Many people have learned it in primary school. According to the classification, theory is in the middle-more sure than pure hypothesis, but slightly inferior to law. However, scientists do not divide these terms in this way. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), scientific theory is a well-founded explanation of a certain aspect of nature, which can include facts, laws, inferences and tested hypotheses. Law is a general description of nature, and no matter how much a theory is proved, it will never become a law. So when scientists talk about evolution (or, for this matter, atomic theory or relativity), they will not express any objection to the truth of this theory.
In addition to evolution (the so-called evolution refers to the concept that one generation is superior to another), people may also cite examples of evolution. The American Academy of Sciences defines "facts" as "observations that have been repeatedly proved and actually recognized as" true ". Fossil records and countless other evidences prove that organic matter evolved gradually with time. Although no one has seen these changes directly, the indirect evidence is clear and convincing enough.
No matter what kind of science, it is common to rely on indirect evidence to explain problems. For example, physicists can't see subatomic particles directly, so they can prove the existence of particles by observing their unique trajectories in the cloud chamber. But physicists did not make the conclusion unreliable because they could not observe it directly.
2. Natural selection is caught in the cycle of argument: survival of the fittest is survival of the fittest.
"Survival of the fittest" is a controversial expression of natural selection. In fact, a more professional expression should use the term "survival and reproduction difference rate". This description does not label each species as adaptive or not, but describes how many offspring each species may leave under given conditions. Put a pair of fast-breeding finches and a pair of slow-breeding finches on an island rich in food. In several generations, fast-breeding songbirds may dominate most food sources. But if big-mouthed songbirds are more likely to bite seeds, the advantage may shift to these slow-breeding songbirds. Peter R. Grant of Princeton University in the United States made a pioneering study on the finches in the Galapagos Islands and observed the population changes in wild conditions. See Grant's article "Natural Selection and Darwin's Songbirds" written in the February issue of 1992. ]
The key point is that the definition of a species' adaptability can be made without reference to its viability: a bird's big mouth is more suitable for biting seeds, regardless of whether this feature has the value of enhancing its viability under given conditions.
The theory of evolution is unscientific, because it can neither be verified nor overturned. The species changes involved in its various assertions are unobservable and can never be reproduced.
This total negation of evolution ignores some important features that divide evolution into at least two categories-micro-evolution and macroevolution. Micro-evolution examines the changes within a species over time, which may be a precursor to the formation of new species. Macroevolution studied how taxonomic groups above the species level evolved. The evidence usually comes from fossil data and DNA comparison to reconstruct the relationship between various organic substances.
Nowadays, even most creationists admit that the existence of micro-evolution has been confirmed by laboratory experiments (such as the study of cells, plants and fruit flies) and field investigations (such as Grant's investigation on the mouth evolution of Galapagos songbirds). Natural selection and other mechanisms (including chromosome changes, birth and hybridization, etc. ) can promote profound changes in biological groups.
The historical study of macroevolution involves inference based on fossils and DNA, rather than direct observation. However, for historical sciences (including astronomy, geology, archaeology and evolutionary biology), scientists can still test hypotheses to see whether they are consistent with physical evidence and whether they can make testable predictions about future scientific discoveries. For example, the theory of evolution means that there should be a series of other primitive people between the earliest ancestors of human beings (about 5 million years ago) and modern humans with the earliest anatomical structure (about 65438+ million years ago). Among them, the characteristics of apes are less and less, while the characteristics of humans are more and more, which is completely consistent with fossil data. But we will not (of course) find modern human fossils in Jurassic strata (about 65 million years ago). The predictions made by conventional research in evolutionary biology are much more detailed and accurate than this, and researchers are constantly testing these predictions.
Creationists may also refute evolution in other ways. If we can find data to prove that even a complex life form spontaneously emerged from inanimate matter, then at least several creatures we see in fossils may have evolved in this way. If super-intelligent aliens once appeared and created life on earth (even created specific species), then the explanation of pure evolution will be questioned. But so far no one has produced such evidence.
It should be pointed out that perjury was put forward by the philosopher karl popper in 1930s, and it is a decisive feature of science. Because the narrow interpretation of his ideological principles excluded many real branches of scientific research, it was not until recent years that his ideological views gradually became universal.
4. Scientists are increasingly skeptical about the truth of evolution.
There is no evidence that the supporters of evolution are gradually decreasing. Open any issue of Biology magazine, and you will find articles that support and develop the study of evolution or agree that evolution is a basic scientific concept.
