Is the theory of evolution the biggest achievement of biologists?

Question

How does Charles Darwins theory help in understanding DNA or Human Genes? Do biologists make up a lot of unprovable theories. Do these theories get accepted without scrutiny?

ret2go83 Thanks for the answer
You said "We know it's true since the technology now exists to map out the lineages of species back millions of years" Can the scientists use the genes to sketch a persons photo or know how their ancestors looked? If they cannot do this, why should anybody believe them when they say they know what the ancestors looked like millions of years ago.

Answer 1

1. "Is the theory of evolution the biggest achievement of biologists?"
That depends on what you mean by "biggest achievement."
- If you mean greatest improvement to our lives, I would say that curing polio, or discovering antibiotics, or finding the cause, prevention, and sometimes cure for many diseases are all "bigger" achievements.
- If you mean order of difficulty, then I would say that mapping the human genome is a far more difficult task.
- But if you mean unifying widespread areas of biology (the way that atomic theory unifies chemistry, or quantum theory unifies physics), then absolutely, yes, evolution is the most unifying theory in biology ... even more than cell theory.

2. "How does Charles Darwins theory help in understanding DNA or Human Genes? "
While Darwin wrote long before the discovery of DNA or the mechanisms of genetics ... his idea of common ancestry between organisms, and the mechanisms that produce it, paved the way for understanding *WHY* we see the specific commonalities between human DNA and genes and those of other species. It even explains why the human genome is as much as 98% "junk DNA" (DNA that doesn't code for anything ... it is hard to come up with an explanation for it *except* billions of years of evolution, and inheritance and accumulation of long unused DNA). It also explains why there are genes for features we don't use (like the tail expressed during embyology, or the plantaris muscle in the human calf ... useless in humans, but used for grasping with the feet in other primates).

3. "Do biologists make up a lot of unprovable theories."
That's an odd question.
- If you really mean a "theory that cannot be proven" then you should know that *NO* theories can ever "proven." From the cell theory of life, to the germ theory of disease, to the atomic theory of matter, to the heliocentric theory of the solar system ... a theory is backed by "evidence", not "proof." Theorems in math are "provable" ... theories in science are not.
- If you mean "unverifiable theory", then no, of course not. A 'theory' for which there is no way to either verify or reject, cannot be called a 'theory' at all ... not in the scienfic sense, where 'theory' means "explanation with evidence."

4. "Do these theories get accepted without scrutiny?"
Do you mean by individual scientists, or by the science community as a whole?
Either way the answer is ... not a chance.
- There are some early theories that gain some support among a small number of individual scientists based on early (or even falsified) data. But not for long. Scrutinizing each other's work is what scientists do *for a living*. To expose a flaw, a bias, a bad piece of data, an error in logic, brings way too much reward for any scientist ever to accept another scientist's work without scrutiny. For an individual scientist to blindly accept another scientist's theory without scrutinizing it ... is to bet one's reputation on another person's work ... a surefire path to a wrecked career.
- If a theory (like evolution) gains widespread acceptance by the entire science *community*, then it has undergone a kind of rigorous, nitpicky scutiny unlike any other field of human effort. That's not to say that a widely accepted theory will never be discarded if a new piece of data (or a simpler theory) emerges ... but that data (or new theory) would have to be *incredibly* compelling ... it would be foolish to say that the theory was accepted "without scrutiny" at all.

5. "Can the scientists use the genes to sketch a persons photo or know how their ancestors looked?"
Actually, yes. If we had nothing but, say, a drop of blood, we could tell from the DNA if that person had recent ancestors in common with someone from Norway, or Kenya, or Eastern China, or Southern India ... and approximately how many generations back that common ancestor was. We won't have a "photograph" of the person, but we'd have a fairly good idea what he or she looked like.

>"If they cannot do this, why should anybody believe them when they say they know what the ancestors looked like millions of years ago."
Same idea. If we can see DNA in common between two species A and B that indicates a common ancestor X million years ago, then we can have a good idea of what that common ancestor may have looked like ... *especially* if we also find fossils that are about X million years old that have the expected characteristics of a common ancestor.

Answer 2

1. Is the theory of evolution the biggest achievement of biologists? Ans. NO! The mapping of the human genome is the greatest achievement to date.

2. How does Charles Darwins theory help in understanding DNA or Human Genes? Ans. It doesn't! Darwin's theory of Natural Selection makes no inference to the very different subjects of DNA and human genes.

3. Do biologists make up a lot of unprovable theories?
Ans. NO. No true scientist would simply "make up" a theory. There are several reasons for this. One is the "chuckle factor." His collegues would be constantly laughing behind his back. He would lose credibility and, worse, funding. Another is a true scientist always bases his theories on what data is at hand, although those data may be incomplete. That's why new ideas are called theories, they have yet to be proven as facts.

4. Do these theories get accepted without scrutiny?
Ans. As there are no absolutes I will say almost never in today's scientific community. The days of the Cardiff Giant are over. No scientist today would risk his reputation by openly accepting an unproven theory without first subjecting that theory to prolonged and intense scrutiny.

Answer 3

First of all, Darwin was a naturalist, not a biologist, so it can't be an achievement for biologists. Darwin's theory at the time had no influence whatsoever on DNA or genes, since no one even knew what that meant. However now, yes, it plays a huge role since now scientists are mapping out genomes and relating species to one another based on similar characteristics in their DNA, and they're proving Darwin's theory by showing that all animals are descended from ancient lineages through DNA classification.

Biologists do make up alot of theories that go on to be proven incorrect. You must remember that a biological theory is not the same as a theory in real life. A biological theory is a scientific notion that has, through research and analysis, been accepted as true in the scientific community, but for lack of conclusive evidence, it cannot be called a fact. The theory of evolution is a prime example. We know it's true since the technology now exists to map out the lineages of species back millions of years, but it cannot be absolutely proven because we don't have the physical DNA from those organisms from millions of years ago. However, Darwin's theory was accepted as truth even before DNA evidence came about due to the proven migration patterns and characteristic differences of animals in the same phylum or species. Theories cannot be accepted without scrutiny. In the scientific community, a theory is only accepted if it can pass rigorous scientific experimentation, and by definition a theory cannot be unprovable because the basis for a theory is a hypothesis, which is an assumption that can be tested. So the test has to say something one way or the other. However you can conclude that perhaps some hypotheses cannot be tested until much later in time due to the lack of technology to perform the needed experiment.

Answer 4

it is rather the reverse. dna is the physical basis of genes, and genes are the elements of heredity. darwin's theory of heredity was wrong, but it was certainly testable: it was tested and rejected. you may wish to judge the performance of scientists based on evidence that they didn't have, but this seems a little unfair.

http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/6/concept/index.html

natural selection on the other hand can account for how dna and genes evolve, this is why darwin's ideas (heavily modified, but still recognisable in some parts i suppose) remain useful.

http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/12/concept/index.html

"Do biologists make up a lot of unprovable theories. Do these theories get accepted without scrutiny?"

i don't think so.

http://people.delphiforums.com/lordorman/light.htm

Answer 5

That is debatable. Evolution theory surely is a novelty styled structural sonnet suavely soaring revelatory heights in stub like fashion, leaving striders like genomics to zoom into the weaves and uncover the finer treads. These theories are accepted, but not without being sorely scrutinized.

Evolutionary theory is not default to biology alone. It has in fact been used to scour a plentora of scientific disciplines, ranging from physics to computing science and geology as well as chemistry.