Daily Archives: June 20, 2008

What Mr. Slack Got Wrong

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What neo-creationists get right

[I]n the debate over evolution, I also think creationists’ doggedness has to do with the fact that they make a few worthy points. And as long as evolutionists like me reflexively react with ridicule and self-righteous rage, we may paradoxically be adding years to creationism’s lifespan.

I think that the creationists’ doggedness has far more to do with the fact that their ideology comes first, and they mangle science to conform to that worldview. When “facts” are presented that can be falsified by just looking around, sometimes ridicule is the only option left. But there was much more in the article that bothered me, and to a greater degree.

Mr. Slack goes on to make four points. On the first two, I say this —
Yes, science is incomplete — I don’t think any competent scientist is claiming that there isn’t more to be found. This is true of all fields of science, and the “designer of the gaps” is a false dilemma. The complexity of the cell being unknown to Darwin also falls short and points out the misdirected nature of many arguments against “Darwinism,” (much like arguments against Einstein and relativity) because the theory has advanced quite far since the original proposal. I’ll get to the misuse of “faith” a little later on.

On to the third point
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Origin Not Originally Original

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On the Origin of a Theory

Darwin’s treatise on evolution wasn’t the first and wasn’t the only attempt to explain the diversity of life.

“The only novelty in my work is the attempt to explain how species become modified,” Darwin later wrote. He did not mean to belittle his achievement. The how, backed up by an abundance of evidence, was crucial: nature throws up endless biological variations, and they either flourish or fade away in the face of disease, hunger, predation and other factors. Darwin’s term for it was “natural selection”; Wallace called it the “struggle for existence.” But we often act today as if Darwin invented the idea of evolution itself, including the theory that human beings developed from an ape ancestor. And Wallace we forget altogether.
[…]
[O]n November 22, 1859, Darwin published his great work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, and the unthinkable—that man was descended from beasts—became more than thinkable. Darwin didn’t just supply the how of evolution; his painstaking work on barnacles and other species made the idea plausible.

It’s important to understand that last bit, and it applies in all of science. Saying, “I can explain that” isn’t sufficient. You need to amass scientific evidence in support of your claim — data that supports you and eliminates other explanations, along with predictions that would falsify your theory if they fail to come true.

Don't Wine About Your Carbon Footprint

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Calculating the carbon footprint of wine: my research findings

There’s a “green line” that runs down the middle of Ohio. For points to the West of that line, it is more carbon efficient to consume wine trucked from California. To the East of that line, it’s more efficient to consume the same sized bottle of wine from Bordeaux, which has had benefited from the efficiencies of container shipping, followed by a shorter truck trip. In the event that a carbon tax were ever imposed, it would thus have a decidedly un-nationalistic impact.

via Kottke