Contrary to creationism, serious scientific journals do not deny the report of evolution. In the mid-1990s, George W. Gilchrist of the University of Washington, USA, investigated thousands of periodicals listed in the original literature, trying to find articles about "God's design" or creationism. He searched hundreds of thousands of scientific reports, but he didn't find a report on creationism. In the past two years, Barbara Forrest of Southeast Louis University and Lawrence M. Klaus of case western reserve university have independently conducted the same survey, and the results are also in vain.
Creationists retort that the closed-minded and stubbornly exclusive scientific community refuses to accept their evidence. However, according to the editors of important magazines such as Nature and Science, they hardly saw any submissions against evolution. Some authors who oppose evolution have published papers in serious scientific journals. However, these papers rarely directly attack the theory of evolution, and never explicitly cite the argument of creationism. At best, they just pointed out that there were some unsolved problems in evolution (no one objected). In short, creationists can't come up with enough reasons for the scientific community to take their ideas seriously.
Even evolutionary biologists have various differences, which shows that the scientific basis on which evolution is based is not solid at all.
The focus of fierce debate among evolutionary biologists is various. For example, how the species was formed, the speed of evolution, whether the ancestors of birds and dinosaurs were related by blood, and whether Neanderthals were independent species different from modern people. It is inevitable that there will be such disputes in any discipline, and evolution is no exception. However, biologists still unanimously accept the theory of evolution and regard evolution as the real thing and the guiding principle of the biological world.
Unfortunately, hypocritical creationists always quote scientists out of context to exaggerate and misinterpret their differences. Anyone familiar with the works of Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist at Harvard University, knows that Gould is not only one of the founders of punctuation balance model, but also the most active defender and propagandist of evolution. (punctuated equilibrium's model holds that most of the evolution occurred in a relatively short geological history period, which can explain the phenomena we observed in the fossil record. However, the short period in geological history may be hundreds of generations. However, creationists always spare no effort to take Gould's rich works out of context, which makes people think that Gould has expressed doubts about evolution. What's more, the theory of punctuation balance is misinterpreted, as if punctuation balance will make new species stand out overnight, or make birds emerge from reptiles' eggs.
If readers encounter scientific authorities questioning the theory of evolution, they must combine the context to see what this passage really means. To be sure, the so-called scientists' attack on the theory of evolution was finally proved to be out of thin air.
6. If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there monkeys now?
This statement is very common and reflects the questioner's ignorance of evolution to varying degrees. The first mistake is that evolution does not tell us that people are monkeys; It's just that people and monkeys have the same ancestors.
The deeper mistake made in this argument is the same as the following question: "If children are born adults, why are there adults?" "New species evolved by differentiation with existing species; This differentiation occurs when some biological populations are separated from the main branches of their families and undergo enough mutations to make them a new species that is obviously different from the original species forever. As a parent species, it may exist indefinitely, and of course it may become extinct.
7. Evolution can't explain how life first appeared on the earth.
The origin of life is still a mystery to a great extent, but biochemists have figured out how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other basic elements that make up life form and copy themselves, thus laying the foundation for the biochemical process of cells. Astrochemical analysis shows that such compounds may be formed in large quantities in space at first, and then come to earth with comets. This theory may explain how these life elements appeared under various conditions when the earth was young.
Creationists sometimes make a fuss about scientists' temporary inability to explain the origin of life and try to completely deny the theory of evolution. In fact, even if life on earth really came into being by means other than evolution (for example, aliens brought the first batch of cells to the earth billions of years ago), countless micro-evolutions and macroevolution studies have strongly proved that the evolution of life is a conclusive fact.
8. Mathematical analysis shows that something as complex as protein is generated randomly, which is unimaginable, not to mention living cells and even human beings.
Chance plays a certain role in evolution (for example, making species acquire new characteristics through random mutation), but the process of evolution does not depend on luck to produce organic matter, protein or other life forms. On the contrary, free selection (which should be called the main evolutionary mechanism) realizes non-random change by retaining "beneficial" (adaptive) features and eliminating "useless" (non-adaptive) features. As long as the intensity of selection remains stable, natural selection can push evolution in one direction and produce complex structures in an unexpected short time.
