Criticisms of Evolution
"There is no 'God of the gaps' to take over at those strategic places where science fails; and the reason is that gaps of this sort have the unpreventable habit of shrinking." - Charles Alfred Coulson, Methodist leader
"I once was an amoeba in for a swim, and then I was a tadpole with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey in a banyan tree, and now I'm a professor with a PhD." - the intellectual voice of creationism
"I once was an amoeba in for a swim, and then I was a tadpole with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey in a banyan tree, and now I'm a professor with a PhD." - the intellectual voice of creationism
Although space did not permit an overview of the massive evidence for evolution, I think it worthwhile to address the alleged holes in that evidence, because some of these are what persuaded me to reject it for a while, and still persuade many others to do so. The cognitive dissonance during that time told me that even if all the holes were legitimate, that didn't make the existing evidence going away, and it still had to be explained somehow, and no amount of mental gymnastics could twist it to fit the creationist paradigm. I told the cognitive dissonance to shut up.
It turns out, however, that the criticisms that are supposed to disprove or "expose" evolution (because it's an atheist conspiracy, of course) have all been addressed many times for several years. Many of the most ubiquitous ones, in fact, were anticipated and addressed by Darwin himself in On the Origin of Species, with more added in subsequent editions. Most creationists either haven't read the book or pick and choose which parts to pay attention to. As a general rule, it should make you suspicious when a guy with a business management degree thinks he knows something that no actual scientist can figure out (or will "admit" to). Here I briefly address all the criticisms I can think of. A few are more or less exclusive to my church and therefore haven't gotten a lot of attention elsewhere, but those are so absurd as to carry their own refutation.
It turns out, however, that the criticisms that are supposed to disprove or "expose" evolution (because it's an atheist conspiracy, of course) have all been addressed many times for several years. Many of the most ubiquitous ones, in fact, were anticipated and addressed by Darwin himself in On the Origin of Species, with more added in subsequent editions. Most creationists either haven't read the book or pick and choose which parts to pay attention to. As a general rule, it should make you suspicious when a guy with a business management degree thinks he knows something that no actual scientist can figure out (or will "admit" to). Here I briefly address all the criticisms I can think of. A few are more or less exclusive to my church and therefore haven't gotten a lot of attention elsewhere, but those are so absurd as to carry their own refutation.
Religious/Philosophical Objections
"Maybe dinosaur bones are just left over from another planet and the materials were re-used for this one." This is exclusively a Latter-day Saint idea. And it's a stupid one. If it's true, why are their fossils (and the fossils of all the other non-dinosaur species that are never mentioned in this hypothesis) always arranged so that scientists can figure out what geographical area and time period each species comes from, and why are they ordered so that they appear to have evolved into each other, and were they left here in the first place? Is God messing with our minds again? And while we're on the subject, why is their crap still lying around too?
"Fossils were planted by Satan to deceive us." To its credit, this hypothesis at least acknowledges that fossils don't jive with creationism and that if creationism is true, someone is being deceptive. But BYU biologist Duane Jeffrey explained, "I cannot but wonder if persons who postulate this idea fully realize how widespread fossils are. They are found through and through virtually every major land mass known - if Satan really made all that, who then is the Creator of the earth? If nature indeed testifies of diety [sic] (a long-standing and still-in-vogue theological injunction), of which 'diety' does it thus testify? And what is its testimony? For if the hypothesis be accepted, then God is a party to this by allowing such a monumental hoax, and indeed we have conferred on Him duplicity of truly staggering proportions! A witness of that sort, it appears to me, God can well do without."
"The fossil record was caused by Noah's flood, and the animals in it are layered by how well they could swim." I guess flowering plants are much better swimmers than is commonly supposed, since they aren't found in the record until the Cretaceous period and higher. Never mind that if all those animal species lived on the earth at once, their populations would be unsustainable.
"Evolutionists promoted racism and tried to justify it scientifically." Religion had already been used to justify racism for millennia when scientists started joining in, but evolutionary science eventually played a huge role in reducing racism by proving that "race" is a social construct rather than a biological one. As early as March 1908, a Deseret Evening News editorial refuted a claim that only the white race was created in God's image by stating, "We are aware that speculation has given rise to various opinions regarding the origin and unity of the human race, but the probability, even from a scientific view, is for the unity of origin. Darwin says: 'When naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes, and dispositions between nearly allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a common progenitor, who was thus endowed; and, consequently, that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man.' So much for the argument of science."
