Hi Everybody,

I think Brady's quotes last month refuting evolution deserve a response. Disclaimer: my background is physics, not biology.

> "You will be greatly disappointed (by the forthcoming book); it will
> be grievously too hypothetical. It will very likely be of no
> other service than collocating some facts; though I myself
> think I see my way approximately on the origin of species. But,
> alas, how frequent, how almost universal it is in an author
> to persuade himself of the truth of his own dogmas."
>
> -Charles Darwin, 1858, in a letter to a colleague regarding the
> concluding chapters of his Origin of Species. As quoted in
> "John Lofton's Journal", The Washington Times, 8 February 1984

This is not convincing to me the evolution has problems. Maybe Darwin is just being modest. I came across a nice quote by Feynman, in an interview with Omni magazine republished in a recent book "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", a collection of some of Feynman's writings:

"I think the theory is simply a way to sweep the difficulties under the rug," Richard Feynman said. "I am, of course, not sure of that." It sounds like the kind of criticism, ritually tempered, that comes from the audience after a controversial paper is presented at a scientific conference. But Feynman was at the podium, delivering a Nobel Prize winner's address. The theory he was questioning, quantum electrodynamics, has recently been called "the most precise ever devised"; its predictions are routinely verified to within one part in a million.

Nonetheless, Feynman makes these remarks which struck me as reminiscent of Darwin's quote.

Another quote, from Imre Lakotos's book "Proofs and Refutations": Newton's mechanics and theory of gravitation was put forward as a daring guess, which was ridiculed and called 'occult' by Leibniz and suspected even by Newton himself. But a few decades later -- in the absence of refutations -- his axioms came to be taken as indubitably true.

So, a doubting Newton doesn't disprove gravitation; a doubting Darwin doesn't disprove evolution.

Further, looking again at Darwin's quote:
> "You will be greatly disappointed (by the forthcoming book);
> it will be grievously too hypothetical.

My suspicion is that Darwin's original theory may have been speculative, but that perhaps since then alot more evidence has been found which seems more convincing than what Darwin himself had. In short I do not find Darwin's doubts convincing, unless (1) they were more specifically addressing problems in the theory and (2) I had some reason to believe that in all the years since Darwin's theory, they still remained problems.

Speaking of all these years since the theory, we have the next quote:
> "The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology
> is in the peculiar position of being a science that is founded
> on an unproved theory-is it then a science or a faith? Belief
> in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief
> in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be
> true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."
>
> L. Harrison Matthews, FRS, Introduction to Darwin's The Origin of
> Species, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1971, p. xi.

Intriguing quote. It certainly doesn't disprove evolution evolution or special creation. On the other hand I wonder if there is a distinction between "proof" and "supporting evidence". If the theory of evolution explains many facts (fossil record, genetic similarities between different species, whatever) then perhaps that lends credibility to the theory. For example, we can't prove that far away stars are actually made of hydrogen & helium, but the spectra of light they emit certainly seems to match what we see in laboratory generated spectra for hydrogen & helium. My guess is that what the Matthews quote may be referring to is that we just can't "prove" evolution without having been around for the last million years, but perhaps we can say that evolution certainly fits the observable facts. Again, I'm not a biologist and so I'm less familiar with the facts that evolution is supposed to describe.

The bottom line is: I would like to see some specific scientific criticisms of evolution. A simple statement
of "evolution claims this but the evidence shows this."

Or "evolution cannot account for this." The quotes Brady provides, from evolution supporters, are certainly intriguing but are hard to challenge given that they don't say anything specifically wrong with evolution. That is, what do Darwin & Matthews find wrong or unprovable about evolution? Thus, at the moment, I still am a naive but enthusiastic believer of evolution.

Some last thoughts.
(1) I am curious; evolution is disliked by some Christians. Are there any other religions which also have a problem with evolution?
(2) Some Christians see nothing wrong with evolution; for example, who's to say that the randomness of evolution wasn't guided by some higher power? Consider gravitation: God could be moving the planets around in their orbits by hand, but isn't it easier to set up the laws of gravity & inertia to do the same thing? Likewise, perhaps it was easier to use evolution (perhaps guided?) to accomplish the same ends as direct creation.

--Eric