Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In today’s world, without the science of evolution there would be no science. Written
for both the scientifically-minded as well as those who are not familiar with science
THE SCIENCE OF
at all, this book details the facts of the science of evolution. In one engrossing volume
Ardea Skybreak looks at the diversity and complexity of life on this planet and how all
EVOLUTION
veiled religiosity of Intelligent Design. There’s urgency in this book. It comes at a time
when evolution—and the very definition of science—is under concerted attack by religious
fundamentalists, with backing from the highest levels of government. The reader will
come away with a deepened appreciation of the beauty and wonders of nature, as well
as an understanding of the basic scientific facts of evolution and a clear sense of why
science and a scientific method make it possible to determine what’s real—and why
knowing what’s real profoundly matters.
THE MYTH OF
“...of tremendous benefit to many, especially those in the teaching profession
where there are frequent opportunities to defend science against the ridiculous
assertions by religious zealots and fundamentalists.”
Richard Leakey, Paleoanthropologist, former Director of Kenya’s National Museums,
former Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service
CREATIONISM
“...clearly explains the overwhelming evidence for evolution and why it is
scientific fact...Skybreak does an excellent job of educating and inspiring an
interest in nature, science and evolution.”
David Seaborg, Evolutionary Biologist, founder and President of the
Foundation for Biological Conservation and Research, founder and President
of the World Rainforest Fund
ARDEA A R D EA S K Y B RE A K
SKYBREAK
Insight Press
4064 N. Lincoln Ave. #264
Chicago, IL 60618 $24.95 U.S. INCLUDES A CRITIQUE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN
www.insight-press.com $33.95 CAN.
Praise for
The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism,
Knowing What’s Real and Why it Matters
“There are many fine books on evolution and creationism, but this one
stands out because it is so well written, concise, and comprehensive.
It is accessible to the general reader and uncompromising in its logic
and accuracy in presenting scientific concepts. If you find that your
textbook’s presentation of evolution is inadequate, give your students
Ardea Skybreak’s book and watch their understanding grow.”
Kevin Padian
Professor of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley;
Curator, Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley
“I need your help with this debate that is raging over here...a few
brothers and myself are taking religion head on...Check what this
prison chaplain does, he brings two boxes of this book called Darwin
Under the Microscope...brothers are reading passages of this book during
this debate and all this book is doing is attempting to discredit the
science of evolution.
“I read a few passages out of The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
in this debate, however, I know brothers are finding The Origin of
the Species book hard to grasp—so this is why I’m asking you to send
me the complete series of the “Science of Evolution” cause Ardea
Skybreak breaks it all down in a way that I know brothers will be able
to grasp to the fullest.
“A lot of these bible bangers who have been misled think this debate is
about ‘winning or losing.’ I tell them this debate is about struggling for
truth...”
From a prisoner
THE SCIENCE
OF EVOLUTION
AND
THE MYTH
OF CREATIONISM
KNOWING WHAT’S REAL
AND WHY IT MATTERS
ARDEA SKYBREAK
Insight Press
Chicago
Painting featured on cover: The Creation of Man, from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
in Vatican City, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1511-12
Photo credits for cover and picture section are located on page 335.
first edition
ISBN: 0-9760236-5-2
ISBN: 0-9760236-7-9 (Hardcover)
Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER 1
AN OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
So What Is Evolution Anyway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
What All Evolving Systems Have in Common . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Millions and Billions of Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
What the Fossils Tell Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
So What Did Darwin Figure Out? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
What Darwin Learned about Selection from Farmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Has Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection Really Been Tested
and Proven to Be True? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
SUPPLEMENTAL INSERTS FOR CHAPTER 1:
The Earliest Emergence of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Not Everyone Wants You to Learn about Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Creation Myths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Dating Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Change Was in the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Genetic Drift and Founder Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The Continued Existence of Life on this Planet Is Not a Given . . . . . . 32
CHAPTER 2
THE EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION IN ACTION IS ALL AROUND US . . . . 39
Evolution in Action Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Rapid Evolutionary Change Observed in a Population of Moths . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Where Would We Be Without Fruit Flies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
One Species Splitting into Two on Opposite Sides of the Grand Canyon . . . . . . 46
A Few Words on Creationists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
SUPPLEMENTAL INSERTS FOR CHAPTER 2:
The Moth Flap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Evolution in Action — The Distribution of Sickle Cell Genes
in Human Populations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
An Interesting Example of Evolution in Action in the Treatment
of HIV Infections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
CHAPTER 3
REVIEWING A FEW KEY POINTS ABOUT ADAPTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
CHAPTER 4
HOW EVOLUTION PRODUCES WHOLE NEW SPECIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
How Do We Know Something Really Happened If We Weren’t
There to See It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Speciation and the Diversification of Life Are Rooted in the Same Basic
Phenomena, Including Natural Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Living Things Can’t Help But Evolve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
How Do Entirely New Species Come into Being? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
SUPPLEMENTAL INSERTS FOR CHAPTER 4:
Were We Bound to Evolve?—The Role of Random and
Non-Random Factors in Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Evolution of Pesticide Resistance in a Population of Insects . . . . . . . . . 72
CHAPTER 5
MORE ON REPRODUCTIVE ISOLATION, SPECIATION AND THE
EMERGENCE OF EVOLUTIONARY NOVELTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Mechanisms of Reproductive Isolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Especially Small Reproductively Isolated Populations Can Exhibit More
Evolutionary “Novelties” and Rapid Evolutionary Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Some Reasons Speciation Might Not Occur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
What Evolutionary Biologists Argue About and
What This Does and Doesn’t Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
A Few Words about the So-called “Gaps” in the Fossil Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Not All Evolutionary Lines Evolve at the Same Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
There Are No Guarantees in Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
The Effects of Mass Extinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Speciation Before Our Eyes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
CHAPTER 6
EVOLUTION IS A PROVEN FACT – THE EVIDENCE IS CONCRETE
AND COMES FROM MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The Past Leaves its Marks on the Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Direct Evidence of Evolution from Both the Fossil Record
and the Molecular Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Indirect Evidence of Evolution
• Embryo development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
• Vestigial (“remnant” or “left over”) features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
• Homologous features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
• Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
• “Sub-optimal design”: nature’s quirks and imperfections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
• Geographic distribution of species around the world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
• The fact that the features of living organisms fit into a system
of “nested” hierarchical classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
SUPPLEMENTAL INSERT FOR CHAPTER 6:
A Conscious “Intelligent Designer” Wouldn’t Design Life
The Way It Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
CHAPTER 7
THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN BEINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
WHERE DID WE COME FROM? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Human Beings Evolved Out of Pre-existing Non-human Species . . . . . . . . . 120
Some Basic Facts of Human Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
And Then There Are the Fossils – Lots and Lots of Fossils! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
ii
A Brief Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS TO “BECOME HUMAN” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
We Are the New Kid on the Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
The Emergence, and Consolidation, of New Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Key Junctures in the Evolution of Human Beings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
THE CLEAR, AND GROWING, EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION
FROM APES TO HUMAN BEINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Why Is Our Hominid Species the Only One Still Standing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
What Makes Us So Special, If Only to Ourselves? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
THE TWO BIGGEST LEAPS IN HOMINID EVOLUTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
A Series of Transitions from More Ape-like to More Human Features . . . . . 150
Were the Earliest Hominids “Just Apes”? The Significance of the
Evolution of Bipedalism on the Road to Becoming Human . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
So, Are We Just an Accident? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
A Possible Environmental Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
One Species – All Over the World –
A Species Radically Transforming the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
SUPPLEMENTAL INSERTS FOR CHAPTER 7:
Humans and Dinosaurs?! Another Creationist Absurdity . . . . . . . . . . 124
Chimp and Human DNA: How Close Are We? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Was Toumai One of Our Ancestors? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Meave Leakey’s Take on Her Latest Fossil Find . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Was Homo erectus the First Human Species to Leave Africa? . . . . . . . . 143
We All Came from Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
What Does the Science of Evolution Tell Us about
Human “Races”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
“Social Darwinism” Is Not Based on Science
and Has Nothing to Do with Darwinism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Are Humans Still Evolving? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
CHAPTER 8
ANTI-EVOLUTION CREATIONISM:
AN ASSAULT ON ALL OF SCIENCE, IN THE NAME OF GOD . . . . . . . . 179
WITHOUT THE SCIENCE OF EVOLUTION THERE WOULD BE
NO SCIENCE—IT’S JUST THAT FUNDAMENTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Evolution Science and the SARS Virus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Evolution Science, Organ Transplants and the “Spare Parts” of the Future . 184
What Everyone Should Know about the Creationists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
SNAKE OIL SALESMEN AND CHARLATANS AT COURT . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
They Want You! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
“BUT HOW CAN WE EVER BE SURE ANYTHING IS TRUE?”:
SUCH PHILOSOPHICAL RELATIVISM OFFERS CREATIONISTS
EASY PICKINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
The “Theory of Evolution” – What a Scientific Theory Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
RECOGNIZE, DEMAND AND FIGHT FOR SCIENTIFIC TRUTH . . . . . . . 219
A GUIDE TO THE CREATIONIST ZOO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
iii
The Young Earth Creationists (YECs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
The Old Earth Creationists (OECs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
The Progressive Creationists (PCs) and Evolutionary Creationists (ECs) . . . 227
Theistic Evolutionists (TEs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
The Intelligent Design Creationists (IDCs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
REFUTING THE OLD-SCHOOL “SCIENTIFIC CREATIONISTS” . . . . . . . 230
The Second Law of Thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Another Typical Example of Creationist Methods:
God in the Gaps? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Another Example of Step-Wise Evolution: The Evolution of Elephants . . . 238
Mutants Are Not Monsters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
The Age of the Earth (and of the Universe) –
A Big Problem for the Creationists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
“Maybe God Just Made It Look Old, and Maybe God Also Just
Made It Look Like Life Has Evolved” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Would an All-Knowing God Make Sloppy Designs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
CREATIONISM’S NEW WRAPPER WON’T FOOL US:
INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORY IS STILL JUST RELIGION –
IT’S STILL NOT SCIENCE – AND IT’S STILL WRONG! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Dembski’s “Design Filter” Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Behe and the Idea of “Irreducible Complexity” as “Evidence” of
“Intelligent Design” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
The Entirely Natural Evolution of Complex Multi-Part
Biochemical Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
A QUESTION OF METHODS, A QUESTION OF STRUGGLE . . . . . . . . . . 274
How can we get at the actual truth of things? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
More on what is wrong, methodologically, with Intelligent Design
Creationism and the idea of “irreducible complexity” as evidence
of divine design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
CREATIONISM AND THE MORALITY POLICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
SUPPLEMENTAL INSERTS FOR CHAPTER 8:
In the Very Beginning and Looking to the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
The Cambrian Explosion, Punctuated Equilibrium
and the “God of the Gaps” Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Misrepresenting Working Scientists—A Favorite Creationist Tactic . . 200
Rare Variants of the Almost Entirely Universal Genetic Code Are
Evidence of Evolution, Not Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Look Who’s In Bed With Whom! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
“Project Steve”: Evolutionists Use Humor to Make a Serious Point . . 213
Reality and Distortions of Reality—Objective Truth and
Subjective Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Some Things You Can Do to Learn More about
Creationist Lies and Distortions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Evolution is Not “Just a Chance Process” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Do Lottery Winners Win By Design? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
iv
Appendix A
GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Appendix B
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Appendix C
GEOLOGICAL TIMELINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Appendix D
DEFEND SCIENCE STATEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
vi
Support for this anti-evolution crusade has come from none other than
the President of the United States, George W. Bush, who told a group of
Texas newspaper reporters in August 2005 that Intelligent Design, a variant
of Biblically-based creationism, should be taught alongside evolution as a
competing theory. (“Both sides ought to be properly taught...so people can
understand what the debate is about.”) On this Skybreak has commented:
“From a scientific perspective this position is as ridiculous as insisting that
students be taught not only that the earth is round but also the ‘competing
theory’ that the earth is flat!”
In the United States today, there are concerted efforts in numerous
states to prevent the teaching of evolution as scientific fact. Furthermore,
the forces behind these efforts have set their sights on redefining science
itself, to allow for supernatural explanations of natural phenomena and the
workings of nature. As Skybreak warns, these attempts to change “the very
definition of what science is, to radically recast the whole way all of science
is ‘done,’ the whole way science is conceived of and carried out—would
destroy science as science.”
As this book makes clear, what is fundamentally being battled out here
is whether or not people are going to be allowed and encouraged to learn
the truth about the way reality actually is—and why it is the way it is—or
whether they are going to be prevented from doing so through the imposi-
tion of a particular religious dogma. Through its comprehensive overview
of the science of evolution and its explanation and defense of the scientific
method, this book brings to life the importance of “knowing what’s real,
and why it matters.”
Spring, 2006
vii
“ Everyone needs to understand the basic facts
of evolution as well as the essentials of the
scientific method . . . When people are deprived of
a scientific approach to reality as a whole, they
are robbed of both a full appreciation of the
beauty and richness of the natural world and the
means to understand the dynamics of change not
only in nature but in human society as well.
”
viii
Introduction
The following open letter from Ardea Skybreak to readers of the
Revolutionary Worker newspaper (now Revolution) was originally published
in May 2002 to announce and introduce the forthcoming series from which
this book is derived. Insight Press is reprinting it here because it serves as a
fitting introduction to the book.
The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
And yet, despite all the scientific consensus, the Creationists and their
anti-scientific rants will simply not go away. The question is why? And in
countries like the United States some of the nuttier proponents of creation-
ism even sit in the halls of power, influence legislation, and are welcomed
advisers of presidents. Again, why is that? These are questions we all need
to engage.
I would argue that we all need to know at least the basic scientific facts
about evolution and understand also how the religious fundamentalists
who want to keep the people ignorant and confused about evolution are
driven by a reactionary social and political agenda. And we need to learn to
recognize what is fundamentally wrong and unscientific in the arguments
of Creationists, no matter what form they surface in—and this includes the
arguments of the new crop of Intelligent Design Creationists who acknowl-
edge the fact that some evolutionary change has taken place, but continue
to insist that much of the diversity and complexity of life could not have
come into being without the involvement of some kind of “Intelligent
Designer” at some point in the process.
It seems to me that the best and most visionary of revolutionaries are
always thinking and wrangling about many different kinds of “big” social,
cultural, philosophical and political questions, even right in the midst of the
most intense struggles. It’s never a good idea for the focus of our thinking
and actions to become so narrow that we fail to grapple with a variety of big
questions—including in science and the arts—especially if we’re interested
in figuring out how to fundamentally change the world.
I am hoping to spark some lively debate and discussion of these impor-
tant questions among (and between) a wide variety of readers of this
newspaper. We live in a society where professional scientists and non-pro-
fessionals, those with formal education and those who have been offered
little or no such education, are usually kept apart and rarely get to interact
and learn from each other. We don’t have to accept these divisions. With
its unusually diverse readership, this newspaper is in a position to play an
important role in overcoming such divisions.
Grappling with the scientific evidence for evolution and the backward-
ness of religious fundamentalist creationism is very relevant:
If you are a prisoner in a penitentiary somewhere who is fighting not
to be crushed by those conditions and to wrench out of all that madness
some real understanding of the way things are (and the way they could be),
and is determined to see through all the lies that have been told in order to
jail the people’s minds.
If you are somewhere on the outside, bone-tired from just trying to
get by, worrying about whether your kids are going to get brutalized or
killed by the police, and sick and tired of being told that “things are the way
they are because it’s god’s will and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Introduction
In future issues of the paper this series on evolution will try to address
such things as: What is evolution, and how do we know for sure it really hap-
pened (and is continuing to take place)? What is false about the creationist
arguments against evolution, and why are their methods completely bogus?
Why is this battle going on today? How can all the wonderful diversity and
complexity of life on this planet have come to be without the hand of an
“Intelligent Designer”?
It will be difficult to do justice to such a multi-faceted and far-reaching
subject in just a relatively few installments in the pages of this newspaper.
But I hope to do enough here to at least convey some basic facts for which
there is overwhelming scientific evidence, do a little exposure on what the
Creationists are trying to pull, and get the ball rolling for some broader
mass wrangling on these and related questions.
If people would like to send in comments, or if you have specific ques-
tions you’d like answered, I would welcome this and I will try to integrate this
into the series. I’d also like to invite others with some scientific background
(both professional working scientists as well as students and non-profes-
sionals) to assist in whatever ways they can to improve on this project and to
find ways to get the facts of evolution (and of what the creationist crusade
against evolution is all about) out to an even broader audience than has so
far been possible—including to those who might not be in a position to
learn any of this through the schools or on the schoolboard and courtroom
battlegrounds where most of the evolution vs. creationism battle has so far
taken place.
This series will try to speak both to people who have no background in
science and to people who already know “the basics” but want to get into
some of the more advanced scientific questions. But please don’t hesitate
to get into this series even if you’ve “never been into science” or never had
a chance to learn anything about evolution. No prior experience necessary!
Science really isn’t so mysterious (though some people want to make it
seem that way so they can lord it over other people), and in any case we’ll
work on breaking it down as we go (and those who know more should help
out those who may know less so we can all move forward).
And, as a matter of fact, those of you who have no scientific training and
perhaps little formal education in general could play a particularly impor-
tant role in this: by struggling to become knowledgeable about evolution
and what the religious fundamentalists are up to when they seek to deny
the people this well-established scientific knowledge, you could do a great
deal to help spread a scientific outlook among the people. Many of you have
been exposed to a lot of religion and have deep roots and close family and
other personal ties within communities where a literal belief in religious
scriptures continues to be deeply entrenched and greatly encouraged by the
people who run society—whereas, among the masses of people, a scientific
Introduction
Ardea Skybreak
May, 2002
Footnotes and supplemental inserts are integral to the text, and readers
are encouraged to read them when this is indicated in the text of the
book. Minor editing has been done for publication of the series in book
format. A glossary of some key terms and concepts has been added.
Chapter 1
An Overview
Our planet, like all things, has a history. It is a history of change—all
sorts of dramatic changes, taking place over billions of years. Changes have
never stopped happening, and are still going on.
So let me just start off by briefly going over a few things that all modern
scientists and most people who have had the opportunity to learn basic
scientific facts know to be true—as definitely and undeniably true as the
fact that the earth is not flat or that it goes around the sun.
Our planet was birthed in some cosmic explosions about 4.5 billion
years ago, hurtling through space as a fiery ball of hot rocks and gases, and
settling into orbit around one of the many stars in the cosmos—the one
we call “our” sun. For the first billion years or so the planet went through
many physical changes—starting to cool down for one thing—but there
was no life.
Fast forward about a billion years. By then a lot of things have changed
in the physical composition of the planet: surface temperatures have cooled
considerably, and some land masses and water bodies have begun to take
shape. But temperatures are still fairly extreme, and the waters and atmo-
sphere are full of acids and poisonous gases.
In fact, if you could somehow go back in time about 3.5 billion years,
you would have a hard time even recognizing our planet! You would find no
animals walking the land, no insects or birds in the skies, no fish in the seas.
You would find no grasses, no trees, no flowering plants. You would find
no familiar landmarks: none of the familiar continents, mountain ranges,
plains, or oceans of today. And you would find no fresh water to drink,
absolutely nothing you could eat, and you wouldn’t even breathe the air
which didn’t yet have any oxygen.
But if you’d known where to look 3.5 billion years ago (and could have
somehow protected yourself from the extreme temperatures and poison-
ous atmosphere!) you might have found the very first forms of life on this
planet. You would have had to look closely, because life wouldn’t have
looked like much back then—imagine something like microscopic clumps
of organic molecules coming together and forming very stripped-down ver-
sions of living cells, simpler in structure even than modern-day seaweeds or
The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
bacteria. A kind of chemical “soup,” alive only in the sense that these new
little tidbits of matter could do two things that non-living things cannot
do on their own: actively draw in energy from the outside environment
(allowing them a means to grow and develop, as well as a basic means to
cause transformations of that outside environment) and replicate, or make
new copies of themselves. (See “The Earliest Emergence of Life” below.)
If you dig down into the earth today, you can find fossilized (hardened
and preserved) remnants of ancient creatures, many of which no longer
exist today. The oldest fossils which have been found are the remnants of
ancient bacteria which lived about 3.5 billion years ago.
We don’t really know whether primitive life may have emerged and
then perhaps “petered out” (and later re-emerged) a number of different
times in the very early history of the earth. But, at any rate, there is plenty
of evidence that all the life-forms which are around on earth today—all
the bacteria, all the species of plants, all the species of animals, including
humans—are descended from a single common ancestor. One of the most
important indicators of this “common descent” is that all living things on
this planet make use of the same basic underlying genetic code and share many
particular mechanisms of protein synthesis. The particular DNA/RNA-
based method of replication and inheritance, which is a characteristic of all
living things on this planet, is not necessarily the only way that “life” could
reproduce itself: we may well some day discover life-forms in other corners
of the universe which use a completely different system and different chemi-
cal building blocks for their own replication and transmission of inheritable
characteristics. But what’s important to understand here is that all living
organisms on this planet use basically the very same system and underlying
some new chemical compounds, including Given the right mix (or chemical “soup”),
amino acids and sugars. This was a very exciting fatty acids—which are key components
discovery, because amino acids and sugars of living cell membranes—have also been
are fundamental building blocks of the more shown to assemble spontaneously, suggest-
complex molecules found in all living organisms! ing that some kind of similar process may
Given that lightning, methane, ammonia well have been involved in the formation of
and water would have been abundant in the very first living cells. Again, the first living
the early stages of our planet’s history, cells are likely to have been little more than
and (importantly!) given that there would tidbits of self-replicating DNA or RNA mol-
have been no creatures around yet which ecules surrounded by a simple membrane.
could eat any amino acids or sugars being Experiments investigating and demonstrat-
produced through such simple chemical ing how earliest forms of life might have
reactions, the early oceans could well have emerged on this planet have been going on
become rich and concentrated “soups” of for only a few decades, so there is obviously
these “building blocks” of the more complex still much to discover about these processes.
organic molecules found in all living things. But what has already been learned through
And other experiments have also shown that these experiments clearly demonstrates
such substances can assemble themselves how some of the first steps involved in the
spontaneously into more extensive “films” development of primitive life could have
or “mats” of interacting compounds. It is taken place spontaneously (without the
easy to imagine such mats clinging to the hand of any divine “Creator” or “Intelligent
ancient rocks or drifting in the ancient seas, Designer”) in the primeval chemical “soup”
serving as early templates for the assembling of this planet.
of more complex molecules. Beyond that, it is very important to
Some more recent laboratory experi- understand that, while every detail of the
ments have even demonstrated that certain process of the earliest emergence of life hasn’t
simple sequences of nucleotides (short bits yet been fully worked out, scientists do
of RNA for instance) will sometimes self- know that life evolved after it emerged. And
replicate, or make copies of themselves, even as we will see, there is actually a great deal
in the absence of any protein enzymes (which of concrete evidence and proof of how this
until recently were thought to be abso- process has actually taken place over the
lutely required for this process to occur), past 3.5 billion years. J
and these new bits of RNA have even been
observed beginning to evolve on their own!
10 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
things change, but about how whole systems change, over time and over
generations.
In one sense, even non-living systems can “evolve” as long as they meet
certain criteria. Non-living systems which can be seen to evolve over time
include human cultural systems, such as languages, traditions, musical styles,
philosophies, car designs, computer programs, and so on. Of course—and
this an important distinction—in non-living cultural systems the mechanism
of evolutionary change (of replication, transmission, and modification of
“information” over a series of successive “generations”) is very different
because it is not based (as it is in living things) on DNA molecules and the
mechanisms of random genetic variation and inheritance (and if you don’t
know about any of this yet don’t worry—it should all become clearer a
bit later on). But such non-living systems do nevertheless “evolve” in ways
that can be very analogous to the processes of biological evolution. In fact,
studying basic principles of Darwinian biological evolution has actually
helped people better understand such things as the evolution of human
languages, engineering designs, and even the more basic and fundamental
philosophical principles underlying human creativity and innovation more
generally. In turn, stopping a moment to review what all systems that are
capable of evolving have in common can sometimes help people better
understand the more particular ways in which living (biological) systems
have evolved, and continue to evolve to this day.
Not Everyone Wants You To don’t know even the most basic facts about
Learn About Evolution how all life (including people) evolved on
this planet. Of course many people have
Here’s something we should all recog been kept in the dark through no fault of their
nize: in today’s world, not knowing at least own. Nevertheless, such a state of ignorance
the basic facts and evidence of evolution often leads people to assume that some
leaves you vulnerable to being preyed imaginary supernatural force must be what
upon by those people who stand to benefit created life, and that such a supernatural
from promoting mass ignorance and force must still be “pulling the strings” and
superstition. have the power to change human life for
At the dawn of the 21st century it is better or worse according to some divine
shocking that a great many people still “plan.” J
12 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
they also tend to incorporate some distinct local features having to do with
the particular region and time in which a given tribe or people lived. But
everywhere throughout human history people would tell each other these
stories and pass them on from generation to generation to try explain how
the world and “the people” (by which they usually meant “themselves”)
came to be. (See “Creation Myths” on page 14.)
How can we really tell whether the stories contained in various reli-
gious scriptures are true or not? And, on the other hand, how can we tell if
evolution is true or not?
The best way to determine the basic truth or falsehood of an idea is to
go out in the world and test it. This is how human beings learn—we experi-
ment, we manipulate and transform the outside world, and in the course
of doing this we uncover a lot of information about the way things actually
work, and about the underlying processes and dynamics of things.
But the creation myths contained in various religious scriptures the
world over are stories that people are asked not to test for truth or falsehood
but to accept and believe in simply as a matter of unquestioned faith. Even
the leaders of various religions admit that ideas such as “in the beginning
God created the world and everything in it” cannot, by definition, be sub-
jected to scientific testing or any means of concrete human verification.
But there is plenty of concrete evidence to suggest that these super-
natural forces have actually never existed anywhere except as ideas in the
minds of people, in the stories that people tell, in the songs people sing, in the
books that people write, etc. So, while science can only test and investigate
actual material reality, it is important to realize that the content and history
of all the different religions of the world—their own origins and how they
have changed over time, as well as the ways in which they have attempted
to explain the natural world and human society—is all part of that material
reality that can be scientifically explored and investigated.
Take the Bible, for instance. The Bible is after all a book. It was written
thousands of years ago, by a series of different human authors. The fact
that human beings wrote the Bible explains a lot why the Bible contains
things which are simply factually not true. For instance, according to the
Bible the Earth is only a little more than 6,000 years old, but in reality
(as shown by modern scientific dating techniques) it is actually closer to
4.5 billion years old!
14
taught the humans how to live and then people, designed to be superior to the mere
some went back down into the earth while animals his brother had created. He made
others married humans. People can con- the people walk upright and he stole fire
duct rituals to try to enter the Dreamtime from the god Zeus and gave it only to the
and become spirits themselves, retracing people to use.
the past creation journey. Hebrew and Christian Creation Myth
Inuit Creation Myth In the beginning there was a void. A few
A young woman married a seabird; her thousand years ago god made the heavens
father tried to bring her home; the bird and earth and then the people and all the
dangerously stirred up the sea; the father animals. God made all the living creatures
tried to throw his daughter out of his boat separately, and in just six days; on the sev-
and when she tried to hold on he cut off her enth day god rested. God made first man,
fingers—her severed joints then became all Adam, and first woman, Eve. They lived in a
the important foods for the people (seals, state of bliss in a lush garden (the Garden of
walruses, whales, etc.). Eden) with dominion over all the animals.
Navajo Creation Myth There was a special tree (the tree of knowl-
edge of good and evil), and also a wicked
The Holy Ones carefully hung the stars in
serpent. The woman conversed with the ser-
the sky and placed the plants on the earth.
pent, broke the rules, ate the forbidden fruit
But Coyote the Trickster god (representing
of that tree, and gave the fruit to the man
chaos and defiance of moral order) came
to eat. Because of this rule-breaking, both
out and scattered everything about, making
the woman and the man were punished
a mess of the world. Then he caused a great
and were thrown out of the garden. First
flood which brought humans up to the sur-
Man and First Woman had one good son
face world.
(Abel) and one bad son (Cain) and then
Scandinavian Creation Myth Cain killed Abel. Tired of the sinfulness of
According to the Scandinavian Eddas man, god created a giant flood to destroy
(from the 1200s BCE), in the beginning the whole world, allowing only Noah and
there was a chaotic world which included the few humans and animals that could fit
gods, giants, and humans. A great tree into his boat to survive. All the living people
reached through time and space; it was and animals are descendants of the only
attacked by a wicked serpent, but under its survivors of this flood.
roots was the fountain of wisdom. The God
Islamic Creation Myth
Thor helped protect the humans from the
Islam is the youngest of the three major
giants.
one-god believing (monotheistic) religions
Mali Creation Myth in the world (Judaism, Christianity and
A Creator made the universe and then Islam), which all originated in the Middle
withdrew. Spirit forces inhabited the animals East. All three share the same basic creation
and plants. The first being was a toolmaker myth. In Islam, as in the other two, a single
who was able to use the earth and fire to all-powerful God created nature out of noth-
make tools. Then he fell from heaven to ingness and made all of nature subservient
earth and broke into pieces. His elbow joint to humanity. Adam was the first prophet,
represents the ability to work. His clavicle, forgiven by a merciful god for his lapses.
shaped like a hoe, is a message that humans Each element of creation (all the people,
should plant crops. the plants, the animals) reflects a specific
Ancient Greek Creation Myth set of divine rules and patterns. The created
In the beginning there was Chaos, a universe as a whole is well ordered, with no
dark void; out of it came the earth and stars gaps or discontinuities, and everything is in
and clouds. There were innumerable gods. its proper place. This very orderliness is itself
Prometheus, one of the Titans, created proof of god. J
15
16 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
the age of the known universe or the age of the earth as a whole; we can
tell when individual mountain ranges were formed, when whole continents
drifted apart or collided, or when the earth’s whole climate underwent
dramatic changes. We can date individual rock layers, all sorts of fossilized
plants and animals embedded in rocks, and even tiny bits of organic mate-
rial. Today we can even use the techniques of modern molecular biology to
track changes in DNA and RNA molecules over time and to determine how
far back certain significant genetic mutations and major “splits” in evolu-
tionary lines occurred! We can date how far back whole new lines of plants
or animals first appeared, or when long vanished species went extinct!
It is important to realize that it is only in the past century or so that scien-
tists have been able to figure out accurate and direct dating techniques (and
some of the newest “molecular” dating techniques are only a few decades
old!). So obviously, the authors of the Bible and other ancient scriptures
written a few thousand years ago would have had no way of accurately
dating the age of the earth or of figuring out the sequential unfolding of
plant and animal life on this planet. But today scientists can get at least
good ball-park figures for the age of just about anything, and sometimes
the results can be surprisingly precise and are often corroborated (that is,
cross-checked and verified) by using a variety of different dating techniques
in combination. (See “Dating Techniques,” right.)
There is at this point a general scientific consensus on such things as
that: the earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old (that’s 4500 million!); the
first and simplest forms of life (including the first bacteria) emerged on
this planet about 3.5 billion years ago; a huge diversification of all sorts of
marine animals happened about 540 million years ago (in a period referred
to as the “Cambrian explosion”); the first jawed fish, amphibians and insects,
as well as ferns and other land plants, all first appeared within the next 100
million years or so, i.e., in the period between about 540 and 440 million
years ago. The land plants, insects and amphibians then diversified a lot,
and the first reptiles appeared around 350 million years ago. Then around
250 million years ago the reptiles in turn diversified a lot (including giving
rise to the first dinosaurs) and the very first mammals appeared. Around
200 million years ago the vegetation of the global landscape was still domi-
nated by palms, ferns, pine tree-like conifers and ginkgoes, but now the first
flowering plants appeared, and this was also when the first birds appeared.
We also know that the last dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years
ago but that all sorts of mammals, birds, flowering plants and pollinating
insects continued to diversify and spread around the globe. The most recent
major wave of extinctions before modern times (the fifth since the begin-
ning of life on earth) occurred when many of the largest mammals and
birds went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age about 10-12,000
years ago—a time of dramatic climate changes with temperatures rising
Dating Techniques same, the carbon-14 begins a gradual pro-
There are many reliable dating tech- cess of radioactive decay, through which the
niques, such as various radiometric dating carbon-14 turns into nitrogen. This decay of
techniques based on measures of radioac- carbon-14 happens at a known, constant,
tive decay, which were not yet available to and predictable rate. So by measuring the
scientists in Darwin’s time. Radioactivity carbon-14 level still left in the remains of
was only discovered at the end of the 19th a dead plant or animal, comparing it to
century, and it was in the 1950s that sci- the amount of carbon-12 present in these
entists figured out that various radioactive remains, and factoring in the known steady
substances, which occur naturally in various rate of decay of the carbon-14, it is possible
materials, will actually “decay” at constant to calculate quite accurately how long ago
and predictable rates, turning into non- a plant or animal died, going back up to
radioactive stable forms (isotopes) of the about 50,000 years ago.
same elements. Different methods of radiometric dating
By concretely measuring the relative measuring the decay of other kinds of iso-
amounts of radioactive isotopes vs. stable topes can be used to date materials older
forms of the same elements present in a than 50,000 years. And even though such
sample, scientists can figure out just how radiometric dating techniques cannot be
long the radioactive decay process has been used to directly date fossils which are found
going on, and in this way determine how in sedimentary rocks, these fossils can also
old the object is. And since different kinds generally be consistently and reliably dated
of radioactive isotopes (of carbon, potas- indirectly, simply by directly measuring the
sium, rubidium, and so on) decay into their age of igneous (volcanic) rock layers found
particular non-radioactive forms at differ- right above and below those fossils.
ent rates, scientists can often double-check In recent decades, advances in molecular
the age of a sample by using more than one biology have added yet another important
dating technique. This kind of method has kind of dating technique to the scientific rep-
been used to very precisely figure out the age ertoire—that of “molecular clocks,” which
of different kinds of rock layers (and even involve measuring the amount of “neutral”
moon rocks!): the rate of decay of certain mutations which have accumulated over
isotopes found in rocks is so constant time in different lineages of related species.
and predictable that scientists sometimes These are types of mutations which are con-
refer to them as “clocks in the rocks.” sidered to occur at relatively constant rates,
Measures of the decay of such things as so that calculating the amount of certain
potassium isotopes to argon, rubidium-87 kinds of molecular differentiation between
to strontium-87, thorium-232 to lead-208, related species can provide a pretty good
uranium-238 to lead-206 are all commonly estimate of the amount of time which has
used and mutually corroborating techniques passed since their lines diverged (split) from
for dating many different kinds of rocks. a common ancestor. Additional methods,
When plants and animals are alive, they such as DNA hybridization techniques,
take in carbon from the environment. Their can also assess the degree of similarity or
bodies contain this carbon in two forms, difference in the DNA of different species,
carbon-12 and carbon-14, always in fixed and this has been very helpful in providing
proportion one relative to the other. When more specific calculations of how closely dif-
a plant or animal dies, it stops taking in ferent species are related, and how far back
carbon from the environment. And while in time they must have shared a common
the carbon-12 left in its body stays the ancestor. J
17
18 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
and glaciers retreating and also a time when human activity and impact on
various environments likely increased.
