Evolution's absence

As the Darwin debate heats up the distinction between evolution as a given and any mechanism claimed for that (it's a lost cause to speak about the 'fact' and the 'theory') gets tossed out the window. Consider this piece in Washington Dispatch.
See below.
Of course, the debate reanimated by the ID movement brings a lot of people into the fray who simply aren't familiar with the distinction, and think that the debate is about evolution, when it is always, or should be, about Darwin's particular theory. The ID folks are cagey here, no doubt and don't deny evolution, but don't worry very much if they get a free ride on the confusion.

Mr. McSweegan tells us that only one side is qualified here. Nonsense. Next thing we will hear is that peer review is the fount of truth, and that the academic/scientific establishment is the only body we are entitled to listen to. It is remarkable how people are held in awe here. It is the same problem with the Egyptian priesthood, holding the masses in thrall.
The fact is that the average scientist is completely stupid here. And it is an exercise in paranoia (moderate) to find the real scientists, in say advanced genomics, who know there's a problem, but don't let on.
The ID crowd has caught on to this. We can groan at their own sophistries injected into the debate. But they correctly found the flaws in Darwin's theory.

Mr. McSweegan then proceeds to discuss the issue of quality. But no scientific theory is capable of dealing with the value domain--that is the real source of the problem. Modern science is in a limbo pointed to by Kant, and others in his generation, and is unable to deal with issues of the qualitative. It is wrong at the first step, and everything after that is confused.

Nothing makes sense without evolution, that old phrase of Dobzhansky. True. But there is a catch. Nothing makes sense with natural selection. It makes great sense to see the emergence of man as evolutionary. But it defies intuition to say the complexity of man appears via natural selection. That was at least clear to many of the first readers of Darwin. Over and over they made this point.
But the immense power of propaganda has convinced people of selectionist absurdities.

Evolution’s Absence
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Commentary by Edward McSweegan
April 6, 2005


In May, the Kansas Board of Education is expected to stage a public debate about the teaching of evolution in its public schools. The consensus among scientists and educators is the Kansas event is intended as yet another forum for biblical fundamentalism and its pseudoscientific offspring, creationism and intelligent design. Indeed, it’s been a busy year as religious fundamentalists fought pitched legal battles in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Ohio and other states to replace a fundamental principle of nature with a minority religious opinion.



You would think after 150 years of accumulated data and observations from numerous branches of science that the validity, universality, and demonstrability of biological evolution would be as obvious as relativity or plate tectonics. Yet, the early 21st century remains cluttered with pockets of people who, when confronted with Nature, turn back to the Nurture of ancient tradition and parental habit.



The Kansas Board of Education is not likely to sway many people with another argumentative show-and-tell from the proponents and opponents of evolutionary biology. Never mind that only one side is actually qualified to make judgments about such things. Instead, it might be more instructive—and less disingenuous—for the Board to engage in a public “thought experiment” by asking what the world would look like if evolution was not a true and valid scientific body of knowledge.



Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, conducted such a thought experiment when he sought to demonstrate the existence of “Quality:” that dynamic interaction between subject and object, which gives rise to our perceptions of reality. According to Pirsig, and a school of philosophy called realism, “A thing exists if a world without it can’t function normally.”



He used that approach to subtract Quality from his imagined world and discovered, for example, that the fine arts immediately disappeared. Without Quality one painting was as good as another (or a blank wall), and Beethoven was just as remarkable as Britney Spears. Poetry and comedy vanished (“Heard any good jokes lately?” was a question that made no sense in a world where there was no difference between a joke and no joke.). Professional sports became a collection of empty statistics. Industrial design, advertising, architecture, brand names and fashion vanished (everyone would dress like Ralph Nader and shop at Price Club). Much of applied science and technology also was altered. A world without Quality was a colorless, static existence not unlike that of ancient Sparta, present day North Korea, or the twisted utopias of 1984 and Brave New World. From this imaginary experiment Pirsig concluded that Quality, though difficult to define, clearly existed as demonstrated by the wounded world left in its absence.



We can similarly subtract evolution from the world and see what happens.



Evolution—the ability of populations to adapt over time to changing environments—is the beating heart of modern biology. Without evolution biology becomes just a collection of disconnected plants and animals frozen in time. Without evolution we also lose our understanding of the dynamic stability and mutability of DNA’s hereditary properties. Modern genetics and molecular biology disappear, as does the biotechnology industry. Horticulture and agriculture lose their rational underpinnings. (Try not to think about that giant ear of corn in the grocery store, that Clydesdale horse in the field or that tiny Chihuahua nipping at your heels.)