Download responses to some common, misguided criticisms of biological

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
RESPONSES TO SOME COMMON,
MISGUIDED CRITICISMS OF BIOLOGICAL
EVOLUTION
CHELSEA WOOD ‘06
“Evolution as a process that has always gone on in
the history of the Earth can be doubted only by those
who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to
evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry.”
– Theodosius Dobzhansky (1)
“When I think that we are enmeshed again in the same
struggle for one of the best documented, most compelling
and exciting concepts in all of science, I don’t know
whether to laugh or cry.” – Stephen Jay Gould (2)
Few scientific principles are as notoriously
misused or chronically misunderstood as that of biological
evolution. Despite broad scientific consensus on the issue,
today 33% of Americans believe the question of whether
evolution shaped modern species to be contentious among
scientists (3). Of those Americans who identify themselves
as creationists – roughly 55% of the total population (4)
– a 46% plurality hold this misconception (5). Part of
this widespread misunderstanding is undoubtedly due to
a dearth of general scientific literacy. However, in the
special case of biological evolution, a second influence
compounds the problem of public misunderstanding:
those who oppose evolution – either as an explanation for
the complexity of life on Earth, or as a topic of study in
public high school biology classes – use distortions of fact
to create unfounded doubt about the principle. Whether
through purposeful deceit or ignorance, anti-evolutionists
use garbled half-truths and sleight of hand to convince the
American public to reject a scientific principle that is both
scientifically well-substantiated and vitally important to
our understanding of life on Earth.
What scientists know, what they don’t
“I don’t need to prove it again, evolution is so clearly
a fact that you need to be committed to something
like a belief in the supernatural if you are at all in
disagreement with evolution. It is a fact and we don’t
need to prove it anymore.” – Ernst Mayr (6)
Evolution is, in Charles Darwin’s words,
“descent with modification” – the process by which
modern species develop from ancestral species. This
18
Charles Darwin portrait by G. Richmond
http//en.wikipedia.org
definition encompasses microevolution – change within
a single population – and macroevolution – change
above the species level, or speciation. That modern
species have evolved from different, ancestral species
(macroevolution) through processes affecting individual
populations (microevolution) is recognized as a fact
among scientists. The level of certainty with which
we can say that evolution has occurred and continues
to occur is similar to the level of certainty with which
we say that Einstein’s theory of relativity is true, that
energy can be neither created nor destroyed, and that
Newtonian mechanics can predict the movement of
objects larger than atoms; that is, we are about as certain
that evolution has occurred and does occur as is possible.
A mid-1990s survey of the scientific literature found no
DARTMOUTH UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE
articles providing evidence against evolution (7); two
more recent surveys, by Barbara Forrest of Southeastern
Louisiana University and Lawrence M. Krauss of Case
Western Reserve University, also found none (8). Editors
of Nature, Science, and other well-respected scientific
journals report that only a handful of papers claiming
evidence against evolution have ever been submitted (9).
Of those that are submitted to refereed journals, all but a
few are review papers highlighting unanswered questions
in evolutionary biology, not providing empirical evidence
against it. The American Association for the Advancement
of Science (10) and the National Academy of Sciences
(11) have each issued public statements attesting to the
nearly universal support of their memberships for the
theory of evolution. This conviction is founded on a large
body of evidence collected over the course of more than a
hundred years and from around the world.
Scientists have documented hundreds of instances
of microevolution in the field by observing the response
of populations to selective pressures, both natural and
researcher-controlled (12). These studies show that
directional selective pressures can cause dramatic change
in natural populations. The work of Peter and Rosemary
Grant and their colleagues on Darwin’s finches in the
Galapagos is among the most famous documentations of
microevolution. Having measured various morphological
characters of more than 25 generations of finches, Grant
and Grant demonstrate that some characters – beak size, in
particular – change in response to a changing environment.
