Is evolution under attack as a credible science by anyone other than those who support creationism?

Question

Is there any doubt within any established scientiific community of the validity of evolution as a legitimate science, that is, those who do not have a specific religious agenda to offer a theory such as creationism in its place? Would this question receive a similar rate of Yes and No answers if I were to post it in the category of Religion and Spirituality where there may be more respondants of religious inclination?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_new_kind_of_science

gives commentary on Stephen Wolfram's book 'A New Kind Of Science', mentioned by one respondant below.

"A common criticism of NKS is that it does not follow established scientific methodology. NKS does not establish rigorous mathematical definitions, nor does it attempt to prove theorems."
'Wait and see', another says'
Apparently, it is interesting, full of relatively meaningless pictures,but nor rigorously scientific'

"Megalomaniacal utter batshit insanity" claims one other scientific writer. Check it out for yourself and decide.

Answer 1

Evolution is rock-solid within the scientific community. One or two RELIGIOUS non-biologists saying "God musta done it 'cause it complex," does not remotely constitute controversy.

Religious wingnuts FEAR and HATE evolution because they think it means there was no God. They will argue every point, no matter how small, because they think this will stop the tide of history. But who are they to think they know how God created life? Such arrogance. God could have used evolution as a tool.

Answer 2

First of all,one must compare Evolution to Creationism. Evolution is a theory (as opposed to a fact - Gravity by the way is also a theory, but we consider gravity as fact because we don't all fly off the face of the planet). A theory can be tested through experimentation and/or observation, and only becomes a fact when no evidence to the contrary is found. To date, there are volumes of works concerning genetics, fossils, physiological and embryological studies, etc that do hold it up. At the same time, there are also a number of studies that do not support the evolution. With evidence both for and against Evolution, it will always remain a theory rather than a fact!

But to answer your question, because Evolution can be tested, and these tests and results can be replicated, it fits within the Scientific Method of investigation, and therefore IS a credible science.

On a side note, while evolution deals with how life has changed and diversified through time, it has NOTHING to do with how life first began! That is still a complete mystery, with some theories in the process of being tested.

Creationism by contrast is based on faith. There is no evidence to back it up other then what is present now, and writings in religious scriptures from all over the world - and these stories are incredibly diverse from one another. There are no tests which can be run to confirm or deny the existence of a greater power responsible for creation. Because of these omissions, Creationism cannot be tested via the scientific principle, and as such IS NOT SCIENCE!

To answer your second question, certainly there may be more respondents of religious inclination to the contrary. In talking with other's about evolution, I have often been shocked as to how many people truly do not understand the concept, and obviously see it as contrary to their faith. Without an understanding of the basic principles that are applied to any branch of the sciences, many will go on faith just because it doesn't require the lengthy process to observe and test!

Answer 3

The short answer is NO.

You do not have to provide disproof of a scientific theory to gain a competitive status with an alternate. You just need to show an alternative Theory that is consistent with the observations.

So far the only recent proposal I D is not a scientific theory. It has failed to provide a single example of any situation where Interference by Deity can be established. Until they do have a useful credible example, then they have a hypothesis with no evidence. They also have to demonstrate how an Intelligent Designer could make such silly things as a rabbits digestive system. Clearly the hypothesis fails to be consistent with observations.

The full creationist proposal has never gotten beyond "god done it" because we have faith, but then never can agree on what they have faith in. As God is not even self-consistent this remains unconvincing. Worse, all the Gods proposed are morally reprehensible, and should never be followed.
(example > god murdered Egyptian babies as the 10th plague then condoned slavery in the #4 & #10 of the 10 commandments.)

There is no alternative to Evolution.
Without an alternate theory, there can be no competitive controversy between theories.
Various tweaks and improvements have been made to the Theory of Evolution since it was introduced by Darwin. We also have uncovered lots more evidence and ALL evidence is consistent with Evolution.

The parts of the theory of evolution are clear and have an assortment of great examples

examples of new information evolving
> Bacteria evolve resistance to new never before available drugs.

examples of diverging species
a) > the dog and wolf are diverging due to separated environments but can still successfully inter breed.
b) > the horse, zebras and Donkey are diverging from a common ancestor. They can still partially but not fully inter breed.
c) > the great Apes with orangutan, gorilla, man, chimpanzee and bonobo are all fully separate species from a common ancestor, and can no longer interbreed at all.

When shown these examples we see the religious believers simply deny reality and continue to believe their fable.

But the answerer remains, > evolution is not under attack as a credible science by anyone.

Answer 4

Evolution is a THEORY, that is why it is still called the Theory of Evolution. A hypothesis was formed, and now experimental evidence is being collected to prove or disprove the theory.

Scientists have been trying to prove the theory of evolution for many years. There are several good questions that are not resolved, such as:
1) If an organism evolves into another organism, what does it breed with? Good question since there is such a variety in the number of chromosomes within different species.

2) If an organism evolves into another organism, why do the old organisms still exist? (why didn't all monkeys evolve into men?)

3) Scientists have been breeding fruit flies, lab rats, bacteria, etc. for many years -- subjecting them to all sorts of situations to try to force evolutionary changes. They can change some minor traits (coloration, etc.) -- but they still get fruit flies from fruit flies every few days. If evolution was actually happening, there should be some more direct evidence that it is occurring.

Answer 5

I may be a bit confused, but from my understanding evolution is a theory. By definition, it isn't a fact. It can neither be proven absolutely true or false. If it could be proven it would be the law of evolution much like the law of gravity or the laws of physics.

The so called "missing link" is the absent evidence in the evolutionary chain that would connect humans to lower order primates. In its absence, evolution lacks the necessary proof to be fact/law.

As a theory, evolution has a great deal of validity. It is well thought out, but it has yet to be proven.

I've noticed some will confuse adaptation with evolution. I don't think any rational person would argue that living orgnisms do not adapt. A blind person can devlop a hightened sense of hearing for example. Species in warmer climates will shed the excess hair of their cooler climate cousins.

Does adaptation over time lead to evolutionary shifts? The fossil record supports this to a degree but there are some astonishing gaps. On a planet of 6.5 billion you would think someone ould have come across the "hybrid" ape/man step. That does not mean it will not be found next week, but to date still missing.

It is very amusing that creationist and evolutionist both argue with pseudo science points that cannot be proven (at least not yet).

The Christian faith does not require science. It is (again by definition) faith. On the flip side, the person who proves the theory of evolution may go down in history as one of the greatest scientists all time.

Answer 6

Yes. Fundamentalists of Islam are as much against evolution as are fundamentalists among Christians. Basically it is not the religion that is the problem but the lack of understanding that religion can not be a substitute for science. But believers think that truth can be determined by belief alone and doesn't have to be verified, and that religion trumps science and every thing else, like medicine, democracy, equality, rights, education, etc. Fundamentalists think that they rule the world. Unfortunately they are not bright enought to understand that they don't and that their beliefs are simply used by authoritarian despotes to control them with.

Evolution is central to all of modern biology and considered a proven fact. But scientists leave themselves open to dispute by two things that they do. They also use the word "believe" when they really mean "think" or "assume" and that confuses people. This allows the fundamentalists to use "believe" as if it were the same thing as "know".

And scientists sometimes to use the word "theory" when they should be saying "hypothesis" as in physics they should be talking about "string hypothesis" since that hypothesis has never been proven or validated so it is not a theory. Please note that Evolution is a proven theory and not a hypothesis. So scientists are shooting themselves in the foot by making these two errors.

You yourself made one of the errors when you talked about "a theory such as creationism in [evolution's] place" Creationism is NOT a theory because it has not been verified or tested. Only things that have been verified or tested should be called a theory. Creationism is a untestable hypothesis, so it can not ever become a theory as it can never be tested. Same thing for "Intelligent Design".

If you expect to help clear things up you MUST start making your language clearer.