We also know that the hominid line diverged (split) from its ape ances-
tors only a few million years ago (4 to 10 million by most estimates, and
probably closer to 4 than 10) and ended up producing a series of different
human-like bipedal (upright-walking) species. All but one of these hominid
lines eventually became extinct. The only species of hominid still around
today (our own species Homo sapiens, to which all human beings belong)
dates back only about 100,000 (one hundred thousand) years. While that
might seem like a lot of years relative to an average person’s lifespan, when
you think about what the mere 100,000 years that we modern humans
have been around looks like relative to the whole 3.5 billion year history of
diversifying life on this planet (complete with those repeated “waves” of
species diversification and at least five periods of “mass extinctions” of a huge
proportion of all the living creatures on the planet) the timespan occupied
so far by our own species really seems like little more than a drop in the
bucket!
The fact that our own species has so far occupied such a tiny sliver of
history is brought home even more forcefully when we reflect on the fact
that human beings didn’t even develop agriculture (which ended up serv-
ing as a foundation for large and complex “civilizations”) until only about
10,000 years ago!
The science of evolution and the development of scientific dating
techniques has allowed us to confirm once and for all that the story of
the origins of life told in the Genesis chapter of the Bible is not in fact
accurate. The Bible says that god created the earth and the ancestors of all
the plants and animals and people in just six days, but we now know that it
has really taken about 3.5 billion years for life to get to where it is today from
its simplest origins. The Bible also says that all the different types of plants
and animals (and our own ancestors) appeared on Earth just a few thousand
years ago and all at one time, but we now know that many different kinds of
plants and animals appeared (and also disappeared) at many different junc-
tures in the much longer history of life on this planet. The Bible says that all
the different types of living plants and animals remained completely unchanged
since the time of Creation, but (as we shall see through the course of this
book) we now know beyond all reasonable doubt that, time and time again,
brand new species of plants and animals emerged which had never before existed
and always as modifications of the species which existed before them.
There is lots of evidence for all of this, as we will see.
whose bodies got quickly covered up by soils and sediments which later
hardened into solid rock, thus sealing them in and preserving them. For
centuries now, scientists and others have been digging up millions of fossils
of all sorts, out of all sorts of rocks, from all over the world. These fossils
have provided concrete evidence of what many ancient plants and animals
looked like, and often also something about the environments in which
they lived. For instance, if you happen to be walking somewhere in a forest,
along a road-cut, or on a mountaintop that is hundreds of miles from any
ocean, and you start noticing that the ground under your feet is full of little
rock-like fossils which are easily recognizable as clams and other seashells,
you won’t need a degree in geology or paleontology to realize that it’s a
pretty good bet that right where you are standing was once—long ago—the
bottom of an ancient sea! If you are lucky, you might even find a trilobite or
two—the fossilized remnant of a small marine invertebrate which looked
a bit like an aquatic cockroach. Something like 10,000 different species of
trilobites lived in the Paleozoic period between roughly 300 million and
400 million years ago, but they’ve now all gone extinct, so we learn about
them by studying their fossils. In fact, collecting and studying fossil plants
and animals provided people some of the first clues that both environments
and living creatures had not always been as they are today, so that life must
in fact have evolved over time.
Long before people came up with sophisticated modern dating tech-
niques such as radiocarbon dating, quite a few people had started to figure
out that all the different types of plants and animals must not have appeared
on earth all at one time. Even by the early 19th century, it was pretty clear
that some “types” of ancient plants and animals had completely vanished
from the earth, that some had first appeared very long ago, and some much
more recently, and that some types seemed to have existed in the past for
long stretches of time while other types seemed to have vanished more
quickly.
Much of this kind of basic understanding that life had probably evolved
through different stages over time came about in the 18th and 19th cen-
turies when early geologists and naturalists started trying to scientifically
study the ways soils and rock layers had accumulated over time, and the
physical forces which they realized must have caused landscapes to change
dramatically—but over almost inconceivably long periods of time—as when
mountain chains had been pushed up or eroded back down, or when val-
leys had been carved out by slowly advancing or retreating sheets of ice.
Realizing that the physical surface of the earth itself had changed tremendously
over time—and beginning to realize just how long it would necessarily have
taken for many of these changes to take place—caused some of the 18th-
and 19th-century geologists and naturalists to begin to suspect that there
was simply no way the earth could be as young as was said in the Bible.
20 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
somehow probably changed (evolved) over time. Once again, this dawning
realization made many of them very uncomfortable, because it ran counter
to the story of Creation as told in the Bible which they’d grown up with.
Even as they kept collecting more and more evidence which more and more
strongly suggested evolution had somehow occurred, many of them still
tried hard to figure out reasonable alternative explanations which would
allow them to continue to accept the Biblical notion that all living creatures
appeared at the same time and had remained essentially unchanged since
the time of divine Creation.
But the evidence for evolution kept mounting, and no amount of ratio-
nalization could make it go away.2 (See “Change Was In the Air” on page 22.)
When it became clear from the fossil record that different types of
creatures had lived at different times in the earth’s history, some naturalists
and others tried to reconcile this disturbing realization with their Christian
beliefs: they suggested that perhaps all living creatures had been created
by God, but that there had been not just one but repeated acts of divine
Creation. Others didn’t think that was very plausible. The traditional view
of the world, as a very static place full of things that never change, really had
started to break down. If the physical face of the planet had itself changed
over time (the physical forces involved in such things as mountain forma-
tion and the erosion of valleys were beginning to be understood), could it
be that the different types of living plants and animals had also somehow
been transformed over time?
These were the kinds of questions that some of the more advanced
naturalists were excitedly discussing among themselves in the early years
of the 19th century. And the more fossils were collected and examined, the
more such questions were posed. Naturalists were beginning to see that
there were similarities, as well as differences, among the different types of
fossils. What could account for this? Could it be that the different fossil crea-
tures were somehow related to each other? Could it be that at least some
of the types of creatures whose fossils could be dug out of the lowest and
oldest rock layers had actually not simply disappeared without a trace but
had, somehow, “evolved” into some of those creatures whose “similar-but-
different” fossils could be found in the upper (more recent) rock layers?
The great naturalist Charles Darwin caused a genuine revolution in
human thought and understanding when he wrote a book published in
1859 called The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.3 This book
presented a great deal of concrete evidence that living creatures had evolved
over time. And Darwin went one giant step even beyond that, develop-
ing a comprehensive theory and proposing a concrete mechanism through
which he thought evolutionary change could take place. Darwin called
this basic mechanism of evolutionary change in living creatures “natural
selection”; and, in the nearly 150 years since he published his breakthrough
22 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
theory, natural selection has actually been proven (again and again) to be
one of the most crucial and fundamental mechanisms through which life
does, in fact, evolve.
The publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection represents one of the most important milestones in the entire
history of human thought. Once again, what was particularly significant
about this event was that Darwin not only provided lots of evidence that
life had evolved (over extremely long periods of time) but also proposed a
mechanism (which could and would be repeatedly tested and verified by many
other scientists over the succeeding decades) for how evolution could take place.
He showed how evolution by natural selection could unfold based only on
the already existing (and very variable) characteristics that could always be
found among individual living creatures, and in this way he demonstrated
Change Was In The Air basis changes can occur. This became the
The scientific theory of evolution was subject of much reflection, discussion and
first put forward in systematic fashion by struggle, in different spheres.
the great English naturalist Charles Darwin In the mid 1800s (during the same
in 1859. It is interesting to reflect on just period that Darwin was starting to figure
how much “change was in the air” in Europe out not only that life had evolved but also
and North America from the end of the how it had evolved), Karl Marx (who also
18th century and throughout much of the lived in England during much of this period)
19th, revolutionizing intellectual discourse was working out some of the underlying
in both the social sciences and the natural dynamics of how human social and political
sciences. The end of the 1700s in Europe systems come to change: in 1848, together
and America had been times of political with Frederick Engels, he published “The
revolution—when newly rising bourgeois Communist Manifesto,” which spoke to
classes and the masses of the dispossessed how the material basis for dramatically new
rose up to overthrow the feudal kings and social change can be found right within the
noblemen. Large numbers of people began existing mode of production and class divi-
to flat-out reject the old feudal idea (which sions of a society, and how social systems
had been drilled into most people’s heads can be transformed through class struggle.
literally for centuries!) that an individual’s Then, over the course of the following years,
position in the social hierarchy (whether as Marx worked out a comprehensive theory
prince or pauper, for instance) was perma- (the theory of surplus value) which explained
nently determined by birth and ordained by the system of exploitation of workers under
god (kings were said to rule “by divine right”) capitalism, and he further developed the
and could therefore never be changed. thinking about why the people at the
People of all strata had been taught that bottom of society (the proletarians) would
they were supposed to “simply accept” their in time come to replace the capitalists at the
lot in life, whatever it might be, because this helm of society. Darwin’s revolutionary sci-
was just the “natural order” of things. But entific work The Origin of Species by Means of
throughout the late 1700s and a good part Natural Selection came out in 1859, and the
of the 1800s, more and more people chal- first volume of Marx’s socially revolutionary
lenged and rejected this way of thinking. Capital was published in 1867. One could
Of course, realizing that things can definitely say that “change was in the air” in
change is not quite the same thing as know- the mid- to late 1800s! J
ing how things can change, that is, on what
An Overview 23
how evolution could have taken place without the involvement of any
external guiding hand or divine design.
This was truly revolutionary, and certainly very unsettling to anyone
clinging to strictly Biblical views of divine Creation. And yet within only a
few years the majority of scientists pretty much agreed that life had evolved.
But whether life had evolved via the mechanism of natural selection or
by some other means continued to be hotly debated for years. This was
especially the case because in Darwin’s time the principles involved in the
inheritance of individual characteristics were not yet understood, and so
it wasn’t really clear yet exactly how living creatures “passed on” some of
their variable characteristics from one generation to the next. As we will
discuss further, later on in this book, it was not until almost the middle
of the 20th century that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection
was definitively proven to be correct, when advances in the understand-
ing of the principles of inheritance and the discovery of genes and DNA
(leading to the development of the whole new science of genetics) made
possible a better understanding of how some of the variable characteristics
of individuals are not only passed on, but also “reshuffled” in new ways,
from one generation to the next. This new understanding made it possible
to really concretely test how evolutionary changes take place in populations
of plants and animals (both in laboratories and in the wild), and the thou-
sands and thousands of experiments and observations made throughout
the 20th century ended up thoroughly verifying and confirming the basics of
Darwin’s theory of natural selection once and for all.
tons of detailed information about the land formations and the many
exotic plants and animals he encountered wherever he went. He was only
22 and still himself a believer in Biblical Creation when he started out on
this trip. In fact, the captain of the ship actually expected (and hoped) that
Darwin would bring back evidence that would disprove some of the new-
fangled ideas about evolution that many other European naturalists were
starting to think about. Instead, Darwin ended up bringing back evidence
of evolution!
As Darwin explored, he was fascinated by the diversity of species he
encountered and by how well “adapted” (or closely fitted or attuned) many
species seemed to be in relation to the particularities of the environments
they occupied. For instance, he found cactus plants whose water-preserving
needle-like “leaves” seemed especially well adapted to dry desert condi-
tions; and in the Galápagos Islands he found birds whose beaks seemed to
be especially well adapted to the foods that they ate—the species which fed
on hard seeds had short and stout seed-cracking bills (beaks), those that ate
small seeds or insects had much thinner pointier bills, and some that sucked
nectar from flowers had thin and curved, almost straw-like, bills.
Darwin collected a series of such birds on the different islands. When
the bird expert John Gould later told Darwin that, despite their clear dif-
ferences in beak size and shape, all these birds (known today as Darwin’s
finches) had many features in common and actually belonged to the very
same group of birds, this reinforced Darwin’s sense that species had not
been created separately and had not remained unchanged over time. He
speculated that the birds’ similarities meant they were all descended from
a single ancestor species (which had migrated from the mainland to the
different islands at some point in the past), and that their differences in
such things as beak size and shape meant that the original populations had,
over the generations, become increasingly “modified” in relation to differ-
ent features of local island environments. His hunch has since proven to be
correct. Darwin encountered similar patterns of island variation among the
mockingbirds, tortoises and plants of the Galápagos and all this later helped
him develop his basic theory of evolution as “descent with modification”
from common ancestors, involving a natural “sorting out” (selection) of
inheritable features over many generations.
In the course of his travels Darwin also found lots of odd species which
had features they weren’t using, like birds with webbed feet that never went
in the water, or penguins with wings that didn’t fly. He suspected that these
apparently “useless” characteristics might simply have been passed down
to descendants from some very different ancestors (Darwin would later be
proven to be correct about this too). These kinds of clues are some of what
convinced him that living species must have changed over time—that they
had indeed evolved.
An Overview 25
By the time Darwin came home, he was convinced that evolution had
occurred. But it would take him 22 more years to fully develop a plausible
mechanism for how evolution could have occurred (by natural selection)
and to have the guts to publish his findings, knowing full well it would cause
an uproar in religious circles and in society more broadly.
Darwin had lots of “raw evidence” of evolution he had collected during
his travels and observations. But to figure out the mechanism of evolution he
would have to bring this evidence together with two important concepts:
the concept of individual variation within populations, and the concept of
selection of inheritable characteristics.
that particular time, gives that individual a “reproductive edge” of some sort
(relative to those individuals which don’t have that feature). This feature
might be something that allows individuals to simply live longer (so the
reproductive “edge” comes simply from having more time to produce more
descendants); or maybe it’s a feature which allows individuals who inherit
it to be better able to withstand a drought or other dramatic change in
the environment; or maybe it’s a feature that allows individuals having this
feature to be better than some of the others in their population at finding
more food, or mates, or nesting sites, or to be better at avoiding predators—all
of which can be helpful in making it possible for an individual to end up
producing more descendants (an animal can’t very well produce lots of
descendants if it gets eaten before it even gets a chance to reproduce!).
In real life, scientists have documented many such examples of features
giving individuals a “reproductive edge” compared to individuals in the
same populations that don’t have such features. Whatever the feature might
be (and it could be just about anything as long as it’s something that can be
passed on and inherited by offspring), if this feature confers on an individual
some kind of overall reproductive advantage (meaning nothing more than
that individuals who have that feature will produce more descendants than
individuals in the same population who don’t have that feature) then those
descendants will in turn tend to produce more offspring that have that fea-
ture, and over a series of generations that feature will tend to spread, and
generally will come to predominate in the population as a whole. In this
way we can say that the population has “evolved.”4
Let’s take another example. Let’s say you have a population of insects
of one type and these insects get preyed upon (get eaten) by a species of
bird. And let’s say most of the individual insects in that population are
drab-colored and tasty but, purely by chance, a few of the insects in that
population happen to have bright and noticeable black and yellow colors
along with a stinger full of venom which makes them toxic to the birds. The
birds will quickly learn to avoid the brightly colored poisonous insects and
to feed mainly on the drab venomless ones. Now, if that happens, the bright
venomous ones will obviously have a better chance on average of surviving and
producing offspring than the ones which didn’t have these features. As a result, the
next generation will be made up of a greater proportion of (you guessed it)
brightly colored venomous insects.
Repeat the process generation after generation (at each generation the
brightly colored venomous insects get to leave a greater number of descen-
dants than the drab non-venomous ones). After a number of generations,
the whole population will look different! Now the whole population will be
entirely (or almost entirely) made up of brightly colored venomous insects,
for no reason other than that is the kind of individual that got to leave
more descendants at each successive generation. Through what is called
28 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
big muscles, you will not pass these on to your children; or if a giraffe
stretches its neck to reach leaves in high tree branches day after day, it still
will not give birth to baby giraffes with longer necks). But for Darwin’s
theory of evolution by natural selection to work, something had to be passed
on to successive generations—there had to be some mechanism whereby
descendants could inherit some of that “favorable variation” found in their
parents. What could that be?
It took less than 100 years after Darwin’s time for scientists to figure out
the answer by working out the basic principles and mechanisms of inheri-
tance and by discovering the basic structure of genes and DNA. This missing
piece of the puzzle provided definitive proof of Darwin’s basic mechanism
of evolutionary change through natural selection (this was accomplished
through, among other things, countless experiments involving fast-repro-
ducing animals, such as fruit flies, in whose populations evolutionary
changes and underlying genetic changes over multiple generations could
readily be observed).
In later chapters, we will review some more examples of the concrete
evidence which has provided definitive proof of how evolutionary change
by natural selection happens over time within species, and also how evolu-
tionary change can take place through both cumulative effects of natural
selection and some additional associated processes to give rise to whole
new types (species) of plants or animals—a process referred to as speciation.
Darwin himself was very interested in factors leading to the emergence of
whole new species, and his work provided a very good initial foundation
for understanding how new species can in fact emerge as modifications of
previously existing species. In the century and a half since Darwin, scientists
have been able to both confirm and reaffirm the basic principles of evolution
by natural selection and to further extend and develop evolutionary theory
in many important directions on the basis of this Darwinian foundation.
There have been many advances made since Darwin’s time which allow
us to better understand how life can diversify and whole new species emerge
when, for instance, separate populations of a given animal or plant species
undergo evolutionary change to differing degrees and/or at different rates
in different localities. There are a number of reasons why such differences
might exist between different populations of a given plant or animal species:
certain features conferring a reproductive advantage (and thus “selected
for”) in one environment might confer a reproductive “disadvantage” in
a related population which happens to occupy a different environment;
the type and amount of genetic variation present in one given population
might also be different than in another related population simply because
of phenomena like “genetic drift” and “founder effects,” especially in small
and isolated populations. (See “Genetic Drift and Founder Effects” on page 30.)
30 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
e xtinctions; and since the last period of mass extinctions some 10,000 years
ago, human beings themselves have directly contributed in some new ways
to the extinction of many species, at first through widespread hunting, and
more recently through our rapidly accelerating abilities to transform many
aspects of the physical and biotic environment on a global scale, which has
led not only to the loss of many individual species but also to the destruction
of entire natural habitats at an ever increasing pace. Today some scientists
(such as renowned paleontologist and conservationist Richard Leakey)
argue that we may already be seeing the beginning of the 6th wave of mass
extinctions — one directly attributable to the extremely rapid and domino-
like effects of the environmental destruction and depredation caused by
human beings just in the last couple of centuries or so. (See “The Continued
Existence of Life on this Planet Is Not a Given,” below.)
Some of the more exciting questions which are being explored by
Darwinian scientists today include issues of rhythm and pacing of large-
scale evolutionary changes. All evolutionists agree that the accumulation
The point is not to attempt to dig into all this here but just to point out
that these are the types of questions that the dynamic field of evolutionary
biology is delving into these days. Many exciting breakthroughs are being
made, both in theory and experimentally, which continue to extend and further
develop Darwin’s legacy. But saying that the field of evolution is continuing
to develop is definitely not the same thing as saying that “evolutionists can’t
agree among themselves and therefore evolution remains just an unproven
theory, and the creationist theory is a just-as-valid alternative theory,” as the
Creationists often like to argue. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Once again, the basic principles of Darwinian evolution by natural
selection are considered to be as solidly proven today as the fact that the
earth goes around the sun and not the other way around. Scientific knowl-
edge is, of course, always expanding and developing. But new advances in
science (or in any other field of knowledge) will be realized only if we base
ourselves firmly on the accumulated knowledge which has already been
clearly demonstrated to be true and which has stood the test of time. There
is absolutely nothing that is more solidly proven and demonstrated in all of
science (and that includes in any field of science) than the basic principles
of evolution.
Later in this book, after we’ve had a chance to get some further ground-
ing in what evolution is, what it is not, and what evidence there is that
evolution actually has taken place and that life is continually evolving, I
hope we will all be more confident in being able to see what is wrong with
the arguments of the so-called “scientific Creationists” who try to argue
that they have “scientific” reasons for not believing in evolution. As we
will see, so-called “scientific creationism” is not science at all! It is simply
religion: a set of beliefs Biblical literalists would like us to accept, not on the
basis of any concrete and verifiable scientific evidence (they have none!) but
simply on the basis of faith.
It is important to study and reflect on the favorite methods employed by
Creationists when they “challenge” evolution, because their very methods
reveal what shaky ground they are on.
Creationists ask us to believe the Biblical story of Creation as literal
truth (in opposition to the worked out and repeatedly tested theory of evo-
lution) but, unlike evolutionists, Creationists not only cannot provide any
evidence—they cannot provide any ideas that could possibly be tested in
the real world to determine the truth or falsehood of their divine Creation
proposal. That in itself should tell you something! By contrast, the theory of
evolution has been repeatedly tested in the real world (through observation
and experimentation) and many of the advances in all the modern sciences
are very strongly rooted in an understanding of its principles.
In addition, like any good scientific theory, the theory of evolution
is open to challenge and to being falsified or proven wrong. What does
An Overview 35
this mean? It means that when scientists have a theory about something,
they make predictions about how, if the theory is TRUE, then it should be
possible to find such and such evidence. But they also indicate what kinds
of evidence would be incompatible with the theory and would prove the
theory to be FALSE. The amazing thing about the theory of evolution is that in
the more than 140 years since Darwin published his major breakthrough theory,
thousands of scientists from all over the world have been able to collect literally
tons of evidence of different sorts which is compatible with and demonstrates the
truth of evolution theory, but no one—not a single person anywhere—has been
able to come up with a single shred of concrete scientific evidence (of the kind that
serious scientists can go out and verify for themselves) that would show the theory
of evolution to be false. And that, my friends, should also tell you something.
Especially since (as many other people have pointed out) anyone who
could somehow manage to prove the theory of evolution to be false would
become an overnight celebrity for having been able to overturn one of the
most solidly held facts in all of science!
It is important to understand that the theory of evolution is not about
one or two simple points: it is a coherent theory made up of many differ-
ent key components which all fit together into a comprehensive whole. If
someone could somehow show any of the key fundamental components of
the theory to be wrong (for instance, by finding fossil evidence the humans
lived at the same time as dinosaurs, to use just one of millions of possible
examples of something which, if found, would be completely incompatible
with our understanding of how evolution has actually taken place) then
the whole theory would go tumbling into oblivion! And yet, in all the time
since Darwin, despite the fact that fanatical Creationists would probably do
just about anything to find any actual shred of scientific proof that evolu-
tion is wrong, nobody has been able to do this.
In the absence of any concrete evidence with which to disprove the
theory of evolution or validate the idea of Biblical Creation, by any means
other than blind faith, and without being able to propose any serious and test-
able alternate scientific theory of their own, Creationists have been reduced
to just trying to “punch holes” in areas of evolutionary theory they think of
as “weak”—often because they don’t understand it in the first place! More
often than not, it seems that their attacks on evolutionary theory do not
stem from principled disagreements but are instead just attempts to create
confusion among people who have not received much scientific education,
to give them a false impression that maybe the theory of evolution is not
on such solid ground after all.
To create this false impression Creationists rely on smoke and outright lies.
No matter how often the evolutionists answer their lies and distortions,
Creationists just keep coming up with more lies and distortions. The famous
paleontologist and evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould used to say that it can
36 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Chapter 1 Endnotes
1. As we will see later on, entire systems can further “diversify” over time when
one “ancestor population” branches out and gives rise to a number of separate
populations, and then certain factors impact the patterns of random variation in
these different populations. The “sorting out” of the relative proportions of variant
individuals from generation to generation may take place very differently in separate
lines and, in time, descendant populations can end up being radically different from
each other, as well as from the ancestral population. In such a way, genuine evolution-
ary “novelties” can arise out of the purely random variation which just happened to
be present in preceding generations.
2. The Creationists of today have the same problem: some of them try to argue
that the “reason” different fossils can be found in different layers is because, at the
time of the supposed 40 Day Flood, spoken of in the Bible, the simpler “less intelli-
gent” creatures sank to the bottom right away, while the more complex and advanced
ones were able to better save themselves at least for a while, and would have kept
swimming and died a bit later on, so that’s how they got buried in the upper layers of
mud. And of course the flying birds would have perched in the treetops and so would
have been among the last to die when the Flood waters rose, according to some of
these Creationists; so, they argue, that must be why bird fossils appear only in the
upper-most geologic layers! Yeah, right.
Traditional Creationists make up many such laughable “explanations” as they
try to cling to their outdated beliefs, but today very few people, even among devout
Christians, can bring themselves to take such fanciful ideas seriously. Among other
things, geologists studying landscapes and the formation of rock layers and conti-
nents have long understood that there has never been a single global Flood as described
in the Bible. And even before Darwin, geologists understood that the layers of the
earth had been deposited one on top of another over hundreds of millions of years and
that the fossilized plants and animals trapped within these different layers had died in
these very different geological eras, spread out over these millions of years, and could
obviously not have died all at once or even over a short (40 day!) period of time.
3. Darwin’s contemporary Alfred Russell Wallace came up with the same basic
breakthrough idea at about the same time.
4. This does not mean, however, that the evolutionary change that has taken
place will necessarily become permanently generalized within the population or con-
tinue in a single “direction.” For instance, evolutionary change could accumulate in a
certain seeming “direction” for a period of time but then a change in environmental
conditions could lead to trends being reversed if the feature in question no longer
brought individuals any reproductive advantage or even became disadvantageous. If
so, over generations, the feature could actually get selected “out” (eliminated from
the population altogether). Variable features in a population which may have some-
what less dramatic positive or negative effects on the relative reproductive fitness of
individuals may simply persist in the overall variable mix of the population without
being either completely eliminated or completely generalized to all individuals, but
with their relative proportions or frequencies changing from generation to genera-
tion and in relation to changes in the external environment.
5. Questions are also being investigated having to do with the contributions
to evolutionary change made by so-called “neutral” mutations; and attempts are
being made to evaluate how much large-scale evolutionary change is the result of
38 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
The Evidence of
Evolution in Action
Is All Around Us
In Chapter 1, we reflected on how significant it is that life-forms on this
planet have not stood still but have actually evolved (changed) over millions
and billions of years. We recalled how, for most of human history, people
really had no way of understanding scientifically how all the plants and
animals, including people, had come to be, so people all over the world
had made up all sorts of imaginative stories about mysterious super-natural
forces they imagined might be responsible for all this (these stories are the
many “origin” and “creation” myths, which became part of the different
religions of the world). It was not until comparatively recently (less than
150 years ago) that the great naturalist Charles Darwin figured out how
life had evolved through purely natural means, over hundreds of millions
of years. The discovery of evolution by means of natural selection—which
thousands of scientists since Darwin’s time have been able to test and verify
over and over again—was one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all
time. Like the Copernican discovery that the earth is not in fact the center
of the universe and that the earth orbits around the sun, rather than the
other way around, the discovery of evolution completely revolutionized
the way people think about the history of our planet and all its life-forms,
including people. From that point on, the science of evolution provided a
foundation upon which all modern science continues to build.
In Chapter 1 we also reviewed a few basics about how evolutionary
change takes place, focusing particularly on explaining that fundamental
mechanism of evolutionary change which is known as Darwinian natural
selection (and we also briefly discussed some additional mechanisms which
contribute to evolutionary change, including genetic drift and founder
effects). In later chapters we will further explore the evidence concerning
the really large-scale (“macroevolutionary”) changes which have taken place
over the course of the past 3.5 billion years of life’s history on this planet
(such as how we really know that mammals were descended from reptil-
ian ancestors, or that whales were descended from a four-legged terrestrial
39
40 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
mammal, or that our own distant ancestors were also the ancestors of the
modern-day chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest living relatives). We will
see that evidence for many of the kinds of major evolutionary changes
which took place in the past hundreds of millions of years can be found in
such things as the patterns of similarities and differences between species (in
both the fossil record and in living species) and in the many particularities of
plants and animals which only make sense if they are in fact consequences
of evolution.
In short, there is lots of concrete evidence about the large-scale evolu-
tionary changes which marked life’s history for the past 3.5 billion years.
But evolution is not just something that happened in the past: it is a process
that is happening all the time, in all living things. So this chapter is going to
start off by bringing out a few examples of the kind of evolutionary change
that we can easily observe taking place all around us. These are the kinds of
evolutionary changes that are taking place within populations and species of
plants or animals and that are sometimes referred to as “microevolution,”
to distinguish them from what is sometimes called “macroevolution,” the
larger-scale patterns of evolution above the species level, involving such
things as the emergence and successive branchings of whole larger taxa
and lineages (groups of groups), spread out over millions and hundreds of
millions of years.1
Until the middle of the 19th century, almost all B. betularia moths were
very light grey in color. Up until that time, the bark of the local trees was
also light in color, so when the moths rested on the tree trunks during the
daytime, they tended to “blend into” the background. Because of this, local
birds looking for insects to eat probably tended to miss a lot of these light-
colored moths. But then an odd thing happened: with the increase in the
development of industry, starting in the late 19th century, the air became
increasingly polluted with black dirt and soot from the local factories; and,
as a consequence of this, the bark of the local trees became much darker.
This in itself was not so surprising. But what was really interesting was that
the local moth populations also became much darker! Pretty soon people
noticed that the light-colored moths had been almost entirely replaced by
moths with black wings. What people were witnessing here was evolution
in action—a classic example of the kind of commonplace evolutionary
changes that happen through natural selection, in this case leading to a strik-
ing adaptation of the moth populations to their changing environment.
This is what happened:
The original population of moths was made up of varied individuals.
Most of them were light-colored, but within the total population there were
a few dark-colored variants. Prior to industrialization, the light-colored
moths greatly outnumbered the darker moths; dark-colored moths would
really show up against the light bark of the trees and, on average, they would
get picked off by birds more often than the better camouflaged light-colored
moths. So, in that particular environment, the light-colored individuals
had what biologists call “a differential reproductive advantage” relative to the
dark-colored moths. This simply means that, since the light-colored moths
tended not to get eaten as often as the dark-colored moths, they were, on
average, better able to survive and therefore were more likely to produce
descendants. Since the genetic variability for wing-color happens to be an
inheritable characteristic, the surviving moths passed on this characteristic
to their descendants, who passed it on to their descendants, and so on. For
as long as the tree bark remained light-colored, light-colored moths had
a “selective advantage” and the moth populations were almost exclusively
made up of light-colored variants. There were still occasional dark variants
around, but they were very rare.
This situation began to change dramatically when the environment
changed and the trees became black with soot: now those very rare individu-
als who just happened to have dark wings (because the genetic information
for black wings had not been completely “lost” from the total genetic pool
of the whole population) were the ones that had a significant reproductive
advantage—they were now the ones birds most often “missed,” and so they
were the ones that, on average, were most often able to survive and produce
descendants. In this way, over a number of generations, the numbers of
42 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
dark moths increased and became a bigger and bigger proportion of the total
population. It got to the point where pretty much the only moths you would
have been likely to see on a given day were the ones with dark wings.
The moth population had evolved!
It is also interesting to note that in more recent years this overall evolu-
tionary trend has apparently reversed itself in some localities: as the quality
of the air has improved, and the amount of industrial soot in the air has
been reduced, the tree trunks have once again become lighter in color. In
step with this environmental change, the populations of moths have once
again evolved, but this time back in the direction of being mainly made up
of the light-colored types. This change was possible because the genetic
information for light-colored wings was still present in the total genetic
pool of the population: even in the days when the population was made up
almost entirely of dark moths, there were always a few light-colored moths
around. They were rare, but the fact that a few such individuals were still
around at each generation was enough to provide the genetic basis for the
proportion of light-colored individuals in the total population to begin to
increase once again when the environment changed and the dark-colored
moths once again became more visible to the bird predators. With every
passing generation, the dark moths on average produced fewer descendants,
and the light moths on average once again produced more descendants.
This classic example of natural selection is all it took for the moth popula-
tion to evolve once again. (See “The Moth Flap” on page 44.)
44
in unpolluted areas (where the trees were All such experimental manipulations are
lighter): in that situation twice as many light obviously “unnatural” in some respects, but
variants as dark variants were recaptured, they nevertheless provide us with valuable
indicating that some factor was significantly information (in this case confirming that
favoring the survival of light variants in the birds tend to more readily pick off the more
unpolluted areas. (c) In addition, Kettlewell conspicuous variant in each environment).
and other scientists actually observed birds Such experimental manipulations are a
disproportionately picking off light moths in perfectly legitimate and necessary part of
polluted environments, and dark moths in scientific research, and for the Creationists
unpolluted environments. (d) Finally, in an to suggest that they represent some kind of
attempt to further confirm this differential semi-fraudulent “staging” is a gross mis-
bird predation experimentally, Kettlewell characterization of fact.
pinned fresh specimens of both light and Kettlewell and his colleagues explained
dark moths to dark tree trunks, and of both how they had designed these experiments,
light and dark moths to light tree trunks. He and there was nothing improper or willfully
then observed and recorded how the birds misleading about their approach. But the
in fact much more rapidly removed the Creationists insist on confusing people by
more readily visible forms in each case—the tossing out a few lies (such as saying that
light moths on the dark background or the moths don’t rest on tree trunks, when in
dark moths on light backgrounds. fact they do), making a few out-of-context
The Creationists have tried to sow references to how Kettlewell “staged” some
confusion about the example of evolution experiments (to make it seem as if they’d
in the peppered moth by saying that moths uncovered some dirty secret or evidence of
do not naturally rest on tree trunks during fraud instead of an openly described and
the day (when they actually do!) and by valid experimental technique), and then
suggesting that Kettlewell’s experiments picking out a few points which might in fact
were “unnatural” and “staged” because be worth further exploring (such as whether
birds would not normally encounter Kettlewell overemphasized the role of lichens
moths pinned to tree trunks. This kind of in moth camouflage) while conveniently
thing is typical of the misleading tactics of managing to leave out any discussion of the
anti-evolution Creationists. Every scientist fact that the totality of observations and
knows that it is perfectly valid to conduct studies of the peppered moth populations
experimental manipulations of nature as leave absolutely no doubt that these moth
part of trying to figure out what’s going on. populations have in fact evolved, and that
people have actually been able to observe
Kettlewell referred to the light moths being this evolutionary change taking place over
particularly well camouflaged when they rested on the just a few decades. Again this is typical
whitish lichens covering some tree trunks in unpolluted of creationist methodology: they often
woods. Lichens are living “crust-like” organisms, com-
posed of a fungus and alga in symbiotic association. combine lies, distortions and very selective
They are often found covering rocks and tree trunks, discussions of only small parts of the overall
and they are very sensitive to air pollution. As industry picture to give people the false impression
developed in England, the whitish lichens covering tree
trunks disappeared in many areas, resulting in darker
that the evidence of evolution must not be
tree trunks. Some recent studies have suggested that such a well-established fact after all, when
Kettlewell may have made too much of the presence in reality nothing could be further from
or absence of these lichens because there is some sug- the truth. As others have pointed out, for
gestion that the proportion of light-colored moths in a
population may begin to increase again whenever air every one of the handful of Intelligent Design
quality improves, even if the lichens which had been Creationists at the Discovery Institute,
killed off by industrial pollution have not yet returned for instance, there are at least ten thousand
to the area. This is an interesting question to further scientists who consider the basic facts of
explore in its own right; but, regardless of the presence
or absence of lichens, it still seems that tree trunks evolution to be among the most solidly
in relatively soot-free unpolluted areas are generally continued on next page
lighter in color than in polluted areas.