For example, large-beaked birds tend to survive droughts
because they are equipped to crack the large, refractory
seeds that remain after all the smaller, more easily-handled
seeds have been eaten (13,14). Because they survive in
greater numbers, these large-beaked birds produce more
offspring, and the large-beaked phenotype therefore
becomes more common in the population. The Grants’
team has even documented some evidence that two
morphs of one species are in the process of splitting into
two separate species (15). An equally seminal account
of microevolution in action comes from David Reznick
and John Endler, who showed that predation pressure
drives divergence in male Trinidadian guppy coloration,
morphology, and behavior; populations in predator-free
environments develop brighter coloration, larger body
size, and weaker schooling and predator avoidance
behaviors (16). Similarly, Reznick and Endler have
observed that guppy populations exposed to size-specific
predators experience selective pressure for changes in
maturation time; for example, in guppy populations
exposed to predators preferring large guppy prey, the mean
age and size at first reproduction decreases over time (17).
Perhaps the example of microevolution most pertinent
to the life of the average layman is the development of
antibiotic resistance in human pathogens. One of the
SPRING 2006
most common modern pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus,
was discovered to have developed penicillin resistance
in 1947. The first case of methicilin-resistant Staph was
reported in 1961; vancomycin resistance was identified
in 1997; and linezolid resistance in 2003, less than 13
years after the drug was introduced (18). Physicians
and microbiologists have long known that exposure to
antibiotic drugs presents a selection pressure for resistance
to bacterial strains, and hence encourages the proliferation
of resistant strains. An analogous case is observed in the
agricultural and public health sectors, which have seen
in the past hundred years an increase in the proportion of
pesticide-resistant insects. Malaria-carrying mosquitoes
are, in some cases, difficult to control with pesticides due
to the evolution of resistance in response to the selective
pressure of historical pesticide use (19).
The extensive evidence for microevolution
establishes that genetic and phenotypic changes can
occur within individual populations, but studies in
macroevolution demonstrate that new species can arise
from ancestral lineages. Though speciation events are
thought to occur on a very long time scale – so long
that it is unreasonable to expect a human observer to
appreciate the event as it is occurring – some such events
have been observed. For example, when apple trees
were first introduced to North America from Europe,
native parasitic fruit flies (Rhagoletis pomonella) began
to exploit the trees as they did native hawthorns. Two
hundred years later, Jeffrey Feder and colleagues
observed that the flies exploiting apples were genetically
different from those exploiting hawthorns, and that the
two populations were partially reproductively isolated
– and therefore represented incipient species (20). The
researchers proposed that the isolation of these two strains
– occupying completely contiguous ranges – arose from
their preferences for different hosts and the differences in
developmental timing of those hosts (i.e. fruiting occurs
at different times in apples and hawthorns, and because
the life history of these flies is dependent on the fruiting
of their hosts, flies exploiting different hosts do not
mate at the same time and therefore almost never mate
interspecifically) (21).
A substantial and ever-growing body of evidence
supports the fact that biological evolution has occurred
and does occur. But various criticisms linger despite the
certainty with which scientists take the principle.
Responses to antievolutionists’ criticisms
Here, I address only the most common and
superficially compelling arguments against evolution,
excluding those arguments which are self-evidently
incorrect or which address archaic ideas in evolutionary
biology.
19
“The theory of evolution is not a proven fact”
“All a scientist can do is disprove things to get better
and better approximations of the truth.” – Dartmouth
Biological Sciences Professor Mark McPeek (22)
To a scientist, nothing is proven; every fact is
provisional, and is true to the extent that all currently
available evidence suggests it is true. Even if all evidence
suggests that it is true, and that body of evidence is large,
has accrued over many years, and results from varied
tests conducted by many researchers – as in the case of
biological evolution – our confidence in its truth can only
approach, and never reach, 100%. Some antievolutionists
exploit the fact that no scientist can say that evolution – or
any other scientific principle – is “proven,” and that most
laypeople do not understand why this is.
If a scientist is interested in testing a certain
hypothesis, she makes a logical prediction based on that
hypothesis, and designs a test to falsify that prediction.
If the test fails to falsify that prediction, the scientist has
found support for her hypothesis – but this evidence by
no means proves that the hypothesis is true, because other
hypotheses may also explain her observations. As the
number and variety of tests corroborating her hypothesis
– and falsifying alternate hypotheses – increases,
the scientist would have increasing certainty that her
hypothesis is true. But there is no number of positive tests
that, once accumulated, would allow the scientist to say
that she knows with 100% certainty that her hypothesis
is true. Some hypotheses have survived so many varied
tests of their veracity that scientists have an extremely
high degree of certainty in their truth; at this point, though
their certainty only approaches and does not reach 100%,
most scientists consider it absurd to doubt the hypothesis’
truth. Such is the case for biological evolution. Gravity,
thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics are held with
similar esteem. But no matter how sure most scientists
are of these ideas, they will still never say that any of
them is proven because, to scientists, there is no such
certainty.
