Darwin and Design: The Evolution of a Flawed Debate

I've occassionally written on the debate (war?) between evolutionists and creationists, and have taken objection to both sides. Frederick Turner has written on the subject as well, commenting on the "sins" of both the creationist and the evolutionist, concluding both are dishonest and that the debate is artificial. (He has since written a followup which focuses on the level of scholarship needed to truly argue an alternative to evolution.)

Now, I disagree with a fundamental statement Turner makes: evolution has been "proved beyond reasonable doubt." One can say evidence has been presented in support of evolution, that evolution's predictions have been born out, and that based on that evolution is the predominant theory of origins in biology. That isn't the same as proof. As Rand Simberg says, "Proofs are for mathematics and the courtroom, not science."

In the late 19th century, physicists adopted the arrogant view that all the interesting questions of physics had been answered, and only a few details remained. Basically, we had theories that had explained all of physical nature, and they had all been proven. One of those remaining details was blackbody radiation, which ultimately led to quantum physics and a total reformulation of every aspect of physics. Theories that were considered proven beyond a reasonable doubt in 1870 became little more than mathematical approximations and simplifications decades later. So much for being proven.

I'm not a biologist (never really liked it, to be honest) but my understanding of evolution is that the theory as formulated today is quite different than what Darwin came up with. Evolution itself has evolved, as all of science does.

The interested reader should check out T.S. Kuhn's classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I think all science majors in college should be required to take a semester of philosophy of science. To quote Simberg again, "science is a philosophy in itself, and one that is faith based." The great scientists of the past were familiar with the philosophical underpinnings of their work. Unfortunately, as science has gotten more and more complex and specialized, that familiarity has waned to the point where many scientists don't even understand what it is they are doing.

Anyway, that's all a digression from simply pointing to Turner's essays, which I think are pretty good. (Yes, my digression is bigger than the point I was digressing from.)