"Evolution is just another religion masquerading as science." Some atheists do treat it as such, but that's most likely a defensive reaction to separate themselves as much as possible from creationists. (When science itself becomes an atheist's religion, this is known as scientism.) Evolution itself is neutral and makes no philosophical statements or value judgments. Yet since I accepted it my religious faith has only deepened. Evolution provides a much more rich and beautiful way of looking at life on Earth, and since it's based in reality it also has the benefit of not creating cognitive dissonance.
"Fossils were planted by Satan to deceive us." To its credit, this hypothesis at least acknowledges that fossils don't jive with creationism and that if creationism is true, someone is being deceptive. But BYU biologist Duane Jeffrey explained, "I cannot but wonder if persons who postulate this idea fully realize how widespread fossils are. They are found through and through virtually every major land mass known - if Satan really made all that, who then is the Creator of the earth? If nature indeed testifies of diety [sic] (a long-standing and still-in-vogue theological injunction), of which 'diety' does it thus testify? And what is its testimony? For if the hypothesis be accepted, then God is a party to this by allowing such a monumental hoax, and indeed we have conferred on Him duplicity of truly staggering proportions! A witness of that sort, it appears to me, God can well do without."
"The fossil record was caused by Noah's flood, and the animals in it are layered by how well they could swim." I guess flowering plants are much better swimmers than is commonly supposed, since they aren't found in the record until the Cretaceous period and higher. Never mind that if all those animal species lived on the earth at once, their populations would be unsustainable.
"Evolutionists promoted racism and tried to justify it scientifically." Religion had already been used to justify racism for millennia when scientists started joining in, but evolutionary science eventually played a huge role in reducing racism by proving that "race" is a social construct rather than a biological one. As early as March 1908, a Deseret Evening News editorial refuted a claim that only the white race was created in God's image by stating, "We are aware that speculation has given rise to various opinions regarding the origin and unity of the human race, but the probability, even from a scientific view, is for the unity of origin. Darwin says: 'When naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes, and dispositions between nearly allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a common progenitor, who was thus endowed; and, consequently, that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man.' So much for the argument of science."
"Evolution is just another religion masquerading as science." Some atheists do treat it as such, but that's most likely a defensive reaction to separate themselves as much as possible from creationists. (When science itself becomes an atheist's religion, this is known as scientism.) Evolution itself is neutral and makes no philosophical statements or value judgments. Yet since I accepted it my religious faith has only deepened. Evolution provides a much more rich and beautiful way of looking at life on Earth, and since it's based in reality it also has the benefit of not creating cognitive dissonance.
"Scientific" Objections
"Science changes all the time. People used to think the sun revolved around the Earth." Using this analogy is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot. In that instance, scientists were the ones who figured out that the prevailing view was wrong, and religious fundamentalists were the ones who responded with an outraged backlash that in retrospect was completely uncalled for. Sound familiar?
"I know a scientist/list of scientists who doesn't/don't believe in evolution." Whoop-de-do. This is the logical fallacy of appeal to authority; assuming that any guy with a PhD. next to his name can be trusted if he agrees with your agenda, regardless of whether his ideas have been peer reviewed or even follow the scientific method. Real scientists mock this fallacious reasoning with "Project Steve", a list of scientists named Steve who support evolution. Of course, the fact that there is any dissent whatsoever on this issue eviscerates the claim that scientists are all part of a conspiracy to promote evolution. Please also note that, despite often being touted as such in these appeals to authority, medical doctors are not scientists. They operate more like engineers, who only need to know what works and do it without necessarily understanding or investigating for themselves all the science behind it.
"Evolution is just a theory." It's also "just a theory" that germs make people sick (and it's called, rather creatively, "germ theory"). Oddly enough, no one is demanding that schools stop forcing our children to wash their hands. And as Stephen Jay Gould put it in a brilliant essay: "Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.
"Moreover, 'fact' does not mean 'absolute certainty.' The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."
"Evolution isn't observable." Ken Ham in particular is fond of citing a nonexistent distinction between "historical science" and "observational science". Yet if we had to directly observe something happening in order to verify that it happened, most crime scene investigations would be useless. And if we had to be personally present with the objects of study, we would know virtually nothing about the universe beyond Earth. In fact, evolution has been both observed and directed by humans in nature and in the laboratory, but since this happens over a short time scale and doesn't usually create new species, creationists insist that it's just adaptation and doesn't really count as evolution (see below).
"Evolution, which is just a theory, violates the second law of thermodynamics (law of entropy, order to disorder), which is a law." If the entire ecosystem wasn't constantly receiving more energy from the sun, you might have a point. This law only applies to closed systems and the earth is not a closed system. As it is, this law no more precludes evolution than it stops zygotes from developing into plants and animals, or dust and water droplets from forming into incredibly intricate and symmetrical snowflake designs.