“Evolution is just a theory”
Another common critique of biological evolution
– one that has been printed on stickers and pasted onto the
covers of high school biology textbooks in one Atlanta
school district – is the assertion that it is “just a theory,”
unproven and controversial even among scientists. In
a 1980 presidential campaign address in Dallas, Texas,
Ronald Reagan famously characterized evolution as
“a scientific theory only” (23). Using this tactic, antievolutionists exploit incongruencies in the scientific and
vernacular usage of the word “theory.” Most Americans
20
educated in public schools learn – erroneously – that
science operates in a rigid hierarchy of certainty, with
hypotheses, theories, and laws representing increasingly
certain versions of one idea. “Theory” in everyday usage
connotes speculation; this, however, is not how scientists
use the word. David Quammen, an acclaimed science
writer and former Rhodes Scholar explains “what scientists
mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and
unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that
fits the evidence” (24). Use of the word “theory,” as in
“theory of evolution” or “theory of relativity” connotes
no uncertainty about the truth of these ideas.
“The theory of evolution is not falsifiable”
As we found above, plenty of valid tests have
provided scientific evidence for microevolution. Scientists
have applied selective pressures to organisms (like fruit
flies) in a laboratory setting and observed dramatic
changes in the genetic constitution and phenotype of the
population, resulting in differences between early and
later generations of organisms. Other researchers have
observed these changes as natural selective pressures or
pressures imposed by researchers act in the field (e.g.,
Grant and Grant in Galapagos finches, Reznick and Endler
in Trinidadian guppies). These tests are all falsifiable;
we would conclude that natural selection is not at work
in these systems if we observed no adaptive response in
the phenotype of the observed organisms to a change in
selection pressure.
Macroevolution is a slightly different case, but
tests of it are no less falsifiable. Evolutionary biologists
make predictions using evolution as their hypothesis, and
test these predictions against physical evidence. Because
speciation occurs on a very large time scale, it is rare that
scientists can directly observe it, and therefore, much of
their data must be inferential. The situation is the same
for many historical sciences, like astronomy, geology, and
even forensic science (25). Though a forensic scientist
cannot observe a murder as it is committed, he can collect
evidence that points to what happened before he arrived
on the scene. He might collect samples of blood left by
the injured perpetrator, bits of debris ground into the
carpet from the perpetrator’s boots, or skid marks from
the getaway car, and use these pieces of evidence to
infer the identity of a suspect, his direction of flight, and
other important information to help police to locate and
prosecutors to convict him. These pieces of information
are admissible as evidence in courts of law worldwide, even
though they are based on inference – even though neither
the forensic scientist, nor the police, nor the prosecutors,
nor the judge and not even a single witness observed the
commission of the crime. In the same way, biologists can
use inference to collect data about macroevolution from
DARTMOUTH UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE
fossils and DNA. If these data were contrary to scientist’s
predictions, then their hypothesis – evolution – would be
in doubt.
Prior to the discovery of any ant remains predating
the Eocene, the eminent myrmecologist E.O. Wilson
made a prediction, using his knowledge of the ecology
of modern ants, and the tenets of biological evolution, to
predict some morphological characters of the ancestors of
modern ants (26). In 1965, mineral collectors unearthed a
piece of amber containing two well-preserved Cretaceous
worker ants. Of nine specific morphological characters
predicted by Wilson and his colleagues, seven were
present in these specimens – seven hypotheses about
ancestral ants were borne out, and two were rejected, all
on the basis of inferential evidence (Fig. 1).
to phenotypic differences; survival and reproduction
never enter into the equation until the end of the study,
when researchers determine statistically the relationship
between the completely independent fitness variable,
and survival or reproduction. Using this method, Peter
and Rosemary Grant have shown that Galapagos finches
whose beak shapes are physically better adapted to
manipulate the most abundant sort of seed (e.g., deep
beaks for cracking large, resistant seeds, thin beaks for
manipulating small seeds) consume a larger proportion of
resources, have higher body masses, survive longer, and,
ultimately, produce more offspring (27).
