There seem to be some scientific impediments to the theory of Darwinian Evolution. This introductory article summarises what the next six articles will cover on the level of scientificity of evolution.
So, does Evolution have a leg to stand on, scientifically? Or should it possibly be relegated back to a hypothesis? Before we can examine this question, let’s clarify some definitions.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a hypothesis is a supposition or proposed explanation based on limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. The Merriam-Webster dictionary calls a hypothesis an assumption made before any research has been done and is formed so that it may be tested.
A theory is supported by evidence, a principle formed as an attempt to explain things that data have already substantiated.
A law is a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions. Laws are also written in equations.
Both theories and laws could potentially be falsified by countervailing evidence.
Many scientists insist that the Darwinian theory of Evolution is a pure fact, or at least comparable to Newton’s laws of motion as an example. However, when we consider the criteria for a scientific theory, and how Evolution measures against it, we can only conclude that Evolution, in the wider definition of Darwinism—that all living creatures came from a common ancestor—is drawing unjustified inference from the observed data. Simply said, sound and authentic evidence seem to be interpreted with assumptions (possibly due to bias).
This series of articles is going to look at Darwinian Evolution (not counting the origin of life – as this is still highly contested amongst evolutionists themselves and we’ve covered this in a separate series of articles and videos) and demonstrate the various reasons why we believe it should be relegated to the status of a hypothesis as opposed to a theory. In this article, we’ve labelled it as “Darwinian Evolution” because there is more than one type of evolution; therefore, we’re trying to be as clear as possible. This is what some in the scientific community call macroevolution. We have another article explaining the different types of evolution coming up on our website soon in another attempt to be clear.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica has an article with some important information that we believe many people are unaware of and some scientists may have forgotten. Here is an excerpt:
“Depending on the results of scientific evaluation, a hypothesis typically is either rejected as false or accepted as true. However, because a hypothesis inherently is falsifiable, even hypotheses supported by scientific evidence and accepted as true are susceptible to rejection later, when new evidence has become available. In some instances, rather than rejecting a hypothesis because it has been falsified by new evidence, scientists simply adapt the existing idea to accommodate the new information. In this sense, a hypothesis is never incorrect but only incomplete.” https://www.britannica.com/science/scientific-hypothesis
For a hypothesis to be accepted as a scientific theory, the scientific method needs to be applied, which requires several criteria to be satisfied. We’ve chosen the six criteria to be examined and will demonstrate the differences between Newton’s first law of motion and the theory of evolution.
More definitions:
A) Newton’s first law of motion: Every object moves in a straight line and a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by a force; the law of inertia.
B) Evolution: the scientific theory that Charles Darwin put forth in his book Origin of Species, which explains the appearance of new species and varieties through the action of various biological mechanisms (such as natural selection, genetic mutation or drift, and hybridization), descent with modification from preexisting species: cumulative inherited change in a population of organisms through time leading to the appearance of new forms.
Criteria to measure the scientificity of a hypothesis:
1. Observability – the ability to be observed in action
A) Law of Inertia: someone in a car would be jerked forward when its breaks are suddenly applied, (which is one of the reasons safety belts were invented.) This phenomenon shows how the person’s body in the car was still moving forward when the force pushing the person forward was halted. The same thing happens to a horse rider whose horse suddenly bucks or stops—the forward pushing force (the galloping horse) stops, but the object being pushed by this force (the person) will continue in the same direction.
B) Darwinian Evolution: Darwinian Evolution of graduality where a kind of animal or plant mutates into a different kind has never been observed in action. All observations that the theory relies on are either mutations that never led to observable speciation events beyond single-cell organisms, or historical phenomena. Over the last few years, since the emergence of the Darwinian theory, never, anywhere on Earth, at any time, has evolution been observed in any way, no matter how minimal.
2. Experimentation and testing – the ability for experiments to be done to observe the hypothesis in action,
A) Law of Inertia: The experiment of students suddenly pulling a minimal-friction surface out from beneath a weighty object is popular in schools worldwide. Multiple formulas have been developed and are consistently used to determine the trajectories of objects that will have forces exerted on them that came about from repeated experimentation.
