To Falsify Evolution

I recently had a discussion about what it would take to falsify evolution with another atheist. We both agreed that theories based on evidence are all falsifiable by counter-evidence, but we disagreed on the amount of counter-evidence it would take in the case of evolution.

Here is the hypothetical evidence that he believes would falsify the theory: “If we found an organism that clearly breaks out of the evolutionary tree we know. Say - a 5 legged creature, or an animal without DNA, or an animal that has a DNA that doesn’t have any common parts with the rest of the life on earth.”

Such a find would certainly be compelling, but I would first consider that the outlier was created artificially or evolved in isolation of all other known life before throwing out evolutionary theory. As unlikely as either of these sound, they would be more reasonable explanations. To show evolution is false, each line of evidence needs to be overturned. Each aspect of the theory needs to be falsified. Evolution isn’t too big to fail, but it’s certainly too big to die of a single counter-point.*

(*Unless, of course, that counter-point was that all known evidence was found to be lies planted by the Great Deceiver. Positing the devil as a way to reject evolution is one of the more honest and internally consistent methods--if only it wasn’t based entirely on mythology.)

Back to reality...or at least hypothetical reality--even if such a find could impact evolution as a whole, it would revise the theory, maybe falsifying parts, before it would falsify the whole shabang. This happened before with the theory of gravity. Isaac Newton understood gravity in a manner that worked to explain all gravitational movement...at first. It didn’t quite work with the solar orbit of Mercury, much like current evolutionary theory wouldn’t work for the aforementioned hypothetical creature. It wasn’t until Einstein hashed out relativity that a new understanding of gravity could account for Mercury. If we one day discover gravitons or something, we might have to adjust gravitational theory further. Edits aside, I can think of no natural evidence regarding either evolution or gravity that could falsify all previous findings that work perfectly well with what we have. Natural selection happens. Mutations occur. Heritability is a thing. If you find a glaring example of uncommon decent, let me know. It could modify evolutionary theory, but smart money says it's an alien.

A Darwin Day Exchange

Darwin Day was last week, or as religious apologists call it "question evolution day." In that spirit, I posed a question to those not sold on the theory.

What aspect(s) of evolution do you have a problem with?

• Is it that you don't believe in heritability?
• Is it that you don't believe natural selection is a sufficient mechanism to propagate beneficial genes and weed out harmful or useless genes?
• Is it that you don't believe in genetic mutation?

There was one apologist who answered saying that they didn't believe in heritability--he actually didn't believe that traits were based down from parent to child. I asked if he noticed that black parents typically have black kids and that tall parents usually have tall kids, but to that he said anecdotal evidence can't be used to show anything. Luckily, only one respondent went to this extreme a denial.

There was another apologist who didn't believe natural selection is a sufficient mechanism for the theory. I asked him to hear out this simplification of the process:

You have a random selection of rabbits in a room with the only food source on the ceiling. They all need to get up on their hind legs and stretch to try and get the food, but only about half can actually reach. Very quickly the ones who can't reach starve, most before mating. The remaining rabbits go about their lives, stretching for their food every day. Eventually they have kids. Given that the mating pool is taller rabbits, the next generation of bunnies inherit traits from taller rabbits--making the new generation taller, on average, than the group we started off with.

Say we very slowly raise the ceiling, weeding out rabbits that don't meet the new minimum height to eat. Each generation would be taller and taller as the shorter die off. Given that mutations occur, (which this apologist admitted do occur) some rabbits might even be taller or shorter or more or less stretchable or better or worse jumpers than the heritable gene pool suggests. Those with an advantage, the better jumpers, the more stretchable, the taller, whatever then mate and pass on their new mutation while useless mutations die off.

The apologist actually agreed that this would happen. So...does he believe in evolution now? Of course not. Once he couldn't deny evolution on a scale of a lot of generations he opted to deny evolution on a scale of a whole lot of generations. The vague micro- versus macro-evolution divide.

Yet another apologist argued that mutations and heredity happen, but only as changes or improvements on preexisting traits. In his words "this can give you blue eyes instead of brown but it cannot create eyes." He then went on to list the various cells that are absolutely required for a working photoreceptor in an effort to show that multiple mutations with no benefit would need to exist for generations before anything light sensitive could kick off the evolution of an eye...then I pointed out single-celled organisms that exists today, euglena, that demonstrates phototaxis (movement according to a light source) via a photoreceptor literally called an eyespot. At this point his brain seemed to get caught in a feed back loop.

There are many ways to deny evolution, just none that I've found are internally consistent or based on reality. For a reading of the exchange that prompted this post click here.

I Have So Many Questions...

Creationist Logic

If anyone knows who made this, I'd be happy to give them credit.

I ran across it on a general image database. It made me chuckle.

embiggen

Alpha & Beta

My dog, Alpha

I got a dog the other day, his name’s Alpha. I really went all out accommodating the pooch. I made the entire house a canine playground. I put a different bowl of food in every room. I installed ramps so that every inch of furniture could be his domain. I maxed out my treat budget. Seriously, all I ever heard where squeak toys. I even gave Alpha a friend, a female named Beta. They were good dogs.

“Were” being the operative word. I told Alpha and Beta that the only thing in the house that was off limits, was my lucky tennis ball. I pointed at the ball and said “no!” They saw me do this on more than one occasion, but the little buggers couldn’t help themselves. I don’t think she knew I was watching, but Beta brought my ball over to play with Alpha and they launched it right out the window.

Disobedience is something I do not tolerate! I removed all the food and treats from the house. I threw out the ramps and fenced off their “fun rooms.” Their toys? They went straight into the trash. From then on, I made Alpha work for his food. Beta too. To remind them of their indiscretion, I installed traps randomly around the house--a snare here, a foothold there. Some would hurt the animals and others would just cage them for a while. I even drip a little rat poison in their food occasionally. There’s no rhyme or reason to it really, I’m just keeping them on their toes.

Sure, it’s within my power to buy new tennis balls, actually I already have another, but that won’t teach any lessons. I plan on continuing this punishment for the rest of their lives. Come to think of it, I better keep it up for their offspring and any other pets I may bring into the house. Alpha and Beta’s single disobedience should be felt for all future generations.

Don’t call PETA on me, this is an analogy. I don’t want to overstate the obvious, but on topics of religion I’ve learned that clarity matters, so here I go.

• The narrator/dog owner = God
• Alpha and Beta = Adam and Eve
• The house pre-disobedience = The Garden of Eden
• The tennis ball = The Tree of Knowledge
• The house post-disobedience = Earth
• The traps, poisons and other canine dangers = Natural evil (earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc.)

If you don’t think of the narrator as a loving and forgiving master, than you probably shouldn’t be a huge fan of God either. The good news? You don’t need to hate God because this fable of pet ownership is no more imaginary than the fable of Genesis. There is no one to hate.

I could carry this story to it’s illogical, yet Biblical, conclusion. A few generations later the master might sacrifice a dog in order to atone for Alpha and Beta’s original sin, but why bother? It’s not like dogs go to heaven.