45
46 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
very bad consequences for both human health and the health and relative
stability of entire ecosystems. Genetic engineering is a subject for a whole
other discussion best left for another day. But I raise it here in passing to
once again make the point that, if evolution were not true (as the Creationists
would like us to believe), if evolution were not a real phenomenon, then
fields like genetic engineering (and both the good and bad that they are
doing and can potentially do) would not even exist!
The Creationists say they “don’t believe in evolution,” but they cer-
tainly do live in a world where people constantly use the rules of evolution to
transform their world, for better or for worse.
you’d expect if they weren’t working with the same total gene pool to begin
with. As a result, the two populations have been diverging towards becom-
ing two different species, and they are becoming increasingly different in
appearance.5
For instance, the Abert’s squirrels, which live only on the South Rim of
the Grand Canyon, all have a grey body, a reddish back, and a dark tail. The
Kaibab squirrels, which live only on the North Rim, all the way across on
the other side of the Canyon, are grey with a white tail.
As long as they are unable to regularly interbreed and “mix up” their
total genetic variation into one larger genetic pool, the two reproductively
isolated populations will continue to accumulate different changes. They have
already become different in appearance, and it is quite possible that as they
two copies of the sickle cell gene (one from chance of leaving healthy descendants),
each parent) and these individuals would natural selection will tend to “conserve”
likely get severe sickle cell disease and die the sickle cell allele from generation to
without leaving any children at all. If a generation in human populations who live
god were responsible for this suffering and in those regions. And this will happen even
death it would be an outrage! Why would though this will be at the cost of a number
a god give people malaria or sickle cell dis- of individuals who end up inheriting two
ease in the first place? And why would an copies of the gene and getting that severe
all-powerful Creator have to come up with sickle cell disease. Again, natural selection
such a convoluted and imperfect scheme to is not making any judgments, and it is not
protect people against malaria? Surely an consciously favoring some humans over
all-powerful god could do better than that. others: it is simply an unconscious process
Natural selection, however, does not which sorts out the relative proportions of
produce “perfect” solutions. It is a “blind” different inheritable alleles in a population
natural process, which makes no judgments of varied individuals, as a simple by-product
and takes place automatically, without the (nothing more) of how many descendants
involvement of any outside consciousness different individuals are ultimately able to
or the guiding hand of any “intelligent contribute to the next generation.
designer.” Evolution by natural selection Think about this: If you didn’t understand
is neither inherently “good” nor inherently this, if you didn’t understand how evolution
“evil.” It just is. If the only thing the allele actually works, you might mistakenly believe
for sickle cell did was cause a fatal disease, that Black people were somehow being
natural selection would, most likely, have mysteriously singled out for some kind of
eliminated it entirely from human popula- special punishment, since people of African
tions at some point. This is because, if sickle descent tend to get more sickle cell disease
cell genes had no beneficial side effects at all than Europeans, for instance. This is just
and only caused disease, individuals having one more example of why it’s so important for
no sickle cell alleles at all would likely, on everyone to: (a) understand how we know
average, produce more descendants than for sure evolution is a fact of life, (b) learn
people with even one such allele. But because the basics of how evolution works, and
one single sickle cell allele, in combination (c) strongly oppose any religious fundamen-
with a non-sickle cell allele, actually allows talists who try to keep people from learning
people in areas where malaria is a problem these facts. J
to be protected from that disease (and there-
fore likely to live longer and have a better
50 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
51
52 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Author’s Note: At this point in the book, readers may find it helpful to get a
sense of some of the things which will be covered in the remaining chapters. This
will include discussions of such things as adaptation and co-evolution between spe-
cies; more on what we know about the process of speciation (how whole new species
of plants or animals come into being) and where we can look to find trace evidence
of the macroevolutionary changes which took place over millions of years; how the
different categories of evidence from evolution combine to provide strong proof of
evolution, but are completely inconsistent with the idea of a super-natural Creator;
what we know about human evolution and our relationship to the apes; more on
some of the absurd arguments and unscientific methods of the Creationists; how
Intelligent Design theories are still just creationism and just an updated rehash of
old unscientific ideas long proven to be wrong.
54 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Chapter 2 Endnotes
1. It is important to realize that there is lots of concrete evidence for both
microevolutionary changes and macroevolutionary changes. In addition, there is not
some kind of absolute division between the kind of evolution which takes place at
or below the species level and the kind of evolution which takes place at the level of
whole larger lineages of species. Many of the same evolutionary processes are involved
in effecting change at both the micro and macro levels, including natural selection
operating on populations of variable individuals. Macroevolutionary and micro
evolutionary changes are features of different levels and different time scales. We are
able to indirectly reconstruct many aspects of the macroevolutionary changes of the
distant past by studying the trace evidence of those changes which are preserved
in such things as fossils, or the patterns of distribution and degrees of similarities
and differences between living species; we are often able to gather much more direct
evidence of microevolutionary changes as they are taking place, since they are going
on all the time in populations of present-day plants and animals, within more limited
timespans which often make possible direct human observation.
2. Moths are similar in many ways to their close relatives the butterflies, but
unlike butterflies, they are active mainly at night.
3. It is important to realize that particular genes, contained inside individuals, are
not in and of themselves direct targets of selection—it is whole individuals that do or
do not successfully reproduce, contributing offspring with varied features to the next
generation. And it is these whole individuals (each with a complex mix of features
which cannot be simply reduced to the individual’s underlying genetic make-up)
who are targets of the “sorting out process” of selection. In a given environment,
those individuals who end up contributing more descendants to the next generation
will obviously end up having contributed more genes overall to the next generations
than those individuals who did not produce as many descendants. But the underlying
genes themselves do not directly “cause” evolutionary shifts in populations; these
shifts occur when the proportion in a population of whole individuals with certain
characteristics changes (through selection and related factors), and these shifts are
then reflected in changes in certain gene frequencies (some will increase, some will
decrease) in the total population. This, in turn, will affect the total amount of genetic
variability available as raw material for ongoing evolutionary changes.
Keep in mind also that it is not often, in any species, that a single gene (such as
the allele that codes for red eyes in fruit flies) can be so neatly tied to a single charac-
teristic. Geneticists have known for some time now that most of the characteristics
of individuals that are inheritable (the only ones relevant for evolution) are affected
by a number of different interacting genes, acting in concert in some complex and not
yet well understood ways; in addition, most genes have influences and effects on more
than one characteristic at the level of the whole individual organism. Furthermore,
many of the characteristics of whole organisms are shaped by complex interactions
of these whole organisms with their outside environments and therefore cannot be
reduced to the effects of underlying genes. (It is worth remembering that genes are
just sections of DNA that make different kinds of proteins in the body.) Nevertheless,
it is the case that the underlying genetic variability that exists within any population
of plants or animals (and which codes for those features which can be passed on to
descendants) serves as the raw material through which much overall evolutionary
change is realized.
The Evidence of Evolution in Action is All Around Us 55
There is also general agreement about the fact that, regardless of whatever other fac-
tors might have (to a greater or lesser degree) affected the overall tempo and pacing
of these major changes, the well-known mechanisms of basic Darwinian evolution at
the population and species levels would have been part of the “mix.”
Chapter 3
57
58 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
and pollinators, for instance. Some plants don’t make any real noticeable
flowers and reproduce just by releasing pollen (plant sperm cells) into the
wind, where it then drifts along and sometimes happens to land on female
plant ovaries to end up producing a new seed. But in many species of plants,
evolution has developed a mechanism that ensures that successful pollina-
tion is less left up to chance: the plant produces showy flowers, which may
also have a distinct scent, and which contain not only plant reproductive
organs but also an additional pot of honey (plant nectar). The showy flower
petals and the sweet nectar are of no direct “use” to the plants themselves,
but they attract animal pollinators—members of animal species who come
to recognize the flower and to remember that it is in effect a “flag” advertis-
ing a source of food—the nectar. Pollinator species include many species
of flying insects (such as honeybees), some species of birds (such as hum-
mingbirds), and even a few species of bats and monkeys. In all cases the
story is basically the same: The pollinators come to the flower to suck up
the sweet nectar, and in doing so they accidentally pick up pollen (plant
sperm cells) on their bodies at the same time. Then, acting as much more
consistent and reliable pollinators than the wind, they move on to another
flower of the same plant species to get some more nectar; that’s when the
pollen from the first flower gets rubbed off their bodies and enters into the
second flower’s ovaries, where it will serve to produce new seeds. The plant
species has basically evolved a way to “use” the animal species to ensure its
own more successful reproduction, while the animal species has co-evolved
a way to ensure itself a reliable source of food. Both species benefit from
this symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship, though of course neither
the pollinator nor the pollinated is in any way conscious of this process.
What we are seeing is simply the result of a process of natural selec-
tion, taking place over many generations and considerable periods of time.
These particular processes obviously did not take place in all evolutionary
lineages (there are still many plant species that are pollinated simply by the
wind, and there are many animal species which do not serve as plant pol-
linators); and, in any case, evolution was not “bound” to unfold in those
particular directions. But among at least some of the ancestors of modern-
day pollinators, individuals who went to flowers to get nectar must have
reproduced more than those that didn’t; so, as long as the ability to detect
and exploit such a fine food resource was inheritable, it would have spread
to more and more descendants. And among some of the ancestors of
today’s plants, individuals which happened to produce flowers with a pot of
nectar and a showy form of advertisement (bright colors, sweet smells, etc.)
which increased the odds of successful pollination must have had a distinct
reproductive advantage over those that didn’t have these features. Through
simple natural selection, those features would have spread to more and
more descendants as well.
60 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Chapter 3 Endnotes
1. As mentioned earlier, there are processes other than natural selection which
can contribute to the evolution of populations of organisms, including accidental
genetic drift, founder effects and neutral mutations. All these can contribute to a
population evolving merely by causing shifts in the relative frequencies of certain
genes from one generation to the next. These sorts of shifts in gene frequency are
not the result of natural selection. Natural selection is, however, responsible for that
fine-tuning process we call adaptation. At the same time, it is important to keep in
mind that you can’t just look at a feature of an organism and assume it represents an
adaptation. Many features of organisms are not adaptive, and some of them may just
be the result of developmental constraints (limits) or simple by-products attached to
the development of another feature which may itself be adaptive and the result of
natural selection.
2. It is important to remember once again that adaptations are not the only kind
of evolutionary change. For instance, a population might evolve significant differ-
ences relative to the ancestral population from which it is descended when a small
number of individuals find themselves cut off from the larger population when they
migrate into some isolated geographic pocket such as an island, a hidden valley, the
other side of a ridge or some other barrier. Such a small sub-population in its more
isolated pocket just doesn’t have as much genetic variation in its total gene pool as the
larger population it came from. This can make for a loss of some of the raw material
evolution can work with (relative “genetic impoverishment”), but it can also create
conditions for the emergence of evolutionary “novelties” which may be more likely
to emerge accidentally in smaller populations. Phenomena such as genetic drift and
founder effects are important supplements to standard Darwinian natural selection in
contributing to evolutionary change.
64
Chapter 4
65
66 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
understanding how and why new “daughter” species can emerge out of
a “parent” species (speciation) also allows us to better understand what
“drove” life-forms to further subdivide (frequently and repeatedly!) into
so many different plant and animal species. The science of evolution can
answer, for instance, such intriguing questions as why, since bacteria have
proven so successful at maintaining themselves on this planet, life didn’t
simply “stick” with bacteria.
and ruptures which mark the start of a whole new evolutionary line, such as a
new Family or Order, and which begin with particular speciation events, or
with rapid “bursts” of such events.4
Speciation events (the birth of new species) sometimes takes place against
a backdrop of species extinctions (the death of old species), since these are
also part of the ongoing process of evolutionary change, including on the
larger (macroevolutionary) scales. In short, understanding both how new
species come to be and how and why species may go extinct is crucial to
understanding the history of the evolution of life on earth as it has actually
unfolded over billions of years, and as it continues to unfold even today.
It is also important to realize that there is not some big artificial wall separating
microevolutionary change from macroevolutionary change. Macroevolutionary
change has some additional features and characteristics which pertain
to larger-scale “trends” (our knowledge of which keeps expanding) but
it encompasses (and is rooted in) all the well-known mechanisms of micro
evolutionary change, including natural selection.
All this should become clearer as we go along. But first, let’s get rid
of some basic confusion: The emergence of a new species does not mean
that a cat can turn into a dog, or that a fish can turn into a parrot; it does
not mean that you can hold a lizard in your hands and see it turn into a
bird; and, even though humans and the modern great apes (chimpanzees
and gorillas) really are close cousins by evolutionary standards (and we even
share more than 95% of our genes!), that doesn’t mean that one day long
ago some kind of chimpanzee gave birth to a human baby. That is not how
evolution works!
This is why I put so much stress on making sure we all keep in mind
that, while individuals reproduce, it is whole populations that evolve, and
also that they can only do so, step-wise, over many, many generations.
Major evolutionary change is never “instantaneous.”
of frogs might look almost alike and live in the same area but still be repro-
ductively incompatible, simply because they have evolved different mating
calls and so don’t even recognize each other as potential mates. Among
plants (especially flowering plants) new varieties of individuals can emerge
which are “reproductively incompatible” with others in their population
because of polyploidy. Polyploidy refers to a process of “chromosome
doubling” which can occur when plants reproduce. This produces new
individuals which have extra sets of chromosomes. Because of this, they are
no longer “reproductively compatible” with the type of plants from which
they are descended—so they basically represent a whole new species. The
emergence of a brand new species (in just one generation!) through this
kind of chromosome doubling is very rare among animals, but “speciation
by polyploidy” is extremely common among plants—and has been directly
observed many times!5
The main point to keep in mind here is that, throughout both the plant
and animal worlds, “reproductive compatibility” (or the capacity for suc-
cessful interbreeding) is what ends up grouping populations of organisms
together into one single species, and it is also what ultimately separates one
species from another.
Populations of living organisms belonging to the same species often
vary slightly, relative to each other, across a range of geographic distribution.
For instance, some species of birds are made up of different populations
with slightly different color patterns in the Eastern and Western United
States; and populations in the Midwest, where the Eastern and Western
varieties overlap and hybridize (“cross-breed” with each other), are often
intermediate in appearance. Despite these superficial differences, the dif-
ferent populations of such a bird species are still part of one single species,
because they have not lost the ability to interbreed and produce viable and
fertile offspring. In such cases, the different populations are simply consid-
ered different “geographic races” or “subspecies” (as opposed to different
species).
This, of course, is also why biologists understand that all human beings
all around the world are all part of a single species. We may have minor
superficial differences in things like skin color or hair types, but we have
no consistent and fundamental differences—we all share a common gene
pool, and we are all perfectly capable of successfully interbreeding with
each other. Racist theories of racial superiority or inferiority, which confuse
some people into thinking that different human “races” are somehow dif-
ferent “kinds,” have absolutely no basis in scientific fact! We are truly one
single intermingling species, spread throughout the globe.
Organisms can only be said to belong to different species if they are suf-
ficiently reproductively isolated from each other and would therefore no longer be
capable of successfully interbreeding even if they shared the same locality.6
76 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
who inherit these mutations, or they can even produce no noticeable effects
at all (so-called “neutral” mutations which nevertheless contribute to over-
all genetic variability in a population and which may contribute at some
later point to the development of some evolutionary modifications). Both
mutations and the more routine genetic recombinations which occur at every
generation in sexually reproducing organisms can produce traits which, in
a given local environment, put the individual at a reproductive disadvantage
relative to others in the population. In such a case, natural selection will
tend to fairly quickly eliminate this variation from the population. But if a
new trait emerges that provides individuals having this feature with a dis-
tinct reproductive advantage in a given environment (which is more likely
to occur when the environment is itself changing or the daughter species
has moved into a new environment), then natural selection can relatively
quickly spread this new feature through the generations, to greater and
greater numbers of descendants.
It is also important to understand that when reproductively isolated
populations “bud off ” into new species and accumulate really new and
significant evolutionary “innovations” (evolutionary features which did
not exist in their ancestors) they can sometimes expand very rapidly and
spread into whole new habitats, where they can often make use of a whole
range of environmental resources that had never before been available to
the ancestor species. In such circumstances, new species may diversify even
further, and often relatively rapidly, subdividing into a number of additional
daughter species which may have evolved a number of particular “special-
izations” enabling them to become even more finely tuned (adapted) to
specific components of their new environments and to exploit somewhat
different types of food, nesting sites, or other such resources.
This kind of rapid expansion and “adaptive radiation” has been observed
to occur when so-called “founder populations” of just a handful of individual
organisms manage to colonize islands or other relatively “open” habitats
where there are as yet no closely related species, and which may be entirely
lacking the particular competitor and/or predator species that the ancestor
species had to contend with.
This is what happened in the case of a family of birds known as the
Hawaiian honeycreepers, for instance. A single ancestor species of these
birds migrated to these Islands in the past but then rather quickly diversi-
fied (through repeated speciations) into a great number of closely related
species which differ greatly in the shape and size of their beaks. These
differences represent different evolutionary modifications (and in this case
clear adaptations) in relation to an assortment of available food sources.
Studies have shown that even small anatomical modifications in beak size
and shape can greatly affect what kind of food birds are able to exploit.
Among the many closely related species of Hawaiian honeycreepers, there
How Evolution Produces Whole New Species 79
are species with short thin beaks which eat mainly insects, species with thick
stout beaks which eat mainly fruits and hard seeds, and species with long
thin beaks which suck nectar out of flowers. And there are also a number
of species with features that are intermediate between these types. All these
different species are closely related, and are descended from that one single
honeycreeper ancestor species which made it to the Islands.
In the larger-scale history of life on earth this kind of rapid “adaptive
radiation” is also the kind of thing that happened when, for instance, a major
evolutionary innovation such as the emergence of feathers and lightweight
hollow bones suitable for flight “opened up” a whole new environment (the
previously unpopulated skies) to what quickly became a veritable explo-
sion of bird species. Major innovations in one line of descent of organisms
can also have profound ripple effects on other lines. For example, biologists
generally agree that a tremendous increase in the variety of insect, bird and
mammal species in the Cretaceous period, some 140 million years ago, was
in many ways tied into the rapidly increasing diversification of flowering
plants, a relatively recent evolutionary innovation.
Imagine also the tremendous evolutionary “openings” which were
likely encountered by the first species of bony fishes to give rise to the
first primitive amphibians some 400 million years ago! These were the very
first vertebrates to crawl out of the waters and expand onto land. They
emerged as only relatively slight modifications of some bony fishes which
had evolved a couple of anatomical and developmental oddities such as a
lung-like air bladder and stumpy leg-like fins. Both of these features would
ultimately allow some of their descendants to at least occasionally spend
time out of the water. We know from the fossil record that these evolution-
ary modifications did in fact occur among a group of bony fishes known
as the lobe-finned fish (whose living descendants include the very primi-
tive coelacanths and various species of lungfishes). At this point, we can
only speculate about exactly what reproductive advantages the evolution
of air bladders and bony finger or leg-like fins conferred on individuals
having these features: perhaps the air bladders allowed some fish to survive
periods when pools of water occasionally dried out (as is the case in living
lung-fishes), and perhaps modification in the bones of their fins at first
just enabled some species of fish to better escape predators or chase after
other fish, and then later these emerging structures were co-opted for a
new use, to get around on dry land. In any case, fossil skeletons of the very
first land-dwelling four-legged animals (the most primitive salamander-like
amphibians, which looked a lot like fish with legs!) show extremely close
similarities to the skeletons of those water-dwelling lobe-finned fish. And
what is truly amazing is that the basic pattern of bones which make up the
limb structure of all the later four-legged land-dwellers can already be seen in
the underlying structure of the bony fins of those ancient fish ancestors!
80 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
The fossil record reveals that amphibians would diversify greatly for
about 100 million years and also bud off the first reptiles, which would in
turn diversify greatly and bud off the first mammals and birds. But each
one of these truly major departures in the history of life would have had its
origins in simple speciations—the appearance of an increasingly divergent
“daughter” species which became reproductively isolated from its parent
species, and then began to separately accumulate evolutionary modifica-
tions.
How Evolution Produces Whole New Species 81
Chapter 4 Endnotes
1. The sheer quantity and diversity of beetle species led the 19th-century
scientist and proponent of Darwinian evolution T.H. Huxley to humorously (and
sarcastically) quip that, if god had created all of nature, he must have had “an
inordinate fondness for beetles”!
2. Recently a number of prominent Catholic scientists (including Father
George V. Coyne, S.J. of the Vatican Observatory; Nicola Cabibbo of the Pontifical
Academy of Sciences; and Fiorenzo Facchini of the University of Bologna) have
issued statements upholding some key aspects of the theory of evolution. However
it is not the case that the official Catholic Church now fully accepts the theory of
evolution, as some people mistakenly believe. In fact, the new Pope, Benedict XVI,
went out of his way in his very first speech as Pope (his installation homily) to
proclaim “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each
of us is the result of a thought of God,” and he has made reference to “intelligent
design,” stating that: “In the beginning was the creative Word... that created all
things, that created this intelligent design which is the cosmos...” (November 2005
General Audience). These remarks by the Pope (the final authority on Church
doctrine), combined with the even more outright attacks on evolution by lead-
ing Church ideologue Cardinal Schoenborn, make clear that the official Catholic
Church hierarchy is not about to give up on the idea that God was somehow
involved in the earliest origins of life as well as in the evolution of human beings in
particular. The 2004 report of the International Theological Commission entitled
“Human Persons Created in the Image of God” accepts many aspects of modern
evolutionary theory but nevertheless stresses: “Catholic theology affirms that the
emergence of the first members of the human species ... represents an event that
is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be
attributed to divine intervention.”
3. One of the things which reveals that Creationists are fundamentally nonsci-
entific is the way they tend to view different plant and animal species as completely
segregated and unchanging “kinds” in the first place. In reality, every biologist
understands that the boundaries separating living organisms are relative (and not
absolute), that their features tend to blend and blur into each other (instead of being
rigidly compartmentalized), and that no life-form is ever absolutely “unchanging.”
By contrast, the Greek philosopher Plato, who lived about 2,400 years ago, believed
that all things have a fundamental and immutable (unchanging) “essence”; this
view became widespread in his day and remained popular until human beings
began to develop the kind of modern scientific methods and outlooks which have
allowed us to discover that, in reality, all forms of matter—from atoms, to life-forms,
to galaxies—are always undergoing change. In fact, modern science in all the different
fields—and so much of how we use modern science to transform our material
world—is based on that very understanding! At the dawn of the 21st century, isn’t it
about time to let go—once and for all—of outdated, static and “essentialist” views
of things?
4. For those of you who are not very familiar with the biological system of the
“group within group” taxonomic classification of plants and animals according to
their degrees of similarities and relatedness, the following example may be help-
ful: An individual wolf belongs to a reproductive population of wolves in a given
region; all the different populations of wolves scattered throughout the range of
82 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
the wolves make up an entire wolf species. All the different but closely related wolf
species (such as the Red Wolf, the Mexican Wolf, etc.) get grouped into a genus
(the genus Canis, which includes wolves, dogs, and jackals); all the members of
the genus Canis are then also placed, on the basis of shared features, into a larger
Family (the Family Canidae which includes wolves, dogs, jackals, and also foxes
and coyotes, but not, for instance, cats which belong to a different Family); the
Family Canidae is then grouped along with some other Families (still on the basis
of a set of shared similarities) into the larger Order of Carnivores (meat-eaters) and
the still larger Class of the Mammals (animals which have hair, give birth to live
young, produce maternal milk, etc.). So, for instance, wolves would be grouped
with other Carnivorous Mammals, such as dogs, foxes, bears, seals and weasels
(and there is both fossil and molecular evidence that these animals really do share
a relatively close common ancestry). Beyond that, our wolf also belongs to the
Phylum Chordata (all animals having a backbone) and finally, and most obviously,
to the Kingdom of Animals (distinguishing them from organisms belonging to the
distinct Kingdoms of the plants, the fungi, the algae-like protists or the bacteria-
like prokaryotes, which all represented very different evolutionary pathways in the
history of life). In real life, the boundaries between species or higher lineages are
not always perfectly clear, and species sometimes have to be reclassified into new
groups as we learn more about them. But, by and large, the system of biological
classification assigns organisms to each category based on sets of real similari-
ties and differences which actually reflect patterns of inheritance from common
ancestors, and which distinguish them from evolutionary lines that went off in
significantly different directions.
5. How do new polyploid individuals increase in numbers if their extra sets
of chromosomes make them reproductively incompatible with the “standard”
varieties from which they are derived? In the case of flowering plants this is often
accomplished through “self-reproduction” since many flowering plants have both
male and female parts in each flower and are able to pollinate themselves; in addi-
tion they are sometimes able to reproduce with other similar individuals, which
were also produced by chromosome doubling. In either case the numbers of
the new varieties of individuals will increase and in this way the new species can
become more firmly established. It has been estimated that something like half of
the flowering plant species on earth have evolved through polyploidy!
6. You may be familiar with the classic example of the horse and the donkey:
because they are closely related, you can actually get a horse and a donkey to mate,
and they can even produce an offspring capable of surviving which has some char-
acteristics of both parents and which we call the mule. But a mule is what is called a
“sterile hybrid”: it can live and grow, but it is unable to reproduce. To be considered
to belong to the same species, organisms have to pass the so-called “species test”:
they have to be able to mate, and to produce viable offspring (offspring capable of
surviving); and these offspring in turn also have to be able to reproduce. Some spe-
cies are separated by pre-mating mechanisms (they are unable to mate in the first
place for any number of reasons) and sometimes they are separated by post-mating
mechanisms (they can mate but their hybrids are deformed and die, or survive but
can’t reproduce). Applying the “species test,” we can see that horses and donkeys
belong to different (even though closely related) species.
Chapter 5
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84 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
the same time (for instance, when two populations of trees, even in the same
habitat, tend to flower at slightly different times, or when two populations
of closely related animals no longer mate in quite the same season), or
because they have adapted to occupying somewhat different “niches” (subsets of
environmental variables) and to using somewhat different means of exploiting the
resources of the habitats they occupy even in the very same local area (as when
closely related species live and feed at ground level or in the canopy level
[tree-tops] of a rain forest). In the case of many mammal and bird species,
sufficient reproductive isolation for full speciation to take place often seems
to occur when different populations have accumulated significant behavioral
differences in genetically encoded mating rituals or other forms of communication:
in such cases, individuals from two populations no longer recognize each
other as potential mates even if they come across each other in the same
general habitat, and therefore they don’t even attempt to mate.1
larger populations). Mayr points out that people often mistakenly assume
that new species arise only when one species splits into two completely new
species, which are then assumed to both proceed to accumulate evolution-
ary changes at about the same rate. But this misses the fact that an ancestor
species often continues to maintain itself in a given environment even after
a “daughter” species has “budded off,” and that the rate of accumulation of
subsequent evolutionary modifications (as well as the qualitative impacts
of any such changes) may be very different in the smaller reproductively
isolated off-shoot population than in the larger populations of the original
parent species.3
It is also important to realize that smaller off-shoot populations (which
have become reproductively isolated from a parent population) often
encounter different sets of environmental conditions than their parent popu-
lations. This is especially likely to happen if the off-shoot population has
ended up in a very different locality, where it may encounter such things as
different food sources or a different mix of competitors or predators. But
even if the off-shoot population finds itself interacting with what appears to
be a very similar environment as the parent population, it may do so in com-
pletely new ways, simply because changes in the underlying genetic variation
of the population have brought forth some significantly different individual
features. So, for these reasons as well, natural selection may more rapidly
drive especially small reproductively isolated populations to diverge rapidly
away from the parent population.
reason it is rare to get a chance to observe full speciation taking place from
start to finish in the framework of a human lifetime.
to expect that we would start finding their distinct fossils only after such a
process has had a chance to unfold for some time.
Given this, it is all the more amazing that the fossil record is actually as
good as it is!
much more rare and involve much higher overall rates of extinction, cutting
across a broad variety of plant and animal species and lineages. It has been
estimated for instance that more than 90% of then existing species became
extinct during the period of the Permian mass extinction. By the end of the
late Cretaceous period of mass extinction (around 65 million years ago),
all sorts of previously successful plant and animal lineages were essentially
gone, including the last of the many and diverse lineages of dinosaurs which
had been thriving for more than 100 million years. Such examples highlight
the fact that overall life on the planet becomes significantly altered after
periods of mass extinctions: whole assemblages of interacting plants and
animals are gone forever (causing profound ecological reconfigurations),
whereas, conversely, whole other groupings of plants and animals—the
ones which happen to have been less affected by whatever mix of factors
caused a particular wave of mass extinctions—often seem to undergo rapid
population explosions and dramatic bursts of species diversification in the
aftermath of these periods of mass extinctions.
Some of the large-scale environmental changes which are thought to
have contributed to global mass extinctions include such things as the rise
or fall of sea levels, increases or decreases in coastal or other terrestrial
habitats, global warming or cooling trends, changes in atmospheric gases,
increased volcanic activity, sudden impacts by asteroids or meteorites,
decreases in sunlight available for plant photosynthesis, etc. Combinations
of a number of such factors are likely to have been involved in most periods
of mass extinctions. For instance, the mass extinction of about 250 million
years ago (which nearly wiped out all life on the planet) is thought by some
to have been caused by an increase in volcanic eruptions, leading to sig-
nificant global warming, which may in turn have altered oceanic currents
and sharply reduced the amount of oxygen getting down to the deeper
waters, thereby causing massive die-offs of marine life. Whatever the par-
ticular factors involved in any given period of mass extinctions, it is clear
that significant global changes in climate and other environmental factors
can significantly (and even rather abruptly) increase the “normal” rates of
species extinction by dramatically altering the physical and biotic features
of the natural habitats in which plant and animal species had earlier evolved
and in which many had been able to successfully maintain themselves for
extensive periods of time.
The effects of some of the large-scale climate and other environmental
changes which are thought to contribute to some mass extinctions would
have been spread out over fairly long periods of time, and in this way may
have exerted some relatively “gradual” effects on the overall survival or
extinction rates of various plant and animal lines (and it is important to keep
in mind that mass extinctions are never “instantaneous” in any case). On the
other hand it has by now become rather clear that some truly “sudden”
More on Reproductive Isolation, Speciation and the Emergence of Evolutionary Novelties 93
Chapter 5 Endnotes
1. Sometimes the mechanism of reproductive isolation seems even more subtle
but just as effective: for instance, studies have shown that some populations of closely
related insects can become reproductively separated simply as a result of feeding on
different species of neighboring plants. And new plant species have been observed to
emerge when two related but distinct plant species, which occupy the same habitat
but which are normally reproductively isolated due to genetic factors (such as chro-
mosomal incompatibilities), cross-fertilize and produce sterile hybrids. Normally,
such hybrids, like the sterile mules, would not be able to produce any descendants;
however, in plants it seems that it is not all that rare for the chromosomes of such
sterile hybrids to spontaneously double (a phenomenon known as polyploidy), which
essentially has the effect of restoring these hybrids’ ability to produce descendants—
though they are now effectively members of a new species! It is thought that a great
many of the 260,000 or so species of living plants evolved as distinct modifications of
ancestor species through such instances of polyploidy.
2. It is important to realize that changes in the gene frequencies and overall
genetic diversity of populations can come about as a result of chance events, and not
just as a result of natural selection operating on that population. For instance, new
individuals may just happen to migrate into an area, introducing additional genetic
material into a population, or, conversely, the overall genetic diversity of a population
can be reduced by genetic drift, when specific genetic alleles (variants of genes) are lost
from a population simply due to the accidental deaths of individuals or the accidental
wipe-out of even a whole section of the population.
3. There is some experimental evidence to support this view, and it is thought
by many that the more limited amount of total genetic variation in the smaller
population at the very onset of speciation may actually contribute to a “relaxing” of
some genetically encoded developmental constraints (limiting factors) present in the
genetically more complex larger population, and that such a “relaxing” of develop-
mental constraints may facilitate genetic reshufflings that can lead to the emergence
of brand new features.
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100 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
them features which clearly link them to each other, as well as to some
pre-existing species from which they evolved.
The theory of evolution predicts that if the different plant and animal
species did not, in fact, come out of “nothing,” then we should be able to
find within their bodies (as well as in their patterns of distribution across
the planet) lots of concrete clues as to what it is they did come out of.
And that’s exactly what we do find.
The fact that there is such a tremendous “consilience of evidence” for evolu-
tion— meaning that there are so many different types of evidence coming
from so many different directions but all pointing to basically the same
conclusions—is one of the main things I’d like readers to remember from
this book. The great consilience of evidence from so many different sources
is one of the reasons the vast majority of scientists consider the theory of
evolution to be one of the most “robust” (rock solid) and most well-documented
theories in the entire history of science.
evolved from a group of reptiles which at an earlier time had evolved from
a group of fish. The embryos’ gill slits and tails are just evolutionary rem-
nants (“left-overs”) from those earlier ancestors.
2) Vestigial (“remnant” or “left over”) features
Even after birth, we can see that the individuals of many species often
retain features that are not functional (of no use) or that in some cases
are even maladaptive (worse than useless). For instance, in some species
of plants which today have completely separate male and female flowers,
there are still some small (and non-functional) remnants of female parts
(pistils) on male flowers, and small (non-functional) remnants of male parts
(stamens) on female flowers! Something this bizarre certainly wouldn’t
make any sense if a god had created living species in line with some kind
of conscious and intelligent master plan. But once again it does make sense
according to evolution: these non-functional remnants of male or female
parts are just carry-overs from past ancestors which produced both male
and female functional parts in one single type of flower (as many species
still do today).
Or how about the bodies of baleen whales? They still contain some
very small, undeveloped and apparently completely useless pelvic bones
(hip bones) which aren’t even attached to other parts of their skeletons.
These structures are irrelevant in streamlined bodies adapted to moving
through water—they are just evolutionary left-overs from when the whales’
ancestors lived on land and had legs connected to hip bones.
Or why is it that so many species of blind cave fish (and other organisms
which spend their entire lives in dark caves) have eyes, even though these
eyes are completely non-functional? Why do they have eyes at all? Would a
god design anything so nonsensical? The truth is that these cave organisms
are descended from species which used to have functional eyes and which
lived in more light-filled environments. Why do some insects have vestigial
non-functional “wings” even though they don’t fly? Simply because they are
descended from ancestor species that had wings and could fly!
