Fallacies about the Theory
Many erroneous statements have been made about the Theory by parties who do not fully understand its concepts, or read additional meaning into it which was not intended. A few of these arguments are presented below.
Many erroneous statements have been made about the Theory by parties who do not fully understand its concepts, or read additional meaning into it which was not intended. A few of these arguments are presented below.
In science, a theory is a rigorously tested statement of general principles that explains observable and recorded aspects of the world. A scientific theory therefore describes a higher level of understanding that ties "facts" together. A scientific theory stands until proven wrong -- it is never proven correct. The Darwinian theory of evolution has withstood the test of time and thousands of scientific experiments; nothing has disproved it since Darwin first proposed it more than 150 years ago. Indeed, many scientific advances, in a range of scientific disciplines including physics, geology, chemistry, and molecular biology, have supported, refined, and expanded evolutionary theory far beyond anything Darwin could have imagined. New observations are reinforcing the Theory.
The Theory of Evolution primarily deals with the manner in which life has changed after its origin. While science is interested in the origins of life (for example the composition of the primeval sludge from which life might have come) but these are not issues covered in the area of evolution. What is known is that regardless of the start, at some point organisms began to differentiate and branch off. Evolution is, therefore, dedicated to the study of those processes. It's not intend to answer the question of how life began.
Just the opposite. Every generation refines the success of each organism in its environment. Organisms that exist today are here because they are successful at surviving. Those that were not successful have become extinct.
Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.
Charles Darwin
There is no debate in science as to whether or not evolution occurred – there is, however, debate over how it happened. The minutiae of the process is vigorously debated which can cause anti-evolutionists to believe that the theory is in crisis. Evolution is sound science and is treated as such by scientists worldwide.
Many transitional fossils do exist – for example, there are fossils of transitional organisms between modern birds and their dinosaur ancestors, as well as whales and their land mammal ancestors and fish into four-legged animals. There are many transitional forms that have not been preserved, but that is simply because some organisms do not fossilize well or exist in conditions that do not allow for the process of fossilization. Science predicts that there will be gaps in the record for many evolutionary changes. This does not disprove the theory.
Evolution is observable and testable. The confusion here is that people think science is limited to experiments in laboratories by white-coated technicians. In fact, a large amount of scientific information is gathered from the real world. Astronomers can obviously not physically touch the objects they study (for example stars and galaxies), yet a great deal of knowledge can be gained through multiple lines of study. This is true also of evolution. It is also true that there are many mechanisms of evolution that can be, and are studied through direct experimentation as with other sciences.
Scientists do not reject Darwin’s theories, they have modified it over time as more knowledge has been discovered. Darwin considered that evolution proceeds at a deliberate, slow pace – but in fact it has now been discovered that it can proceed at a rapid pace under some circumstances. There has not been, so far, a credible challenge to the basic principles of Darwin’s theory. Scientists have improved and expanded on Darwin’s original theory of natural selection – it has not been rejected, it has been added to with new data.
No. Many people, from evolutionary biologists to important religious figures like Pope John Paul II, contend that the time-tested theory of evolution does not refute the presence of God. They acknowledge that evolution is the description of a process that governs the development of life on Earth. Like other scientific theories, including Copernican theory, atomic theory, and the germ theory of disease, evolution deals only with objects, events, and processes in the material world. Science has nothing to say one way or the other about the existence of God or about people's spiritual beliefs.