"The odds against life developing from a primordial soup are astronomical." The specific statistics usually cited in this argument are very old and simply not accurate. Regardless, the odds against winning the lottery are pretty big too, yet it still happens all the time because so many people buy tickets. Given that the universe has billions of galaxies and each galaxy may have billions of planets with the conditions to support life, and on each planet there would be billions of loci where abiogenesis could take place, presenting this as analogous to just one person buying a lottery ticket is a false persepective. Actually, in recent years it seems to be growing apparent that the formation of life wasn't all that unlikely after all and may in fact have been inevitable. In any case, this is a straw man because the actual origin of life is irrelevant to understanding that evolution is and has been happening for millions of years, just as the origin of the universe is irrelevant to understanding the current motion of celestial bodies.
"Evolution is like shaking a bag of watch parts to put together a watch/a tornado going through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747." etc. Even though I spent some time doubting evolution, I saw the fallacy of this argument since I was ten years old. If evolution was like shaking a bag of organism parts to put together an organism, then there might be a similarity, but it isn't so there isn't. Besides, no one wears watches anymore. (In fairness, the first guy to popularize this argument, physicist Sir Fred Hoyle, was an agnostic and not trying to defend a literal reading of the Bible.)
"Most mutations are harmful." This is simply not true at all. Though the word "mutation" has negative connotations in common usage, it comes from the Latin "mutare" meaning simply "to change". All it actually means is a change in the genetic code as it is copied for another organism – an error, technically, but nonetheless random, so that it could also be beneficial or neutral. And of course, that's often subjective and depends on the circumstances in which the organism lives. Most mutations are neutral or subjective.
"Junk DNA is a dead concept. All DNA is useful." Junk DNA doesn't constitute as much of the genome as previously thought, but it still exists.
"Carbon dating is inaccurate." That's entirely possible, but irrelevant since carbon dating doesn't work on things as old as fossils anyway. It's a good thing we also have argon dating, fission track dating, iodine-xenon dating, lanthanum-barium dating, lead dating, lutetium-hafnium dating, neon dating, optically stimulated luminescence, potassium-argon dating, radiocarbon dating, rhenium-osmium dating, rubidium-strontium dating, samarium-neodymium dating, uranium-lead dating, uranium-lead-helium dating, and uranium-thorium dating. Who says scientists don't date much?
"An organism can only give birth to another organism of the same species./Species adapt, but they can't change into another species./Micro-evolution is valid, but not macro-evolution."
"Moreover, 'fact' does not mean 'absolute certainty.' The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."
"Evolution isn't observable." Ken Ham in particular is fond of citing a nonexistent distinction between "historical science" and "observational science". Yet if we had to directly observe something happening in order to verify that it happened, most crime scene investigations would be useless. And if we had to be personally present with the objects of study, we would know virtually nothing about the universe beyond Earth. In fact, evolution has been both observed and directed by humans in nature and in the laboratory, but since this happens over a short time scale and doesn't usually create new species, creationists insist that it's just adaptation and doesn't really count as evolution (see below).
"Evolution, which is just a theory, violates the second law of thermodynamics (law of entropy, order to disorder), which is a law." If the entire ecosystem wasn't constantly receiving more energy from the sun, you might have a point. This law only applies to closed systems and the earth is not a closed system. As it is, this law no more precludes evolution than it stops zygotes from developing into plants and animals, or dust and water droplets from forming into incredibly intricate and symmetrical snowflake designs.
"The odds against life developing from a primordial soup are astronomical." The specific statistics usually cited in this argument are very old and simply not accurate. Regardless, the odds against winning the lottery are pretty big too, yet it still happens all the time because so many people buy tickets. Given that the universe has billions of galaxies and each galaxy may have billions of planets with the conditions to support life, and on each planet there would be billions of loci where abiogenesis could take place, presenting this as analogous to just one person buying a lottery ticket is a false persepective. Actually, in recent years it seems to be growing apparent that the formation of life wasn't all that unlikely after all and may in fact have been inevitable. In any case, this is a straw man because the actual origin of life is irrelevant to understanding that evolution is and has been happening for millions of years, just as the origin of the universe is irrelevant to understanding the current motion of celestial bodies.