And just look at people: we still have the remnants of a tail-bone; we
have a backbone and abdominal muscles much like those of the four-legged
mammals, but which leave us open to back pain and which barely hold
in our vital organs (because they weren’t “designed” to be carried around
vertically!); and we have an appendix (a small remnant of a prior ancestor
species’ intestinal sack) which not only is of no use to us but which can
sometimes kill us when it gets clogged up and infected! What kind of god
or other “intelligent designer” would design organisms with such useless,
imperfect, wasteful, and sometimes even harmful physical features?
The fact is that none of these vestigial structures (and there are many
others) make any sense unless they are just evolutionary “carry-overs” from
different pre-existing ancestors. It is very important to understand that the
Evolution is a Proven Fact – The Evidence is Concrete and Comes from Many Different Directions 105
4) Convergence
Convergent features are features that look similar and often perform
similar functions, but which are made up of different underlying parts and
are not derived from the same ancestral feature. For example, the eyes of
vertebrates (animals having backbones) and the eyes of cephalopods (a
group of soft-bodied invertebrates, which includes squids and octopus)
perform similar functions (seeing), but they came about through a different
set of evolutionary modifications of some different underlying structures.
Similarly, the fins of fish and the fins of whales might look to us somewhat
alike, and they do perform some of the same functions (slicing through
water) but they also are the result of the evolutionary modification of
different anatomical structures which existed in their respective ancestors.
Pandas can grasp and manipulate bamboo shoots with what looks (and
functions) like a “thumb,” but these so-called “thumbs” are not true finger
bones—they turn out to be a modification of a wrist bone of one of their
ancestor species. What all these kinds of examples show us is, first of all,
that there is more than one way to evolve a particular functional capacity—but
also that the particular way it evolves (out of exactly what pre-existing struc-
ture) depends on what material happened to be available for modification
in the population of immediately preceding ancestors.
Sometimes entire communities of plants or animals show evidence of
convergent evolution: The great variety of life-forms on earth is testament
to the fact that biological evolution is a very creative process and that natural
selection is a very powerful mechanism for shaping change in all living crea-
tures. A good illustration of this is the evolutionary convergence of entire
communities of plants and animals which have evolved striking similarities
of form and function, even though they live in completely different parts
of the world and may not even be at all closely related. There are many
examples of this in both plant and animal lines. For instance, certain cactus
species living in North American deserts (such as the Organ Pipe cactus)
look so much like some of the species in the Euphorb family of plants in
southern Africa that you could hardly tell them apart. And yet these two
plant families are not at all closely related to each other—they represent
two different splits from earlier lines of plant ancestors, and their current
striking similarities of form and function evolved later (and independently),
simply as a result of natural selection producing similar adaptations in rela-
tion to similar environments (in this case, dry deserts). A similar example
would be the four unrelated families of birds which independently evolved
beak adaptations which allow them to suck nectar out of flowers: the hum-
mingbirds of North and South America; the honeycreepers of Hawaii; the
sunbirds of Africa; and the honey-eaters of Australia. They represent dif-
ferent evolutionary lines among the birds but, over a very long period of
Evolution is a Proven Fact – The Evidence is Concrete and Comes from Many Different Directions 107
to have been even further aggravated in human beings when the evolution
of fully upright walking was accompanied by further changes in the relative
positioning of the head and throat.
And, again, human beings weren’t even “optimally designed” for upright
walking, one of our most distinctive features. As much of an advantage as
fully upright walking may have been for our species, it also created new
stresses on the bones and muscles of the body. This is because we did not
“come out of nothing,” and our upright bodies could only evolve on the
basis of what came before us—the preexisting bodies of our non-upright-
walking ancestors. So, like every other species on earth, human beings have
many body features which no doubt could have been much improved if any
outside “intelligent designer” had been involved in creating us—unless that
“designer” had a truly sick and twisted mind! Again, which do you think is
more likely—that god designed people with throats that make it easy for
them to choke and with chronic tendencies to back pain, or that the choke-
prone configuration of human throats and the stresses on the back and
knee joints, etc., are simply the not-so-perfect results of a series of body-
plan realignments which took place when some of our not-fully-upright
ape ancestors evolved into fully upright hominids (human ancestors)?
Concrete evidence of evolution can be found in all of nature’s many
odd quirks and imperfections. And it turns out that the specific ways in which
evolution is not perfect can actually provide a lot of information about the
actual sequence of previous evolutionary steps that went into any new evo-
lutionary development. For instance, as mentioned earlier, if you line up the
fossils of a dozen or so hominid species by age from oldest to most recent
(spanning a few million years), you can see that the first of the upright-
walking species of hominids did not immediately have all the features that
we think of as fully human: what you see is that those first upright-walking
species still had, among other things, very ape-like small skulls and brains
and ape-like long arms and short legs, even though they were already very
different from their ape ancestors in being able to stand and walk upright;
and you also see that some of the later hominids, which were evolution-
ary derivations of those first hominids, eventually included species which
had body shapes and proportions and brain sizes much more like those of
modern humans. But all this didn’t happen all at once—it happened over
millions of years.
The evidence is clear: the evolution of life involves “imperfect” step-
wise modifications of whatever pre-existing (and historically limited and
constrained) living raw material happens to be at hand at a given time—not
the handiwork of an infinitely wise and powerful deity.
6) Geographic distribution of species around the world
The patterns of distribution of many groups of plants and animals
around the world make no sense unless they are descended from common
Evolution is a Proven Fact – The Evidence is Concrete and Comes from Many Different Directions 111
be made to fit consistently into such a “group within group” pattern. You
can, for example, make a list of the names and features of all the known
chemical elements, or you can make a list of all the known minerals and
their features. But you won’t be able to make all the basic chemical ele-
ments connect up with each other and fit into any kind of consistent and
comprehensive “group within group” nested hierarchy of chemicals simply
on the basis of their shared features. And you can’t do it with all the differ-
ent kinds of mineral elements either. Why not? Because all those chemical
elements didn’t evolve out of pre-existing chemical elements, and all those
minerals didn’t evolve out of pre-existing minerals. There is therefore no
way to draw consistent lines of family ties which could successfully encom-
pass and connect either all the chemical elements or all the minerals into
nested hierarchies of successively bigger groups based solely and at every
step on shared sets of features.
All biological species, however, do fit into a pattern of nested hierarchy,
and even some non-living things fit that pattern when they too really are
directly related by consistent lines of descent. For instance, all the many
thousands of human languages can be classified into a “group within group”
nested hierarchy of “ancestor” and “descendant” languages, because each
one came into being as a result of a process of direct “descent with modi-
fication” from a series of pre-existing ancestor languages, from which they
can be shown to have “inherited” many features of vocabulary and syntax
(rules of grammar, etc.). French, Spanish, and Italian, for example, are all
closely related languages, and each represents a slightly different modifica-
tion of a single older “ancestor” language (Latin). The simple fact that all
current human languages (unlike all minerals or chemical elements) can
fit into a pattern of nested hierarchy classification actually proves that the
different human languages did not develop separately but rather “one out
of the other.” Similarly, the fact that all biological species also fit into such a
pattern is just one more clear piece of evidence that life-forms really didn’t
appear all at once as separate unrelated “kinds” (as the Bible says) and that
they have indeed evolved one out of the other, though a series of shared
ancestors. (See “A Conscious ‘Intelligent Designer’ Wouldn’t Design Life The Way
It Is,” left.)
I literally cannot think of any other scientific theory, in any field of sci-
ence, that is as well supported by demonstrated fact and by so many different
lines of mutually reinforcing evidence as the theory of biological evolution.
How much more proof does anyone really need? Many scientists are get-
ting pretty frustrated and angry that a bunch of fundamentalist Christian
Creationists, bent on promoting know-nothingism in the service of a
reactionary political agenda, and backed by powerful forces in society, are
actually managing to get in the way of people getting a genuine science
education and learning just how strong the evidence of evolution really
114 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
is. These people will do anything in their power—distort the truth, spread
outright lies, and even threaten and intimidate—to try to force people to
accept and submit to a literal interpretation of the Biblical story of Creation,
even though all the scientific evidence which has accumulated over the past
century and a half shows this doesn’t hold water.
Paleontologists can show you all sorts of fossils, from all over the world,
which clearly demonstrate sequences of evolutionary modifications and
many of the successive “splitting” and branching events which characterize
the different plant and animal evolutionary lines. Comparative anatomists
and developmental biologists can also show you very concrete proof that
all plants and animals are made up of parts that have retained significant
features of species which preceded them in time, combined with new
parts that are obviously the result of a modification of a corresponding
part in an older species. Molecular biologists in just the last few decades
have compared the DNA and other molecules of all sorts of species and
have figured out the degree of relatedness of different species and at what
times in the past different splits happened in their family trees—and while
many molecular biologists don’t know much about fossils or comparative
anatomy (just as many paleontologists and anatomists don’t know much
about molecular biology) it is a fact that scientists in these very different
fields (and in many other fields of science) have come up with the very
same basic conclusions about the basic evolutionary tree of life which con-
nects all living and extinct species.
Every working biologist can rattle off tons of examples of the features
of organisms and communities of organisms (vestigial features, homolo-
gies, examples of convergent evolution, etc.) which can be explained quite
simply through evolution but which cannot be rationally explained in any
other way. And, as we previously discussed, evolutionary biologists, popu-
lation geneticists, and community ecologists have actually verified many
of the predictions of the theory of evolution experimentally (both in the
lab and in natural populations), conducting many thousands of studies and
experiments which show evolution in action in all sorts of plant and animal
lines and which have helped to decipher many of the mechanisms involved
in evolutionary change.
None of these scientists, in any of those fields of science, have ever
turned up a single piece of concrete evidence which disproves (or in any
way fundamentally contradicts) the basic facts of evolution. So again, I ask
you: how much more proof does anyone really need?
Evolution is a Proven Fact – The Evidence is Concrete and Comes from Many Different Directions 115
Chapter 6 Endnotes
1. As we discussed earlier, there are now various modern scientific techniques
which allow us to date different fossils (determine their relative age). So scientists
have been able to use these dating techniques to further verify and confirm the basic
phylogenies (the basic sequences of ancestor and descendant species and lineages
which make up the tree of life) that had already been established simply on the basis
of comparing the similarities and differences in the anatomy and development of
different species and larger groupings of plants and animals.
2. For instance, the basic structure of some genes, such as some of those
involved in the regulation of aspects of growth and development of body parts, have
apparently remained so constant over millions of years that they can be found, in
essentially equivalent form, in organisms as different (and as evolutionarily distant) as
bacteria and fruit flies! Similarly, the chemical structure of the hemoglobin protein in
the blood of human beings and chimpanzees is almost exactly the same, even though
the human line and the chimpanzee line split from a shared ancestor some 5 million
years ago and have been evolving separately ever since.
3. And, to take into account the fact that any one type of biochemical molecule
might not always have changed at such a constant rate, results can be further cross-
checked by repeating these calculations, using more than one type of biochemical
molecule.
116
Chapter 7
Who are we? Where did we come from? What might the future be
like?
These are questions human beings have probably been asking them-
selves for as long as there have been human beings. It’s one of the things
that makes us human—this ability to think and wonder and converse with
each other not just about present-day events, but also about what happened
in the past, or about what might happen in the future. No other living
species on this planet can do that. It is this very ability which allows us
to learn from the accumulated knowledge and traditions of our ancestors
(some of which we may want to tap into and some of which we would no
doubt do better to discard, but all of which we can learn from in any case);
and it is this ability which allows generation after generation of human
beings to keep building onto the accumulating storehouse of knowledge
and experience, both by revising and modifying past understanding, and
by gaining additional new insights in light of our ongoing explorations and
transformations of the world around us.
But for all this inspiring ability, we humans also seem to have the ability
and the tendency to just “make stuff up” when we simply don’t yet know
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118 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
they need religion in the first place, but it also has to do with: (a) the simple
fact that, for most of the time human beings have existed, we did not yet
have the scientific methods and scientific outlooks (and hadn’t yet made
the kind of scientific discoveries) which could give us real answers about
where people came from, based on fact, rather than on myth and supersti-
tion; and (b) a genuine scientific knowledge and understanding of things
has traditionally been denied to the majority of humanity as a direct result
of the social divisions and inequalities that exist throughout the world—a
situation which continues to this day.
Today science can clearly and definitively answer the basic question:
“where did we come from?” Ever since Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking
work on the evolution of life was published in 1859, scientists have increas-
ingly been able to understand and scientifically demonstrate how all the
different forms of life on this planet (all the plants and animals, including
people) are related to each other by varying degrees, and the fact that all the
different species evolved (originated and changed), over hundreds of millions
of years, through a process known as “descent with modification,” out of a
series of common (shared) ancestors. And it is now very clear that this process
was shaped in large part by that prime mechanism of evolutionary change
known as natural selection.2
Evolution by natural selection operating on populations of varied
individuals was Darwin’s “great idea,” but the fact that evolution occurs
in this way is no longer just an “interesting idea” or “unproved theory” or
speculation—it is a well-tested scientific fact: it can even be said that pretty
much the entire progress made in biology and related sciences between
the beginning and the end of the 20th century (and continuing today) has
constituted one long “proof ” of Darwin’s basic theory of evolution. By
now it has been demonstrated, well beyond the shadow of a doubt, that
life has in fact continuously evolved over the past 3.5 billion years, that life is
continually evolving, and that much of both small-scale and large-scale evo-
lutionary change takes place through the unconscious mechanism known
as natural selection. Modern science has not only proved that evolution
occurs but has demonstrated how it occurs, including through discoveries in
the science of genetics and molecular biology, which did not yet even exist
in Darwin’s time.
The evidence of past evolution is all around us, in every living species
and in every fossil of long dead species. And there are literally thousands
of scientific studies which have shown us that evolution is still going on
all around us. Populations of living plants and animals are always chang-
ing (evolving) over many successive generations (not “instantly”) thanks to
natural selection and related phenomena.
120 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
beings are “no different than apes in a zoo.” But that is not the case. The
truth is that evolutionists tell people that there is plenty of concrete proof
that: (1) humans are in fact descended from ape-like ancestors; (2) modern
apes, like chimpanzees, are very closely related to humans; (3) humans and
apes still share many physical and behavioral features; (4) human beings
also have some unique evolutionary features all their own, which obviously
result in humans being quite different in many ways from their closest living
ape relatives.
Creationists also like to claim that if schools and textbooks teach our
kids that they are descended from animals, then the kids will just “act like
animals” and sink into wanton immorality. This too is a ridiculous asser-
tion, which profoundly disrespects youth, their families, and their ability to
handle the truth. And it also once again fails to recognize that the fact that
human beings evolved out of earlier non-human species doesn’t mean that
we don’t have some special and uniquely human features which distinguish
us from even our closest relatives among other species. The ways we act
(for better or for worse) are—and can only be—distinctly human.
The science of evolution reveals that if you could walk back through
time, through the entire series of ancestor species which make up our
heritage, you would find not only the long series of pre-human ape-like
species which make up our most direct ancestors, but way back before
them you would eventually get back to the very first mammals (from
which all later mammals, including such different species as bears, whales,
dogs and people were all eventually derived, though at different points in
evolutionary history). Those first mammal ancestors of all later mammals
were rat-sized creatures that lived at the time of the dinosaurs. They them-
selves had evolved from a branch of mammal-like reptiles, and the first
representatives of the reptiles in turn had evolved from a branch of some
of the first amphibians (the group to which salamanders, frogs and toads
belong) which were the very first creatures to crawl out of the water and
walk on land. These in turn had evolved out of a particular branch of the
marine fishes (whose bony fins and air bladders had formed a basis for the
stumpy legs and primitive lungs of the first species to crawl out onto land
and breathe there). As for the fish, they had evolved quite a bit earlier from a
branch of marine invertebrates (animals without backbones), which had in
turn evolved from some even simpler and more primitive marine creatures,
going back all the way to some of the very first bacteria-like forms of life
which started the whole evolutionary show going, and which would have
looked like little more than a few strands of DNA surrounded by some
simple cell membrane.
So, if you really want to talk about human roots and ancestry and get the
full picture, don’t just talk about our ape ancestors—take it all the way back!
Take it all the way back to those first bacteria-like creatures which emerged
122 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
out of the chemical soup of the world’s early waters some 3.5 billion years
ago and recognize them as your ancestors too!
I don’t know about you, but I don’t find this history frightening or
disturbing in any way. Personally, I think it’s actually pretty wild and won-
derful that we got to be what we are today thanks to such a diverse mix of
interrelated ancestor species. But recognizing the scientific evidence for all
this doesn’t mean that we’re all going to start acting like bacteria, fish, or
apes! We can only “be,” and act like, what we actually are—a distinct and
rather unique species, Homo sapiens.
But, some might ask, if we are in many ways distinct and unique as a
species, then why bother trying to find out about the previous species we
evolved out of ? Are we just trying to put together some kind of evolution-
ary photo-album of long gone ancestors? What is the point? Well, some
people might want to study our origins and immediate ancestors just out
of general interest and curiosity (and there is certainly nothing wrong with
that!). But I would say that, beyond that, it is important to try to learn as
much as possible about the pre-existing species from which the human spe-
cies was derived for two basic reasons:
1) To help free ourselves from illusions about the supernatural
The more we learn about the concrete reality of human evolutionary
origins, the more people are likely to free themselves from all sorts of
superstitions and belief in the supernatural—beliefs which I would argue
are not just out-of-date, but actively harmful to human beings. Many people
who believe we were created by some kind of supernatural spirit also tend
to rationalize all sorts of social ills and injustices, which they often explain
away by saying, “it’s just God’s will” or “God works in mysterious ways.”
And many people passively wait for that same spirit to come to humanity’s
rescue, instead of taking some initiative to do something about social ills
and injustices themselves. But if we understand the actual facts of modern
science, and that human beings, while special and unique in many ways, are
nevertheless simply the result of a very long and completely unconscious
process of biological evolution and natural selection that has been operat-
ing on all living things for billions of years, then I suspect this will help
many of us put things in proper perspective and that we will spend a lot less
time looking to the skies and some supernatural spirits for salvation and instead
look more to ourselves—to each other—to figure out what needs to be done.
2) To better understand who we are and our own needs and capabilities
The more we understand our own evolutionary origins, the more I
think we will understand at one and the same time that our own species is
closely intertwined, interconnected and interdependent with many other
forms of life on this planet, and that the human species therefore can’t (and
doesn’t) “go it alone.” One important implication of this is that it can help
The Evolution of Human Beings 123
understand the many features apes and humans still have in common,
which are also likely to have been features possessed by the shared ancestor
of humans and apes which lived a few million years ago and from which
both the human line and the chimpanzee line separately diverged. Studying
living apes can also provide us with a better understanding of the ways in
which modern humans are different from apes in some unique ways, and
this can also help us reconstruct what were likely some of the most critical
steps taken in the evolutionary path to becoming fully human.
Many people observing apes in zoos, on TV, or in the wild can’t help
but be struck by their obvious physical similarities to human beings, and
even by some of their many “almost-human” basic behaviors (the way they
play, handle objects, or discipline or comfort a youngster, for instance).4 To
a scientist specializing in anatomy (the form and function of different parts
of the body) the similarities are even more evident: most of our basic body
parts (our bones and organs) are strikingly similar to those of apes, and this
in itself is a big clue as to our shared ancestry. Some of our more apparent
differences include: differences in body proportions (humans have relatively
shorter arms and longer legs) and the fact that we have relatively hairless
skin, a more fully mobile thumb, and a skull that is aligned with our spine
in such a way that we can stand, walk and run fully upright (rather than by
leaning forward on our knuckles much of the time the way apes do). We
humans also have proportionally much bigger brains, and a much more
developed capacity for complex language. These are some of our most
obvious differences. But, on the other hand, our similarities include the fact
that our blood proteins and DNA molecules are almost identical to those of
chimps: most molecular biologists agree that there is only something in the
order of a 3% to 5% difference between the DNA sequences of humans and the DNA
sequences of chimpanzees!
It is known that the longer two lines evolve away from a shared ances-
tor the more differences will be found in their DNA. Analysis of DNA
similarities and differences shows us, for example, that living African apes
are more closely related to humans than to any monkeys, a group which
evolved earlier in primate evolution. Most significantly, the fact that there
is still roughly a 95 to 98% similarity between the DNA of humans and the
DNA of chimpanzees proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that our two
species are extremely closely related. In fact, molecular biologists have been
able to work back from this data to calculate that we still shared a common
ancestor with chimpanzees as recently as about 5 million years ago, which
on the overall evolutionary time scale is not very long ago. (See “Chimp and
Human DNA: How Close Are We?” right.)
The Evolution of Human Beings 127
years old (and which are clearly anatomically modern humans); fossils of
a number of different hominid species which are in the range of 1-2 mil-
lion years old (which are not quite anatomically like modern humans but
some of which already show some of the critical physical features which
distinguish humans from apes and from earlier hominids); and quite a few
fossils of different hominid species that lived around 3 to 4 million years ago
(which were still very ape-like in many features, but nevertheless were able
to walk fully upright).
Hominid fossils that are older than 4 million years old are still very rare.
One recent find (from the African country of Chad) is the 7-million-year-
old skull, nicknamed Toumai, of what may have been an upright-walking
hominid. Various experts in the field are currently reviewing the evidence
(including where on the skull the neck muscles attached, which can provide
evidence about bipedalism) and not everyone is completely convinced that
this creature walked fully upright. However, if this fossil ends up being con-
firmed as having been bipedal, this find would represent the closest we’ve
yet come to finding remains of hominids who lived at, or very close to, the
time of the first divergence of bipedal hominids from a line of African apes.
(See “Was Toumai One of Our Ancestors?” right.)
Some scientists think bipedalism itself may have evolved (and died out)
more than once among the ancestral ape lines. Whether or not that is the
case, it is now very clear that the story of human evolution is not some kind
of simple straight-line story of how a single long ago ape species gave rise
to a single bipedal hominid species which then went on to produce modern
humans. It’s much more complicated than that: We now know for sure that,
in between those non-bipedal African ape ancestors and modern humans, there have
been successive waves of many different upright-walking hominid species. Some of
these bipedal species survived for hundreds of thousands or even a million
or more years before going extinct. Some were our direct-line ancestors,
and some were more like side-branches of our greater hominid family
(side-branches which eventually died out without leaving any modern-day
descendants). Overall, the pattern of hominid evolution looks much more
like a richly branching “bush” than like any kind of straight-line path or
“ladder” from ape to human. Studies of the similarities and differences of
various hominid species that lived at different times in the past 5 million
years has provided a great deal of concrete proof that modern humans
evolved through a series of step-wise evolutionary modifications—starting with
the most ape-like of our hominid ancestors, and then unfolding through a
series of successive descendant species, many of which had features that
were clearly intermediate between apes and modern humans, and then
finally producing our own fully modern human species roughly 200,000
years ago.
The Evolution of Human Beings 129
Was Toumai One of Our well as some other experts, are convinced
Ancestors? that Toumai walked upright because of
some features of where its muscles attached
The term “hominids” includes all the spe- to its skull. If this is right, Toumai would
cies that are considered to be more closely represent the oldest bipedal hominid ever
related to humans than to chimpanzees. found and could literally be the first bipedal
We know for sure (from the molecular DNA species to diverge from a non-bipedal
evidence) that bipedal (upright-walking) ancestral ape line. However, some scientists
hominids split off a bit more than 5 million are currently expressing some doubts that
years ago from the line of African apes that Toumai’s skull proves conclusively that it
also gave rise to the modern chimpanzees. walked upright like the hominids of 3 to 4
Thanks to an abundance of fossils, we also million years ago. And even if it did, it may or
have quite a bit of information about the may not turn out to be a direct-line human
many upright-walking hominid species (and ancestor, as it may turn out to have evolved
there were a lot of them!) that lived in Africa along one of the many other “branches” of
beginning around 3 to 4 million years ago. the hominid family tree which eventually
But fossils older than 4 million years or so reached an evolutionary dead end.
are few and far between, in part because Regardless of whether the scientific con-
populations of the earliest bipedal homi- sensus ends up concluding that Toumai was
nids would necessarily have been small, and fully bipedal or not, this discovery is impor-
because environmental conditions at the tant, including because it provides proof
time were wetter and not as conducive to that it is possible (though difficult) to find
fossil formation. hominid fossils that are more than 5 million
Recently a 7-million-year-old skull was dis- years old, and that at least some of these fos-
covered in the Sahara, far from the usual sites sils may be found in parts of Africa which are
of early hominid fossil discoveries in Eastern far removed from the parts of Eastern and
and Southern Africa. It has been dubbed Southern Africa that have so far produced
Sahelanthropus tchadensis and nicknamed most of the hominid remains. J
“Toumai.” Its discoverer, Michel Brunet, as
130 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Again, back in Darwin’s day the idea that humans were descended from
ape-like ancestors was still just an untested idea—Darwin and a number
of other scientists were pretty sure this is what had happened, basing their
informed speculation on (a) the fact that humans had many anatomical
similarities with apes; and (b) the fact that all the other forms of life on
earth were quite obviously the product of the evolutionary modification
of various pre-existing species. So Darwin and his friends and colleagues
(and T.H. Huxley in particular) suspected that humans would not turn out
to be an exception to this rule. But, of course, the religious authorities of
Darwin’s day went nuts, as their whole belief system and mode of existence
was evidently very threatened by the suggestion that human beings might
simply be the product of natural biological evolution, rather than some
kind of special separate Creation of a supernatural being. Darwin himself
was cautious about this, both because he kept getting mercilessly attacked
by the religious fundamentalists, the popular press, and others whose
beliefs were challenged by Darwin’s discoveries, and because he knew that
he didn’t yet have enough solid evidence to make the case for human evolu-
tion the way he could for so many other species.
Darwin knew that, if humans had indeed evolved out of some pre-
existing ape-like species, it should be possible to dig into old layers of rock
and find fossil bones linking the human line to the ancestor ape line, but
this hadn’t yet been done. In fact, before Darwin’s time people had not even
known enough to begin to look for such fossils (the very first such fossils
to be dug up—the ones we know as Neanderthals—weren’t discovered
until the late 19th century, around the time Darwin’s breakthrough work,
the Origin of the Species, was published). But, from that point on, scientists
discovered many hominid fossils, transitional between ancient apes and
modern humans.
Hominid fossil finds really took off in the 20th century (especially
thanks to the pioneering work of three generations of the Leakey family
working in Eastern Africa), and have been especially numerous in recent
decades. Today the problem is not the lack of fossils but the fact that there
are so many, and that new ones are being uncovered with such frequency
that it can be a real challenge to get them all properly sorted out in relation
to each other. As we begin the 21st century, we are able to reconstruct a big
part of our family tree, but new fossil discoveries of varied species of related
hominids keep adding more information to the mix and frequently cause
scientists to revise or fine-tune the exact sequence and degree of relation-
ships linking the different hominid species to the older ancestor ape species
in one direction, and to the only remaining hominid species (our own) in
the other direction, through a multi-million year process of intermediate
evolutionary steps. And again, every time a new fossil is discovered there
typically follows months and even years of analysis and vigorous debate
The Evolution of Human Beings 131
A Brief Summary
So let me try to very briefly summarize some of the things we know at
this point about “where people came from.” We know that there were many
different kinds of upright-walking hominid species living over a period of a
132 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
few million years, and it is clear that some of them were very “successful” (in
terms of being able to maintain themselves as distinct species for hundreds
of thousands or even millions of years before going extinct). We also know
that there were times when a number of different hominid species lived in
the same general time period (and sometimes even in the same geographi-
cal area), differing somewhat from each other in some of their particular
physical features (tooth and body proportions, brain size, etc.) and differ-
ing in some of the ways they related to their environment—such as what
kinds of foods they ate (which can be deduced from their fossil teeth) or
whether or not they used or made stone tools (and later on fire) to obtain
and process their food. We know that hominid evolution was not “bound” to
lead to modern humans, only that it did. And we know, absolutely beyond
the shadow of a doubt, that our very distant ancestors were an ape spe-
cies whose later descendants gave rise, on the one hand, to the lines which
eventually led to the modern African apes (gorillas and chimpanzees) and,
on the other hand, to a whole complex series of upright-walking hominids
which eventually led to modern humans.
400 million years ago, the first reptiles evolved out of amphibian ancestors
more than 300 million years ago, and the first mammals, the first birds and
the first flowering plants all evolved around 200 million years ago (with
the first mammals and the first birds evolving out of two separate lines of
reptile ancestors).
As noted earlier, some of the earliest mammal species were small rat-
sized creatures that were already around some 150 million years ago, at
a time when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. Though there seemed to
have been relatively few of these mammal species around at the time of
the dinosaurs, some of them did manage to survive the global environ-
mental disruptions of around 65 million years ago, when a somewhat more
protracted period of global changes (which had already been going on for
some time, involving such things as dropping sea levels, increased volcanic
activity and associated changes in physical and biotic environments) was
capped off by a truly sudden event, the dramatic impact of an asteroid
smashing into the planet with a force equal to many nuclear bombs. This
impact occured at a time when some previously dominant assemblages of
species (incuding most of the dinosaurs) were apparently already in a state
of severe decline and facing intensifying extinction rates. In this context,
a sudden weeks-long global reduction in sunlight (caused by the massive
amounts of dust and debris thrown into the atmosphere by the K/T impact
off the Yucatán Peninsula) would likely have been something like the straw
that broke the camel’s back for many still surviving species and lineages:
this dust and debris cloud was likely directly responsible for an estimated
80% loss of plant species at lower latitudes around the globe. This alone
would likely have provoked rapid population collapses and outright final
extinctions, especially among many of the biggest plant eating vertebrates
(and their own large predators), including any that remained of the already
nearly extinct dinosaurs. By contrast, small, warm-blooded, likely noctur-
nal, rodent-like mammals seem to have largely survived this event and its
aftermath and soon afterwards underwent a “burst” of expansion and spe-
cies diversification, ultimately spinning off a tremendous variety of new
mammal species. As is the case with all mass extinctions, the removal from
the scene of so many of the previously dominant species and lineages seems
to have “cleared the way” for whole new groups of species to take hold
and flourish, in this case allowing the surviving populations and species of
mammals (and also birds) to rapidly expand and undergo dramatic “adap-
tive radiations”—spreading into many newly open or “available” ecological
“niches,” and then undergoing a series of further evolutionary modifica-
tions in the process of adapting to these new opportunities.
In any case, there is no doubt that from that point on (around 65 million
years ago) the mammal line continued to evolve and spin off many new
species for millions of years. It produced the first “anthropoid primates”
134 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
around 35 million years ago (this is the group of mammals which would
eventually come to include include all the monkeys, all the apes, all the
hominid ancestors of humans, and humans themselves). The primate line
then continued evolving—and further subdividing into all sorts of different
primate species—for another 30 million years or so before spinning off the
particular primate side-branch which would be made up of our most direct
ancestors, the upright-walking hominids.
So while life itself began evolving on this planet some 3.5 billion years
ago, and the primate line as a whole has already been evolving for some
35 million years or so, the upright-walking hominids didn’t appear until
roughly 5 million years ago, and the most recently evolved of all the hominid
species—our own species, Homo sapiens—really is the new kid on the block,
having been around for quite a bit less than one million years.
It is interesting to realize that, around 20 million years ago, at a time
when huge swaths of relatively unbroken forests blanketed much of Africa,
there used to be many more species of African apes than there are today.
But this flowering of numerous forest-dwelling ape species was later greatly
reduced to just a handful of species (and today the gorillas and the chimpan-
zees are the only remaining species of apes on the African continent).
The same kind of “whittling down” of species numbers and diver-
sity seems to have happened to our own hominid line: in the beginning
there seems to have been only one or a small handful of bipedal hominid
species; very quickly, however, the number of different bipedal hominid
species seems to have started to significantly increase, and then later to have
undergone yet another wave of species diversification, before finally getting
“pared down” to just a handful of species, eventually leaving us the one and
only hominid species still around.
This kind of process and pattern is actually very commonly observed
throughout the natural world after a new evolutionary line emerges out
of an ancestral line on the basis of some kind of significant evolutionary
modification (such as the emergence of bipedalism in a line of tree-dwelling
apes): a period of rapid evolutionary diversification (generating many new
species) is often followed by what can be thought of as a sort of “pruning”
of the evolutionary bush—a period during which the speciation process
seems to slow down and some species go extinct while others maintain
themselves in the picture for a while, but without necessarily spinning off
any new species.5
take place over many successive generations. And this is all the more true
of the process of full speciation—the initial splitting or “budding off,” plus
subsequent consolidation, of a brand new (fully distinct and reproductively
isolated) species out of a different pre-existing species. This process may
start off with a relatively small bunch of non-typical divergent individuals
who find themselves in one way or another reproductively cut off from
the larger and more typical ancestral stock populations from which they
are derived (and biologists have actually observed this process taking place
among living species), but a substantial increase in the numbers of the new
oddball population, as well as the further evolutionary amplification and
consolidation of the key differences (relative to the ancestral stock), which
typically signals that a population of organisms represents a truly new spe-
cies (as opposed to just a minor or temporary variant of the old one)—all
that is a process which can only take place over a great many reproductive
generations.
As also discussed earlier, the start of the whole speciation process may
be pretty “sudden” (conceivably starting off with just a handful of genetic
mutations or recombinations in just a few individuals, for instance), and the
later appearance of that new species in the fossil record may also appear
to be pretty “sudden” (especially since we would be unlikely to have any
chance of finding fossils of the new species until enough time had gone by
to allow their numbers and their geographic range to substantially increase).
But the process of consolidation of a speciation event, the point at which
you might be able to say, in effect, “yup, this is definitely a new species, it
didn’t just go extinct as soon as it emerged, and it didn’t just get genetically
reabsorbed into its ancestral stock—it kept its distinct identity, and it looks
like it’s going to be around for a while”—that consolidation process takes
much longer. It might still be described as relatively “sudden” on an overall
geologic time scale (where things are measured in hundreds of thousands
and millions of years!) but it wouldn’t be surprising to find this taking place
over hundreds or thousands of reproductive generations. In a short-lived
and fast-reproducing species like fruit flies, it might only take a few years
to “bud off ” a new species (and in fact this has actually been observed to
happen in laboratory populations); but in relatively long-living and slow-
reproducing species like the primates, the accumulation in a population of
sufficiently significant evolutionary changes to lead to full speciation could
easily be spread out over hundreds or thousands of years.
hominids with highly dependent young, natural selection would likely have
greatly favored any increased capacity for learning and for handling the
complex challenges posed by the natural and social environment through
more flexible behaviors and increased social coordination, including through
more developed spoken language and other forms of communication.
It is likely that even some of the earliest bipedal hominid species (such
as those generally classified as Australopithecines and similar species) made
at least some use of primitive tools (and in fact some degree of tool use to
obtain food is not unique to the human line and has been observed repeat-
edly in chimpanzees, and even in some birds in the crow and jay family).
Many of the earliest tools used by hominids may have included natural
tools such as those used by modern chimpanzees, who throw branches
at threatening predators, strip leaves from twigs to “fish” termites out of
their nests, or use stones to crack open nuts. The earliest bipedal hominids,
such as the Australopithecines, likely could do many such things and may
also have been beginning to use things like unmodified hollow gourds or
scavenged animal bladders and skins to carry things like water or gathered
plant foods with their relatively free hands. We don’t know for sure, because
such unmodified and rapidly decaying materials would be unlikely to be
preserved in the fossil record. We do know that the early bipedal hominids
did not make any modified stone tools: the first evidences of manufacture of
even the simplest stone tools (the simplest stone scrapers and cutters which
hominids learned to make by striking certain types of stones together to
make sharpened stone flakes) do not appear in the fossil record until about
2.4 million years ago, or a few million years after the first emergence of
bipedalism!
It is not until the evolution of the first hominid species belonging to our
own genus Homo that we start finding evidence not just of tool use but of
the more complex and mentally challenging tasks of tool manufacture: using
unmodified natural materials as tools of sorts is something early hominids
may well have done (perhaps even more extensively than chimpanzees do
today); but it is much more mentally difficult and challenging (even for
modern humans!) to figure out how to strike just the right stones at just the
right angles to succeed in making even the simplest of sharp stone cutters
and scrapers which were used to butcher animal carcasses and which begin
to appear in the fossil record around 2.5 million years ago. By the time later
species of Homo (such as Homo erectus and Homo ergaster) appear in the fossil
record, the “tool culture” had developed even further, to include such things
as more complex stone axes, as well as the conscious and calculated use of
fire (which can be used for warmth, cooking tough foods, and protection
from predators). Of course, it is not just the physical anatomy, physiological
development and technological abilities of hominids which changed over
The Evolution of Human Beings 139
time: these changes would most likely have been associated with many
important changes in their behaviors and social structures as well.
Part of the excitement of studying all the changes that took place in
the various hominid species, from the earliest Australopithecines to modern
humans, is that their fossilized remains give us clues not only about what
they looked like but also about how they lived and what it actually means
to “become human.”
apes and modern humans, with some being more ape-like and some more
human-like.
Just to give you a taste of the truly rich diversity of species that have
all been identified as upright-walking hominids up to this point (a diversity
which will no doubt be revealed to be even more rich and complex as more
fossils are found) let me just list some of them, using their currently agreed
upon scientific names:
The oldest found so far seems to be Sahelanthropus tchadensis (nicknamed
Toumai) from 6 to 7 million years ago, though there is not yet general sci-
entific consensus that this particular species was bipedal, so I am including
it here only on a tentative basis; I will do the same with the 4.4-million-year-
old Ardipithecus ramidus who cannot yet be definitively confirmed to have
been bipedal.
Among the more unquestionably bipedal hominids we find:
Australopithecus anamensis from between 4 and 5 million years ago;
Australopithecus afarensis (including the famous nearly complete skeleton
dubbed “Lucy”) from about 3.5 million years ago; Meave Leakey’s recent
find of a more flat-faced (and in this way more human-like) hominid from
approximately the same period (currently dubbed Kenyanthropus platyops—
See “Meave Leakey’s Take on Her Latest Fossil Find,” below).
Following that we get to Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus
aethiopicus and Australopithecus garhi, all of which lived in the period
from about 2.5 to 3 million years ago. Of these, the 2.5 million year old
Australopithecus aethiopicus (the famous “Black Skull” found by Richard
It may turn out that bipedal hominids were already physically and
socially able to undertake far-ranging explorations even prior to evolving
the longer bodies, the much bigger brains and the more advanced stone tool
and fire technologies which are associated with Homo erectus/ergaster and
with our own later modern human species of Homo sapiens. Some people
think even some Homo habilis individuals may have begun to migrate out
of Africa (See “Was Homo erectus the First Hominid to Leave Africa?” below). It
will be interesting to learn more about all this as more scientific data comes
in, including because the status of Homo habilis—which has features that
appear to be intermediate between the more ape-like Australopithecines and
the more human-like later species in the Homo line—has always been some-
what controversial. Some people have been inclined to somewhat “demote”
H. habilis to Australopithecine status and to question whether habilis really
made simple stone tools, or whether those found in rock layers from the
time habilis was around were more likely made by a different species of
Homo living during the same period (such as Homo rudolfensis). In any case,
all this makes clear that there likely was already a lot of variety (and a lot of
potential for expansion) even very early on in the Homo line.
Back in Africa, our own fully modern human species of Homo sapiens
evolved (most likely out of Homo ergaster or a very similar species) roughly
200,000 years ago. Our new species was clearly quite successful, and by
50,000 years ago was migrating out of Africa and spreading to all other
parts of the world. This migration wave was therefore at least the second
time hominids had migrated out of Africa.
As Homo sapiens spread into different parts of the world, we encountered
and co-existed for some time with populations of different human species,
such as Homo neanderthalensis. These Neanderthals were the descendants
of some of the earlier Homo erectus populations which had migrated out
of Africa 1 to 2 million years earlier. Since Homo sapiens and Homo nean-
derthalensis overlapped in parts of Europe for a few thousand years (and
since some of Homo sapiens’ more advanced stone tools have been found at
some Neanderthal sites, suggesting that the two species interacted to some
extent) it was once thought the two species might have actually mated and
interbred and that modern humans could be descendants of both. Today,
however, we know that this isn’t the case: modern techniques of molecular
biology have been used to analyze the DNA and other biochemical mol-
ecules of modern humans all around the world, and this has determined
that all living human beings are derived from a single population that
lived in Africa around 150,000 years ago, and that the Neanderthals never
contributed to the overall gene pool of our species. It is now thought that
the hominid line leading to modern human beings and the one leading to
the Neanderthals separated about 600,000 years ago; such a long period of
reproductive separation could easily have allowed sufficient genetic differ-
ences to accumulate to result in two completely distinct species, and this
in turn would explain why populations of Homo sapiens and Homo nean-
derthalensis which later encountered each other in Europe (around 40,000
years ago) seem to have been unable to successfully interbreed and produce
viable and fertile descendants.
Although Neanderthals were not a direct-line ancestor of our own spe-
cies, they serve as a good reminder that, as recently as 40,000 years ago, there
were still at least two or three different human species on this planet: the modern
The Evolution of Human Beings 145
Homo sapiens (our own species), the Neanderthals in Europe, plus the vari-
ous populations of the descendants of Homo erectus which had made it all
the way to Eastern Asia in that earlier migration wave. But, as Homo sapiens
spread throughout the globe, everywhere it went it ended up one way or
another replacing these different human species. We know from the fossil
record that Homo sapiens had, among other things, more advanced stone
and other tools than the other human species around at the time. The more
complex skills required to conceptualize and make these tools likely reflect
important differences in our species’ cognitive (mental) abilities, and this
may explain why it successfully replaced the other human species every-
where it went.7
All the other upright-walking hominid species (including the other
essentially human species in the genus Homo) are gone now—except for us.
But it is important to remember that the mere fact that all those others even-
tually went extinct doesn’t mean that the earlier hominids were somehow
“flawed” or “inferior” species: in fact, a number of these hominid species
had a good long run of it, and some, like Homo erectus, lasted for as much as
a million years or more. The fact that only our own hominid species is still
around is not surprising: all species eventually go extinct, and on average,
most vertebrate species don’t generally seem to last more than a couple of
million years or so. Again, the fact that all the other hominid species are
now extinct doesn’t mean that “we” are somehow the most perfect species
imaginable, or that all the others were somehow flawed or “inadequate.”
We do have some very unique particularities (such as our unprecedented
ability to continually modify ourselves and transform our world through
cultural means) which may end up allowing us to have an above average run
as a species; however, these same features and “abilities” could also easily
lead us to bring about our own extinction in record time, through the use
of weapons of mass destruction and/or by causing massive environmental
dislocations. Time will tell!
they cannot adapt quickly enough will simply tend to go extinct. But by the
time they go extinct, many species will already have spawned one or more
descendant “daughter species” (with which they may even have continued
to co-exist for a time) which will in a sense continue their evolutionary line.
When species go extinct without having produced any descendant species
or lineages, they simply become “evolutionary dead ends.” This was the
case with some (though obviously not all) of the upright-walking hominid
lines and species.
It is important to realize that all biological species eventually go extinct,
regardless of how “successful” they once were: it is estimated that some-
thing like 99% of the species of plants and animals that ever lived on earth
have become extinct! As for our own species, the fact is we’re the only
ones of the hominid species left standing not because we’re some kind of
“miracle of progress and perfection” and not because there was any kind of
inherent driving force in hominid evolution (or in any of the evolutionary
processes that came before) that was somehow magically “bound to” lead
up to humans as some kind of top-of-the-heap pinnacle of evolutionary
“progress.” It only sort of looks like that, from an understandably biased
and self-centered human perspective! Many biologists have pointed out, for
instance, that many much simpler organisms (such as the bacteria and
many parasites) have been around for so much longer than humans, and
are so widespread that they could easily be considered the most biologically
“successful” species on the planet!
We’re the only species left standing in the hominid line in part simply
because we’re still sort of the new kid on the block, having evolved out
of our immediately preceding hominid ancestors (likely Homo ergaster or
a very similar species) only around 200,000 years ago. However, now that
we’re here, I think we can say that—given our unprecedented ability to
consciously transform ourselves and our natural and social environment—
what happens to our species in the future (including when and how our
own species will pass from the scene) will be, at least to a significant degree,
up to us.
typically human features. For instance, they had the long arms and short
legs of apes, but they did stand and walk upright, as do humans. Their brains
were somewhat bigger than those of apes, but much smaller than those of
later hominids. Their faces jutted forward in a snout more like chimpanzees
than humans, and their teeth and jaws were also more like those of apes.
In fact, these early Australopithecines, together with their later descendants,
and then followed by the early and late species in the Homo line, constitute
one of the best examples (in all of the biological fossil record) of a series of
transitional species which can be seen to link one species to another through
a sequence of intermediate steps. This—the clear evidence of genuinely
intermediate species in, of all things, the human evolutionary line—drives
the Creationists nuts, because, if it were true (as is said in the Bible) that
human beings are the result of a “special and separate” Creation, there obvi-
ously wouldn’t be any such intermediate species linking apes to humans in
such obvious step-wise fashion. Well, what can I say? The Creationists are
stubbornly and absurdly wrong—the whole long and diverse sequence of
different upright-walking hominid fossils proves them wrong way beyond
the shadow of a doubt!
What do the Creationists say about the growing numbers of hominid fossils
which are staring them in the face?
Well, as the paleontologist Niles Eldredge points out in his very helpful
book, The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, the response
of the Creationists, when they are confronted with the basic facts of human
evolution, is downright pathetic:
(a) The Creationists generally argue that the fossils of the earliest
hominids (the ones which lived around 3 or 4 million years ago) are “just
apes.” This completely disregards the significance of the fact that these
early hominids walked upright, and that at least the “later” Australopithecines
made some use of primitive tools, beyond what we see in modern-day apes.
Some of the “later” Australopithecines likely were even beginning to make
some simple stone tools: Fossils of Australopithecus garhi from around 2.5
million years ago have been found associated with the fossilized remains of
antelopes whose bones had stone tool “cut marks” on them, indicating that they
had likely been butchered with stone tools. And simple stone tools have in
fact been found in nearby sites.
(b) The Creationists argue that the fossils that look the most like modern
humans are indeed humans, but they refuse to accept the reality that some
of these fossils are 100,000 years old (despite the fact that modern scientific
dating techniques leave no doubt that this is the case). The existence of
anatomically modern humans so long ago conflicts with the Biblical story
of Creation.
(c) The Creationists especially reject the evidence that shows that some
species of hominids were clearly intermediate between the more ape-like
[Continues on page 148 after photo section]
“There is absolutely no doubt that all the different
species of life on earth originated as evolutionary
modifications of pre-existing ancestor species. This
means that all living species are related to each
other, through a succession of shared ancestors,
going all the way back to those very first primitive
life-forms which emerged out of earth’s chemical
“soup” some three and a half billion years ago. And
this means that our own human species is related,
by different degrees of kinship, to all other species
on the planet, including the pigeon on the sidewalk,
the maple tree in the park, or the neighborhood
dog—we are all the product of a long process of
accumulating evolutionary modifications from
common ancestor species, though obviously
evolution caused life to diversify in many
different directions and along many different
pathways at different junctures in the three and
”
a half billion years of our collective history!
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Creation Myths
For most of history, people did not have the basis to answer these questions. So they made up many different
know that life had evolved. They wondered where all imaginative stories to explain what could not yet be
the plants, animals, and people had come from, but they understood. Today, such ancient “creation myths”
didn’t yet have the scientific tools and methods to remain at the core of religions all around the world.
Scandinavian
Creation Myth
In the beginning,
there was chaos...
gods, giants, and
humans...the god
Thor protected
humans from the
giants...an evil
serpent attacked the
great tree of life with
roots in the fountain
of wisdom...
Right: Yggdrasil,
the great ash tree
Aztec
Creation Myth
There are many levels of heaven, earth, and underworld...many cycles
of creation and destruction...humans are living in the very last cycle
before oblivion...
Above: Aztec calendar stone (cast)
2
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According to
the Bible But science now knows...
creation story...
Myth: Fact:
The earth is only The earth is 4.5 billion
a few thousand years old
years old. Earth, as photographed from
space; modern dating
techniques make it possible to
tell that the oldest rocks on
the planet are about 4.5
billion years old.
There are at
Myth: Fact: least 10 mil-
The beginning of The basic chemical building
lion distinct
species of
life required divine blocks of life can self-assemble
plants and
intervention. through entirely natural
animals
processes. alive
In 1953 Stanley Miller (right) zapped a mixture
similar to early earth’s “chemical soup” with
artificial “lightning,” resulting in the spontaneous
assembly of amino acids and sugars.
Myth: Fact:
God created all the It has actually taken about 3.5
different types of billion years for life to evolve
plants and animals from its simplest origins to
(including people) where it is today.
all at once and in
just 6 days. Fossil microorganism from about
3.5 billion years ago
Myth: Fact:
God created all the All life-forms Skeleton of
extinct
different plants and (including wooly
animals (including humans) are mammoth
(left), closely
people) separately; related to each related to
and all of life has other through a modern
remained completely long succession living
elephants
unchanged since the of shared (below)
original Creation. ancestors.
Time and time
again, brand new
species have
emerged
– and always as modifications
of pre-existing species.
3
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Fossil of sea-dwelling
Ammonite, which lived
Fossils are like snapshots into the past
over 65 million years
ago.
Fossils are traces of plants and animals that died long ago. Their
remains or imprints were left in sediments which hardened into solid
rock, preserving them.
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5
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The Relations
of Predator and Prey
The life-and-death
interactions of predator and
prey play a very important
role in “driving” (or channel-
ing) how different species
develop, diversify and adapt
over time.
Competition
within species
Hippopotamus males compete for
territory along a stretch of river
6
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Mimicry and
Camouflage
This Walking Stick (above)
and Leaf Mantis (above
right) are live insects, but
they have evolved to look
just like plant twigs and
leaves!
Symbiosis
Evolution has also produced many mutually beneficial
adaptations among species. Here a clownfish remains safe from
its own predators by hiding within the poisonous tentacles of
an anemone, to which it is itself immune; the anemone in
turn benefits from this association because the clownfish
drives away anemone-eating fish, aerates the water, cleans
the tentacles of parasites and debris, and even supplies the
anemone with food in the form of its own waste.
Coevolution
Many plant species and their pollinators have evolved in tandem
over time – this hummingbird’s beak is a near perfect “fit” with
the tubular flowers it visits for nectar, while the broad shape of
this Lantana flower is more suited to its butterfly pollinators.
7
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Embryo development
Late Intermediate Early Shared ancestry, not separate Creation,
embryo embryo embryo explains why the embryos of all vertebrate
species (including snakes, chickens, possums,
cats, bats, and humans, etc.) start off looking
almost exactly the same, and even have the
very same number of gill slits, becoming less
alike only in later development.
gill slits
Vestigial features
The non-functional “eyes” of blind cave fish are a big clue that
they are descended from different pre-existing species – ones that
lived in more light-filled environments and had functional eyes.
Homologous
features
These vertebrate
forelimbs are not
optimally designed for
their different
functions (grasping,
walking, swimming,
flying), but they are
all built from the very
same underlying bony
parts – a sure
indication of descent
from common
ancestors.
8
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Convergence
These two anteater species live worlds apart and don’t even
share a recent ancestor, but they have nevertheless evolved
functionally similar modifications – long snouts and sticky
tongues used to catch insects – in adaptation to similar
environmental pressures.
Quirks or
imperfections
of nature
Evolution is not a
perfecting mechanism:
features inherited from
prior ancestors leave
humans prone to back
pain and choking, and
male peacocks have
evolved outlandish tail
feathers which help
them attract females
but also make it hard to
escape predators. The
many imperfections of
nature are the mark of
a natural process, not
divine design.
Patterns of geographic
distribution of species
around the earth
Why are there so many marsupial mammals in
Australia (like kangaroos, right) but not on other
continents? Why do many island species have similar-
but-different counterparts on the nearby mainland?
The timing of evolutionary splits from earlier ancestors
and the length of reproductive isolation explains many
patterns of distribution of species around the globe.
9
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This drawing represents a step-wise progression in the evolution of mollusc eyes, linking simple
eye-spots found in sea slugs to the much more complex eyes found in octopus and squids. Even
the simplest of these eyes provide organisms with some functional capacity, and any
enhancements would likely have been favored by natural selection.
(a) A simple light-sensitive pigment spot (b) folded region increases the concentration of
sensitive cells (c) pin-hole camera eye found in Nautilus (d) eye cavity filled with cellular fluid
rather than water (e) eye protected by addition of transparent skin, and part of cellular fluid
forms a lens (f) full, complex eye, as found in octopus and squid.
Eyes, left, from the top: Sea slug with simple light-detecting eye spot. Pin-hole camera eye of a
Nautilus. Complex eye, with lens and retina, of an octopus. Structurally similar complex eye of a
reptile. Another reptile eye. Structurally similar complex eye of a human being.
10
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The emergence
of new species
Extinction The dying out of species, at times on a mass scale, has also
played an important role in shaping life on this planet. The vast
majority of species that ever lived are now extinct.
Trilobite: This marine arthropod Eurypholis viperfish: This fish Tyrannosaurus rex: This dinosaur Paranthropus aethiopicus: This
species went extinct about 250 species went extinct about 65 species went extinct about 65 early hominid species went extinct
million years ago. million years ago. million years ago. over 2 million years ago.
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Chimpanzees:
Our Closest Living Relatives
There is absolutely zero doubt that we are
closely related to the modern-day African apes,
and that, among them, chimpanzees are our
closest living relatives. Studying our many
anatomical, molecular and behavioral similarities
provides clues about our shared ancestry.
Studying our differences (we walk fully upright,
have larger brains and a more developed
capacity for language) helps us reconstruct
some of the key evolutionary milestones in the
process of becoming fully human. Today all apes
are in grave danger of extinction, due primarily
to the destruction of their forested habitats. If we
don’t take steps to reverse this trend, they will
soon disappear, and humanity will lose the
opportunity to learn all that could still be
learned about these unique species and our
own evolutionary history.
Tool use in chimpanzees includes stripping leaves from twigs to “fish” termites
out of their nests (above) and using stones as “hammers” to crack open nuts.
Chimps even have aspects of “culture,” such as distinctive ways of using tools
which vary from locality to locality, and which, like human customs and
traditions, are passed on from generation to generation through teaching
and learning.
The longer two lines evolve away from a shared ancestor, the
more differences will accumulate in their DNA. Human and
chimpanzee DNA sequences are 95-98% identical: this shows
that our two species are extremely closely related and shared a
common ancestor as recently as about 5 million years ago.
13
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Repeating patterns of both speciation and extinction but eventually run into evolutionary dead-ends, leaving
frame the whole long history of the evolution of life on no descendants; others go on to generate further evolu-
this planet. Over the past 3.5 billion years, new species tionary modifications and spin-off new and different
have repeatedly emerged (always as evolutionary mod- descendant species. Bursts of overall species diversifica-
ifications of pre-existing ancestor species), and then later tion (as well as waves of species extinction) have been
died off. Depending on circumstances, some species die linked to periods of significant change in external envi-
out relatively quickly, while others maintain themselves ronments. All these patterns can be seen in the history of
for millions of years. Some species flourish for a time, the evolution of our own human line.
Illustration
color-coded to
match text on
facing page
Homo
heidelbergensis
Homo Homo
georgicus ergaster/erectus
Homo
ergaster
Homo
rudolfensis
Homo
habilis
Paranthropus Paranthropus
robustus boisei
Australopithecus
This drawing garhi Australopithecus
shows some of africanus
the many fossils
linking our African Paranthropus
ape ancestors to aethiopicus
fully modern
humans, and
illustrates the
meandering path Kenyanthropus
hominid evolution Australopithecus
platyops afarensis
took over some
5 million years.
As more hominid
fossils are found,
some linkages Toward
presented here Australopithecus modern
will be modified; anamensis Ardipithecus chimpanzees
but the major ramidus
patterns and key
milestones in the Last common ancestor with chimpanzees
overall evolution
of our hominid
line are already
clear.
Sahelanthropus
tchadensis
14
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15
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16
“
We now know that our own human evolution
as well as the evolution of all living things can
be explained by entirely natural processes and
requires no super-natural explanations. But will
our ability to increasingly understand life without
god leave us feeling in some way adrift and
empty? Why should it? We still can, and should,
be duly amazed, sustained, and even humbled,
by the recognition of the wonders of diversity
and complexity that naturally evolving life can
itself bring forth, and by both the limitations
and ongoing potentials of our own humanity...
Far from being a recipe for a grey, cold and
passionless outlook, a truly materialist scientific
method, systematically applied to uncovering the
actual genuine wonders of the natural and social
world, can uncork the imagination, the sense of
purpose and the transformative consciousness
and initiative of human beings in ways no
reference to a presumed higher power ever
”
could. Isn’t that an outlook worth striving for?
148 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
brains! In the earlier species of bipedal hominids, there had been a pretty
strict limit on just how much brain size could increase, simply because an
infant with too big a brain could not have passed out of the mother’s body
without killing her. But if the brain could undergo most of its growth and
development after the infant was born, the total hominid brain size could
greatly increase.
And this is exactly what happened. At a certain juncture in the evolution
of bipedal hominids, one or more species evolved having an overall devel-
opment pattern that was slower than that of the apes or earlier hominids,
but whose brains continued to grow and develop for much longer periods
of time after birth. In these later hominids, as well as in our own human
species, the average brain could actually triple between birth and maturity
(and in modern humans the brain continues to grow and develop for almost
2 full years after a baby is born). Thus, something as relatively simple as a
slowing down of the overall maturation process seems to have been all that
was needed to make possible an incredible expansion in the size of the brain
and post-birth period of brain development in these new hominids. This, in
turn, evidently allowed for an incredible increase in the hominid capacity
for learning, and for doing so in active interaction with the external natural
and social environments.
magnum hole is right under our skulls, so that our heads basically “balance”
on top of our spines. This is a crucial feature—found only in the hominid
species—which, along with some other changes in skeletal alignment,
allows us to stand and walk fully upright.
Modern humans also have skeletons which are differently proportioned
than apes—we have many of the same bony structures, but apes have
proportionally longer arms and proportionally shorter legs. Their feet are
different too, more suited for grasping tree branches than for walking on
the ground. When apes do walk on the ground, they mainly move leaning
forward on all fours, in a style called “knuckle walking,” which most of us
have probably had a chance to observe on TV or at the zoo.
Apes also have very different “faces” (those of modern humans are “flat-
ter” overall) and proportionally more massive jaws and teeth that include
bigger canines. I won’t get into a lot of detail here about tooth shape, size
and development patterns, but you should know that fossil teeth are very
important in figuring out pathways of hominid evolution. The size, shape,
and positioning of the teeth reveal a lot about what a species ate (whether
primarily plant foods, meat, or a more wide-ranging omnivorous diet like
that of modern humans) and also help to determine whether different spe-
cies of hominids are or are not closely related.
In addition, it has been demonstrated that the patterns of tooth erup-
tion and development (which can be deduced from some hominid fossils)
can provide quite a bit of information about those all-important rates of
development of their entire bodies. An analysis of this data, combined with
calculations of such things as brain size relative to size of the birth passage
in a female of the species—can, for instance, provide a good indication of
whether a particular species gave birth to young whose development rates
were more like those of apes, or more like those of modern humans. (For
an interesting discussion of this tooth developmental data see, for instance,
Richard Leakey’s book Origins Reconsidered.)
So, when paleoanthropologists find hominid fossil remains (a skull
here, a part of a skeleton there—or sometimes, when they’re really lucky,
a number of pieces found together in one spot) they start by determin-
ing roughly how old these remains are (through various dating techniques
previously discussed in this book); and then they try to figure out whether
they’re looking at a brand new species never before found, or an additional
specimen of a species previously described (and sometimes they discover
that more than one hominid species lived in the same general time period).
Paleontologists then measure and study very specific things, such as the
proportions of arm and leg bones, the position of the foramen magnum hole,
the shape and size of the skull, the places where jaw muscles used to be
attached, the shape of the foot or hand bones (when available—unfortu-
nately, these are rarely found); the size and shape and grinding surfaces of
152 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
the teeth (and sometimes their pattern of eruption and rate of develop-
ment); the overall size, sex, and approximate age of the individual when
it died; whether it was found next to or in the same general area as any
primitive stone tools; whether there are any nearby fossilized remains of
animals which may have been prey species eaten by hominids and whose
bones may reveal “cut marks” made by stone tools used by some hominids
to butcher carcasses. Meanwhile, other scientists often contribute to the
emerging picture of the overall environment in which a hominid fossil lived
by studying geological features, ancient soils, plant and animal fossils of
the same age, and even fossil pollen granules from the same period, all of
which helps to recreate a fuller picture of the habitat in which the hominids
lived and died: whether, for instance, the area at the time consisted more of
forests, woodland savannas, grassland savannas or a mix of all three; what
other animal species (including potential prey species or potential predators
of hominids) were around; and also whether there is any evidence of any
major environmental changes (such as a drying or cooling trend) taking
place during that general period.
the early hominids made no stone tools and since the hominid brain didn’t
expand until much later), and choose instead to emphasize the still ape-like
characteristics of early hominids by referring to them as “bipedal apes.”
This term may be fairly accurate in terms of capturing their appearance,
but I feel this is somewhat misleading and that it one-sidedly emphasizes
the ape-like features while downplaying what must in fact have been the
profound implications of the emergence of upright locomotion and more
fully freed hands in these unusual “apes” (or “proto-humans”)—features
which likely enabled them to expand into a greater variety of environments
and engage in significantly new behaviors.
Some years ago, it used to be thought that the emergence of bipedal-
ism was in and of itself such a significant evolutionary development that
any bipedal hominid could be thought of as being essentially human. The
thinking was that, as soon as our earliest hominid ancestors evolved the
ability to walk upright on two legs, their hands would have been “freed”
for purposes other than locomotion and therefore, the thinking went,
these early ancestors would “automatically” have started using their hands
for such activities as making tools and weapons, hunting and gathering
foods, carrying dependent infants, and so on. It was speculated that this, in
turn, must have created an immediate and compelling need for increased
intelligence, bigger and more complex brains, more advanced social com-
munication and coordination and changes in family structure and broader
social organization. Well, all these changes did eventually take place, but
certainly not overnight! We now know that all this didn’t happen as part of
one single package of evolutionary modifications at the time of the first
emergence of bipedalism: the early Australopithecines of 3 to 4 million years
ago or so walked upright on two legs, but their brains remained relatively
small and they don’t seem to have made any stone tools. The big leap in
brain size, qualitatively extended periods of juvenile immaturity, post-natal
brain development, and the cognitive ability to actually design and make
even the very simplest of stone tools doesn’t seem to have emerged until
at least 2 to 3 million years after the first appearance of bipedal hominids.
It is therefore true that bipedalism emerged as an evolutionary novelty long
before many of the other attributes that we think of as characteristically
human.
But, on the other hand, I think it would be wrong to fail to appreciate
just how significant the evolution of bipedalism was in the overall process
of “becoming human.” Even if the earliest bipedal Australopithecine species
didn’t necessarily use their hands for tool manufacture and for the capture
or butchering of animals (and maybe not even for the gathering and trans-
port of plant foods), right from the time bipedalism first emerged, it is still
the case that the evolutionary emergence of the ability to walk on two legs
effectively set the stage for those later capabilities.
154 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Just think of it this way: Imagine if some non-bipedal ape species in the
distant past just happened to spin off a new daughter species which was
still incapable of upright-walking but whose crucial evolutionary modifica-
tion was to give birth to young with a slowed-down rate of development,
requiring prolonged parental care of infants but also allowing the brain to
expand and develop for a much longer time after birth. Such a change might
well have allowed for a great increase in the capacity for learning, and might
also have made possible the development of a greatly expanded repertoire
of vocalizations (variety of sounds produced) and even perhaps the emer-
gence of complex language. But, even if all this had happened, what kind
of species would have resulted from just such evolutionary modifications
if the hands had not happened to be “freed” for purposes other than locomotion
by the earlier evolution of bipedalism? The result might have been something
akin to a very intelligent chimpanzee, perhaps, but it probably wouldn’t be
anything we would think of as distinctly human. It took the combination of
two major evolutionary leaps, spread out over millions of years—the evolu-
tion of bipedalism, followed some millions of years later by the evolution
of a mechanism allowing for unprecedented post-birth brain development
and learning capacity—for a line of apes to give rise to the modern human
species.
So, again, even though it is important to be careful to emphasize that
early Australopithecines were still very ape-like (and not “little humans”) and
that a number of these early bipedal species may have made relatively lim-
ited use of their hands for the first few hundred thousand or even millions
of years of bipedalism (perhaps until the brains caught up with the hands, in
a sense), I think we will be presenting a distorted view of our origins if we
don’t also emphasize the fact that the later period of qualitative evolution-
ary transformations (the ones which led to the substantial increase in brain
size and capacity for learning) would not have amounted to nearly as much
if this second leap had not taken place among species whose bipedalism
already allowed their hands to be used for purposes other than locomotion.
Even if the early Australopithecines did not yet have the brain development
and mental abilities to make “full use” of their freed hands, so to speak
(though they probably did at least as well as modern chimps), the evolution
of bipedalism and the objective freeing of the hands marked the first great
evolutionary milestone on the road to becoming human. It made it pos-
sible for that second qualitative leap in human evolution (the later leap in
brain size and post-natal period of brain development) to have the effects that
it did—producing a species which gained the capacity to transform itself
and its surroundings from then on primarily through cultural innovations and
the accumulation and transmission of learned information rather than through
biological evolution.
The Evolution of Human Beings 155
It is worth reflecting on the fact that the difference (in forms of produc-
tive activities and social organization) between the first members of our
own Homo sapiens species (who maintained themselves as simple nomadic
hunter-gatherers for more than 100,000 years before inventing agriculture,
a mere 10,000 years ago, and starting to build cities) and modern-day
human beings (who build cars and computers and explore outer-space and
the bottom of the oceans) is primarily a difference in culture: none of this
required any further substantial evolutionary changes in the fundamental
biology of our bodies. Everything that we do today we do on the basis of
the same capacity for learning and for transmitting vast stores of accumulat-
ing knowledge across the generations through non-genetic cultural means that has
been the evolutionary hallmark of our hominid species from the beginning.
This, perhaps more than anything, is what makes us fundamentally human
and distinguishes us from all the other species.
But none of this would have been likely to occur unless the second
leap of roughly 2 million years ago happened to take place on a base which
already included bipedalism and objectively “freed” hands.
to each other! We should decide to “do the right thing”—and act with each
other with some integrity and in ways that are “moral and ethical”—not
because we’re afraid we’ll get written up by some warden-like god if we
don’t, but because what we do directly affects the quality of human life.
And, of course, our lives can and do have purpose (though different people
will define that in different ways in accordance with their world outlooks),
because we humans can choose to imbue our lives with purpose!
So here we are: a bunch of wonderfully complex living creatures, who
have been at one and the same time highly destructive and highly creative,
with an unprecedented capacity to consciously transform the natural world
around us and the societies in which we live. There’s nothing else “out
there”...but isn’t this plenty enough?
stand upright and walk on two legs). The bipedal hominid line produced
a great variety of upright-walking species over the next few million years.
Some of these bipedal hominid species were direct-line ancestors of our
own modern human species, and some were more like separate branches
of the same bipedal family tree, representing a number of alternative evo-
lutionary pathways. Many of these species were successful, maintaining
themselves as living species for hundreds of thousands of years or more,
and some of them produced their own descendant species, but they all
eventually became extinct.
We know that our modern human species, Homo sapiens, is the “young-
est” of all the hominid species, having split off from its immediately
preceding ancestor species only about 200,000 years ago. Today, all the other
hominid species are gone. But as recently as 40,000 years ago, there were still
at least two, or possibly three, different hominid species running around.
They included:
1) Homo sapiens
This is our own human species, which first evolved in Africa about
200,000 years ago and then spread into Europe and the Middle East starting
about 50,000 years ago.
2) Homo neanderthalensis
This species (popularly known as the Neanderthals), lived in Europe and
the Middle East, and modern techniques of molecular analysis indicate that
it really was a different species of human. Homo neanderthalensis is thought
to have last shared a common hominid ancestor with Homo sapiens about
600,000 years ago.10 We know that early populations of Homo erectus had first
started migrating out of Africa more than a million years ago. The Homo
neanderthalensis species which later lived in Europe and the Middle East
is now thought to have evolved out of those early Homo erectus migrants.
Meanwhile, back in Africa and a bit later on (about 200,000 years ago), our
modern Homo sapiens species evolved out of some later decendants of the
African Homo erectus line. This new human species spread quickly, and there
is evidence that it started its own out-of-Africa migration about 50,000 years
ago. When it reached the Middle East and Europe it ended up overlapping
(for a period of thousands of years) with populations of the Neanderthal
species.
We don’t yet know much about how these two human species might
have interacted. We do know that, while the Neanderthals had all sorts of
stone tools, the Homo sapiens populations had more “advanced” stone tools,
which were more complex in both conceptual design and technical execution.
Some of these sapiens tools have been found in Neanderthal archaeological
excavations, suggesting that at least some of the Neanderthals may have
been trying to adopt this more advanced technology. We don’t know
158 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
what I think of as the “second big leap” in hominid evolution—the one which
really distinguished the newly emerging genus Homo from the variety of
preceding Australopithecine hominids. And it was a change which seems to
have come “packaged” with a bunch of other important anatomical and
developmental changes, all of which made these hominids overall less like
bipedal apes and more like modern humans, including: taller bodies with
proportionally shorter arms and longer legs; flatter faces and more rounded
skulls; changes in the size, shape, growth and development of the teeth;
much less sexual dimorphism (much less difference in size between males
and females than in earlier species); and an apparent shift in the position of
the larynx (or voice box) to a lower position in the throat—a change which
allows humans to make many more vocal sounds than modern-day apes
(and probably many more than early hominids). This shift in the position
of the larynx, along with the significant post-natal brain development char-
acteristic of the later hominids, could have been key to the development of
a fuller human language, with all the resulting implications this would have
for enhanced social communication and coordination.
been huge unbroken tropical forests, and then a patchwork mix of forests
and woodland savannas, there now appeared much larger areas of open,
dry and largely treeless grassland savannas. Again, periods of such dramatic
environmental changes can easily lead to lots of species extinctions (and
probably did!), but such changes can also create environmental condi-
tions which favor the establishment and spread of significant evolutionary
modifications and of whole new species. The newly extensive dry grassland
savannas would have been a harsh environment for early hominids: sources
of adequate plant foods could well have become more unreliable and more
highly dispersed than in the traditional tropical forests and even the mixed
woodland savannas of the earlier periods, and the relative absence of trees
would have left the hominid groups vulnerable to big grassland preda-
tors, such as the large cats. Under such conditions, the emergence of any
increase in tool-making and reasoning abilities and in social coordination
would likely have been heavily favored by natural selection.
It may well turn out that the important environmental changes taking
place in Africa some 2 million years ago (the drying out and the development
of those more extensive grassland savannas) in effect indirectly “spurred”
the further modification of the hominids in a more human direction. Again,
one might think that natural selection would have eliminated any hominid
lines that started to produce essentially “premature” babies that were totally
helpless and could not fend for themselves for a long while; but the fact that
such a change also happened to allow the hominid brain to develop for a
much longer period of time after birth (allowing the new hominid infants
to expand their mental capacities through social interaction and learning,
rather than genetic programming, to an extent never before seen) probably
more than compensated for any disadvantages.
Maybe all this could have happened even without such major environ-
mental changes taking place. After all, an increase in a capacity to learn,
to manipulate and refine tools, and to better communicate and reinforce
aspects of socialization in an already social line of mammals could well be
heavily selected for, even in a relatively unchanging environment. But the
new challenges that were likely posed by the significant changes in climate,
vegetation, available food sources, and exposure to predators in that general
time period around 2 million years ago could certainly help explain why
the new (once again quite “odd” for their time!) Homo species seem to have
been fairly rapidly successful, and to have undergone yet another burst of
expansion and additional species diversification over the next million years
or so.
Interestingly, not all the hominid species of that period ended up evolving
in the direction of modern humans. The “robust” line of Australopithecines,
whose teeth and jaws suggest that they probably specialized in eating mainly
tough plant foods in the arid savannas, show no evidence of significant
The Evolution of Human Beings 163
brain expansion, and fairly soon became extinct. The “gracile” hominid
lines, on the other hand—and especially the newly emerging species of
Homo—seem to have maintained a more generalized diet (judging from their
teeth and facial structures, which are typical of less specialized omnivores).
It seems likely that they also started to consume increasing amounts of meat,
which would have given them a wider (and likely highly nutritious) range
of foods with which to sustain themselves in the increasingly harsh and
dry environments. Even fossils of the “late” Australopithecine A. garhi (who
lived in Eastern Africa just prior to the emergence of the first of the Homo
species) have been found associated with antelope remains whose bones
show stone tool “cut marks,” a sign of having been butchered. Any increase
in post-birth brain development in this period would likely have been very
helpful for learning such new skills, and would likely have been heavily
favored by natural selection.
But it was the somewhat later species Homo ergaster who really took
things one major step further, as this species seems likely to have been the
first to figure out how to use and make fire. This was a tremendous innova-
tion, because it allowed these hominids to travel out in the open and still
keep predators away at night even when there were no trees to sleep in; and
fire can also be used to soften up and render more digestible a variety of
tough foods (such as fibrous roots and tough meats) through cooking.11
Not surprisingly (what with their much bigger brains, increasingly
refined stone tools, fire, and their likely more developed language and
means of social coordination), Homo ergaster (also known as the African
Homo erectus) was the species which seems to have been the first to venture
out of Africa on a large scale and the first to succeed in establishing itself in
a variety of different environments in many other parts of the world. When
our own species Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 200,000 years ago
(most likely out of the Homo ergaster/erectus line or in any case a very similar
hominid species) it had even more developed cognitive (mental reasoning)
abilities (as evidenced, for instance, by its stone tools, which were of sig-
nificantly more complex design than those of Homo ergaster/erectus). Homo
sapiens by this point likely had fairly developed abilities for recognizably
human language, social interactions, and the general ability to transform
itself and the world around it more through conscious cultural modifications
than as a result of any ongoing biological evolution (and it is worth noting that
even some other human lines descended from the earlier Homo erectus
migrants, such as the Neanderthals, are known to have been capable of
developing some significant aspects of human culture, with some of them
beginning to bury their dead in a ritual manner, to cite just one example).
164 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
animals for meat, etc). Homo sapiens now had the means to accumulate
and transmit knowledge between groups—and across the generations—
through all sorts of cultural means, including newly emerging art and ritual.
Everywhere it went, it ended up replacing the leftover populations of the
older human species who were the descendants of the earlier out-of-Africa
migrations undertaken by Homo erectus.
From our emergence in Africa around 200,000 years ago, we managed
to fairly quickly spread to all corners of the globe, even making it to the
the modern species Homo sapiens evolved out parents) and the analysis of human mito-
of any of these earlier migrant populations chondrial DNA (a form of DNA present in cell
or out of any kind of interbreeding and organelles called mitochondria but which is
“blending” of their descendant populations. passed from generation to generation only
Such an idea actually runs completely coun- through the mothers’ lines), along with
ter to what we generally understand about some studies of the distribution patterns of
how evolution works: biological popula- human genetic variation around the world,
tions which remain reproductively isolated have all converged on the same conclusion:
from each other for hundreds of thousands our modern human species Homo sapiens
of years (as was likely the case for those had a single African origin.
early migrant populations of Homo erectus) In fact, the mitochondrial DNA evidence
accumulate significant genetic differences in strongly suggests that all currently living
that amount of time and are very unlikely to human beings are descended from a single
be able to interbreed and reproduce, even if small population (though not just one single
they later come back into contact with each woman, as is sometimes misrepresented
other; and biological populations which in the press) which lived in Africa around
have become geographically and reproduc- 150,000 years ago. Calculations derived
tively isolated from each other long enough from an analysis of nuclear DNA came to
to constitute separate species do not, at the same conclusions. Our overall human
some later point, then all start to converge genome obviously contains DNA informa-
on one single evolutionary direction, result- tion that goes back even further in time, and
ing in their all coming together to form one some specific human DNA combinations
single new species. Evolution just doesn’t present in some of our ancestors have died
work that way. By contrast, what is very out by now (the same basic way human
commonplace in biological evolution is that names can die out when some lines stop
a new species evolves in one single location, producing descendants). But the molecular
out of a small and reproductively isolated DNA calculations indicate not only that spe-
offshoot population of a parental species, cies like Neanderthals did not contribute to
and then spreads out into new areas. The the modern human gene pool (revealing, for
evidence which strongly suggests that Homo instance, that Neanderthals diverged from
sapiens evolved from a small population in the hominid line that would later give rise
Africa and only later spread to all parts of to Homo sapiens some 600,000 years ago)
the world fits this common pattern of the but also that all living humans still contain
origin of new species. segments of mitochondrial DNA that were
The techniques of modern molecular present in just one single small population
biology, applied to analyzing the DNA of of Homo sapiens that lived in one single
modern human populations, have provided geographical area 150,000 years ago, long
additional evidence to support this. Both before Homo sapiens’ migration out of Africa
the analysis of human nuclear DNA (con- (documented in the fossil record) had even
tained in all cells and contributed by both begun. [Return to main text on page 170] J
What Does the Science of the globe). But, despite all this, many people
still mistakenly believe that so-called “races”
Evolution Tell Us About correspond to some kind of natural biological
Human “Races”? categories, and some people even think that
different human races are something like dif-
The main thing that evolution teaches ferent breeds of dogs! Nothing could be further
us about race is that there is no such thing from the truth. No matter how many different
as truly distinct biological races of human ways you try to split and categorize human-
beings! What we generally think of as human ity according to such superficial differences
“races” are historically, socially and cultur- as skin color or hair type (and regardless of
ally defined categories; but these social whether you try to split humanity into 5 or
categories do not actually correspond to 500 different “racial types,” depending on
any real “natural” divisions of the human how many features you choose to focus on),
species. you will find that when you get down to compar-
To be clear: the social concept of ing human populations at the underlying molecular
“race” can (and does) still have important and genetic level, all these socially defined and arti-
social meaning for people’s lives—it can, ficial “racial” categories collapse! This is because
for instance, be an important form of cul- the types and the amount of genetic variation which
tural identification of both oppressed and exist both within and between local human popula-
oppressor social groupings (whether in a tions never actually fully correspond to any of the
positive social direction, as in something like societal categories we usually define as the major
the Black Pride movement, or in a negative human “races”!
social direction, as in something like the KKK It’s not that there aren’t some patterns of
or other white supremacists). Furthermore, genetic variation between regional popula-
the social concept of race is still used to tions of human beings—it’s just that the
economically, socially, culturally, and politi- observed patterns of genetic variation tend
cally oppress and discriminate against entire to cut across all the so-called “racial” lines.
groupings of people. So, clearly, the struggle For instance, the genetic variation found
against racism and national oppression is far in one population on one continent might
from over, and the struggle for the achieve- be more like that found in a population
ment of “racial equality” and for the genuine halfway around the world than like that of a
emancipation of oppressed peoples is some- neighboring population; and it is a fact that
thing that still needs to be concretely fought there is not a single gene (or single “allele,”
for. Any way you look at it, it is not yet the or alternative form of a gene) that can serve
case that “race doesn’t matter anymore.” to clearly distinguish one socially defined
But, again, all this has to do with the social “race” from another!
reality of race. From a biological standpoint, There are, of course, some well-known
the concept of distinct races among human average differences, in populations from
beings is essentially meaningless. different geographical regions of the world,
This may come as a surprise to many in terms of the frequency of distribution of
readers, because we have all been so socially some genetic alleles such as those conferring
conditioned to think that people belong to resistance to some diseases (like the fact
supposedly different “races” based on differ- that one of the hemoglobin alleles which
ences in such superficial features as skin color can cause sickle-cell disease but protects
or hair type. Many people already know that against malaria is more common in people
no one “race” is in any way innately superior whose relatively recent ancestors came from
or inferior to any other “race”; and many those parts of Africa and Asia where malaria
people may also already know that all human is a common problem—but even this feature
beings belong to a single species (we all pass is not always clearly correlated with what
the “single species test” because no human people tend to think of as “race”). Mainly,
population is ever completely reproductively however, the majority of recognizable differ-
isolated from the rest of humanity, and all ences between broad groupings of human
human populations can, and do, interbreed beings have to do with very superficial
and produce viable offspring all throughout features like skin color or hair type: nobody
166
would deny that, on average, it is usually a typical “African,” a typical “European,” a
pretty easy to tell the difference between typical “Asian” or a typical “Hispanic,” even
people of Bantu, Japanese, or Swedish in terms of those most superficial of features
descent, for instance. But again, this is “on such as skin color.
average,” and there is not actually any such thing Even more importantly, if you look even
as a “typical” member of any of the so-called major deeper, at the underlying molecular and
human “races” anywhere in the world, even with genetic variation present in the DNA of every
respect to superficial features like skin color and single local human population, you will find
hair or body type. that there is always more overall genetic variation
For example, “Africans” encompass between individuals in a given local population than
every imaginable skin color and body type, there is between any two geographic populations, or
including not only every imaginable shade between any two socially defined “racial” groups,
of darker skin but also Caucasian-looking anywhere on earth. In fact, there is now a wide-
North Africans and Egyptians or the yellow spread consensus among anthropologists,
skinned KoiSan peoples in the South. And molecular biologists, and population geneti-
the African continent is home, at one and cists that the concept of biological “races”
the same time, to the (on average) shortest, in human beings is in the main meaningless,
and to the (on average) tallest human popu- since pretty much the entire amount of
lations in the world (the Pygmies and the genetic variation present in the entire human
Masai respectively). species can be found inside any one local
Similarly, “Europeans” include not only human population anywhere in the world.
many pale-skinned blond people, such as For example, as the population geneticist
the average Scandinavians, but also the Richard Lewontin often points out, if all
often relatively dark-skinned, dark-haired humans on earth became extinct except for
people of Southern and Eastern Europe, just the Kikuyu tribe of East Africa, this one
who often look a lot more like some of the tribe would be enough to preserve at least
average populations of North Africa and the 85% of all the genetic variability contained in
Middle East than like the average Swede. the human species as a whole.
“Asians” also don’t fit a single stereotype: A genuine biological race (also called a
they include a wide range of people includ- geographical race or a subspecies) is defined
ing Turks, Indians, and Japanese, and overall as a population of genetically variable indi-
they encompass every imaginable skin color viduals which interbreed among themselves
and body type. but which consistently maintain a relative
As for “Hispanics” or “Latin Americans,” proportion (or “relative frequency” ) of
they include people of Southern Chilean certain specific gene forms (alleles) which
ancestry who look more like pale-skinned is different than that found in populations
Canadians than like their brown-skinned of the same species living in a different
Amerindian neighbors of the tropical zones geographical area. Different local human
of Latin America, and also many Blacks from populations do sometimes differ in the rela-
the East coast of Brazil or Central America. tive frequency of certain genetic alleles (of
So everywhere you look, you will find a those genes that come in multiple alleles).
wide variety of skin colors and body types For instance, some local human populations
(some of which can be traced to the “mixing” on average have a generally higher or lower
effects of more recent migrations and inva- frequency of the A, B, AB, or O blood types;
sions, but some of which seem to go back some have a higher frequency than others
farther in time and, like the higher frequency of the sickle-cell hemoglobin allele which
of darker skin in the tropical zones and the protects against malaria; some have a higher
higher frequency of pale skin in the temperate than average frequency of an allele which
and Arctic zones, may have possibly origi- facilitates milk digestion than most human
nated as local adaptations to certain local populations which are generally lactose
environmental conditions in the early history intolerant as adults. But these kinds of occa-
of human global expansion—see below). But sional regional populational differences in
today the overall variety is so great that it the proportion of specific alleles never really
really doesn’t make any sense to talk about continued on next page
167
continued from previous page conceivable habitat and climatic zone, in
neatly or consistently correspond with the so- the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Australia, and
called major racial categories. For instance, even crossing over from Northern Asia to the
African-Americans, whose historical ances- Americas by at least 12,000 years ago.
tors were primarily West Africans from The scientific evidence suggests that our
regions of Africa where malaria is prevalent, species hasn’t undergone any truly significant
on average do have a higher frequency of the biological modifications in the past 100,000
particular hemoglobin allele which can cause years. What has changed a lot has been
sickle-cell disease (but also protects against human culture, our capacity to develop,
malaria) than Caucasian Americans whose transmit, and continually build upon ever
mainly European ancestors lived in areas increasing stores of human knowledge and
that didn’t have malaria. But, on average, experience passed on from generation to
their frequency for this allele is lower than in generation through non-genetic cultural
African populations which are currently still means, thereby becoming the first species on earth
frequently exposed to malaria. And, even able to change itself and its surroundings (rapidly
more importantly, if you also look at differ- and dramatically) primarily through non-biological
ent regional populations in Africa itself, you cultural means, bypassing and outstripping the
will find that among different populations of much slower and more constrained (limited)
sub-saharan “Blacks,” there are populations mechanism of biological evolution.
from highland mountainous areas (where Of much greater overall significance than
malaria-bearing mosquitoes cannot live and any of the genetic variation among individu-
malaria is not a problem), who tend to have a als is the fact that the very biological features
much lower frequency of the sickle-cell allele which made us distinct in the first place—the
that protects against malaria than either combination of fully bipedal locomotion
African-American Blacks or populations of (which more consistently freed our hands)
Black Africans of the tropical lowland areas along with the significant post-birth period
where malaria is a big problem. And yet most of brain development (which made pos-
people would tend to place all these people sible unprecedented amounts of socialized
in the very same “racial category.” teaching and learning and accompanying
Again, from a biological standpoint leaps in social coordination and communi-
there is no such thing as a “typical” African, cation)—gave us an unprecedented ability
a typical “Black African,” a typical “African- to adapt to every imaginable kind of earth
American,” or a typical “Black,” just like environment through cultural adaptations
there are no typical “Whites,” no typical and modifications rather than through the
“Asians,” and no typical “Hispanics.” And more constrained and slow-going processes
the same can be said about every single of biological evolution.
other racial category people have ever tried Furthermore, it is only early in the his-
to socially define. tory of our species (and only temporarily)
The reason there are no true biological that local populations could have remained
races of human beings is quite simple. The somewhat cut off from each other for any
one and only current human species (Homo length of time. Some of the small differences
sapiens) must have started off (like all new in things like average skin color of popula-
species) as an initially small offshoot popu- tions with different regional ancestry may
lation evolving out of a preceding parent reflect some degree of biological adaptation
species (probably Homo ergaster, the African to local conditions in that early history.
version of Homo erectus, or some very similar For instance, all around the globe, modern
hominid species); but we also know from the populations whose ancestors lived in tropi-
fossil record that our species, Homo sapiens, cal zones (which get a lot of UV radiation
which evolved roughly 200,000 years ago, from sunlight) tend to have darker skin
was able to greatly spread and expand into (more melanin pigment) than populations
a wide variety of habitats beginning at least whose ancestors lived in temperate zones
50,000 years ago. So, within a relatively closer to the poles (which get much less
short period of time (in evolutionary terms) sunlight and UV radiation). It has been
we had spread out of Africa and into every suggested that this may have been the result
168
of adaptations of local populations to local to not “miss” certain historical differences in
conditions, because darker skin protects susceptibility to diseases like sickle cell, and
against UV-caused destruction of folic acid so on) the subjective appearance of “race” is
(an important nutrient in the reproductive still not as valuable as an individual profile
years, since it prevents birth defects such and can in fact be very misleading. In any
as spina bifida), whereas lighter skin makes case, individual family and personal history
it easier to produce vitamin D (which is and an analysis of social factors dispropor-
important for calcium metabolism and the tionately affecting the health of certain socially
development of healthy skeletons in areas defined groupings (such as the many effects
with insufficient sunlight). It is therefore of poverty on the health of ghetto dwellers,
possible (though not absolutely certain) or the prevalence of eating disorders in afflu-
that average skin color differences in local ent adolescents) is a much better predictor
geographic human populations emerged of what medical care is likely to be needed
early in our history due to reproductive than any subjective evaluation of what racial
advantages of different skin colors in regions category a person appears to “fit.”
having different total amounts of sunlight. It is important to remember that,
(For more on this proposal see, for instance, throughout the history of our species, human
the article “Skin Deep” by Nina G. Jablonski groups have continually migrated in and out
and George Chaplin in the October 2002 of different zones, continually interbreed-
Scientific American). ing and ensuring an uninterrupted gene
But it remains the case that by far the flow between populations which eventually
greatest amount of genetic variation pres- stretched across the entire globe. Small
ent in the human species can be found in and large-scale human migrations have
the variation that exists among individuals characterized our entire history as a species,
within any particular human population. In and continue to this day, ensuring both our
the relatively short amount of evolution- continuing biological unity and ongoing
ary time since modern Homo sapiens first cross-cultural exchange and enrichment.
appeared (about 200,000 years ago), The disgusting and ignorant attempts to
no human population has ever remained try to preserve the supposed “racial purity” of
completely reproductively isolated (cut off) one “race” vis-à-vis others (such as promoted
from other human populations for anything by Nazis, Aryan Nations, KKK, and other
like the length of time (the great number of such racial supremacists) is, among other
reproductive generations) that would be things, a genuine absurdity that doesn’t have
required for sufficiently significant genetic any kind of scientific leg to stand on! Leaving
differences to begin to accumulate between aside the fact that biology can clearly prove
the populations and turn them into truly that there is no such thing as innately “supe-
distinct geographical races. rior” or “inferior” peoples or “races,” many
Some populations differ in relative of us recognize—and celebrate—the fact that
frequencies of genes that occur in variable what the supremacists think of as their worst
forms (such as those coding for blood types) nightmare (so-called “race mixing”) has
but you cannot predict “race” from these essentially already come to pass! We are and
patterns of variation: As Richard Lewontin we have always been one single—variegated but
again points out, “The Kikuyu of East Africa biologically indivisible—worldwide species. J
differ from the Japanese in gene frequency
but they also differ from their neighbors the
Masai...the social and historical definitions
which put the two East African tribes in the
same ‘race’ but put the Japanese in a differ- [Readers interested in learning more about
ent ‘race’ were biologically arbitrary.” (in why the concept of biological race doesn’t apply
Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin 1984 Not in Our to human beings and related topics might want
to especially check out The Emperor’s New Clothes:
Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature) Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium by Joseph
This is why even in medicine (where L. Graves, as well as relevant sections in Mismeasure
it may actually be worth reflecting on an of Man by Stephen Jay Gould and Not In Our Genes by
individual’s apparent ethnic heritage in order Lewontin, Rose and Kamin.]
169
170 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Americas via the Bering Strait at least 12,000 years ago. We started off in
Africa as one single species, and we have remained one single species ever
since. (See “We All Came from Africa” on page 164.) No pocket of modern Homo
sapiens is ever truly reproductively isolated from the rest of the species, so
we are continually intermixing our genes, as we have done since our earliest
origins on the African continent. Most fundamentally, our species—which
today builds computers and explores the depths of the oceans and the far
reaches of space—is essentially unchanged biologically from the Homo sapi-
ens who set out from Africa in that second migration wave some 50,000
years ago. This is not just because relatively little time has passed and indi-
vidual species tend to remain relatively “stable” throughout much of their
lifespans, but because the species that our richly diverse hominid ancestry
ended up “spinning off ” some 200,000 years ago had an unprecedented
capacity to continually modify and restructure its own lifeways, and just
about any aspect of its outside environment, through cultural means. This
proved to be a much more rapid and effective way of changing the human
condition than anything that could be accomplished through any ongoing
biological evolution. The individuals responsible for the first prehistoric
cave art, those who first ventured across the Bering Strait, those who
maintained a hunter-gatherer mode of existence for 100,000 years or more,
those who developed agriculture 10,000 years ago, and those who created
advanced technological societies in just the last couple of centuries—were
all basically the same people. We have undergone no truly significant bio-
logical modifications (no further brain expansions, for instance) in all this
time—though the changes we have effected in every aspect of the world
around us through consciously initiated social and cultural modifications,
in just a few tens of thousands of years, are astounding, to say the least. (See
“What Does the Science of Evolution Tell Us about Human ‘Races’?” on page 166
and also “‘Social Darwinism’ Is Not Based on Science and Has Nothing to Do with
Darwinism”, right.)
We humans long ago evolved an unprecedented ability to continually
learn new things, to consciously seek to modify and transform the material
world, including human society, and to pass on a tremendous amount of
accumulated information from one generation to the next through those
non-genetic cultural means. This is what allows our species to “cope” with
new problems and new opportunities presented by the outside world (or
even to fail to do so!) without undergoing significant biological modifica-
tions of our bodies and without spinning off any new species. (See “Are
Humans Still Evolving?” on page 172.)
This, however, doesn’t mean we won’t someday go extinct: every par-
ticular form of matter eventually ceases to exist as such, and humans—at
least what we think of as being human today—will also eventually cease
to exist. The real question may turn out to be whether the extinction of
The Evolution of Human Beings 171
human beings is going to happen sooner rather than later, and what the
quality of human life is going to be from here on out. Will we be able
to use some of our tremendous capabilities to make repeated social and
cultural modifications to avoid driving ourselves over the brink through
war, social oppression and global environmental degradation? The answer
to that question will ultimately be up to us.
[Endnotes for Chapter 7 start on page 176]
172
Again, all this has been accomplished primarily customs, and relative opportunity—things
through cultural, not biological, evolution, though like whether or not people have enough
it is our very biology which made this possible in to eat, views regarding how and when and
the first place. with whom people should or should not
So, has biological evolution come to a reproduce, our ability to prevent and cure
complete standstill in the human species? many diseases that would have previously
Well, not quite, but almost. Human popula- prevented reproduction, etc. All these kinds
tions are still made up of genetically variable of things today have much more effect on human
individuals (we’re not clones of each other) reproduction than any new features that might be
and the relative frequency of certain alleles produced through random genetic reshuffling of
(gene forms) in any given locality can still our DNA. In fact, even going back into the
be affected from one generation to the distant past of human existence, the ability
next by the continual genetic “reshufflings” of human beings to transform ourselves and
accomplished through sexual reproduction, our world through cultural means has, for a
or even by such things as occasional genetic long time now, so far outstripped the effects
mutations, or shifts in gene frequencies due of any biological evolution that there is no
to random factors like deaths of individuals evidence that our bodies have undergone
or migrations of individuals in or out of an any truly significant biological reorganiza-
area. tions through selection proceeding in any
As in all other species, if human indi- well-defined direction in the past 100,000
viduals inherit some genetic variation which years!
provides them with some features leading On a small scale, it may still be pos-
to some kind of reproductive advantage sible to find recent or ongoing evidence of
(allowing them to produce more children, human populations evolving such things
who can themselves successfully reproduce, as differential resistance to disease. Many
than individuals who don’t have these new current human diseases (including many
inheritable features) and if this process gets of the cancers) are basically not subject to
repeated over a number of successive genera- biological natural selection for the simple
tions, it is still possible for some small-scale reason that they either don’t significantly
evolutionary changes (with regard to disease affect a person’s ability to reproduce one
resistance, for instance) to become manifest way or the other, or because they tend to
in local human populations. strike people mainly in their later years, after
But in practice this kind of thing is very many of them have already had children.
rare, because most of the changes still On the other hand, entire human popula-
occurring through genetic reshuffling in tions can sometimes be rapidly devastated
human beings don’t significantly affect when particularly lethal diseases strike
how many descendants individuals end down many people at once, especially if this
up contributing to future generations. As includes large numbers of young people in
we have seen, in modern times, how many their prime reproductive years. It was only
descendants a human individual manages a few hundred years ago that European
to contribute to succeeding generations has colonizers devastated entire populations
very little to do with any kind of biological in North and South America by introduc-
“reproductive fitness” and much more to ing smallpox (sometimes on purpose!) to
do with social and cultural relations and Amerindian populations which had never
before been exposed to this disease of
However, these kinds of random factors, which Europeans. Populations of Europeans had,
can have big effects on the overall genetic make-up of
especially small and isolated populations in other species, by that time, been exposed to smallpox
tend to have negligible effects on the sorting out of for hundreds of years, and had, over the
genes in human beings, simply because human popula- many generations, evolved at least partial
tions are never completely reproductively isolated from immunity to the disease. Because of this
each other and there is in effect continual gene flow
among them. they generally got much milder cases of
continued on next page
173
continued from previous page the reason why AIDs is today at epidemic
smallpox, and often survived. By contrast, levels in many African nations and why mil-
the Amerindian populations, which had lions of Africans are rapidly dying of AIDS
never before been exposed to smallpox and at a young age (while at least some people
whose populations had therefore not had are able to “live with” HIV for much longer
time yet to evolve any degree of immunity, periods of time in the industrialized nations)
caught the disease full-force across all age has much more to do with the effects of
brackets and were nearly wiped out by it poverty and the lopsided relations and
(a factor which contributed significantly exploitation of the imperialist system world-
to their military defeat at the hands of the wide, with the unconscionable withholding
Europeans). of necessary modern medications and treat-
It is not difficult to imagine that today ments by the profit-oriented multinational
any chance mutation which might provide pharmaceutical companies, and with the
resistance to something like HIV (which kills criminal policies of the current Christian
many people as youth, before they’ve even fundamentalist-influenced U.S. government
been able to have children) could take hold (which denies funding for non-abstinence-
and spread over generations in Africa and based sex education and birth control
other parts of the world being particularly programs which could help stem the spread
devastated by this disease. One such muta- of sexually transmitted diseases) than with
tion seems to be present already in a tiny anything having to do with biological evolu-
percentage of European Caucasians and tion. And the fundamental solution to these
is thought to have become established problems doesn’t have anything to do with
through natural selection a few centuries biological evolution either!
ago during the bubonic plague epidemics Our own species evolved out of pre-exist-
of the Middle Ages, where it may originally ing hominid species—so will we ever spin off
have protected against that disease. Cases an entirely new species?
such as this are interesting and leave open This is not likely. The reason for this has
the possibility that our species may still be to do, first of all, with everything that has
undergoing biological evolution at least in just been said about how cultural and social
some limited ways, particularly in relation means of modifying ourselves and our exter-
to things like lethal diseases that affect and nal world have far outstripped anything that
kill a great many young people before or could be accomplished through natural
during prime reproductive years, thereby biological evolution (though what we may
often altogether preventing or sharply lim- end up doing to the biology of our species
iting their ability to have children. In such through things like genetic engineering
situations natural selection could still likely remains an open question).
serve to help establish and spread through In addition, it is important to remember
future generations any new genetic mutation that a brand new species generally evolves
which might confer even partial increased out of a small, reproductively isolated offshoot
resistance to such a disease, since people population of a parent species. Without
with such a mutation would be much more that period of absolute reproductive isola-
likely to live long enough to have children, tion, spanning a significant number of
some of which would themselves carry the reproductive generations, it is not possible
mutation and therefore be able to pass it on for significant genetic modifications to take
through further generations. hold and sufficiently distinguish a new pop-
But even with such devastating diseases, ulation from its ancestral population and
it is evident that what humanity could make it impossible for them to once again
accomplish through social and cultural interbreed and merge back into a single
transformations is much greater—and species. But such reproductive isolation just
much faster—than anything that is likely to isn’t going to happen with human beings on
be accomplished by relatively weak natural this planet—we are at this point one single,
selection in this day and age. For instance, highly mobile and globally distributed species.
174
We inhabit every single corner of the earth gence would be sufficient to permanently
and every single kind of habitat, and there is prevent future successful interbreeding of
continuous gene flow among human popula- the space colonists with the ancestral earth
tions. It is simply not possible at this point population (the biological definition of
for any human population on this planet full speciation) is still likely to be primar-
to become completely reproductively cut ily dependent on non-genetic cultural and
off from the rest of humanity for the great social divergences, including how future
length of time that would be required for societies approach questions like genetic
that population to even begin to diverge as engineering and whether or not they even
a new species (even if all the cultural factors reproduce biologically anymore in the ways
mentioned earlier didn’t subvert the process that are familiar to us.
anyway). The mechanisms of biological evolution
I suppose that if a small population of have produced every living species on earth
human beings ever colonizes a distant part over some 3.5 billion years, and there is
of the cosmos, and could somehow remain absolutely no doubt that our own species
there completely cut off from earth’s was produced by this natural process. Like
humanity for a great many generations every other living species, our own spe-
(how likely is that?), then a certain amount cies will one day go extinct, in one way or
of biological evolutionary divergence could another; but between now and then we will
conceivably take place. Even then, however, no doubt consciously transform ourselves
particularities of individual genetic inheri- and the world around us in ways which we
tance would be highly unlikely to play the can barely yet imagine.
principal role in determining the make-up of [Return to main text on page 170] J
successive generations. Whether the diver-
175
176 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Chapter 7 Endnotes
1. We also can (and should) apply the methods and techniques of modern science
to gain a better understanding of such things as why human beings created religions
in the first place, or why many (though certainly not all) individuals continue to feel
a “need” for religion.
2. As discussed earlier in this book, natural selection is a relatively simple
mechanism: new features (representing novelties of form or function not present in
earlier generations) can emerge in individual organisms simply as a result of various
kinds of “reshufflings” of the inheritable genetic variation which was present in their
“parent” generation; when such new features happen to provide individuals having
those features with a “reproductive edge” relative to individuals who don’t have these
new features (allowing them to produce relatively more descendants who will in turn
be able to survive and reproduce), the new features will, quite naturally, end up being
passed on to a greater proportion of the individuals which make up the population in
the following generations. In this way, these features will tend to spread throughout
an entire population of plants or animals. This will happen automatically, as long
as the features in question really are inheritable (can be passed on from parents to
descendants through reproduction), and as long as they really do provide individuals
with some kind of reproductive advantage so that those having these new features
end up (on average) contributing more descendants to subsequent generations than
individuals who don’t have these features.
3. The Catholic Church has never had a good track record when it comes to
recognizing and appreciating the advances of science: The astronomer Copernicus
first proposed that the earth orbits around the sun (rather than the other way around)
way back in the 1500s. His theory was then scientifically confirmed to be true by the
astronomer Galileo in the early 1600s. Outraged that the scientific evidence revealed
errors in the Bible, the Catholic Church baldly refused to accept this scientific evi-
dence and instead tortured and persecuted Galileo as a heretic until they could force
him to “recant” (take back) the Copernican theory. This was in 1633. The Catholic
Pope John Paul II did finally get around to giving a speech in which he admitted the
Church had been wrong, and that Galileo had unjustly suffered at the hands of the
Church. But this didn’t happen until 1979!!!
4. Chimpanzees can even be said to have aspects of “culture”—they have
customs and traditions (particular ways of using tools or of greeting each other
for instance) which vary from locality to locality, and which, like human customs
and traditions, are not biologically inherited but are passed on from generation to
generation through non-genetic teaching and learning.
5. The overall effect of such periods of “relative stasis” (when not many new
species are being produced) is that the initial burst of species diversification is eventu-
ally “trimmed” and reduced over time, at least until a later point when something
appears to “trigger” yet another burst of speciation—producing a new crop of spe-
cies out of a line which had become, in a sense, rather static and stodgy from an
evolutionary standpoint. There is a lot of scientific interest these days in trying to
better understand just what factors (or combinations of factors) spur on, facilitate
or in various ways contribute to such changes in the overall rhythm and frequency
of speciation in specific plant and animal lines, or even in many different lines more
or less simultaneously. As scientists make progress in the task of reconstructing the
total environmental picture at different times in earth’s history and in particular
The Evolution of Human Beings 177
g eographic locations (including being able to reconstruct not only what the terrain
and climate were like but also what assortment of plant and animal species made
up the local biotic environment), what appears to be emerging is that periods of
particularly extensive speciation are often associated with periods of significant destabiliza-
tion or restructuring of the physical and/or biotic environments in which different species
lived. Significant changes in external environmental conditions often drive species to
extinction, but they can also be favorable conditions for oddball variant populations
to get a toe-hold, and to give rise to new species having new features that are more in
synch with the new external conditions.