B) Darwinian Evolution: The present-day scientific community claims to have proven evolution through experimentation. However, these experiments fall into one of three categories: selective breeding, lab-controlled experiments of mutations/adaptations, and computer simulations. None of these three categories of experimentation has demonstrated the creation of a new organ or transition from amphibians to reptiles, mammals, etc.
3. Retrodiction – the ability to explain past events,
A) Law of Inertia: How we can stand on a spinning earth without feeling the motion, why leaves detach from branches in a strong wind, and why a moving object requires an external force to stop it and to start it moving from a resting state. In a more modern sense, the whole reason safety belts within fast-moving vehicles were designed.
B) Darwinian Evolution: There are several observable phenomena today that evolution fails to explain such as: how acquired mutations pass on to the descendants; the development of consciousness, morality, or arts; the devolution of many organisms; and archaeological, paleontological, and historical evidence that dinosaurs coexisted with humans. Even more so now that soft tissue has been discovered in the bones of dinosaurs that could point to a more recent death. The fact that we have ancient drawings and carvings of dinosaurs done by people who had never seen a dinosaur fossil before points strongly to the probability that humans and dinosaurs lived alongside each other. The millions of years required for macroevolution just don’t fit with the evidence.
4. Prediction – the ability to make predictions of future events
A) Law of Inertia: By knowing the mass of an object, the level of friction enacted by the surfaces, and the measurements of other external forces, the trajectory of this object can be accurately predicted.
B) Darwinian Evolution: In his 1838 Essay on Theology and Natural Selection, Darwin insisted that any good scientific explanation had to be capable of making predictions. Darwin maintained that with time, evolution tended to produce organisms that were more and more complex, in the degree of specialization of their body parts. He argued that the evolution of life, viewed as a whole, was guaranteed by the laws of Nature to progress ever upward and that the evolution of the “higher animals” was the inevitable outcome of simple biological laws. However, this has not been observed. The data today actually points to devolution—organisms losing complexity and higher functions due to mutations. Also, the predicted transition fossils that should have been found by now are still absent or highly contested.
5. Consistency – to be compliant with other scientific theories and laws
A) Law of Inertia: This law is consistent with other scientific laws: laws of physics like the conservation laws, classical mechanics, gravitation and relativity, thermodynamics, etc. and the laws within chemistry, biology, and earth sciences. It makes sense that one scientific law must comply with and merge seamlessly into the rest.
B) Darwinian Evolution: Among the most vocal critics of evolution are scientists from different fields, specifically mathematics and physics. Some of the theories that evolution is not consistent with are the second law of thermodynamics (increasing entropy) and probability theory.
6. Falsifiability and correctability – there must be actual or theoretical situations in which the theory would be invalid. It should also change in light of new data.
A) Law of Inertia: The principle of inertia was once a central issue of scientific contention. The principle was fine-tuned, reassessed and modified as technology and scientific tools advanced. Newton didn’t construct the formulas for the laws of motion from the outset—the principle of inertia was developed and streamlined into mathematical formulas over time, trial and error, and a lot of experimentation. Only then did it become a stable scientific law.
B) Darwinian Evolution: Unfortunately, many in the scientific community do not scientifically approach evolution. As much as they criticize scientists who support Intelligent Design for doing so out of religious biases, they fail to consider evidence incompatible with evolution to the extent that they have become invincible to scientific thinking itself. There are a lot of pieces of evidence that are incompatible with evolution which will be covered in detail within future series of articles dealing with scientific logic and falsified or disproven evidence still used to “prove” evolution.
Conclusion
When we evaluate Newton’s law of inertia, according to the criteria above, it satisfies each one. That’s what the conditions are for; something must comply with these criteria to be considered a sound scientific principle (theory). When we assess whether Evolution satisfies the same conditions, it comes up very short—on each count! Thus, can Darwinian Evolution be classified as a scientific theory, or is it in reality just an incomplete hypothesis that has been outlined in an attempt to explain the existence of the variety of species seen today?
Resources
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution
https://www.britannica.com/science/Newtons-laws-of-motion
https://www.britannica.com/science/scientific-hypothesis
For the next article in this series:
https://copticapologetics.com/2024/08/27/scientificity-of-evolution-observability/
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Category – Evolution vs Intelligent Design