Antievolutionists thus manipulate a slogan
originated by Darwin’s “bulldog,” Thomas Huxley –
“survival of the fittest” – which imperfectly describes the
process of natural selection, to make it seem as if both
the phrase and the mechanism were tautological; this is
mere wordplay. What is ignored is the fact that natural
selection is one of the most logically satisfying principles
in biology, uniting dissimilar organisms under one robust
prediction. If a trait is (1) heritable, (2) varies among
individuals in a population, and (3) if not all offspring
that are born can survive given the amount of available
resources, then individuals with variants of that trait
which increase their relative ability to acquire resources
will survive longer and produce more offspring than other
individuals. If individuals with a certain trait produce
more offspring than individuals with other traits, the
relative frequency of traits in that population will change;
that is, evolution will occur.
“Evolution does not explain the ultimate origin
of life on Earth”
“To go from a bacterium to people is less of a step than
to go from a mixture of amino acids to a bacterium.”
– Lynn Margulis (28)
Figure 1 reprinted with full permission from Wilson et al., Science 157:1038.
Copyright 1967 AAAS.
“Natural selection uses circular reasoning”
Some antievolutionists contend that the argument
of natural selection constitutes a tautology: the fittest
survive and those that survive are the most fit. Though
researchers who take the truth of evolution as a premise for
their hypotheses often use reproductive output as a proxy
for fitness, in experiments designed to test the relationship
between fitness and survival and reproduction, fitness is
purposely divorced from these variables. Researchers
measure the differences in the ability of individuals to
extract resources from their environment with respect
SPRING 2006
Scientists cannot currently provide an explanation
for the origin of life on Earth that is well-supported by
available evidence; their only certainty is that, once life
was here, it evolved. However, several hypotheses for
the origin of life have been proposed. Currently, the
favored hypothesis among scientists is the “RNA world”
theory, first advanced by Harvard molecular biologist
Walter Gilbert in 1986 (29). Biologists recognize that
bacterial cells – akin to the presumed progenitor, or the
last common ancestor, of all species that exist or have
existed on Earth – cannot be formed directly from nonliving matter (30); therefore, the RNA world theory
hypothesizes intermediate, “precellular life” in the form
of RNA (31).
Exposing the chemicals thought to be present
on the Earth prior to life’s appearance to sources of
21
energy like electrical currents or ultraviolet radiation (to
simulate lightning, volcanic activity, or energy from the
sun) produces more complex molecules than the original
chemicals; among these complex molecules are amino
acids, hydroxyacids, purines, pyrimidines, and sugars.
Such chemical reactions could be the source of the first
organic molecules on Earth. Alternately, these organic
molecules are known to be synthesized on planets other
than Earth, and are carried on comets, which frequently
bombarded the Earth in the pertinent time frame
(32). Compounds as complex as polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons have been shown by spectral analysis to
exist in nebulae (33).
Once organic materials were present on Earth, biochemists
hypothesize that they could have organized into selfreplicating units. The mechanism for this self-organization
is hotly contested among scientists. Richard Dawkins
gives a lucid, general explanation that encompasses many
of these hypotheses:
abundance, and as a result of competition for limited
resources,
“A molecule that makes copies of itself is not as difficult
to imagine as it seems at first, and it only had to arise
once. Think of the replicator as a mould or template.
Imagine it as a large molecule consisting of a complex
chain of various sorts of building block molecules. The
small building blocks were abundantly available in the
soup surrounding the replicator. Now suppose that each
building block has an affinity for its own kind. Then
whenever a building block from out in the soup lands up
next to a part of the replicator for which it has an affinity,
it will tend to stick there. The building blocks that attach
themselves in this way will automatically be arranged
in a sequence that mimics that of the replicator itself. It
is easy then to think of them joining up to form a stable
chain just as in the formation of the original replicator…
the two chains might split apart, in which case we have
two replicators, each of which can go on to make further
copies… As soon as the replicator was born it must
have spread its copies rapidly throughout the seas, until
the smaller building block molecules became a scarce
resource, and other larger molecules were formed more
and more rarely” (34).
Scientists are unsure of how life on Earth began.
But John Rennie of Scientific American contends that
“even if life on Earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary
origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells
billions of years ago), evolution since then would be
robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and
macroevolutionary studies” (36).