6. When Homo erectus individuals started spreading out of Africa about a mil-
lion years ago, they took with them their stone cleavers and hand axes (known as
the Acheulean tool culture) and this “tool kit” remained in use in the many parts
of the world for more than a million years.
7. Richard Leakey has emphasized the great leap in cognitive abilities and
conscious design capabilities (what he calls “a different mind at work”) which is rep-
resented in the stone tool culture of the genus Homo starting around 200,000 years
ago. The Levallois or Mousterian stone tool culture which emerged then included
something like 60 different kinds of stone knives, scrapers, axes and sharp points.
The stone tools developed by Homo sapiens in Africa starting around 100,000 years
ago were even more advanced, including sharp stone blades as well as a variety of
other sophisticated tools. These tools ended up superseding all previous “tool kits”
as Homo sapiens spread out of Africa.
8. The more we learn about the earliest of the bipedal hominids, the more it
seems likely that they may have continued to spend a good deal of time still moving
about in trees (and almost certainly resting and sleeping in trees, out of the reach of
many predators). They still had the long arm bones of “brachiating” (tree-swinging)
apes, and it now appears that bipedalism first emerged at a time when much of Africa
was still blanketed by relatively unbroken tropical forests. The old idea that the first
bipedal hominids evolved at a time when large stretches of largely treeless grassland
savannas had spread across large parts of Africa (and that natural selection might
have favored upright-walking if it enabled individuals to more readily cross these
open expanses, see above the tall grasses, and survive away from trees for days at a
time)—is no longer considered very credible, because it turns out that tree habitats
were still very plentiful in many parts of Africa at that time. Truly extensive belts
of open and relatively treeless grassland savannas did develop, but this apparently
occurred quite a bit later than the emergence of the first bipedal hominids. There is,
however, evidence that the traditional expanses of unbroken tropical forests were at
least beginning to break up into more “patchy” habitats (consisting of a varied “mix”
of large and densely forested areas intersected with pockets of more open woodland
savanna areas) around the time the first bipedal species seem to have evolved.
Keep in mind that bipedalism did not in any case evolve “because of ” any
particular environmental changes—as we discussed earlier in this series, a changed
environment does not, in and of itself, “cause” an evolutionary novelty to appear. But
an evolutionary novelty which happens to appear—through random genetic reshuf-
flings, etc.—is more likely to be maintained and to spread throughout a population
over a number of generations if this population happens to be encountering some
environmental changes at that time and if these new evolutionary modifications
happen to enable individuals to better survive and reproduce in the face of those
178 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Anti-Evolution Creationism:
An Assault on All of Science,
In the Name of God
To recap essential points that have been discussed in previous chapters
of this book: There is a tremendous amount of very concrete and mutu-
ally reinforcing scientific evidence which actually proves that all life on this
planet has evolved over a long period of time (billions of years) and that
all living species of plants and animals continue to evolve to this very day.
Evolution is so well supported by the evidence that it is no exaggeration
to say that there is no theory that is better proven or better corroborated
(supported by different kinds of evidence) in all of science. The overwhelm-
ing majority of working scientists in all fields of science (biology, geology,
astronomy, etc.) will tell you that the theory of evolution has been subjected
to extremely rigorous scientific testing for nearly a century and a half, and
that they are therefore absolutely confident in saying that the basic facts
and mechanisms of evolution have been proven well beyond the shadow
of a doubt. The theory of evolution is not somebody’s unverified “guess”
about how life came to be the way it is—it is not a bunch of untested (and
untestable) “beliefs”—and this comprehensive scientific theory is neither
“in doubt” nor “in crisis.” The basic scientific facts of evolution are by now
as well established as the fact that the earth goes around the sun and not the
other way around (as explained by the Copernican theory) and the fact that
the force of gravity causes objects to fall towards the ground and not away
from it (as explained by the theory of gravitation).
Despite all the evidence, many people who hold religious beliefs of one
sort or another still find it difficult to accept the scientific facts of evolution,
because these scientific facts clearly contradict what is said in the Bible and
other religious Scriptures. The science of evolution has demonstrated that
all life is constantly changing (evolving) and that all currently living species
of plants and animals (including people) have evolved out of different pre-
existing ancestor species, through purely natural processes (such as natural
selection) taking place over millions and billions of years. By contrast, the
Creation story in the Bible (written more than 2,000 years ago, long before
179
180 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
people knew anything about evolution or even the true age of the earth)
says that a divine higher power (a supernatural God) created all the different
kinds of life-forms all at once (in just a few days) and only a few thousand
years ago, and that every single one of the different life-forms was created
completely separately.
If this Bible story were actually true, it would mean that all the modern
scientific evidence is wrong, and that our planet is not really some 4.5 bil-
lion years old, that the first simple life-forms didn’t really appear some
3.5 billion years ago, that none of the life-forms ever underwent any really
big changes or spun off any new species, and that none of the living species
we see around us today could possibly be related in any way to any other
species, past or present. If the Bible Creation story were literally true, every
different kind of life-form we see today (wolves, humans, catfish, chimpan-
zees, whales, bacteria, oak trees, turtles, corn plants, spiders, you name it)
would look today just like they looked when supposedly God created them
out of nothing and as separate and forever unrelated entities. Well, with all
due respect to people’s personal religious beliefs, I’m afraid all modern sci-
ence has shown that the Biblical Creation story is just that—a story, a myth.
There is just too much concrete evidence that the earth is actually billions
(not thousands) of years old; that all the different life-forms on earth did not
appear all at once but over a period of billions of years; that every single
species came into being as an evolutionary spin-off of a somewhat different
species that existed at an earlier time; and that all the different species on
earth today are actually related to each other (to varying degrees) through
long lines of descent from a series of shared ancestors.
It all started with some simple one-cell bacteria like-creatures some
3.5 billion years ago, but from that point on life evolved and diversified over
and over again, following many different evolutionary pathways. That his-
tory is etched into every single one of our bodies. On the “branching bush”
of life, every human is, in one way or another, and to varying degrees,
related to (and has at least a few features in common with) every other living
species on earth, going all the way back to some of the simplest bacteria-
like organisms which emerged out of the “chemical soup” some 3.5 billion
years ago and from which all life-forms on earth were ultimately derived.
Of course, you don’t have to have a science degree to realize that human
beings are obviously more closely related to (and have many more features
in common with) chimpanzees (who are our very closest non-human rela-
tives) or even to wolves, whales (or any other milk-producing mammals)
than to songbirds, or catfish, or corn plants or bacteria. But even with these
much more distant relatives we have at least a few features in common,
which are carry-overs from more distant shared ancestors of long ago (for
instance, we have skeletons and backbones, but so do catfish and songbirds;
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 181
and every cell in our bodies contains DNA, but DNA is also present in the
cells of all other living things, including corn plants and bacteria).
So, although many people have been taught to believe the Biblical
Creation story since early childhood, the evidence from the real world shows
it just isn’t true. Evidence, concrete scientific evidence: this is what allows us
to be so sure evolution is a fact—that it is how all life-forms on earth have
developed and how all life continues to change in an ongoing way.
As noted earlier, and as we will return to later on, many modern-day
religious believers have figured out ways to hold on to their basic religious
beliefs and values while at the same time accepting the scientific evidence
that life has, in fact, evolved. Among modern-day scientists, there are many
who are atheists (don’t believe in God or any other supernatural powers)
and also secular humanists (seek to meet the needs of humanity through
secular, or non-religious, means). But among scientists there are still quite a
few people who choose to hold on to at least some of the religious traditions
of Judaism, Christianity or Islam, for instance, and who may even continue
to believe that there could be some higher-power supernatural force out
there that human beings just can’t detect. But even among scientists with
these kinds of beliefs, there are literally only a tiny handful who have any
doubts that life on this planet has in fact evolved and that the basic facts and
mechanisms of biological evolution have long been proven to be true. This
is especially true in the life sciences, of course, since evolution is the corner-
stone explanatory theory which lies at the very foundation of all their work
and without which further scientific advance would become impossible.
And this is true for molecular geneticists, cell biologists, physiologists, pale-
ontologists, animal behaviorists, plant and animal population biologists,
community ecologists, conservationists, and so on.
c onsumed by humans). They have been looking for SARS viruses in areas
of rural China where, some scientists think, the virus could have “jumped”
from pig to human. And, as I write this, the latest news is that a species of
wild civet (a cat-like mammal which is apparently occasionally hunted and
consumed by people in the region) may harbor the SARS virus and represent
the pathway through which humans initially contracted the disease. It is too
early to tell for sure. But whether or not this particular source turns out to
be the right one, the point is that trying to figure out where this virus came
from is an important part of trying to figure out how to treat it and contain
it in human populations—but scientists wouldn’t even know where to look
for it if they didn’t understand some basic facts about evolution, including
why it is that disease-causing factors can sometimes jump between prey and
predator species and sicken the predators, especially if they still share many
evolutionary features in common with their prey.
The SARS virus, human susceptibility to the brain-wasting “mad-cow
disease,”1 the rapidly evolving AIDS virus, the increasingly problematic
evolution of bacteria resistant to all known antibiotics—all these are serious
public health problems, and they cannot be fully understood and correctly
addressed unless one takes into account the past and present evolution of
these disease-causing agents.
Do the Creationists who say that they “just don’t believe in evolution,”
because it runs counter to the Bible, think we should give up on all modern
attempts to treat and manage infectious diseases, because such attempts are
rooted in an understanding of evolution?
–That any attempts to transplant organs into humans from other species
(a tricky and problematic proposition from a number of angles in any case)
should currently not even consider using organs of species which are not
at least close evolutionary relatives of humans. This is because only organs
of species which shared common ancestors with humans in the relatively
recent evolutionary past would have enough similarities with human organs
to have even a chance of being accepted into a human body. Even among
mammals (the class of animals to which humans belong) some organ
transplants would be more likely to be rejected than others. Species of
mammals which have shared common ancestors with the human lineage in
the more recent evolutionary past (such as apes, or slightly more distantly
related pigs) have organs which have more features in common with those
of humans—and are thus less likely to be rejected—than would be the case
with more distantly related mammalian species.2
The point of all this is not to argue that cross-species organ transplants
(from other species into humans) are necessarily the best approach to
providing “spare parts” for sick humans (in fact, cross-species transplants
are so problematic from so many different angles that I tend to think that
developing research into “growing” brand-new functional organ tissue from
unspecialized stem cells will turn out to be the more promising avenue to
pursue). But the point here is that we wouldn’t have a basis to understand any
of this if we didn’t draw on what we have come to understand about how
evolution works and how evolutionary processes of the past have shaped
the way living species (and their body parts) exist and function today.
Again, it is our understanding of evolutionary biology (combined with
molecular and developmental biology) which allows us to see that one of
the best ways to eventually provide “spare parts” for sick people (new kid-
neys, livers, hearts, skin for burn victims, nerve cells for paraplegics, etc.)
will likely be to try to channel the growth and development of previously
undifferentiated human stem cells, rather than trying to make use of organs
taken from non-human species. The theory of evolution actually allows
us to expect certain health problems both when the donor and recipient
species are not related closely enough (greater likelihood of rejection) and
also when they are much too closely related (greater likelihood of transfer
of disease organisms along with the transplant). None of this would even
be an issue in research or in health care if the Bible Creation story were
true and humans and other living species had actually been created as
completely “separate” and “unrelated” entities rather than being descended
from a series of common (shared) ancestors.
Could it possibly be true, as the Bible says, that there really was a global
Flood that killed off all the living creatures on earth except Noah and his
family and “two of each kind” of the species we see on earth today (which
the “scientific Creationists” claim are all unchanged descendants of the
creatures Noah packed into his boat)? Of course not. First of all, there is
no historical geological evidence that such a flood ever took place, and it is
essentially impossible for this to happen—for a flood to occur that would
cover the whole earth at once. And even today human beings could not
possibly build a boat big enough, or even a thousand boats big enough, to
contain even just two of each living species.
Of course, the human authors of the Bible lived some 2,000 (or more)
years ago in the area we now call the Middle East and they did not realize
what a huge blooper they were putting in the Bible, because they were not
very familiar with the natural world, all around the world: they would only
have known a small portion of even the species which lived in their own
region, let alone the rest of the planet. And so they had no idea just how
many different living species of plants and animals have populated the earth
(then or now). But since today’s Creationists believe that all the species alive
today had to already have existed from the time God created everything all
at once (otherwise they’d have to admit the Bible is wrong on this), they
are pretty much stuck. All they can do is try to make ridiculously silly argu-
ments about how “two of each kind” that is around today must, somehow,
have been able to fit in Noah’s boat. They’re asking us to believe that the
ancestors of ALL the hundreds of millions of living species—all the different
species of mammals, all the different species of birds, all the different species
of reptiles, and amphibians, and fish, and insects, and marine invertebrates,
and of course all the many different living species of plants also, the many
different species of flowering plants, non-flowering plants, mushrooms, and
all the different species of bacteria and other microorganisms (which of
course are not even mentioned in the Bible)—TWO OF EACH KIND of all
of these species are supposed to have fit into one boat? Come on!
Let me ask: Is this what science teachers should be forced to teach to
kids in school, as a supposedly “legitimate alternative theory”? The scary
thing is how close these Creationists have come to succeeding on a number
of occasions in recent years: they have actually managed to get entire
school districts in a number of states to consider giving “equal time” to
both “creation-science” and “evolution science” in the science classroom,
and it has taken huge battles in the courts and the rallying of expert testi-
mony of hundreds of prominent scientists to (so far at least) prevent this
insanity from becoming established law. And even where they have failed to
impose their full program (to get the state to introduce their religious views
in opposition to established science in state-funded public schools, and in
the science classrooms!) they have succeeded in confusing a lot of people
188 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
into thinking that maybe the facts of evolution aren’t so sure after all, and
they have gotten a number of corporate publishers of school textbooks to
stick little “disclaimers” inside quite a few high school science textbooks
telling students that evolution is a controversial theory (no it’s not—at least
not among 99.9% of scientists!) and that some students may hold religious
views which run counter to evolution so it’s OK for students to make up
their own minds about what’s true!!! Do we tell the students it’s OK to
make up their own minds about whether the earth is flat? Or whether bac-
teria and viruses can cause diseases in human beings and that there are steps
human beings can take to prevent or combat this? Or about any other basic
scientifically proven facts?
Traditional Creationists not only reject the many different kinds of evi-
dence that show that living species have evolved; they also reject the clear
geological evidence that this has been going on for billions of years, and that
the earth itself is billions of years old (and that things like mountain ranges
and the Grand Canyon, for example, were formed by natural processes of
geological uplift and erosion taking place over millions and hundreds of mil-
lions of years). Any knowledgeable geologist will tell you that the creationist
idea that the earth’s landscape features were formed “all at once” just a few
thousand years ago (and have since then changed only as much as could
be explained from just a few thousand years of wind and water erosion) is
completely nuts! Modern science can actually establish the age of different
rocks in a number of different ways, and these various dating techniques
have revealed that the earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old. In addition,
modern geologists now know and understand much of what’s actually been
involved in the dynamic and large-scale processes which have refashioned
the face of the planet multiple times over the past millions and billions of
years. Even though most of these processes have unfolded incredibly slowly
and over almost inconceivably long periods of time from a human perspec-
tive, modern geologists can still detect and even measure such things as:
how large land masses spread apart or crashed into each other; how huge
mountain ranges got pushed up from below (and later became worn down,
only to sometimes get pushed up yet again some millions of years later);
how the earth’s oceans have repeatedly grown or shrunk at different times
in earth’s history; how inland seas sometimes drowned out the interior
of continents for millions of years; how deep land and undersea canyons
were formed; how cracks repeatedly ripped open the planet’s surface crust,
providing outlets for hot steam and magma from deep inside the earth to
come to the surface in volcanic eruptions which at one and the same time
destroy and build new land. They can detect and measure how many of
these processes shaped the planet in the past, and also how many of these
processes are continuing to take place today (for instance, some mountain
ranges are continuing to “grow,” and the rate at which this is happening can
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 189
190
the first strands of replicating DNA mol- or “walk” (and different mutations actually
ecules and the first reproductive cells. produced all sorts of different ways blocks
Looking at this question from a some- could “move”). Since in that particular arti-
what different direction, a number of ficial environment (the computer program)
researchers have used computer models anything showing ability to walk enjoyed a
to show how even computer-generated reproductive advantage (producing more
self-reproducing “artificial life-forms” start copies than those that didn’t walk), it
evolving on their own (without any human became apparent over time that the popu-
being or other “intelligent designer” direct- lations of descendant generations of blocks
ing the process), how they often produce contained a greater and greater proportion
a bewildering diversity of new artificial life- of individuals with some kind of ability to
forms and even generate some unexpected “walk.”
“solutions” to “design problems” that the So, in this simulated computer environ-
human experimenters would not have antici ment, randomly occurring “mutations”
pated. For instance, one such experiment (copying errors in the self-replicating
(run by Karl Sims in the 1990s) involved a programs), combined with some simulated
“population” of “varied individuals” (an changes in external environmental variables
assortment of simple “virtual blocks” made and constraints, ended up over time (many,
of two connected pieces) which were set many generations) bringing forth major new
by the computer program to “reproduce” features of both form and function (remem-
(self-replicate). The experimenters did one ber: that particular simulated computer
other thing: they essentially programmed environment was such that any blocks with
into the simulation the equivalent of a selec- any ability to walk would reproduce better
tive advantage for a given environment—for in that environment than blocks which
instance, programming into the computer hadn’t evolved an ability to walk). And all
that any of the virtual blocks that man- of this without anyone having to intervene
aged to “walk” would automatically have directly to make any of these specific evo-
a reproductive advantage. It’s important to lutionary modifications or to “design” any
understand that the experimenters didn’t of the newly emerging features! Artificial life
design any of the blocks to “walk”—they simulations of virtual “block creatures” or
simply programmed the computer to func- simulations of even whole complex ecologi-
tion like natural selection and give any blocks cal communities containing different virtual
which happened to have evolved on their own organisms (as in the even more recent
any ability to “walk” a definite reproductive “Tierra” evolution simulations) demonstrate
edge, meaning that those blocks got to some basic principles of how evolutionary
contribute more descendants to the next change can occur spontaneously and with-
generations than the blocks which hadn’t out being guided by any conscious designer,
evolved that new function. The experiment- even in non-living systems. Such experi-
ers didn’t know ahead of time whether the ments, together with the many advances
self-replicating artificial life-forms would in molecular genetics and developmental
evolve such a function on their own or biology which increasingly track the nuts
not. They just started the self-replicating and bolts of evolutionary changes in living
program running and then just walked away organisms even at the sub-cellular level,
and waited to see what would happen. are all contributing a great deal these days
What happened next is that the self-repro- to our understanding of how the very first
ducing “individuals” produced generation forms of life could well have emerged.
after generation of copies of themselves. But So, is our knowledge of the earliest
occasionally minor copying errors would pop origins of life complete? Of course not.
up (the equivalent of mutations in real living But, for one thing, as many biologists have
creatures). And, lo and behold, purely by pointed out, even if we don’t yet understand
chance, some of these “mutations” hap- fully how the very first primitive forms of life
pened to allow some of the blocks to move continued on next page
191
192 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
the Bible—an insistence that every thing, every single word, in the Bible
must be accepted as literally true. But because they know there’s supposed
to be a separation of church and state in the United States, they try to get
these religious views accepted by claiming to have “scientific proof ” that
evolution is wrong. This is something that is really important to under-
stand and be aware of: The main way these traditional Creationists try to
“make their case” is not to provide scientific evidence of their own (which
is impossible for them to do since, by definition, it is not possible to provide
scientific evidence of a supposed force or phenomenon—a god—which
even they admit is not part of the reality of the natural world). So all they
can do is try to “poke holes” in the theory of evolution and then keep their
fingers crossed that if they can convince enough people to have doubts about
evolution then people will believe instead in the existence of a Creator-god
and in particular the Biblical Creation story. (See “The Cambrian Explosion,
Punctuated Equilibrium and the ‘God of the Gaps’ Argument” on page 195 and
also “Misrepresenting Working Scientists—A Favorite Creationist Tactic” on
page 200.)
These traditional Creationists are not simply nuts (though they are
nuts!). They are also very dishonest. They remind me of nothing more than
the old-style charlatans who tried to take advantage of despairing and gul
lible people by selling them bottles of snake oil as a supposed cure for all
their ailments. And, just like the snake oil salesmen of old, they will change
their arguments, as many times as they need, to fit the circumstances and
the better to confuse people.
This is also very important to understand about the creationist method:
If you answer their objections to evolution with well-documented scientific
Johnson and his colleagues—would as it really is. And it has always been the
have us all think.” case that, as we uncover new truths about
reality, we often have to discard old ideas
The more science advances, the more and long-held beliefs, not because they are
human ideas about divine powers and old but because a scientific approach and
supernatural realms get repeatedly under- method reveals that they do not in fact cor-
cut and revealed to have been nothing more respond to the way things really are.
than attempts made by humans to imagine We need to keep following through on
what they could not yet understand. So to all this “sorting out” process, ever more con-
those religious people who already acknowl- sciously and systematically. Even the earliest
edge that there is overwhelming scientific humans would have had to engage in primi-
evidence for evolution—who are already tive versions of this (a kind of science by trial
convinced that, once life had emerged on and error) in order to survive and increasingly
this planet, it proceeded from then on to develop their ability to transform the world
evolve and diversify by purely natural evo- around them in keeping with their perceived
lutionary processes—I would suggest the requirements. The world around us is always
following: by all means, let’s never lose our changing, and human knowledge needs to
sense of wonder at all we still do not know continually develop and expand in relation
or fully understand (as well as our wonder to that.
at many things we now do understand); and Nothing in our human “tool-kit” is more
let’s definitely keep asking all sorts of hard important than a thoroughgoing materialist
questions, about everything; let’s definitely scientific method for uncovering the actual
work to unite all those (religious believers truth of things—a method consistently
and non-believers) who want to try to do applied—a method which itself is the prod-
everything that is within human powers uct of evolution, and revolution, in human
to positively improve the human condi- development, including in our modes of
tion; but let’s also strive to be consistent thinking. To forward-looking religious
in applying the methods of science for doing believers and non-believers alike I say: why
so—consistently materialist methods, aimed at not make a pact to go wherever scientific
systematically uncovering the actual truth methods for uncovering the truth of things
of things. Scientific methods of exploration may take us, even if what we uncover ends
and investigation have always helped us sort up posing some serious and uncomfortable
out what actually corresponds to material real- challenges to some old assumptions and
ity as it really is in nature and in society, from cherished traditions?
what doesn’t actually correspond to reality [Return to main text on page 189] J
194 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
facts, they will just change the argument and claim to have good reasons
to challenge something else in evolutionary theory. It’s as if they’re trying
to run some kind of three-card-monty sleight of hand: You can never pin
them down or get them to argue with any kind of real substance in support
of their own “alternative theory.” Since they are not particularly beholden
to the actual truth of things (that is probably one of the biggest under-
statements of the year!) this gives them a certain perverse freedom to keep
changing the terms of the debate until evolutionists finally give up arguing
with them because it is only too clear that these people simply will never be
convinced, no matter how much rational scientific evidence you present to
them.
195
continued from previous page
still single-celled eukaryotes (cells with their
later on became completely understandable.
DNA contained inside a nucleus instead of
Take the example of the so-called “mystery”
held just as loose strands in their bodies,
of the Cambrian explosion.
as in the case of bacteria) have been found
The “Cambrian explosion” seen in the
fossilized in rocks dating back as far as 2.5
geological record is something Creationists
billion years ago. But these are still one-celled
often still like to bring up to argue that this is
organisms. Multi-cellular organisms, which
evidence of some kind of sudden and sepa-
are made of complex collections of eukary-
rate divine Creation of complex life-forms.
otic cells which perform different functions,
Their so-called “evidence” for this simply
don’t show up in the fossil record until the
boils down to the fact that for a long time
beginning of the Cambrian period. At that
evolutionists didn’t yet know how to explain
point, seemingly all of a sudden—“wow,
it. So let’s look at this a bit.
there they are!”
The so-called “Cambrian explosion” is
So what’s going on here? If evolution
certainly real. It refers to a time at the very
is real, these complex marine animals (like
beginning of the Cambrian geological era
the trilobites) couldn’t just have popped
(some 540 million years ago) when, seemingly
out of nothing. And they have too many
“out of nowhere and all of a sudden,” the
components to have appeared as “instant”
fossil record reveals that the seas became full
modifications of those previous one-celled
of all sorts of complex multicellular animals
organisms, because evolution just doesn’t
which had never existed before, including
work that way. They had to have been
corals, brachiopods, clam-like mollusks and
derived from pre-existing ancestor species,
the first of the arthropod trilobites.
but what were those ancestors and where
The fossil record clearly shows, for
are they? This “mystery” is one of the things
instance, that trilobites first appeared in
Creationists for more than a century have
this period (trilobites are creatures you
been trying to use to say evolution must
could think of as somewhat resembling
be wrong, showing once again that they
marine cockroaches) and then underwent a
offer no positive proofs of any of their argu-
tremendous burst of species diversification.
ments—their whole strategy is just to try to
In fact, the many different species of trilo-
“poke holes” in the theory of evolution and
bites ended up dominating the earth’s seas
hope it will collapse and divine Creation will
for hundreds of millions of years (though all
be the only theory still standing. The way the
the trilobites are now extinct). Such bursts
Creationists see things is that “if you can’t
of extensive biological diversification are
explain something perfectly then God must
not seen in the fossil record prior to the
have done it.”
Cambrian: if you look for fossils in layers of
But today the so-called “mystery” of
rock that are older than 540 million years you
the Cambrian explosion (the seemingly
won’t find any of these species; in fact you
“sudden” appearance of complex multicel-
won’t find many fossils of any species at all!
lular marine animals around 540 million
Pretty much zip. But that doesn’t mean that
years ago) is being solved on two fronts:
life on earth started only 540 million years
1) Scientists have been able to collect
ago. We know that life on earth started
additional observational data, such as the dis-
around 3.5 billion years ago because we can
covery of the remains of a diverse collection
find traces in rocks of simple bacteria-like
of soft-bodied multicellular organisms in
organisms going back at least that far. And
fossil layers older than 540 million years old
fossil remains of the first more complex but
which likely include some of the ancestor
It is not however the case, as Creationists often species from which the Cambrian animal
claim, that “all the major living groups” appeared at groups are descended.
that time—in fact what we think of today as the major 2) Scientists have also made significant
animal and plant “groups,” including the reptiles, theoretical advances which are contributing to
amphibians, birds, mammals, flowering plants and so
on, didn’t even begin to appear until millions of years a better understanding of large-scale evolu-
later. tionary processes spread out over the very
196
long stretches of geological time (such as ancestors of the Cambrian organisms which
significant advances in the understanding had previously seemed to “come out of
of how major changes in climate or other nothing.”
environmental changes can “drive” bursts Keep in mind that one reason it’s so diffi-
of speciation, or the 1972 proposal by Niles cult to find fossils of the oldest multicellular
Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould of the species is because the first multicellular
theory of “punctuated equilibrium” arguing creatures lived in water and were soft-
that large-scale evolutionary change has bodied—without skeletons or other hard
happened at variable rates over the millen- parts—so they would often have decom-
nia and that the fossil record should reflect posed without leaving any fossil traces at
that unevenness). These kinds of theoretical all. It has been suggested that, until about
contributions—and the rich atmosphere of 540 million years ago, the ancient seas did
fresh debate and energized research they not yet contain enough oxygen to allow the
have brought forth—have gone a long way development of large multicellular organ-
towards resolving the supposed “mystery” isms or even the production of materials like
of the Cambrian explosion. calcium carbonate that goes into making
As it turns out, it’s not that multicellular hard body parts. As often seems to be the
organisms are completely absent from the case in the evolutionary history of the earth,
fossil layers that are older than 540 million major and large-scale changes in environ-
years old: it’s more that they are rare, and mental conditions seem to have opened
so they are obviously hard (though not up new possibilities for life to evolve along
impossible) to find. Why are they hard to dramatically new evolutionary pathways
find in the fossil record? Well, for one thing, never before seen.
we now know something we didn’t used to With increased understanding from a
know—that the planet went through a whole number of different directions we now realize
series of profound and extensive glaciations why the fossil record prior to the Cambrian
(described as periods of “snowball earth”) seems somewhat empty and barren, and we
between about 600 and 800 million years understand better why the so-called “explo-
ago, before the Cambrian “explosion.” It sion” onto the scene of a whole set of new
doesn’t seem these periods of such severe multicellular hard-bodied creatures some
global glaciation would have been very favor- 540 million years ago required no divine
able for sustained periods of evolutionary intervention and did not, in fact, “come out
diversification (and fossilized preservation) of nothing” but out of some of the pre-exist-
of complex multicellular life forms. But it ing multicellular species which are only now
is also now known that at the end of the being discovered.
last of these “snowball-earth” glaciations Theoretical advances in evolutionary
(during which the entire planet had been biology have also helped us to rethink how
covered with ice), multicellular organisms something like the Cambrian explosion
did manage to get an evolutionary toe-hold occurs (because even though it didn’t “come
and from then on were able to spread and out of nowhere” it is still an “explosion” in
diversify quite rapidly. the sense that it represents a tremendous,
We now know this because, in rock and geologically rather sudden, burst of
layers dated to between 540 and 600 million new species, many of which would fill the
years old, remains of the so-called Ediacaran seas for millions of years thereafter). In
fauna have been found. These were (to our fact, the Cambrian explosion is helping
human eye) strange-looking and clearly us to deepen our understanding of the
multicellular animals. Their exact classifica- variable rhythms and pacing of the kind of
tion is still being debated, but many of them large-scale evolutionary changes that can
look like relatives of the later worms, corals, take the branching bush of life into radi-
starfish and arthropods, and paleontologist cally new directions. These processes can
Niles Eldredge for one is pretty sure they’re
going to turn out to be some of the direct continued on next page
197
continued from previous page
be relatively slow and plodding for tens or and climate) and of the existing biotic
even hundreds of millions of years, and then environment (such as major changes in
really pick up in a concentrated “burst” of the collection of living—“biotic”—species
truly major evolutionary modifications of of plants and animals that share the same
whole lines of plants or animals over maybe environment and interact with each other in
just a few hundreds of thousands or mil- various ways). We know from direct experi-
lions of years. The Cambrian explosion is an ence and observation in both laboratories
example of one such burst. While smaller- and in the wild that sustained environmen-
scale evolutionary modifications are always tal disruptions on even a more minor and
going on at or below the level of individual “local” scale can drive living populations
species (at the level where local reproductive of plants and animals to begin to spin off
populations of living species interact with distinct species even today (for instance, as
their local environments), the truly large- was discussed earlier, bacterial populations
scale and qualitative leaps in the history of will often start to evolve new resistant strains
life on this planet (such as the appearance when antibiotics are repeatedly introduced
and spread of the first insects or of the first into their environments; or populations
mammals, for instance) are much more rare of one species of fish which once shared
occurrences. It is being increasingly under- an environment can, over the generations,
stood that macroevolutionary change is not start to diverge into two different species
stuck on a single speed like some antique if something like a sandbar or clogged
bicycle. There have been times in the history waterway keeps two parts of the population
of this planet when, in a sense, very little separated and unable to reproduce and
was happening in terms of the appearance exchange genes with each other for a long
of any radically new evolutionary direc- enough period of time). The basic underly-
tions, and such periods of “relative stasis” ing evolutionary principles are much the
on the macroevolutionary level have been same at both the “micro” and the “macro”
fairly typical (even while the existing species evolutionary scales.
always continued to evolve) and have often The early primitive single-celled bacteria
lasted for tens of millions or even hundreds seem to have done fine since the earliest days
of millions of years. But the history of life on of life on this planet—in fact, it is often said
this planet has not been just one slow and that “bacteria still rule the earth” (and not
gradual train: it’s becoming increasingly just causing diseases; many bacteria species
clear that it has also been periodically “punc- are also involved in producing oxygen in the
tuated” by relatively short periods of time in seas, cycling nitrogen in the soil and break-
which many really significant, large-scale ing down dead wood and other organic
evolutionary changes have taken place—such matter—the rest of life as we know it would
as the nearly simultaneous (on a geological literally not be possible without them)! The
time-scale) appearance and spread of many first simple eukaryotic cells evolved about
new and radically different families of plants a billion years after those earliest bacteria,
and animals—out-of-the-ordinary and and they in turn became the building block
concentrated bursts of speciation and diver- ancestors out of which all later multicellular
sification which have repeatedly taken life plants and animals were ultimately derived.
on this planet into whole new directions. The evolution of multicellularity is a
Importantly, it is also becoming increas- fascinating story in its own right. It turns
ingly clear that those really major leaps and out the very first multicellular organisms
turning points in large-scale evolutionary likely evolved as a result of some kind of
history (the ones that gave rise to whole new aggregation or “fusing together” of differ-
branches and directions in the branching ent one-celled organisms which lived in the
bush of life) have tended to correspond to early seas. Today a complex body such as a
periods of major change and dislocation of human body contains something like 3 bil-
the existing physical environment (such as lion separate cells, many of which perform
major changes in the physical landscapes different specialized functions. But the
198
marks of a simpler past in the history of life seem to have given impetus to a number of
on earth are still visible today in every one significant developments in the evolution of
of the cells of every single multicellular plant the various human species which were the
or animal, including people. This is because ancestors of our current single human spe-
each individual cell contains little energy- cies. As Niles Eldredge put it in his excellent
producing organelles, called chloroplasts (in book, The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure
the case of plants) or mitochondria (in the of Creationism:
case of animals, including humans). These
critical little energy-producing factories “Almost without fail, whether
found inside of cells allow them to engage we are considering ancient bacteria
in much more complex and diverse func- 3.8 billion years old or the evolu-
tions than would be possible in one-cell tion of the human lineage in the last
bacteria, for instance. But it turns out (as 4 million years, we find that signifi-
Lynn Margulis first insightfully proposed in cant events in life’s history are
1967) that those chloroplasts and mito- correlated with significant events in
chondria actually used to be separate free-living the history of the Earth’s atmosphere,
creatures themselves! At one time, some of oceans, and lands.”
them apparently fused with other early cells The Cambrian explosion, our own
in some kind of symbiotic or parasitic rela- human evolution, or any other major junc-
tionship...and the rest is history! tures in the evolutionary history of life, can
Talk about a major change in a biotic be explained by entirely natural processes and
environment (the external environment require no super-natural explanations. But
which includes all the other living species will our ability to increasingly understand
in a locality) leading to a whole new spin- life without God leave us feeling in some way
off branch in the evolution of life! But adrift and empty? Why should it? We still
one could point to many other significant can, and should, be duly amazed, sustained,
examples: increasing levels of oxygen in the and even humbled, by the recognition of the
seas which at a certain point made possible wonders of diversity and complexity that
the production of the calcium carbonate naturally evolving life can itself bring forth,
that some organisms use to make shells and by both the limitations and ongoing
and other hard parts seems to have spurred potentials of our own humanity. It is often
yet another major evolutionary “burst” of the case that people who understand and
diversification; a major asteroid or large appreciate “all that” find that their “spirits”
meteorite impact seems to have greatly can be richly fulfilled in the largest sense
contributed to the extinction of a vast array through human science or art (and often
of plant and animal species towards the end through a combination of both), without
of the Cretaceous period, but the resulting experiencing the slightest need for a “spiri-
reconfigurations of physical and biotic tuality” rooted in superstition and in the
environments also seem to have helped belief in gods and the churches of old. Far
“open up” the subsequent period of rapid from being a recipe for a grey, cold and
expansion and diversification of mammals; passionless outlook, a truly materialist
and, in our own history, major environ- scientific method, systematically applied to
mental changes in Africa (in particular a uncovering the actual genuine wonders of
series of serious and long-lasting droughts the natural and social world, can uncork the
which would have significantly altered the imagination, the sense of purpose and the
hominid environments and food sources) transformative consciousness and initiative
of human beings in ways no reference to
We know mitochondria and chloroplasts used a presumed higher power ever could. Isn’t
to be separately reproducing independent organisms
because every chloroplast or mitochondria to this day
that an outlook worth striving for?
still contains its very own DNA, which is separate and [Return to main text on page 193] J
different from the host cell’s, and which gets repro-
duced “passively” every time the host cell reproduces.
