The Scientificity of Evolution - Experimental Criterion

Introduction:‎

This article ‎deals with the Experimental criterion which is one of the early requirements for a ‎hypothesis on the journey towards becoming an acceptable theory. So, let’s see if repeated experiments and tests have proven Evolution.

In the introductory article for this series, we claimed that Evolution, in the wider definition of ‎Darwinism—that all living ‎creatures came from a common ancestor—is drawing unjustified ‎inferences from the ‎observed data. Simply said, sound and authentic evidence is being ‎interpreted with ‎assumptions.‎ This series of articles looks at Evolution and demonstrates the ‎various reasons why we believe it should be relegated to the status of a hypothesis as ‎opposed to a theory.‎

The Argument:

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 or mammals, etc. ‎

No amount of experimentation will turn a newt into a lizard, or make a bat grow feathers.‎

In lab experiments, only mutations have been observed. These mutations are mostly ‎neutral or harmful. No positive mutations have ever been demonstrated — adaptations to ‎antibiotics or herbicides are equivalent to immunological adaptation to diseases. In the ‎case of bacteria adapting to antibiotics, it’s attributed to bacteria’s ability to exchange ‎genetic material through the sharing of circular DNA called plasmids in a process referred ‎to as “horizontal gene transfer”. ‎

Consider a paper from four chemists and physicists at New York University, “Mutations in ‎artificial self-replicating tiles: A step toward Darwinian evolution” (Zhou, Sha et al., PNAS). ‎

This is an excerpt:

“In nature, mutation is the first step of evolution, where it provides the ‎genetic variation for the natural selection to act. Here we take a system of artificial self-‎replicating tiles, DNA origami, that exhibit templated reproduction. We can generate a ‎small fraction of mutations by introducing a mismatch in hybridization between parent and ‎daughter. We can modify the origami functionality to affect the growth rate of the mutated ‎species, giving it less or more evolutionary advantage, and to become dominant in several ‎generations. The introduction of mutations into an artificial self-replicating system provides ‎new directions for research into self-assembly processes.”‎

At the core of Darwinian Evolution lies the hypothesis that simple organisms evolved into ‎complex organisms via random, unguided mutations and natural selection. The experiment ‎these four scientists performed was, as they stated themselves, in an artificial environment ‎where they (the intelligent scientists) did the following:‎

made a system of artificial tiles,‎
introduced a mismatch in hybridization,‎
modified the artificial tiles’ functionality to affect the growth rate, and
chose which advantages, and the extent of those advantages, to introduce.‎

Exactly how much of this experiment was unguided or natural as the hypothesis requires? ‎None. Meaning that their “step toward Darwinian Evolution” was perhaps more a step ‎towards Intelligent Design. ‎

Their science was flawless, but their inference wasn’t scientific. The results of an ‎experiment which was guided in a carefully controlled environment cannot claim to be a ‎step towards proving a hypothesis where nothing was controlled or guided.‎

What about inter-species breeding?

Animals, for instance, from different family groups do not bring offspring and those from inter-breedable species never produce a different family group. Selective breeding takes place all the time, and these breeders have learnt which species can breed and which can’t. We get Morkies and Labradoodles because different species of dogs can breed. But no pair of dogs will ever produce a non-dog. We also have mules (horse-donkeys) and ligers (lion-tigers) but no dats or cogs (dog-cats) or crozards (crocodile-lizards) or cheagles (chicken-eagles).

Experiments with human sperm and the eggs of other primates (and vice versa) have yielded no offspring either, regardless of advancing scientific equipment or methods—this should raise eyebrows for those supporting the theory of humans having apelike ancestors. At what point in Evolution were daughters no longer able to physically breed with their fathers? Dogs and wolves share a common ancestor. So, a wolf and chihuahua can interbreed and produce viable offspring, but not an ape and human?

Conclusion:

The well-respected scientific online journal Nature.com has a section dedicated to “Experimental Evolution” and describes it as such:

“Experimental evolution is the use of laboratory or controlled field manipulations to investigate evolutionary processes. It usually makes use of organisms with rapid generation times and small physical size, often microbes, to observe phenomena that in large multicellular organisms occur too slowly.”

The experiments being conducted today involve existing organisms and controlled environments. This in itself is not proof of evolution in nature. It is proof that things can (and do) adapt to their environments, causing genetic diversity. But it cannot prove how one kind of organism evolved (mutated itself) into another kind of organism. This process has been labelled as macro-evolution, a concept explained in a previous article called “What is Evolution.”

Richard Phillips Feynman, an American theoretical physicist who was voted as one of the top 10 scientists of all time said the following in one of his lectures: “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are… If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.”