Let's take this analogy as an example and consider the sequence of 13 letters "TOBEORNOTTOBE". Suppose there are 1 10,000 monkeys knocking on the keyboard, and each monkey knocks a letter sequence as long as the above sequence every second, then it will take them 78,800 years to knock out the above letter sequence from 26 13 sequences with the same length. However, in the 1980s, Richard Hudson of Glendale College in the United States wrote a computer program that could randomly generate phrases. The characteristic of this program is that if a single letter happens to be in a given position of a phrase, then the letter will always stay in this position (in fact, the phrase closer to Hamlet is selected). The program only needs to be repeated 336 times on average, and it takes less than 90 seconds to generate that phrase again. Even more amazing, the program can even reconstruct Shakespeare's whole play in four and a half days.
9. The second law of thermodynamics holds that with the passage of time, the system will inevitably develop in an increasingly disorderly direction. Therefore, living cells cannot evolve from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular organisms cannot evolve from protozoa.
This statement is wrong and misunderstood the second law of thermodynamics. If this statement is true, then mineral crystals and snowflakes should also belong to impossible substances, because they are also complex structures formed by disorderly components.
The second law of thermodynamics actually means that the total entropy of a closed system (that is, a system that does not exchange energy and matter with the outside world) will not decrease with time. Entropy is a physical concept, which is usually described as "disorder". However, this term is quite different from the usual words.
More importantly, the second law of thermodynamics allows the entropy of one part of the system to decrease, as long as the entropy of other parts of the system increases accordingly. Therefore, our earth as a whole may become more and more complicated, because the sun constantly scatters heat and light to the earth, and the entropy increase caused by thermonuclear reaction inside the sun is enough to offset the entropy scattered to the earth. Simple organisms can develop in an increasingly complex direction by consuming other life forms and nonliving substances.
10. Mutation is very important to evolutionary theory. But mutation can only eliminate features, but can't produce new features.
On the contrary, biological data prove that many characteristics are produced by point mutation (so-called point mutation is the change of the exact position of organism DNA). The tolerance of bacteria to antibiotics is a good example.
Mutations in homeobox structural genes (homeoboxes) that regulate animal development can also have complex effects. The Hox gene determines where the legs, wings, antennae and body parts should grow. For example, the tentacles and feet of fruit flies mutate, making the legs grow where they should have tentacles. These abnormal limbs have no effect, but their existence proves that genetic errors can produce complex structures, and natural selection can use them to test these structures to see if they are useful.
In addition, molecular biology research has found some more advanced genetic change mechanisms than point mutation, expanding the ways of new characteristics of species. Functional molecules in genes can be spliced together in various new ways. The whole gene may be accidentally copied into an organic DNA, and the copied gene can be mutated into a new gene with complex characteristics. The comparison of DNA of various organic substances shows that globin in blood has evolved in this way for millions of years.
1 1. Natural selection may explain micro-evolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and the advanced operating rules of life.
Evolutionary biologists have extensively discussed how natural selection can produce new species. For example, Ernst Mayr of Harvard University established a model called allopatry. The model holds that if a group's organic matter is separated from other groups by geographical boundaries, it may face different selection pressures. The factors of variation will gradually accumulate in isolated groups. When these variation factors accumulate to such a significant extent that it is impossible (or usually impossible) for the differentiated population to mate with the original population to breed offspring, the population will reproduce independently and develop along this road until it finally becomes a new species.
Natural selection is the most thoroughly studied evolutionary mechanism, but biologists have also considered various other possible evolutionary mechanisms. Biologists have been evaluating the potential of some unusual genetic mechanisms that lead to species formation or complex characteristics of organic matter. Lynn margulis of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and other researchers convincingly proved that some organelles, such as mitochondria that produce energy, evolved through the fusion of ancient creatures. Therefore, the scientific community welcomes the research that evolution may be caused by forces other than natural selection. However, these forces must come from nature and cannot be attributed to the mysterious role of the angel of creation, because the basis for the existence of this role has not been scientifically proved.
12. No one has seen the evolution of new species.
Speciation may be very rare, and in some cases it may take centuries. In addition, it may be difficult to identify a new species at its formative stage, because biologists sometimes hold different views on how to define the concept of a new species. At present, the most widely used definition is "biological special concept" proposed by Meyer. According to this law, a species is a definite population composed of several independent breeding groups, that is, several organisms that usually do not breed outside their population or cannot breed outside their population. In fact, this definition may be difficult to apply to organisms that are isolated from each other because of distance or geographical differences, and it is also difficult to apply to plants (not to mention fossils that cannot reproduce). Therefore, biologists usually regard the entity and behavior characteristics of organic matter as clues to their species attribution.
