Evolution as Fact

2017 Sep 29

The neo-Darwinists of today know that evolution is a fact. They also have many hypotheses about the mechanisms of evolution which they freely invent and discard. Some of these mechanisms contradict each other, but remain accepted (e.g. gradualism vs punctuated equilibrium).

This may seem to be a situation of conflicts, but the key to understanding it is that evolution is actually two very separate things: it is both 'fact' and 'theory'.

The 'fact' part is that naturalistic causes are considered to fully explain the origin of species. The 'theory' part is the collection of proposed mechanisms for how this did happen. Darwinian evolutionists are invested in the first part, but they will use or discard those in the second part at will. Falsifying a mechanism of the 'theory' therefore never has the effect of falsifying the 'fact'.

How can it be known that species evolution is a 'fact'? Certainly the evidence does not lead exclusively to this conclusion. There is both evidence that lines up nicely with evolutionary explanations, and other evidence that is in falsifying conflict with it.

Committed Darwinian evolutionists often claim that there is no evidence that is misaligned with their 'fact' of evolution. This is because they are either ignorant, they are closing their eyes to problems, or are classifying them away in their mind as items they can ignore because they only need further research. The existence now of a third way of evolution, however, shows that many working evolutionary biologists do see explanatory deficits in neo-Darwinian evolution (the "modern synthesis").

The real reason for evolution being known as a 'fact' is due to non-scientific assumptions. ••• These include assumptions about hypothetical God-like makers: •••

Scientists may hold metaphysical assumptions such as the idea that explanations via the invocation of natural causes are the only ones that are valid.

Note however that the logical effect from this particular position is that philosophical ideas and assumptions cannot be known to be valid! The sciences of natural causes is unable prove this idea because it is purely metaphysical. Natural causes do not make metaphysics.

This idea is a self-refuting fallacy because science itself depends on metaphysical assumptions which science cannot prove and cannot know to be true. See also Darwinian Metaphysics

  • Such a being could do anything, therefore they would be expected to have spread out designs evenly over the space of all possibilities. Since instead we often see repeated patterns in biology, these patterns indicate that natural processes were the responsible cause (because natural processes follow simple repeatable rules). •••
  • The being would not have made biology with bad designs. So the biological world had to have resulted from natural processes instead from creation. The "bad" designs (that presumably we see everywhere) would not have been made by a good designer, therefore they had to have been produced by unthinking natural processes. •••
  • The being would not have designed the world to contain evil as it does. This evil in the world would not have been allowed from a good creator, therefore it had to have come from natural processes. •••

This discounts a creator's option to design a world where both good and evil are an option to the human agents living there.

If evil were not an option then the humans would effectively only be puppets because they could not choose. This option is necessary for human freedom of choice (even if choice is limited).

This discounts a creator's option to engineer designs in a world where multiple conflicting constraints must be balanced.

Note however, that in many cases what first appears to some observers as a poor design proves to be optimized design!

An example: Human eyes have their nerve wiring on the retinal surface. Supposedly this is evidence of a poor design because light must pass through this layer. However, human eyes are able to detect single photons; it is not physically possible to do better than this. Studies are indicating now that the design is part of the reason for the exceptional performance of the eye.

This discounts a creator's option to re-use common design elements in biology.

These are clearly all meta-physical arguments.

Note that these arguments have been around a long time. They had become common in Darwin's time, and he used them extensively in his "long argument" for evolution. The average neo-Darwinist today probably would not articulate these arguments and might not even recognize the nature of their basis. They are however foundational to Darwinian evolutionary confidence.

How ironic it is that the evolutionists "know" the fact of their view because (especially when as atheists) they "know" theological things about what a god would do.

See also: