From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: k12.ed.science
Subject: Re: Evolution
Date: 11 Dec 92 22:22:49 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <26866.2B21D043@puddle.fidonet.org> Aaron.Evans@p0.f14.n346.z1.fidonet.org (Aaron Evans) writes:
>
>     Hello! My name is Aaron Evans. Since the beginning of my
>scientific studies, I have wondered about the theory of evolution.I
>personally believe in creation because,in my view, there are many
>more things disproving evolution than proving. 

Belief and science are two very different ways of knowing.  I know this 
touches on the philosophical basis of science, which may be a bit much 
for a grade schooler, but there is always a first time to think about 
such things!  Science takes the view that one should form hypotheses 
that make testable predictions, and places a high value on predictions 
of phenomena that were never considered before the theory was developed. 
Belief places a higher value on an internally consistent world view that 
tests a hypothesis against some set of principles (such as a certain 
interpretation of the words in the Hebrew bible) rather than observation. 

Science has been adopted as an approach to dealing with the natural world 
because it has proved to be a powerful way to design machines and understand 
a wide variety of phenomena, some of which have high economic or survival 
value in today's world.  

However, my main objective here is to emphasize the difference between 
evolution and theories that attempt to explain evolution, and to tell 
you that there have actually been several different creation theories 
that attempted to explain evolution prior to Darwin. 

Evolution is a statement of a set of facts about how species change with 
time, particularly when physically isolated.  The earliest facts were 
collected as europeans explored the world and systematically named 
and organized the various species they found.  More recently, of course, 
the vast amount of information on genetic relatedness has added a great 
deal to this sort of work.  Darwin did not invent evolution, he invented 
a theory of natural selection to explain the evolution that was seen. 
A big problem for many people is that they never get past the title of 
his book _The Origin of Species_.  He did not mean the "origin of life"; 
today we would say something like "the reason for the appearance of 
new species" to convey the same meaning. 

There have been many theories to explain the evolution of animal species 
on earth.  The earliest were theories based on divine creation.  I have 
seen a book that actually lists a series of 5 such theories, which 
became increasingly complex in an attempt to explain the diversity of 
species being discovered.  (Europeans only knew of a few hundred species 
when the first creation theory became part of biological science, whereas 
they knew of thousands of species of *beetles* by the time of Darwin.) 
The situation had become untenable -- that is, the creation theory had 
to have all sorts of details -- and thus a new approach (natural selection) 
was embraced quite quickly when it was introduced.  

Since Darwin there have been a number of revisions in the details of 
that theory of natural selection, but the general principle remains 
the same.  It is unfortunate that this is a problem for some Christians, 
since (as my wife puts it) the Bible tells us *why*, not how.  All you 
have to do to reconcile the time scale is associate the hebrew word 
"yaum" (I think that is the word translated as day in Genesis) as 
about 10^17 seconds and it works out just fine.  

>                                                One major account
>that in my mind would totally disprove the theory of evolution is
>the backwards calculation of the rate of the slowing of the earths
>rotation until the earth would be anialated.      ...

I heard a talk by a "Creation Scientist" who used a similar argument 
about the changing magnitude of the earth's magnetic field.  When I 
asked him what model for the origin of the magnetic field he had used 
to decide that the rate of change should be linear for all time, he 
answered "Because God made it that way".  This is not the sort of 
argument that is considered scientific!  

But this does point out a key feature of "creation science".  These 
people put together a collection of a few arguments that provide 
evidence against a particular theory of how evolution occured.  Some 
are totally bogus, others are actually arguments made by scientists 
to show why their (alternative) theory about evolution is better. 
But this is not the point.  Evidence against a particular theory is 
not evidence for yours.  There are many zillions of other possible 
theories!  A creation theory is not the only alternative.  Science 
advances by finding evidence *for* your alternative theory.  Thus a 
correct argument would be to say that a particular creation theory 
predicts that the earth's rotational speed started at a particular 
value and will change linearly at such-and-such a rate for the rest 
of time.  This is a testable prediction.  It was by looking at such 
tests that all previous creation theories about evolution of species 
were found to be very badly in error. 

By the way, the strongest argument in favor of natural selection is that 
it predicted that there should be some means of passing on inherited 
characteristics.  The discovery of DNA was not anticipated by any 
creation theory, but was required if natural selection theories were 
correct.  Further, present studies show that the DNA of animals that 
were thought to be descended from a common anscestor have DNA sequences 
that are more similar than among unrelated species.  This is a very 
powerful prediction because the DNA sequences involved are unused 
"filler" that have nothing to do with the appearance of the animal. 

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)