However, there are indeed reports on speciation of plants, insects and worms in the scientific literature. In most of these experiments, researchers put organisms under various selection conditions (based on anatomical differences, mating behavior, habitat preference and other species characteristics) and found that some biological populations did not reproduce with exotic species. For example, William R. Rice of the University of New Mexico and George W. Salt of the University of California, Davis have proved that if a group of fruit flies are selected according to their preference for a certain environment and isolated for more than 35 generations, the final result is that the isolated fruit flies will refuse to mate with fruit flies from completely different environments.
13. Evolutionists can't produce any fossil evidence to prove that transitional animals (such as reptiles and birds) have appeared.
In fact, paleontologists have long known many detailed examples of intermediate fossils (that is, species fossils with shapes between different taxa). Among them, the most famous fossil is Archaeopteryx, which not only has the unique feather characteristics of birds, but also has similar bone structure characteristics to dinosaurs. The researchers also found a large number of other feathered animal fossils, which are similar to bird fossils in different degrees. A series of fossils completely describe the evolution of modern horses from Eohippus. The ancestors of whales are quadrupeds that crawl on land, and the transitional animals between them are two amphibians named Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus[ see the article "Mammals Conquer the Ocean" written by Kata Wong in the 8th issue of 2002]. Marine shell fossils reproduce the evolution of various mollusks over millions of years. About 20 species of apes (not all of them are human ancestors) fill the gap between Lucy, an Australopithecus, and modern humans.
But creationists turn a blind eye to the results of these fossil studies. They claim that Archaeopteryx is not a transitional species between reptiles and birds, but an extinct bird with some reptilian characteristics. Creationists hope that evolutionists will come up with a strange whimsical monster, which cannot be classified into any known population. Even if creationists admit that a fossil is a transitional organism between two species, they may still insist that there are other intermediate fossils between the fossil and the latter two species. This annoying requirement can be endless, but the fossil record is always incomplete and it is impossible to meet this unreasonable requirement.
However, evolutionists can get further strong evidence from molecular biology. All living things have most of the same genes, but evolutionists foresee that the structures of these genes and their products will be differentiated according to the evolutionary relationship between species. What geneticists call a "molecular clock" will record this time process. These molecular data also show the transitional relationship between different organisms in the process of evolution.
14. Organisms have surprisingly complex structural features at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels. Even if they are less complicated, they can't work normally. The only possible conclusion is that life is the product of God's design, not the product of evolution.
This so-called "design argument" constitutes the core of recent criticism of evolution and one of the earliest arguments used by creationists. In 1802, theologian William Paley wrote that if someone finds a watch underground, the most reasonable inference should be that someone dropped it underground, not that it was formed by natural forces. Paley claimed that it follows that the complex structure of living things must also be made by direct divine power. Darwin wrote The Origin of Species to refute Paley. This book expounds how the power of natural selection acts on genetic characteristics and gradually improves the evolution process of complex biological structures.
Generations of creationists try to refute Darwin's view that the eye is a structure that may have evolved. They believe that the eye can produce vision because its components are seamlessly combined. So natural selection can't be inclined to the transitional structure needed in the evolution of eyes (what's the use of half an eye? )。 Darwin seemed prescient about the heckling of creationists. He pointed out that even "incomplete" eyes may have their advantages (such as helping animals turn to the direction of light), so they can be passed down through evolution for further improvement. Biology confirms Darwin's analysis: researchers can identify primitive eyes and photosensitive organs in the whole animal kingdom, and even outline the evolutionary history of eyes through comparative genetic research. (Now it seems that in different biological families, eyes evolved independently. )
Now people who advocate God's design are more sophisticated than their predecessors, but their arguments and goals remain unchanged. In order to refute the theory of evolution, they try to prove that it is impossible for evolution to explain life as we know it, and then insist that the only effective alternative theory is that life is created by an unfathomable divine force.
15. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has some complexities that cannot be generated through evolution.
