11.10.09
Evolution: Theory, Not Fact
COMMENTS AND OPINIONS
Evolution: Theory, Not Fact
William E. Smiddy, MD
It is appropriate to commemorate the Darwin anniversary; his life’s work merits recognition regardless of one’s ideology, and an ophthalmology theme makes for interesting copy. However, lost in the platitudes is the fact that evolution is still but a theory, not an experimentally verifiable fact. There is no more than B:III evidence for the theory of evolution (ie, there have been no clinical trials, randomized or not, confirming the theory; rather, respected authorities have concluded its parts and, at best, there are case-control series that have been extrapolated to its conclusion) despite pervasive, frequent, and dogmatic proclamations to the contrary.
A letter to the editor will not settle this contentious matter but, in keeping with the Archives’ high standards, some balance is due. The main tenet of evolution is successive improvements via stepwise, chance occurrences whose long odds are explained away by the supposition of . . .