Are either Natural Selection or Evolution Laws?

Question

Can you please also let me know what they both need to prove to fully become laws. thanks

Answer 1

A law is a single short statement believed to be true all the time.

In other words, a law is usually short enough to be stateable in an equation.

The theory of evolution cannot be a law because (a) it is not a single statement, but a body of many statements that explain something (the existence of all the species on the planet); and (b) it is limited only to the life on this planet (as we have not yet discovered life on other planets), and it mostly explains past events. In other words, we don't know yet if evolution must *always* occur in life ... perhaps there are life forms on other planets that do not evolve. However, that is not a statement about that the theory is not "true" enough to be a law.

The theory of natural selection is closer to qualifying as a law, as it is a shorter statement. However, again, there is no way (yet) to verify that whereever life appears, it will be subject to natural selection.

Perceiver: You made this claim (that neither natural selection nor evolution could predict anything, even retrospectively) in a recent post.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApaN9hYvFvrRm_Bg66oWBLjsy6IX?qid=20070118213638AABXG13&show=7#profile-info-b35a3c16fe007c9fa2778d012a62379daa
But I responded that they did indeed make predictions (certain characteristics of genetics and DNA) and would be falsifiable had these predictions failed. You were kind enough to pick my answer as Best Answer. But yet, here you are making the same claim again. I don't understand. (?)

You say things like "A true scientfic theory should reflect natural laws with a cetain degree of probability of producing a particular outcome." This is simply not true. This doesn't just eliminate quantum physics, but any science of dynamic systems, from the creation of a snowflake to a hurricane. There are *many* scientific theories that address fundamentally unpredictable and non-repeatable outcomes that are nevertheless based on natural laws. The theories tell us the parameters under which those events occur, and what outcomes are possible. It is because the theory of evolution tells us what outcomes are not possible (e.g. different molecular structures for genetic inheritance), that it is a valid, testable theory, and ID and creationism are not.

Let me be more direct ... evolution to the point of speciation has been demonstrated *in the laboratory* ... e.g. with fruitflies, in a controlled experiment that is extremely simple, but takes many years to complete. It does not predict exactly *what* new species will evolve, but it does accurately predict that something *can* evolve, and this prediction has been born out.

eschew_obfuscation: I agree with you, but the nose hair example is a bad one. A characteristic *acquired during the lifespan of the individual* is not an example of evolution by natural selection. To qualify it would have to be shown that this characteristic is *inherited* in greater percentages by city dwellers ... i.e. that a if child who is the product of many generations of city dwellers, grows up in the country, he still has longer nose hairs. ... Or vice versa.

Answer 2

No they are not laws. The problem however is that they are not even strictly speaking scientific theories in any traditional sense. They can predict nothing, They cannot even predict retrospectively. A true scientfic theory should reflect natural laws with a cetain degree of probability of producing a particular outcome. A theory that "in itself" allows for an endless number of outcomes is not a scientific theory, quantum physics aside. (Before some one tries makes such a comparison they must first prove that we ought to think of biology in the same way as we think of the subatomic quantum universe. Traditionally, however biology is not treated as an associate of quantum mechanics). let us think about a single celled organism that has been replicating every several hours for 2.5 billion years and has remained fundementally unchanged. This is the case with Blue green Algae . They are rare, but fossils from billions of years ago have been found that are basically identical to living species. Now think about that. How many opportunities to mutate would an organism replicating every several hours for over 2 billion years have? How can you say that such an event is bound by the same law (and probabilities) as the event of a single cell transforming into a shark in a drastically smaller period of time? There are no uniform genetic tendencies here. That is why evolution cannot predict, and it's inability to predict in any sense is why it does not actually tell us anything about the way the world works. Perhaps you could say that it tells us about the way the world worked in the past, but then it would simply be a narrative, not a scienific theory. A real scientific theory gives us natural laws with a certainn degree of probability of producing a particular oucome. It does not just give us a story about the way something supposedly happened. Someone may say that certain organisms haven't changed because their old form was sufficient but that does not get us out of the predicament. The problem is, when it comes to the history of the individual specimen the genes remained static, regardless of whether or not it conflicted with the enviornment. The genetic tendenices of all individual specimens must fit a mold of general conduct that gives natural selection something to work with in the first place. Finally remember that Darwin's natural selection is not simply survival of the fittest (which was common sense even before darwin) it is the creation of new species through survival of the fittest and random variation.

