[Vision2020] 12-13-05 Daily News: Reply to Peters [Kirkland]

[Phil Nisbet]

John D

Kirsten is a geologist as well as a reporter.  The article she wrote 
discussing the variance between views held by geologists and biologists is 
one of the reasons I have posted similar discussions on V2020.  Neither 
Kirsten Peters nor I would suggest that evolution is not reality; we are 
simply stating facts about evolution that are demonstrated by the fossil 
record.  The facts are that Darwin’s ideas of gradualism are simply not 
shown to happen in real data.  Punctuated equilibrium is how evolution 
happens and that is amply demonstrated in the rocks.  That is in support of 
evolution, not an attempt to denigrate it.

When Darwin wrote, the science was just beginning.  The fossil record 
available to him was very limited and of course the very concept of genetics 
was not much of a science either.  The point is that we have passed beyond 
Darwin and teaching his ideas should be nothing more than a history of 
science coursenote.

If you read the article produced by the two Biologists, they are suggesting 
that natural selection and gradualism can be demonstrated, though they are 
accepting that data showing punctuated equilibrium is valid.  The trouble 
with this approach is that there is actually no data for gradualism and no 
proof that it ever occurs, which leaves room for those pitching unscientific 
ideas as equivalent to evolution to attack evolutionary science as 
unscientific.

The proof of that is in the response of Larry Kirkland who demands of the 
biologists a production of proof for Darwinian Evolution and then suggests 
that if they can not provide it this makes creationism valid.  Of course 
they can not provide proof of something that does not occur, but that does 
not invalidate evolution, simply the very old ideas of Darwin's which have 
been supplanted.

To put this in terms of physics, the fact that Einstein developed quantum 
mechanics to supplant Newtonian mechanics does not invalidate the existence 
of matter and energy in the universe.

Of further worry to many of us in geology is that strict Darwinian 
evolutionary claims lead to Social Darwinism, the idea that man himself can 
select out what he thinks are ‘bad’ traits and seek and gain perfection of 
the species.  The trouble with such ideas is that evolution loves to snuff 
out overspecialized species that have become over adapted.  Ubermench 
species tend to become extinct; it’s the very diverse ones that survive 
change over geological time.  Diversity is the long term solution to the 
continued existence of man, something that is very good to remind a bigot of 
when next you hear them rant.

Phil Nisbet

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