"Evolution is like shaking a bag of watch parts to put together a watch/a tornado going through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747." etc. Even though I spent some time doubting evolution, I saw the fallacy of this argument since I was ten years old. If evolution was like shaking a bag of organism parts to put together an organism, then there might be a similarity, but it isn't so there isn't. Besides, no one wears watches anymore. (In fairness, the first guy to popularize this argument, physicist Sir Fred Hoyle, was an agnostic and not trying to defend a literal reading of the Bible.)
"Most mutations are harmful." This is simply not true at all. Though the word "mutation" has negative connotations in common usage, it comes from the Latin "mutare" meaning simply "to change". All it actually means is a change in the genetic code as it is copied for another organism – an error, technically, but nonetheless random, so that it could also be beneficial or neutral. And of course, that's often subjective and depends on the circumstances in which the organism lives. Most mutations are neutral or subjective.
"Junk DNA is a dead concept. All DNA is useful." Junk DNA doesn't constitute as much of the genome as previously thought, but it still exists.
"Carbon dating is inaccurate." That's entirely possible, but irrelevant since carbon dating doesn't work on things as old as fossils anyway. It's a good thing we also have argon dating, fission track dating, iodine-xenon dating, lanthanum-barium dating, lead dating, lutetium-hafnium dating, neon dating, optically stimulated luminescence, potassium-argon dating, radiocarbon dating, rhenium-osmium dating, rubidium-strontium dating, samarium-neodymium dating, uranium-lead dating, uranium-lead-helium dating, and uranium-thorium dating. Who says scientists don't date much?
"An organism can only give birth to another organism of the same species./Species adapt, but they can't change into another species./Micro-evolution is valid, but not macro-evolution."
![We can all agree (save for the severely color blind) that this text is red. / We can also similarly agree that this text is blue. / If we have red text and decide to change it by just a small amount, the change might be barely noticeable, but still a very small change. This, we will call our micro-evolution. Every word up to now can be considered red, with very minute changes in the hue. If I keep typing long enough, would anyone be able to tell me, just by looking, at which word or letter is this post no longer red, but actually purple or blue? All this micro-evolution keeps occurring in the text, with it's [sic] tiny changes in hue, but ultimately, I end up with a completely different color. It's actually the difference between what one would consider red and what one would consider purple (or a whole new species, in this analogy) which is macro-evolution. See, the common misunderstanding is, that macro-evolution means a dog being a direct offspring of some other canine-like species, or even more stupidly, a cat coming from a dog. Well, that's not what macro-evolution is. There is really only one distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution, and it's the same distinction between their prefixes: micro and macro. Just like if something is microscopic or if something is macroscopic. Microscopic usually requires a microscope to see it because it's so small, but the macroscopic are things large enough to be seen by the common human eye. However, things of both sizes are completely visible and plainly exist, and there are many things in this universe between both general sizes. So as you read this, can you tell me the first word here that is blue, and not purple? After all, every change in color since the first word in this paragraph has only micro-evolved from the color next to it, but we've managed to macro-evolve through 2 [two] colors. This, hopefully, will illustrate how it's illogical to believe that macro-evolution doesn't happen, even given time for enough micro-evolution to occur. / So tell me - what was the first purple word in the block of text above? What's the first blue word? Remember, if macro-evolution simply can not happen then you're saying the words you are reading now are still red.](/uploads/4/9/4/8/49486603/9824378.jpg?740)
This isn't a theoretical phenomenon. It's observable in "ring species" such as the herring gull and lesser black-backed gull, which are two distinct species linked by a stream of intermediates as you go from Alaska to Siberia to northern Europe, or in the seven different species of salamanders living around the Central Valley in California. Scientists can't even reach a consensus definition of what a species is because the natural world is not divided into neat, perfect little categories with no overlap. And how could a species possibly "adapt" for millions of years without becoming a different species? Tyler Francke observes, "On the other hand, the creationist assertion that there is some mysterious, invisible barrier within 'kinds' that prevents large-scale changes is as logically consistent as saying you can walk from your front door to the sidewalk, but walking to your friend’s house across town is fundamentally impossible."
![Facebook comment: As a biologist who specializes on speciation stuff, I'll lend my voice to say that Christopher has it spot on. ^ The term evolution just means change [in gene frequencies within a population] over time. It's totally a process of gradation, not a binary process. Most creationists try to argue that there's a fundamental difference between population-level and species-level evolution because they only imagine the biological species concept (is the product of a mating event viable). Problem is, that species concept is very limited - pretty much all plants and fungi and microorganisms break it (look up how plants speciate because of polyploidy, for example). Many reptiles and amphibians break it. Read the link on ring species, that's a great example of how within species and between species is just a matter of degree.](/uploads/4/9/4/8/49486603/3720207.png?559)
In fact, do you know where the bogus notion of species immutability comes from in the first place? Greek philosophy, which is well-known to Latter-day Saints for its impact on early Christianity - a little doctrinal corruption we call "the Great Apostasy". That's not a coincidence. The modern church may never apostatize but that doesn't make it entirely immune to false concepts from the outside world either.