Answer 7

gshprd918 has no freakin' clue what a fact or a theory is. Facts in science are things like that dolphin was 4.2 +- 0.2 meters. I mean the good zoologists at the University of Toronto, for example, would also say that evolution is a fact and laugh at those that say that there is a scientific controversy and I am sure that most biologists feel the same way. But generally it is not a very meaningful term.

A theory is like a law (like gravity) but of a more complicated event. Evolution is much better understood and accepted asa universal phenomena than gravity (for which there is little understanding).

There are no reputable peer-reviewed papers that have current evidence that oppose Evolution, which means that the awnser to your question is no. Creationists can say all they want about how there are holes in the theory of evolution, but anyone can lie. Its alot harder to get into a reputable peer-reviewed paper.

Also there are a number of example of speciation given on this blog for anyone intrested:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Answer 8

Evolution is still a theory, but it is as close to being fact as any theory of this nature could ever get. While other theories do float around, they are all abstract and have almost no evidence in their support. Of course many people refute evolution on religious grounds. Contrary to what many people think, perhaps evolution does not necessarily oppose the idea of creationism. Are all religious texts intended to be taken literally word for word? Perhaps evolution is simply the scientific answer to the means through which the creation part of creationism was carried out.

Answer 9

I don't think it is under attack, but certainly evoultion as a one stop answer needs to be better understood.

Certainly we observe and understand the evolution of life within their respective species.

The issue for me is this notion that somehow evolution leads to extreme changes in the make-up of a creature.

I personally wonder about this because we observe such creatures as sharks that have evolved over millions of years and are still basically sharks.

Virus's constantly evolve, but they don't suddenly become other than a virus. Same thing with insects that have thousands of generations of new off spring in a single year and yet remain the same insect.

That's where this whole debate gets stuck. People have this concept that modern man arose from ancient hominids. I don't know that to date the fossil record will prove that. I could certainly be mistaken, but I think it's a long stretch to connect Tut with Lucy. And I am not certain that Darwin ever put forth that argument, though it has and continues to be attributed to him.

So yes, I think discerning people of science as well as spirituality must always question, hypothesize, and validate their beliefs in as much as that is possible with the available evidence or faith.

Answer 10

We had to consider something like this for a genetics class I took in grad school. It was fun...you had to come up with four different possibilities to explain homologous proteins and evolution could only be one argument.

The prof had his favorite protein that we had been doing blast searchs on all year. Ironically enough about two months after the class was over the protein ( an ion channel) a paper came out with awesome data suggesting it was in fact and ion exchanger (not just a channel).

Okay sorry about the story...this question just got me thinking about that.

I have not really heard of a credible creationist argument in science because it is not really testible and since we spend our days testing things....there is no argument.

People who go on and on about creationism love to use the argument..."prove I.D. isn't true"

When I hear that the argument is over. Science doesn't work that way. We have and idea and then come up with experiments to test the idea and do appropriate controls to make sure we arn't archeologists.

I don't have any problem with people who don't believe in evolution or believe the bible is true or whatever. I like in a country where you can believe...whatever you want.

But just as I don't walk into church and start telling people they're wrong...and morons...and whatever else I might think....creationists should not go into science classrooms with no concept of what real science is and start spouting off about I.D.

Answer 11

The general group of theories relating to evolution are not under attack in the real scientific community; however, scientists are constantly discovering new things and therefore introducing corrections to the theory.
This theory of evolution itself is evolving; this is a point of attack for creationists, because their "theory" is not scientific and cannot be tested (therefore, cannot be disputed), which technically rules it out being called a hypothesis (as a valid hypothesis must always have a situation in which is can be proven wrong).
This question would recieve a different amount of yes/no depending on where you post it; although by far not all Christians are heavy proponents of invalidating evolution; there is just significant misinformation and propaganda aimed at them. Look at "Truth for Youth", which claims evolution is racist (which by itself is a bad invalidating argument, but it isn't true, either way).