution is not scientific. Even the article contradicts itself on that issue. At first the author explains how he/she believes science works (by way of negative data) and then he/she describes how this applies to evolution. However, at the end, he/she just says that this isn't really science after all, without addressing any of what he/she previously said. Granted, evolution is difficult to prove on larger organisms, but it's not impossible to prove, it's just tricky.

However, I stand by what I said before. 1. Scientific theories need to be able to be testable to be scientific. 2.
Evolution exists as a process, yet this does not mean that this process is the way in which life developed on this planet.

A non-scientific theory:
In 7 days God created the Earth

How can this theory be proven false? Fossils? (Nope, God created fossils to trick unbelievers). Land Erosion? (Again created by God). The expansion of the Universe? (God's
plan) Well than what? The answer is nothing; the theory above is not scientific, as I define science, because theory can't be tested. Unless a theory can be tested with observable results it can't be called a scientific theory.
Now this does not make it false, it just means science is powerless to challenge it.

Now this does not mean un-testable statements are outside logic, because while science is logical, not all logic is scientific; hence philosophy is the basis of all science, not the other way around.

However, science is quite powerful against theories that can be falsified.

Theory that can be falsified:
The acceleration of an object in the Earth's gravitational field is 9.8 meters per second.

As long as the researchers agree on how to define 'object'
and 'Earth's gravitational field' then one can test the above statement by dropping objects and measuring meters and seconds.

Evolution as a process is testable:
Do the characteristics of organisms change in response to environmental change?

This theory has already been supported by studies that observed new plant species being created when exposed to new climates overseas.

Evolution as the cause of all life on this planet is not testable. To test this one is no longer concerned about space, but about time. So one has become a historian making a claim about the events of the past that brought us here.
Scientists can not go back in time and observe what occurred. They can observe the modern day practice of evolution and claim that this is how things occurred. But to make such a statement is not a scientific theory because it can not be tested.

I think the overall question here is that what is scientific is often conflated with what is true. While it may be a blow to the scientist’s ego to know that they can not prove or disprove metaphysical theories, it is sad reality that even the prized scientific method of the Western world is not the only way of obtaining knowledge.

If science can prove, not merely suggest, what happened in the past, than I suggest replacing all historians with physicists. These physicists will measure all the data in the currant world and then use there revisable theories to work backwards (instead of predicting they are remembering) and then they can calculate where every object was at a certain time to accurately tell history.

Tom

PS: Being an honest man I must point out that many of the ideas above are not my own but come from C. K. Raju, a Computer Science Professor and author of 'The Eleven Pictures of Time'. One of Raju’s arguments is that science has become the undisputed source of authority. Science is based largely on math and even that is an imperfect way of knowing, as Godel’s theory showed decades ago.

Thanks for reading all of this. I look forward to your reaction.

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