08.31.06
They can afford half-truths, or less…
‘Pure science’?: the lack of technological applications of evolution is one reason the ‘paradigm’ gets stuck in place. A theory as sloppy as Darwin’s in the airplane field would produce calamity immediately, leading to theory feedback. Darwinists on the other hand can produce Just So stories about times and places that are unobservable and that serve their interests. Noone can really refute them and the theory makes good fodder for ideological purposes.
ID on the other hand, I should respectly note, is completely worthless, about ‘applied ID’ has its uses no doubt for Bible Belt propaganda.
….if truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.
Jerry Coyne