A valuable summary in the New Scientist magazine (19 April issue) correcting some common misconceptions about evolution. This article, plus more, is included on their website here: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13620-evolution-24-myths-and-misconceptions.html and all SF writers should study it in order to avoid errors (possibly I was a bit ambitious with the marsupial saurians in 'Scales'…)

A very brief summary of some examples of misconceptions:

Everything is an adaptation: it isn't true that everything has a purpose, some features of life are just accidental hold-overs from earlier developments, such as the appendix and the male nipple.

Evolution can't be disproved: in theory it could be, but all of the evidence collected so far supports it, and no evidence has been found to disprove it.

Evolution is limitlessly creative: there are limits (at least on Earth) to what has been, and probably can be, developed. Every intermediate stage needs to have had some survival benefit (e.g. primitive forms of eye are still better than nothing in detecting objects).

Natural selection leads to ever greater complexity: it can actually lead to greater simplicity since unnecessary features frequently disappear (e.g. eyeless cave fish).

Evolution produces perfection: "you don't have to be perfectly adapted to survive, you just have to be as well adapted as your competitors". Examples of inefficiencies in human beings are the eyes (birds have much superior vision), the lungs (much of their capacity is wasted because of the two-way air-flow; birds have a much more efficient one-way flow) and so on.

Natural selection is the only means of evolution: random genetic drift has a great influence, with chance often deciding which mutations survive and which don't.

It doesn't matter if people don't grasp evolution: our civilisation is facing many challenges which need some understanding of how science works to appreciate, and make sensible judgements about. "Any modern society which bases major decisions on superstition rather than reality is heading for disaster". Which makes it rather worrying that in a recent survey, when asked "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals: true or false?", only 40% of US citizens polled "true", 39% "false" and 21% "not sure". In contrast the "true" response from most western European countries and lace>Japan lace> was around 75%.

Comment: among those not believing in evolution (according to their public statements) were several of the initial candidates for the nomination for the Presidency of the USA ; a staggering admission of scientific illiteracy, in the same league as admitting that they couldn't read or write. Let's hope that the most powerful and influential nation on Earth ends up with a leader who has a much better grasp of scientific arguments than the present incumbent.

(an extract from my SFF blog)

Tony Williams
Scales (2007), The Foresight War (2004)
Homepage: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk

Anthony, some good points raised.

I'm one of the 40% of Americans who does believe in evolution (my goodness that percentage seems low! Frightening: are we really a "Huckabee" nation?); however, there is one issue raised by evolution I've never seen adequately answered. Certain complex systems, such as the one bees have to gather pollen and convert it to honey, are made up of various components that all have to work in perfect harmony to be of use. Which would seem to suggest that either the various components of the system would have had to develop all at once together, or else separate components would have had to develop over time, during which time they would serve no purpose until all the other components came "on line." This, it seems to me, is where theistic evolutionists or "intelligent designers" still have soom room to argue: namely, suggesting that there is a purposeful intelligence behind the sweep of evolution, working toward some goal rather than being a random confluence of events. Or perhaps at various stages of evolution a giant black obelisk appeared.  I'm curious what your take is on that?

<mini intrusion - please forgive>

WOW! Simply by doing a check on Bill Ward's name to see when he'd last been on the forum (since I'd felt he and I hadn't communicated in a while), I find his post here and decide to give him a hard time about "digging around Nicholas" So I come to this thread (which otherwise wouldn't have interested me in a million years) and lo and behold! find Frank - who definitely hasn't communicated with me in a looooong while!  So I decided to wave at Frank - Hi Frank !

<intrusion over, you may now proceed with your previously scheduled blathering>

If you follow the link which Firle provided, you will find a number of brief articles listed there which address this issue.

Suffice it to say that critics of evolution have put a lot of effort into finding examples of characteristics which could not have evolved, but have failed so far.

Tony Williams
Scales (2007), The Foresight War (2004)
Homepage: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk

You must be careful when you dig around Nicholas, though--they still haven't located the bones of Jimmy Hoffa, have they...

Thanks for the further info, Frank, Bill, and Anthony. The links provided by Firle give access to more fleshed-out details and examples, but I think your summary, Mr. Ward, was succinct and enlightening. I like the description of the "supports knocked away."

I now think the argument can be made that evolution is a self-contained system that does not require outside manipulation; it is self-sufficient to explain all the diversity of life.

I do, however, still hold out for a Prime Mover. Evolution explains the development and progression of life, but does not answer the Big Question of why there is such a thing as Life in the first place. However, as any good scientist will tell you, such a question is really outside science's purview: such questions fall into the realms of Philosophy and Theology. And that would be a whole different topic...

Frank, I have no problem with most of what you posted, though I do take issue with the very last statement. To be precise, thinking like a Creationist is to think that a specific Judaical, patriarchal god created the world in six literal, twenty-four-hour days.

"You could say that it seems like the universe wants to go in this direction, that indeed it may not be able to avoid it": one could more accurately say that this would be thinking like a Platonist. It is not far from what Einstein intimated, as have many other intelligent people throughout history.

What is so surprising to many, what is essentially the great question at the heart of the universe, is how life violates the basic Law of Entropy: things tend to break down and move from order to chaos. The fact that we are using our complex, highly evolved brains to type these posts to each other right now defies the Law of Entropy. Some of us regard this with awe and wonder.

Some of the posts around here could serve as proof that if there is a God, It is insane!

No, I think I was just trying to get at what Einstein expressed better:

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science.  He to whom
this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

It's not so much that it's been disproved as it has been proven to be inaccurate. The definitions of entropy have altered significantly over the years.

It's biggest hurdle comes from particle physics. If entropy, as generally understood, were accurate, then destroying milimicro particles in particle accelerators would result in almost no mass and certainly no discernable, or at least far simpler, particles of mass. Instead the parts recombine to form other particles, often of higher complexity. Entropy should ensure that there is merely energy dissipating throughout the tube of the accelerator, and yet the mass and energy do not move toward equalization - they clump.

Mathematically, entropy is a stand-in guess that means nothing in reality.

As far as cosmology, entropy does not apply because there is no observable limit to the universe; indeed, there is only evidence that it is expanding. Meanwhile, more matter and energy keeps showing up that has no scientific explanation.

As far as entropy being at the heart of physics . . . it is part of the second law of thermodynamics, which is a theory that suffered quite a bit from Einstein's work as well as that of a great many others throughout the 20th century.