RNA’s ability both to store information and to
catalyze chemical reactions make it a possible candidate
for the original “replicator.” Dawkins goes on to highlight
the fact that replicator molecules in the time prior to the
appearance of life on Earth – just like replicator molecules
today – would experience copying errors which, when
propagated, would result in multiple types of replicators.
The replicator which would be most abundant at any one
time is the one with maximal stability – that is, longevity,
fecundity and copying-fidelity. Competition for “building
blocks” would have resulted as replicators increased in
22
“any mis-copying that resulted in a new higher level of
stability, or a new way of reducing the stability of rivals,
was automatically preserved and multiplied. The process
of improvement was cumulative. Ways of increasing
stability and of decreasing rivals’ stability became more
elaborate and more efficient… This may have been how
the first living cells appeared. Replicators began not
merely to exist, but to construct for themselves containers,
vehicles for their continued existence. The replicators
that survived were the ones that built survival machines
for themselves to live in. The first survival machines
probably consisted of nothing more than a protective coat.
But making a living got steadily harder as new rivals
arose with better and more effective survival machines…
[Replicators] now go by the name of genes, and we are
their survival machines” (35).
“Evolution contradicts the Second Law of
Thermodynamics”
According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
the total entropy of a closed system can only increase.
Antievolutionists therefore argue that, because entropy
would decrease as organisms become more complex,
tying up more of Earth’s matter and energy in an organized
form, that evolution contradicts the Second Law. And
since physicists know of no process that violates the laws
of thermodynamics, evolution must not occur.
Richard Dawkins writes, in The Blind
Watchmaker, that “those that… know what the Second
Law is, will realize that it is no more violated by evolution
than it is violated by the growth of a baby” (37). Dartmouth
Physics professor Alexander Rimberg argues that “the
confusion appears to be associated with the definition of
open or closed systems. If the system is open, then the
entropy does not necessarily increase” (38). Earth is not
a closed system, because it receives inputs of matter and
energy from without, and entropy can therefore decrease
on Earth without violating the Second Law. According to
Dr. Rimberg, “that’s all that physics has to say: evolution
is not inconsistent with fundamental physical principles”
(39).
DARTMOUTH UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE
Antievolutionists respond to this by arguing that
an input of energy from outside the Earth system would
have been useless to the first self-assembling molecules
– they did not yet possess the photosynthetic apparatus
to convert the Sun’s light energy into a usable form. But
photosynthesis is not the only way that molecules can use
energy to become more organized; chemical reactions, for
example, often require energy inputs in the form of heat
to proceed. With the application of heat to some chemical
mixtures, it is possible to make complex molecules from
simple ones. The argument that evolution contradicts the
Second Law is therefore entirely unfounded.
– little by little, over geologic time. If the watch lying
in Paley’s field was living and could reproduce, we could
reasonably expect it to have arisen by the processes of
biological evolution.
The slogan of Lehigh University’s Michael Behe,
“irreducible complexity,” is the re-made, modern version
of Paley’s original argument. Behe argues that certain
organs and processes in modern organisms could not
have arisen by processes of evolution, because evolution
requires that a simpler form precedes a more complex one,
and certain organs and processes would not function if they
were any simpler. His analogy is to the Victor mousetrap
– remove any one of the five components (hammer, catch,
“It is improbable that random chance could holding bar, spring and platform), and the trap will catch
no mice. But this analogy is unfortunate because even the
create complex features”
Victor mousetrap was modeled on earlier patents for other
This argument, enjoying recent popularity, was mousetraps (40). Behe works to render certain biological
first advanced in William Paley’s Natural Theology in traits so dizzyingly complex that we are compelled to
1802 through the now-famous watchmaker analogy; admit “nonmaterial causes into science” (41). But, as
Paley argued that, while we would attribute the origin Dartmouth Biological Sciences professor Michael Dietrich
maintains,
irreducible
of a rock discovered
complexity
“doesn’t
in a field to random
show
that
something
can
processes, we would
never be explained – only
attribute the origin of a
that it has not yet been
watch discovered in the
explained” (42). In fact,
same field to a human
the evolutionary histories
watchmaker, because
of several of the organs
to think that the watch
claimed by Behe to be
– far more complex
“irreducibly complex”–
than a rock – could
such as the bacterial
have been assembled
flagellum – are currently
by random processes
being elucidated by
would be absurd. Of
scientists. In the instance
course, Paley couldn’t
of the flagellum, let us
have
considered
imagine that it is true that
Darwin’s proposition
without the numerous
for the origin of complex Colorized Scanning Electron Microsope picture of a Vibrio vulnificus
bacterium with obvious flagella.