"I want to see a dinosaur while it's becoming a bird." Fair enough. I want to see Latin while it's becoming Italian. Since that happened a few million years more recently and left more specimens it should be simple, right?
"I want to see a dinosaur while it's becoming a bird." Fair enough. I want to see Latin while it's becoming Italian. Since that happened a few million years more recently and left more specimens it should be simple, right?
"The fossil record is full of 'missing links'." Fossilization is such a rare occurrence that we are blessed to have as much as we do. And within recent years scientists have found links that creationists used to boast didn't exist, like feathered dinosaurs, fish with "fingers", and whales with legs, exactly where they should have been chronologically in the fossil record. The scientific term for "missing links" is "transitional forms", and in reality, every creature is a transitional form. If Tiktaaliks were alive today we wouldn't say "That's a transitional form between fish and amphibians"; we would just say "That's a Tiktaalik" (or whatever we called it). Furthermore, the very nature of transitional forms is often misunderstood and misrepresented by creationists. One would not usually expect to find a transitional form between two related species living today (e.g. crocodiles and ducks; ridiculously lampooned by the creationist cartoon of a "crocoduck"). The transitional forms come between both of them and their common ancestor.
"Complex and diverse organisms appeared suddenly during the Cambrian explosion." First: there are several possible scientific explanations for that, included in the referenced Wikipedia article. Second: "suddenly" is a very relative term in geological time. Third: the Cambrian explosion is said to have occurred 530 million years ago, and the evidence for evolution since then remains as solid as ever. So even if God did create a bunch of organisms by hand all at once, creationism remains out of luck.
"Lots of organs and cellular processes are too irreducibly complex to have evolved, because they would be useless if they were missing a single part." This one is harder to explain succinctly so I recommend looking it up. But essentially, the parts of a complex organ don't have to evolve separately. The parts of a complex eye could have evolved together over time from an initial light-sensitive cell (even a miniscule sensitivity to light would be an adaptive advantage). Other times, parts can be adapted for other purposes; for example the tympanic, malleus, and incus (bones in mammalian ears) were once jawbones. There's even an explanation for how something as complex as the Krebs cycle could have evolved.
"Complex and diverse organisms appeared suddenly during the Cambrian explosion." First: there are several possible scientific explanations for that, included in the referenced Wikipedia article. Second: "suddenly" is a very relative term in geological time. Third: the Cambrian explosion is said to have occurred 530 million years ago, and the evidence for evolution since then remains as solid as ever. So even if God did create a bunch of organisms by hand all at once, creationism remains out of luck.
"Lots of organs and cellular processes are too irreducibly complex to have evolved, because they would be useless if they were missing a single part." This one is harder to explain succinctly so I recommend looking it up. But essentially, the parts of a complex organ don't have to evolve separately. The parts of a complex eye could have evolved together over time from an initial light-sensitive cell (even a miniscule sensitivity to light would be an adaptive advantage). Other times, parts can be adapted for other purposes; for example the tympanic, malleus, and incus (bones in mammalian ears) were once jawbones. There's even an explanation for how something as complex as the Krebs cycle could have evolved.
Egotistical Objections
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"If humans evolved from monkeys then why are the monkeys still here?" Contrary to popular ignorance, no one is claiming we evolved from monkeys, but from a common ancestor with them. Besides, we don't fill the same niche as monkeys. Neanderthals were a different story, and so we appear to have wiped them out after a period of coexistence (and possibly interbreeding). Granted, we're pretty good at wiping out species regardless of what niches they fill.
"Those early humanoids are just apes." No, as much as our egos may want to draw a solid line between us and them that simply doesn't exist, it's quite clear from physiology and what we know of behavior that they were not apes. Even from brain size alone it's clear that if they were alive today, keeping them in zoos would be out of the question. |
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"Who cares if humans share DNA with apes and monkeys? They share a lot of DNA with trees, too." Humans and trees don't share other things like physiology, behavior, intelligence, and the fossil record, which probably also factor into the scientific consensus. In any case, shared DNA between humans and trees only makes a common ancestry for all life more likely, not less. Duh.
In summary, to all these criticisms and any I've left out, I say:
Next: Toward a Synthesis
