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Creationists either can't or won't understand evolution There was another letter in the May 17 issue of the Acorn from a creationist who is clearly entirely ignorant of science and biology. Alan Munson uses a very typical creationist technique of distorting and misquoting evolutionary biologists. Because they do not actually read any of the original source material, they have no understanding of what the scientist was talking about. There are creationist websites and publications that accumulate quotations that, when taken out of context, seem to infer doubt about Darwinian theory or biological evolution. Outside of creationist nonbiologists like Lee Spetner, there is no one quoted who is not a scientist well aware of the factual nature of biological evolution. In Mr. Munson's quotation from the late Dr. Colin Patterson, neither Darwin's theory of evolution nor the fact of evolution is being discussed. Dr. Patterson was discussing a particular conundrum, the origin of teleost fish. That letter is decades old, and the question of teleost origins has long since been solved as more data became available. I knew Dr. Patterson, and I can guarantee that he did not harbor doubts about the factual nature of biological evolution. Dr. Richard Dawkins is a well-known evolutionary biologist. He has written a number of books for general audiences to explain biological evolution and Darwinian theory to general audiences. Mr. Munson does not cite his inference, and I can safely assume that none exists. There is no shortage of demonstrated methods for genomes gaining new information. Mr. Munson, as with the other creationist letter writers, still does not understand the difference between scientific theory and empirical fact. There is no scientific question as to biological evolution being a scientific fact. Darwin's theory of evolution concerns the mechanism of evolution. There are no longer any competing theories to Darwin's as they have been falsified. The theory of evolution has nothing to say about the origin of life. While there have been numerous plausible hypotheses put forward, there is currently no way to directly test them. While no one would argue that creationists do not have a right to believe whatever they wish, they should not pretend that there is a rational basis for their beliefs. Perhaps they will take comfort in the final sentence from Darwin's seminal work in biology, "The Origin of Species" (1859):
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its
several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one;
and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most
wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." | |||||