Image courtesy of Janice Carr
proteins
composing
organisms, published
the
organ,
a
bacterium
would
be
unable
to
swim; by
more than a half century after his death. Had he read
On the Origin, Paley might have realized that “random extension, a simpler, ancestral flagellar organ possessing
chance” had a trick up its sleeve: natural selection, the fewer proteins would be useless to its possessor as a
mechanism that scientists believe to be the principle force swimming apparatus. But the ancestral organ may be
of adaptive evolution, causes traits arising as a result of useful to its possessor for some other purpose, and only
random chance (e.g., a random mutation) which confer later in evolutionary history exapted – evolutionarily coadvantage to be retained in a population. It causes random opted to perform a different function – as a swimming
mutations conferring a disadvantage to be eliminated. organ. Bird feathers, for example, may have been exapted
Traits that arise as a result of random events – events for flight from an earlier purpose – insulation. We know
just the same as those that might eventually make a rock that the flagellar base performs other functions in modern
– experience non-random selection which maximizes the bacteria, from maintaining cell shape to creating current
number of offspring left by organisms with a beneficial in the surrounding medium to attaching to other cells
trait and minimizes the number of offspring left by (43). It is not hard to imagine a series of ancestral bacteria
organisms that lack that trait or possess a detrimental one, with increasingly complex organs performing different
changing the frequency of the trait in the population. As functions, with a late organ possessing just slightly less
small changes accumulate, complex organisms develop than the necessary complexity for swimming motion;
SPRING 2006
23
with a simple mutation, the swimming function could be
attained.
In the 20 December 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover
Area School District decision, federal district court judge
John Jones III – an appointee of George W. Bush – issued
this assessment of “irreducible complexity:”
“As expert testimony revealed, the qualification on what is
meant by ‘irreducible complexity’ renders it meaningless
as a criticism of evolution. In fact, the theory of evolution
proffers exaptation as a well-recognized, well-documented
explanation for how systems with multiple parts could
have evolved through natural means… By defining
irreducible complexity in the way that he has, Professor
Behe attempts to exclude the phenomenon of exaptation
by definitional fiat, ignoring as he does so abundant
evidence which refutes his argument” (44).
Though scientists cannot currently provide a
definitive explanation for the evolution of some extremely
complex organs and processes – like the bacterial flagellum
– there is little evidence that such an explanation cannot
be reached and, in fact, much evidence to suggest that
such explanations are right around the corner.
Conclusion
Antievoultionists’ purposes are varied, but their
methods – besmirching the esteem with which the public
holds the tenets of biological evolution through deceit –
are the same. Scientists welcome challenges to accepted
ideas, so long as those challenges are backed up by
evidence and fact; thus far, antievolutionists have offered
neither evidence nor fact to support their position.
Scientists recognize that diluting public
understanding of the principle of biological evolution is
dangerous. In reference to the incorporation of teachings
like that of “Intelligent Design” into school curricula,
the American Association for the Advancement of
Science urges that “the risk… is to undermine scientific
credibility and the ability of young people to distinguish
science from non-science” (45). Amid fears of an avian
flu outbreak, a large percentage of the American populace
would seemingly refuse to recognize that it is possible
for viruses to evolve the capacity to be transmitted from
bird to human hosts, or among human hosts. And on a
more fundamental level, an understanding of evolution is
important to synthesizing the disparate facts of biology:
eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr wrote, “If you
don’t accept evolution, then most of the facts of biology
just don’t make sense” (46). Pseudoscience and distortions
of the truth must be unveiled as such, lest the American
public is led to disregard a well-substantiated scientific
principle that is vitally important to our understanding of
life on Earth.
References
Theorized development of feathers by exaptation.
Image courtesy of CM Chuong et al. (47)
24
1. T. Dobzhansky, The American Biology Teacher, March 1973,
pp.125-129.
2. S.J. Gould, Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes (New York: W.W.
Norton and Co., 1994) 253.
3. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Public Divided on
Origins of Life: Religion a Strength and Weakness for Both Parties
(Pew Research Center, Washington, DC, 2005) p. 7.
4. CBS News, Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution (Poll, conducted
18-21 November 2004). Available at http://www.cbsnews.com/
stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml.
5. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Public Divided on
Origins of Life: Religion a Strength and Weakness for Both Parties
(Pew Research Center, Washington, DC, 2005) p. 7.
6. E. Mayr, What Evolution Is (Interview, 2001). Available at http://
www.edge.org/3rd_culture/mayr/mayr_print.html (28 January 2006).
7-9. J. Rennie, Scientific American, July 2002.
10. American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS
DARTMOUTH UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE
Board Resoultion on Intelligent Design Theory (2002). Available at
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml (28 January
2006)
11. National Academy of Sciences, Sciene and Creationism: A View
from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition (1999).
Available at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309064066/html/1.html (28
January 2006).
12. H.E. Hoekstra et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 98, 9157-9160 (2001).
13. P.T. Boag and P.R. Grant, Science 214, 82-84 (1981).
14. P.R. Grant et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 73, 257-261 (1976).
15. B.R. Grant and P.R. Grant, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci 76, 2359-2363
(1979).
16. D. Reznick and J.A. Endler, Evolution 3, 160-177 (1982).
17. D.A. Reznick, H. Bryga and J.A. Endler, Nature 346, 357-359
(1990).
18. “Antibiotic resistance,” Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Antibiotic_resistance (28 January 2006).
19. R.G. Bellinger, Pest Resistance to Pesticides (1996). Available
at http://entweb.clemson.edu/pesticid/Issues/pestrest.pdf (28 January
2006).
20. J.L. Feder, C.A. Chilcote and G.L. Bush, Nature 336, 61-64
(1988).
21. J.L. Feder and G.L. Bush, Evolution 43, 1813-1819 (1989) J.
Boxhorn, Observed Instances of Speciation (1995). Available at
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html (28 January
2006).
22. M. McPeek, pers. comm.
23. “Ronald Reagan,” Available at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/
Ronald_Reagan (19 April 2006).
24. D. Quammen, National Geographic, November 2004.
25. J. Rennie, Scientific American, July 2002.
26. E.O. Wilson, F.M. Carpenter and W.L. Brown, Science 157,
1038-1040 (1967).
27. B.R. Grant and P.R. Grant, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci 76, 2359-2363
(1979).
28. Lynn Margulis, interviewed in The End of Science: Facing the
Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, John
Horgan. (Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.,
1996), pp. 140-141.
29-31. B. Klyce, The RNA World, Available at http://www.
panspermia.org/rnaworld.htm (28 January 2006).
32. “Miller-Urey Experiment,” Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Miller-Urey (28 January 2006).
33. U.P. Vijh, A.N. Witt and K.D. Gordon, Astrophysical Journal
606, L65-L68 (2004).
34. R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, New
York, 1989).
35. R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, New
York, 1989).
36. J. Rennie, Scientific American, July 2002.
37. R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (W.W. Norton & Co., New
York, 1996).
38-9. Alexander Rimberg, pers.comm.
40-2. Michael Dietrich, pers. comm.
43. P. Dunkelberg, Irreducible Complexity Demystified (2003).
Available at http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.
html#bactflag (28 January 2006).
44. U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania,
Judge John Jones III, Tammy Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School
District et al. Memorandum Opinion (2005). Available at http://www.
pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf (28 January 2006).
45. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Press
Room: Evolution on the Front Line (2005). Available at http://www.
aaas.org/news/press_room/evolution/qanda.shtml (28 January 2006).
46. E. Mayr, What Evolution Is (Interview, 2001). Available at
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/mayr/mayr_print.html (28 January
2006).
47. Chuong, C-M., Wu, P., Zhang, F-C, Xu, X., Yu, M., Widelitz,
R.B., Jiang,T-X, and Hou, L. 2003. Adaptation to the Sky: Defining
The FeatherWith Integument Fossils From Mesozoic China and
Experimental EvidenceFrom Molecular Laboratories. J Exp Zool.
298B: 42-56.
Interested in science-writing or research?
Being on the staff is a great way to
experience the process of pulling it all
together on paper.
Blitz DUJS for more information.
SPRING 2006
25