"Irreducible Complexity" is the slogan put forward by Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University. He is the author of Darwin's Black Box: The Challenge of Biochemistry to Evolution. Behr takes the mousetrap as a popular example of "irreducible complexity". The characteristic of mousetrap is that as long as any part is missing, it has no function, and its part is only valuable as a whole. Behe claims that if the mousetrap is like this, then the flagella of bacteria is even more so (flagella is a whiplike organelle, which plays a role of propulsion and functions like the outboard engine of a ship). Protein, which constitutes the flagella, is cleverly arranged into engine parts, rudders and other structures that engineers may need. Behe claims that the possibility of designing such a complicated and ingenious layout through evolutionary improvement is actually zero, which proves that this can only be a stunt of divine power performance. He also expressed similar views on coagulation mechanism and other molecular systems.
However, evolutionary biologists refute this view. First of all, the structure of some flagella is simpler than that mentioned by Behe, so flagella does not necessarily need all the above components to function. All the higher components of flagella mentioned by Behr can be found in other parts of nature, which is discussed by Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University and other researchers. In fact, the whole flagella system is very similar to an organelle called Yersinia pestis (Yersinia pestis uses this organelle to inject toxins into cells).
The key point is that although Behr claims that the constituent systems of flagella have no other value except propulsion, in fact, these systems may have multiple functions and are conducive to the evolution of flagella. Therefore, the ultimate evolution process of flagella may only be to recombine the evolved complex components for other purposes in some novel way. A study by Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California, San Diego shows that the coagulation system seems to have evolved by improving and perfecting the protein originally used for digestion, which is similar to the evolution of flagella. Therefore, the "irreducible complexity" that Behr used as evidence of divine power design is not really irreducible.
Another kind of complexity-the so-called "specific complexity"-is the core of the argument of sacred design put forward by William A. Dembski of Bei Le University in his two books, Design Reasoning and No Free Lunch. His argument is essentially that the complexity of biology can never be produced by any blind and random process. Dembski claimed that the only logical conclusion is that a superhuman God created life and influenced its development, which is exactly the same as Paley's assertion 200 years ago.
There are several loopholes in Dembski's argument. He suggested that the explanation of biological evolution was only random or divine design, which was incorrect. Researchers in Santa Fe Institute and other places who study nonlinear systems and cellularautomata have proved that simple undirected processes can produce extremely complex patterns. So, to some extent, some complexity in living things may be caused by natural phenomena that we hardly know about. However, this does not mean that the complexity of living things cannot naturally occur.
Conclusion-unscientific creationism
The formulation of "creating science" is self-contradictory. The core principle of modern science is methodological naturalism, that is, trying to explain the universe through observed or testable natural mechanisms. Physics describes atomic nuclei with specific concepts that govern matter and energy, and tests these descriptions through experiments. Physicists will introduce new particles (such as quarks) to enrich their theories only when the experimental data show that the previous description is not enough to explain the observed phenomena. Moreover, the characteristics of these new particles cannot be defined casually (the definition of new particles is strictly constrained because it must be included in the existing physical framework).
On the contrary, theorists who advocate divine power design move out all kinds of illusory things and give them all kinds of imaginative abilities at will-in short, how to answer the current questions. Such an answer will not promote scientific exploration, but will hinder the road of scientific exploration (for example, how to deny the existence of Almighty God? )。
Divine power design theory can't solve any problems. For example, when did the deity with design ability get involved in the history of life? How did you get involved? By creating the first DNA, the first cell, or the first person? Is every species designed by divine power? Or are only a few early species designed by divine power? Advocates of God's design often avoid these questions. Their views on divine power design are often varied and completely different, and they are even too lazy to communicate with each other to defend themselves. They argue by exclusion, that is, they try their best to belittle the explanation of evolution and dismiss it as far-fetched or incomplete theory, thus showing that only the alternative theory based on divine power design can stand.
Logically speaking, the advocates of design theory are completely misleading: even if there is a problem with a naturalistic explanation, it does not mean that all such explanations must be killed with a stick. In addition, their discussion did not make any theory of divine design more reasonable than the other, but actually let the audience make their own judgments, and some listeners will undoubtedly replace scientific concepts with religious beliefs when making such judgments.
Scientific research has proved time and time again that naturalism of methodology can overcome ignorance and find more and more detailed and reasonable answers for those once unfathomable mysteries. The essence of light, the origin of disease and the mechanism of the brain are all the same. Now, evolution is doing the same work to solve the mystery of how life forms and develops. No matter what name creationism is disguised as, it will not add anything of value to this scientific research.
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