Answer 3

Theories, even those as robust as evolution and natural selection, never become laws. To do so, they would have to proven to be true under all conditions, which is impossible. Scientists therefore try to "disprove" it, in a sense, to show how scientifically firm it is. Even the law of Gravity is just an extremely robust theory, which may not hold at the sub-atomic level, or at close to the speed of light.
Natural selection is not the only force which drives Evolution. Sexual selection is also important, this is why peacocks, for instance, have large tail feathers, natural selection would dictate that small tail feathers would give them a better chance of survival, particularly inthe forests, but females select mates based on beautiful tail feathers, so there is a conflict.

So, in short, they may never be considered laws, even though, they are universally accepted and supported scientifically.

Answer 4

The title of Law only goes to theories that can be mathematically proven.

Natural selection and evolution can be observed by they cannot ultimately be proven mathematically so they are never likely to become laws.

I personally don't see why there are problems with this method, nobody has problems with the theory of Gravity stating that "matter attracts matter at a rate depending on it's own mass and the mass of the attracted matter" despite the fact that it can't be mathematically proven, they still believe it.

I wonder if the Bible had stated that God held people down on the ground somehow if Gravity would be disputed...

Answer 5

Natural Selection is a law we've proven time and again this axiom: "survival of the fittest" can easily be observed in nature. and in the corporate world aswell. it's just common sense. however Natural selection no longer applys to the animal man. you see we also gaurantee the survival of the weakest most incompetant aswell and we let them breed.

and as far as evolution goes it is a law aswell. it's been observed repeatedly. yet the zealous religious right-wing nut jobs refuse to accept this. i'll give you an example of evolution that can be observed in ones own life time. evolution doesnt take millions of years. it's a continual effort. people who live in the city all there lives have nose hair that's 33% larger than people who live in the clean air of the country. it's our body saying: hey i breath in air with alot of particulate maybe i should counteract this the only real way the body knows how. experimental data supports both of these points. so yes, they are laws. final answer.

Answer 6

Scientific laws refer to very particular things, not great big systemic overviews.

It's why relativity and quantum theories are still called theories. Both are well proven, their laws are subsets to overall theories explaining the details of their workings.

The babble about evolution only being a theory is a semantic game played by people who have an ideological constipation with regards to evolution.

There aren't a whole lot of 'laws' in biology. Reason being that by the time Darwin came along using the word 'law' had become sort of passe in science. It was originally used by people who were referred to as 'natural philosophers', like Newton, who were trying to plumb the methods of the divine through study of the physical world. (Newton to God: "Im in ur wrld im pikin ur brane!!") Different philosophy, finding "God's" laws aggrandises human intellect, finding out how living things work is humbling to our cosmic egotism.

Besides it's harder to study nature in a lab than it is to study physics. Working out the laws of motion in physics was readily accomplished indoors by loners or small groups of people through simple experiments and clearcut mathematics. Physics can be studied by reducing things to their simplest pieces. The workings of biology in the wider world aren't so amenable to reductive methods.

Trying to rope off a section of nature to study natural selection would defeat the purpose. Studying natural selection on a large enough scale to be unambiguously valid requires a feat of logistics and planning that makes D-day look like a school field trip.

Even that risks tainting the results by interfering with wild organisms that are the objects of study. Interpreting the results involves the same kind of error margins and disagreement over mathematical methods that polls have.

Answer 7

you're ideal that maximum Christians completely properly integrate their conception in God with evolution idea. It doesn't mean that there are not any problems with that, besides the undeniable fact that. Christianity -like different religions- won't be able to do without assumptions about some issues in nature. F.e. maximum Christians have self assurance that anybody is accountable for his or her deeds (and can want to administration them) and they have some kind of life apart from their textile life that doesn't disappear even as they are lifeless. yet those assumptions quite might want to be debated by technology. At that aspect you many times get conflicts between faith and technology. holding that faith has in reality to do with morals doesn't sparkling up the problem. you're literally not talking about faith then, in reality about humanism.