199
Misrepresenting Working Again, the vast majority of scientists
today (in all fields of science) don’t disagree
Scientists—A Favorite at all on these basics. They do have healthy
Creationist Tactic debates about areas of research that are
aimed at further extending and developing
Creationists in general are famous for our understanding of evolutionary mecha-
their shoddy and unprincipled methods. nisms and processes. As in any other field
So-called “scientific Creationists” and the of science, there is always more to learn.
“Intelligent Design” Creationists can pro- For instance, evolutionary biologists debate
duce no actual scientific evidence for their whether many of the truly large-scale evo-
theories. They have in fact never published a lutionary changes which have taken place
single scientific research paper in any peer- throughout earth’s history may at times
reviewed scientific journal (which publish have occurred faster and less gradually than
articles only after they have been critically previously assumed (especially in periods
reviewed and assessed by multiple working of truly major climatic and other environ-
scientists with established credentials and mental changes); or they might argue about
experience in relevant scientific arenas.) the relative importance of natural selection
Since Creationists can provide no scientific vs. genetic drift in shaping evolutionary
evidence whatsoever for their own theories, changes in different living populations.
they focus instead on trying to tear down These are healthy and productive debates.
the opposition (the evolutionists) any way But not one of these scientists is arguing
they can: they try to confuse people who that evolution by Darwinian natural selec-
don’t know much about science into think- tion didn’t happen or that it isn’t a key and
ing that the theory of evolution is wrong, ongoing mechanism through which life
that the evidence for evolution is not solid evolves!
or that evolution is a “theory in crisis” as But the Creationists (including the
proven by the fact that evolutionists argue “Intelligent Design” people) routinely
among themselves. This is all completely misrepresent evolutionary biologists and
ridiculous! Not only is the theory of evolu- other evolutionists and distort what they
tion just about the most well-documented are actually saying, to make it appear that
theory in all of science, but there is no such the theory of evolution is in trouble when
“crisis” in the scientific community: the it clearly isn’t. They lie and they distort the
overwhelming majority of scientists are in words of scientists and quote them out of
complete agreement about the basic facts context. And they keep doing this even after
and basic operating principles of evolution the misquoted scientists complain that they
(including that all life on this planet has are being misrepresented! For instance, a
been evolving for some 3.5 billion years and number of years ago, famed evolutionists
is continuing to evolve; that natural selec- Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge were
tion has been shown to be a key mechanism reflecting on the fact that major new evo-
through which evolutionary change takes lutionary lines often seem to appear rather
place over multiple generations; that all abruptly in the fossil record. They put for-
living species are related to each other by ward the view that large-scale evolutionary
lines of common descent from a succession change likely proceeds over geological time
of shared ancestors, going all the way back more gradually in some periods and more
to the earliest forms of life; that human rapidly in others (according to a model
beings are today one single species and are they called “punctuated equilibrium”). If
descended from a long series of different this is indeed the case—if there is in fact
upright-walking hominid ancestor species, unevenness in the rates of overall large-scale
the first of which split off a few million years
ago from an ape-like species which is also Genetic drift refers to observable changes in gene
frequencies which can occur in living populations over
the ancestor of modern-day apes, including the generations simply through such things as chance
our closest cousins the chimpanzees). migrations in or out of an area.
200
evolutionary change, and some geological erate testable predictions (unlike anything
periods are more characterized by “relative the Creationists ever “propose”!) it has
stasis,” when many species and lineages been useful in generating healthy debates
tend to maintain themselves relatively and fresh thinking in evolutionary circles
unchanged for long periods of time (under- and helping evolutionists avoid getting
going the usual never-ceasing small-scale locked into views of overly slow and gradual
evolutionary changes and adjustments, evolutionary change or failing to realize that
but in general evolving few dramatically there is no reason to suppose that the rates
new features and spinning off few wholly at which large-scale evolutionary change
new species and lineages) whereas other occurs couldn’t speed up or slow down in
geological periods are characterized by different geological periods. These kinds
more concentrated and intense large-scale of questions continue to be wrangled over
evolutionary changes (including “bursts” by evolutionists, and this is overall a good
of diversification during which many new thing which will help advance our under-
species and lineages are generated), then standing of these processes. But the point
one prediction that flows from this is that here is that none of what Gould and Eldredge
such alternating patterns (periods of rela- put forward ever in any way called into question
tive long-term stasis or equilibrium in many the well-established and proven basic facts of
plant and animal lines occasionally being Darwinian evolution—they were simply critiqu-
disrupted or “punctuated” by periods when ing those who might think that large-scale
a whole lot more large-scale evolutionary evolutionary change could only happen at a
change is going on) should be reflected in glacially slow and always even rate.
what we see in the fossil record. Eldredge But when the Creationists first heard
and Gould predicted that if their model of about Gould and Eldredge’s model of
variable rates of large-scale evolutionary “punctuated equilibrium” and their critique
change is correct, there would be some of some traditional Darwinists who seemed
points in the fossil record where many new to conceive of evolution always occurring
species and lineages would seem to appear at the same steady pace, they interpreted
rather suddenly or abruptly (though keep in this to mean “Darwin was all wrong” and
mind that “abrupt” on a geological time- immediately published a pamphlet entitled
scale typically still means tens or hundreds “Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution is a
of thousands of years or more!) and that Hoax.”
these periods of more intense large-scale This was certainly news to Niles Eldredge
evolutionary change likely would be found and Stephen Jay Gould, who had always
to correspond to periods of major climatic been staunch defenders of the basic facts
or other major environmental changes. of evolution (the late Stephen Jay Gould’s
So part of Gould and Eldredge’s predic- whole life was dedicated to further develop-
tion was that one should in fact not always ing our understanding of the basic principles
expect to find perfectly gradual series of and mechanisms of evolution, and Niles
nicely graded intermediate species linking all Eldredge continues to write a great deal to
major ancestor and descendent lines in the defend evolution and expose creationism,
fossil record. For one thing, as pointed out including in his good and accessible recent
elsewhere in this book, many remains never book The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure
fossilize anyway and many fossils are never of Creationism).
found. Plus, Gould and Eldredge argued, not But no matter how much Eldredge and
all major evolutionary modifications neces- Gould complained about creationist distor-
sarily took place through long series of tiny tions of their work, the Creationists kept
incremental changes—some fairly dramatic continued on next page
evolutionary changes could have occurred
And actually Darwin, and even more so his friend
in a more evolutionary telescoped way in and staunch supporter the biologist T. H. Huxley, had
some periods of earth’s history. Because the themselves begun to consider that not all evolutionary
model of punctuated equilibrium can gen- change necessarily always occurred at the same rate.
201
continued from previous page consensus among scientists that there is undeni-
it up, and to this day you’ll still hear some able evidence that evolution has taken place
of them invoking the theory of punctuated (and continues to take place), including the
equilibrium as if it somehow contradicts the fact that human beings themselves evolved
basic theory of evolution, which of course out of different pre-existing species. The
it doesn’t. Creationists always conveniently manage
More recently, when PBS ran television to sidestep talking about that consensus in
broadcasts of its important multi-part series particular. So here again the Creationists
Evolution, the Creationists went bonkers and are both lying and misrepresenting.
tried to attack it any way they could. Once And another example: The Creationists
again, they resorted to literally distorting like to trumpet the notion that it is not
the views of some of the scientists who had true that there is a “universal genetic code”
appeared on the program. They quoted which binds all life forms together through
some scientists correctly saying things like lines of common descent, and they claim
“natural selection alone cannot explain all that even evolutionists now agree with this.
of evolution” (because, as fundamental as Once again, this is a gross distortion. It
it is, natural selection is not the only mecha- is based on the fact that a few very minor
nism of evolutionary change) and then variants have been found within the gener-
claimed those scientists were saying evolu- ally universal genetic code (variations so
tion doesn’t happen—which of course was minor that they have been compared to
not at all what these scientists were saying! the difference between British English and
One of them, for instance, was simply American English in the spelling of the word
making the point that the developing sci- “colour” vs. “color”). Most importantly,
ence of evolutionary developmental biology the Creationists point to these findings
is providing important new information on without bothering to let people know that
genes that regulate development, and that it is the very scientists who found these minor
becoming increasingly clear that such genes variants of the genetic code consider them
(which are not themselves directly subject to to be evolutionary variations derived from a
natural selection) play an important role in still overwhelmingly universal genetic code.
generating genetic modifications which can But you’d never know this from listening
then serve as the raw material for evolution- to the Creationists, who, as usual, quote
ary change over the generations. things out of context to make it sound like
In another example, the Creationists these scientists have somehow found some
criticized the PBS series Evolution for sup- evidence against evolution! (For more on this,
posedly not revealing that the relatively new see the separate supplement “Rare Variants of
field of so-called “evolutionary psychology” the Almost Entirely Universal Genetic Code Are
is controversial among evolutionists (evo- Evidence of Evolution, Not Design,” right.)
lutionary psychology generally argues that A final example of the absurdity of these
much of the behavior in the human species creationist misrepresentations: In criticizing
today was directly shaped by natural selec- the PBS series Evolution, the biochemist and
tion operating on our distant ancestors—a prominent Intelligent Design Creationist
theory which many evolutionists do not in Michael Behe complained that the program
fact support). But actually the TV series (and did not include anything about the work
the companion book) do point out that the of Stuart Kauffman, a scientist who does
new field of “evolutionary psychology” is research looking into how complex biologi-
controversial and that many evolutionary cal systems can “self-organize” from simpler
biologists don’t think it has much valid- components. Behe claimed that Kauffman’s
ity. But by claiming the series ignores this work on molecular self-organization is
controversy (even though it didn’t!) the posed “explicitly as an alternative to natural
Creationists throw another little puff of selection”—thus giving readers the impression
smoke to distract people’s attention from that Kauffman thinks natural selection is
the fact that there is actually an overwhelming not a valid concept, and that he probably
202
agrees with anti-evolution Creationists on tists’ and ‘Design theory.’ My own
this question. Nothing could be further work on self organization suggests
from the truth! Kauffman (like many other that spontaneous order in complex
evolutionists whose work has been pur- systems may offer a second source of
posefully misquoted and misrepresented order in biology, in addition to natu-
by Creationists) is furious that his work is ral selection. My argument does not
being misrepresented in this way by the anti- entail that Darwinian descent with
evolution Creationists. His research projects modification into the branching “tree
explore the possibility that some even quite of life” is invalid. Nor does it entail
complex biological systems, including that natural selection is not a critical
genetic regulatory systems, may be able to process in evolution. It does argue
self-organize (self-assemble) to some extent. that some forms of order in complex
He sees this as one possible way biological systems, such as ordered behavior of
order can be generated—in addition to the genetic regulatory networks and the
kind of biological “order” and structuring emergence of self-reproducing, col-
which comes about through natural selec- lectively autocatalytic networks, are
tion. Kauffman also feels that one of the much more probable than we have
important implications of his work is pre- realized. Because these arguments
cisely that it shows that it is actually highly suggest a higher probability of such
probable that simple self-reproducing organ- complex systems than we might have
isms (the earliest forms of life) could have supposed, the arguments tend to run
emerged on their own out of the chemical against Design theory, which is based
soup of early earth through completely natural on the argument that such complex
processes of spontaneous chemical self-organiza- systems are so improbable that
tion—the very thing Creationists insist is one must infer Design. If I am right,
impossible! that is just what one cannot infer.”
This is what Kauffman had to say: (As quoted in “Setting the Record
Straight—A Response to Creationist
“While all scholars are free to Misinformation about the PBS Series
make what they will of the work of Evolution” on the National Center for
other scholars, I wish to distance Science Education web site at www.
myself from use of my own work on ncseweb.org)
self organization plus selection in
evolution by both ‘creation scien- [Return to main text on page 193] J
Rare Variants of the Almost chemical “rule book” for making proteins—is
exactly the same in essentially all organisms
Entirely Universal Genetic (with only a few very minor exceptions) is
itself very strong evidence that all living spe-
Code Are Evidence of cies are related to each other and evolved
Evolution, Not Design out of a long series of common (shared)
ancestors. But Creationists like to slide over
Nearly 100% of all the living plant and and dismiss the fact that the genetic code is
animal species, from complex mammals so nearly universal and instead make a big
to the simplest bacteria, use the exact same fuss out of the fact that there are a small
genetic “code”—that is the exact same set of number of minor exceptions to this general
chemical instructions to direct the assembly rule (a few primitive organisms have been
of the many different kinds of protein mol- found to use a very slightly different genetic
ecules that living bodies need in order to code to assemble proteins), as if these few
function. The fact that this genetic code—the continued on next page
203
continued from previous page molecule) is “read” and “translated” into
exceptions could somehow prove that the the set of instructions which cells use to
different species aren’t all related through string the amino acids together into one
lines of common descent, and that a divine particular order rather than another. Think
power, rather than natural processes of of the genetic code as the “rule book” for
evolution, must have made organisms the protein assembly. And, once again, this
way they are. The truth is there is absolutely genetic code rule book is exactly the same in
no scientific basis to support this creationist bacteria, or a rose, or a human being. If,
reasoning. Let’s look at this a bit. as the Creationists believe, all the different
Many people know that genes found in species of plants and animals were actually
DNA are responsible for the inheritable fea- unrelated to each other, and had come into
tures that can be passed on from generation being completely separately (instead of
to generation. But many people don’t realize evolving out of long lines of shared ances-
that in the course of an organism’s life, the tors) there would be no reason for them to
only thing genes really do is provide a set of be using the exact same chemical rule book
chemical instructions which serve as a blue- for assembling proteins from the genetic
print for the assembly of the many different blueprints found in DNA. The fact that all
kinds of protein molecules found in living living species (including humans) do use
bodies. You can think of a gene as a section that same exact rule book (with only those
of a DNA molecule which “codes” (provides few very minor variations found in some
chemical instructions) for the assembly of a micro-organisms) is itself amazingly strong
particular kind of protein molecule; different evidence that all living organisms are, in fact,
genes “code” for different kinds of proteins. related to each other and descended from a
Each protein molecule is made up of chemi- long series of common ancestors, going all
cal components known as amino acids. the way back to the first simple bacteria-like
These amino acids are arranged in different forms of life which emerged on this planet
sequences (they are lined up differently) in more than three billion years ago.
different kinds of proteins. There are only And what about those few exceptions?
20 different kinds of amino acids, but that’s In recent decades biologists have discovered
enough to produce an enormous number that a few simple species of organisms actu-
of different kinds of proteins. Think of how ally do use a very slightly different genetic
different colored beads can be strung on a code to translate the genetic instructions
necklace in many different ways (in a dif- for assembling amino acids in the right
ferent order) to produce different kinds of order. These very small variations have
necklaces. In a similar way the specific order so far been found only in a few free-living
in which amino acids are strung together micro-organisms, and also in mitochondria and
produces many different kinds of proteins, chloroplasts.
which then go on to perform different kinds The minor exceptions to the general
of functions. rule that all organisms use exactly the
This basic process of protein assembly same genetic code are certainly interest-
takes place inside the cells of every living ing, and studying these rare exceptions will
organism. But the big question is: what no doubt increase our understanding of
is it that makes it possible for the cells to evolutionary processes and mechanisms.
assemble the different amino acids in just But none of this changes the basic fact that
the right order to produce the different kinds almost 100% of all living plant and animal
of proteins? Why don’t the different amino species—from complex mammals to the
acids just get strung together in any old
random jumble? That’s where the genetic Mitochondria and chloroplasts are sub-cellular
code comes in. “organelles” which contain their own, separate, DNA;
The genetic code is the mechanism they are thought to have once been free-living micro-
organisms themselves but now function exclusively as
through which chemical information part of the energy-producing machinery of the animal
contained in a gene (a section of a DNA and plant cells they are part of.
204
simplest bacteria—still use exactly the same phenylalanine, the triplet U-G-G codes for
genetic code rule book for protein assembly. the amino acid tryptophan, the triplet G-A-
And even those few slight variations in the U codes for the amino acid aspartate, etc.
genetic code make sense in terms of what There are even triplets that simply send the
we understand about evolution. To under- signal that protein assembly should start
stand this better, let’s look a bit more at the (A-U-G), or that it should stop (U-G-A). In
process of how the genetic code translates addition, it’s interesting and relevant to
DNA information into proteins. note that while (in almost 100% of organ-
How does the molecular information isms) a specific triplet codes for just one
contained in one particular gene (section of amino acid, many amino acids are coded
DNA) end up leading to the assembly of one for by more than one triplet. For instance,
particular protein molecule, with its amino the triplet sequences A-C-U, A-C-C, A-C-A,
acids all lined up in the right order? The and A-C-G all code for the production of the
process starts with the DNA itself, which amino acid threonine.
is made up of many different sequences of The overall sequence of different triplet
four nitrogen-bearing chemical compounds “codons” (the order in which they are lined
known as nucleotides (adenine, thymine, up) determines the order in which differ-
guanine, and cytosine, referred to by the ent amino acids end up being assembled,
letters A,T,G,C). In a double-stranded DNA resulting in the different kinds of proteins
molecule (the famous “double-helix”), these specified at the start by the different genes
nucleotides “pair up” with each other in con- on the DNA strands. In the course of this
sistent face-to-face “complementary” ways DNA-to-protein process, a number of dif-
(A lines up with T, and G lines up with C). In ferent molecules (known as messenger RNA,
the day-to-day process of protein synthesis, transfer RNA, and ribosomal RNA) essen-
the first step is that such a double-stranded tially serve as intermediaries, first “reading”
DNA molecule unravels or “opens up,” the original triplet sequences present on the
and a slightly different molecule (known as DNA strands, then “transporting” the cor-
messenger RNA) comes over and lines up to responding complementary sequences to a
one of the DNA strands, “pairing up” in a different part of the cells (the ribosomes),
similar complementary (or “matching up”) then attaching to them yet another comple-
process (except that in RNA molecules uracil mentary RNA sequence, which grabs up
[U] replaces thymine so that, when RNA the corresponding amino acids and strings
lines up to the DNA, A pairs with U, and them up in the order which forms a particu-
G still pairs with C). The messenger RNA lar protein chain.
molecule then “carries” this complementary This is obviously a pretty complex
copy of the information contained on the multi-part process. For the purposes of
DNA out of the cell nucleus and into the cell this discussion it is not really necessary to
cytoplasm, taking it to cell structures known understand this process in detail. But get-
as ribosomes; there—thanks to other RNA ting even a rough sense of what is involved
molecules and yet another round of chemi- in generating different kinds of proteins can
cal “pairing up”—it gets translated into the help us to better appreciate that the few
instructions for assembling one or another “variations in the nearly universal genetic
protein molecule. code” that have been found to occur in
But let’s go back for a minute to the DNA some simple organisms like mycoplasmas
strand at the very beginning of the process: (primitive bacteria-like organisms) really are
the nucleotides on the sections of DNA very minor. They involve just a few changes in
strands known as “genes” are organized in what just a few of the triplets normally code
little sequences of threes called triplets or for. For instance, in almost all organisms,
“codons” (for instance U-C-A, or A-U-G, U-G-A triplets code for the “stop” signal
and so on). Each triplet ends up “coding” which marks the end of a protein assembly
for a particular amino acid: for instance, process; but in some primitive mycoplasmas,
the triplet U-U-U codes for the amino acid continued on next page
205
continued from previous page ary phylogenies (“family trees”) which had
U-G-A triplets code instead for the amino been worked out previously through other
acid tryptophan. means (this simply means that these minor
Such minor variations don’t change the variations are not significant enough to
fact that the identical genetic code shared disrupt the basic patterns of relatedness
by almost 100% of all plant and animal and ancestor-descendant evolutionary
species (in which all the different triplets sequences in different plant or animal lines
code for exactly the same amino acids) which biologists have previously been able
is extremely strong evidence that all spe- to reconstruct from both the fossil evidence
cies are derived from shared ancestors. In and from the molecular evidence; and (3)
addition, molecular geneticists are finding those rare and minor variants in the stan-
that even those rare cases where there are dard genetic code reveal that the genetic
slight variations in the genetic code can code itself can undergo at least a certain
also be explained by the normal workings amount of evolutionary modification over
of natural evolution. Years ago many biolo- time.
gists used to think that the genetic code It is worth noting that minor variations
had remained completely unchanged in all in the basic genetic code seem to have
organisms since the earliest origins of life on occured without causing significant impacts
this planet because any changes occurring on the process of protein synthesis or on
in such basic molecular processes would, other aspects of overall cellular function.
they thought, have so totally disrupted In fact, in alternate genetic codes seen in
normal cellular functioning that any such mitochondria, chloroplasts and a few uni-
mutations would likely have been quickly cellular organisms “the code changed with
eliminated by natural selection. But today no change in protein sequence at all—no
biologists understand that things going on change in the phenotype whatsoever—not
at the molecular level are not quite as fixed merely without completely disrupting the
and rigid as some people used to think. For cell’s function.” (David Seaborg, personal
instance, we now know that pieces of DNA communication) It seems the reasons for this
called transposons frequently “jump” from have to do with the fact that there is typi-
one place to another on chromosomes, cally a lot of redundancy (“multiple copies of
causing nearby genes to mutate. And some- things”) in all natural systems, including at
times a triplet “codon” on the DNA which the molecular level. One of the implications
normally “codes” for the production of just of such widespread redundancy is that a
one particular amino acid, can undergo minor change could take place in a specific
some changes and start coding for a differ- triplet sequence (one normally involved in
ent amino acid, but without causing a total coding for a particular amino acid in the
collapse in normal cellular functioning. This assembly of a particular protein) without
is not mere speculation: such changes have fundamentally disrupting the overall syn-
actually been observed to occur in laboratory thesis of that particular protein: the original
populations of living organisms. function of the particular codon which is
So today most biologists agree that: undergoing change could simply be fulfilled
(1) the variations of the universal genetic by some of the other codons that already
code which have been found in a handful code for the same amino acid (while the
of primitive species are not only rare, but codon undergoing change could at some
also extremely minor, and that it is there- point assume an altogether new function).
fore still essentially correct to speak of a Recognizing the role played by redun-
universal (or “nearly universal”) genetic dancy in natural systems helps us understand
code—one that cuts across all species lines some of what’s basically wrong with the
and testifies to their relatedness and descent from thinking of “Intelligent Design” Creationists
common ancestor species; (2) the discovery of like Michael Behe who argue that there is
those minor variations in the genetic code some kind of absolute “irreducible com-
have not disrupted the overall evolution- plexity” in complex multi-step molecular
206
reactions which would have prevented general rule that all organisms share the
significant evolutionary modifications in same universal genetic code actually shows
such processes from taking hold in the past us that some changes can in fact take place
because such changes would (according to even in some of the fundamental underlying
Behe) have been too disruptive and damag- processes that are basic to the functioning
ing to overall cellular functioning. Behe’s of all life-forms on this planet.
frankly narrow and mechanical reasoning The fact that a randomly occurring
(which underestimates the creative impli- mutation in a triplet codon can cause that
cations of much of the natural “slop” and codon to switch over to making a different
redundancy of life) is what leads him and amino acid without this causing the whole
others to conclude that evolving life could system of protein synthesis to collapse is
never have given rise to such complex bio- something that has actually been observed
chemical processes “all on its own” through in the lab. Despite even such direct evidence,
just natural processes—and to conclude the Creationists (including the Intelligent
instead that the very existence of such com- Design types) continue to stubbornly ignore
plex sub-cellular machineries is evidence of much of what biologists now understand
conscious design by some kind of “intel- about how evolution can build new features
ligent designer.” of life out of pre-existing material—including
It is certainly reasonable to describe at the molecular level—while still preserv-
the multi-step process of protein synthesis ing and maintaining previous features and
as “complex.” And it is also true that if at functioning.
a given point all the different parts of this
process don’t work together in just the right (For readers interested in a more technical dis-
ways, a particular protein won’t be properly cussion of some of these subjects, consult a genetics
formed, and this can cause problems. But textbook or see for instance the article “Variations in
that doesn’t mean evolutionary modifica- the Genetic Code: Evolutionary Explanations” by Finn
and Jean Pond in the Sep-Oct 2002 issue of the news-
tions could never have occurred in that letter of the National Center for Science Education
system (at one or more points in the past) [NCSE])
without causing the system as a whole to
collapse. As has been stressed many times
in the course of this book, there are always
some relative limits and constraints on how
much or in what ways a particular feature
of living organisms can change at any given
point (simply because evolutionary modifi-
cations can only take place on the basis of
natural variation that is already present in
a living population and whose physical and
chemical properties will necessarily channel
and restrict what change is possible at that
time); so it is right to recognize that there are
always going to be some material limits on
what variations are possible at a given point.
But there is never some kind of absolute limit
or constraint—one that would prevent any
and all change at a given point—at any level
of organization of matter.
So, while the basic process of protein
synthesis does involve complex molecules
and complex mechanisms (about which
more is being learned every day), the dis-
covery of those minor exceptions to the
207
208 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
are. People should be able to have their religious texts and places of worship
and religious ceremonies, as long as they still feel the need for this. But the
Christian fundamentalist Creationists should not be allowed to introduce
and forcibly impose their particular brand of religious dogma anywhere
in the public schools or in any other arena of public life. And especially if
we don’t understand this and act accordingly, there is a real danger that we
could wake up one morning living under the regime of a religious theoc-
racy (the rule of religious zealots giving their fundamentalist beliefs the
force of law and government power).
In case you think I am exaggerating, you might want to check into the
kind of political initiatives which have been taken by the creationist move-
ment in recent years. The most well known of these are their attempts to
take over school boards and get state laws changed to impose the teaching
of so-called “creation-science” on an equal footing with evolution in public
school science classrooms. But they have also directly sought to influence
the government at the highest levels and to get the United States Congress
to change laws to make teaching religious creationism in the public schools
mandatory in all states. And they came very close to succeeding! (See “Look
Who’s In Bed With Whom!,” right.)
The current president, George W. Bush, and high-placed and
influential people such as former Attorney General John Ashcroft and
powerful Republican Congressman Tom DeLay have all openly flaunted
their creationist beliefs. In the famous 1987 Supreme Court case known as
Edwards v. Aguillard (which makes for some very interesting reading) the
Court’s majority opinion overturned the Louisiana “Balanced Treatment
Act,” which would have forced teachers in that state to teach so called “cre-
ation-science” alongside evolution in the science classrooms. In declaring
this Act unconstitutional, the majority opinion of the Supreme Court at the
time (written by Justice Powell) correctly recognized that the purpose of
this Act was to “advance a particular religious belief,” especially since teach-
ing “creation-science” would require that teachers put forward the religious
belief that a supernatural being created humanity. The Court concluded
that “the First Amendment does not permit the State to require that teach-
ing and learning must be tailored to the principles and prohibitions of any
religious sect or dogma.” This was a significant defeat for the Creationists.
But it is interesting to also read the dissenting opinion, written by Justice
Scalia, in which he expressed the reasons why he disagreed with the Court’s
majority opinion. Scalia wrote that, as far as he was concerned, imposing
the teaching of “creation-science” would not necessarily impose the teach-
ing of religious beliefs. He referred to the affidavits provided to the Court
by creationist “experts” who “swear” that “creation-science” is “a scientific
body of knowledge,” and that they have “scientific data supporting the
Look Who’s In Bed which Christian fundamentalists in the
United States now occupy positions of
With Whom! power and influence and how they are all
too willing to use the power of the state
How Intelligent Design Creationists apparatus to try to impose a whole package
teamed up with a notorious gay-bashing of essentially fascist measures in the name
senator and almost succeeded in replacing of “defending traditional family values.”
science with religion in the public school Rick Santorum is the very same reaction-
science classrooms ary senator who, in the summer of 2001,
tried to get the anti-evolution “Santorum
This is an interesting story which reveals Amendment” added to the language of the
a lot about the kind of people who are cur- No Child Left Behind Education Act. Up to
rently involved in leading the anti-evolution that point, the anti-evolution forces had
campaign in the United States and how they focused most of their efforts on trying to
are taking their agenda into—and getting weasel their way into local school boards or
backing and aid from—the highest levels of get laws changed at the state level. They had
government. made some significant headway in confus-
Remember Rick Santorum, the ing some sections of the general public, but
Republican senator from Pennsylvania who had ultimately lost a number of big court
was broadly denounced (by just about cases as they sought legal backing to force
everyone except the White House) for science teachers to water down the teaching
making outrageous statements compar- of evolution science and give “equal time”
ing homosexuality to incest, bigamy and to religious creationism in the science class-
adultery? In the spring of 2003 Santorum rooms. Every time they have tried that tactic,
spoke to Associated Press reporters about hundreds of scientists from many different
a case that was about to come before the fields of science have rallied to forcefully
Supreme Court which involved reactionary argue that all forms of creationism (including
bedroom police anti-sodomy laws still on “Intelligent Design” theory) are not science
the books in (where else?) Texas. Santorum but religion, and therefore do not belong in
stated that he “has a problem with homo- the science classroom.
sexual acts” and that he is opposed to “acts Having mostly lost their cases at the state
outside of traditional heterosexual relation- level (in particular a critical defeat for the
ships” which he sees as contributing to the Creationists in relation to the overturning
breakdown of society and traditional family of the 1999 Kansas school board decision
values. Santorum argued that states should to eliminate evolution from state science
have the right to regulate private sexual tests) the Creationists seem to be regroup-
practices in people’s own homes (!), and he ing and attempting to set their sights even
expanded on this, stating that: higher—no doubt encouraged by the fact
“If the Supreme Court says that that the current fundamentalist President
you have the right to consensual himself refuses to acknowledge that evolu-
(gay) sex within your home, then you tion is an established scientific fact (he has
have the right to bigamy, you have actually publicly stated that in his opinion
the right to polygamy, you have the the “verdict is still out on how God created
right to incest, you have the right the earth”!). The creationist movement is
to adultery. You have the right to now attempting to get anti-evolution laws
anything.” passed at the federal level so as to better
impose the teaching of religious creation-
Despite howls of protest from all direc- ism all throughout the country. And they
tions and calls for Santorum to step down, are trying to get over with this not so much
he stood by his comments. Not surprisingly, by openly making a case for the teaching
the White House refused to denounce his of Biblical creationism, but by arguing that
views. This incident shows the degree to continued on next page
209
210 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
theory that the physical universe and life within it appeared suddenly and
have not changed substantially since appearing.”
Here’s a supposedly highly educated Supreme Court Justice, who pre-
sumably went to both college and law school, unquestioningly repeating
something that is so patently false that it would cause a high school student
to totally flunk a basic biology test. Scalia astoundingly goes on to say that
nobody can say that the evidence for evolution is completely “conclusive,”
and so the people of Louisiana are “entitled to have whatever scientific evi-
dence there may be against evolution presented in the schools.” Never mind
the fact that there is no scientific evidence “against” evolution! As countless
continued from previous page help students understand why this subject
the theory of evolution is “unproven” or generates so much continuing controversy,
“controversial” and that therefore the rival and should prepare the students to be
theory of “Intelligent Design” is an “alterna- informed participants in public discussion
tive scientific theory” which deserves to be regarding this subject.”
taught to students. Of course, the basic This is a good example of how the
theory of biological evolution is actually very Creationists try to get over these days: they
well proven, and its basic facts are not at all start off with the first point, which most
controversial in the overall scientific com- people can readily agree with, in order to
munity, but the creationist movement has smuggle in the second point which at first
never let facts get in the way of its agenda! “sounds fair” to a lot of people. The prob-
Amazingly, Intelligent Design Creation lem is that:
ists from the Discovery Institute’s Center a) it raises the possibility that evolution
for the Renewal of Science and Culture were should perhaps not always be taught in sci-
actually able to organize a formal Capitol Hill ence classrooms (but how could we ever
briefing in the summer of 2000 to “educate” justify not teaching the theory of evolution
Congress about the supposed failure of when it is the most foundational theory of
Darwinism and the societal damage being all the modern life sciences?);
caused by the continued teaching of the b) it makes it seem like evolution is
Darwinian theory of evolution in the schools. unproven and that it is controversial in the
Prominent representatives of “Intelligent scientific community (when the basic facts
Design” (including law professor and chief of evolution are well proven and not at all
IDC ideologue Phillip Johnson) actually controversial in the overall scientific com-
helped draft the language of the amend- munity); and
ment introduced by Senator Santorum. At c) it proposes that whether evolution is
the time, Santorum tried to downplay the true or not should be resolved by public debate,
significance of his proposed amendment to despite the fact that the scientific commu-
the education bill—calling it an “innocuous nity overwhelmingly insists that the basic
two sentences”—in the hopes of getting it theory of evolution is as well-supported
passed. and documented as the theory of gravity
The original amendment crafted by the or the fact that the earth goes around the
Intelligent Designers and introduced by sun. Think about it: should we also be asking
Santorum read: “It is the sense of the Senate people to hold “debates” so they can decide
that—1) good science education should for themselves whether those well-estab-
prepare students to distinguish the data or lished scientific facts are true or not? Of
testable theories of science from philosophi- course not. Scientific theories which have
cal or religious claims that are made in the been repeatedly tested and verified (including
name of science; and 2) where biological the theory of evolution, of gravitation, of
evolution is taught, the curriculum should the movement of the planets around the
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 211
scientists are provoked to stress over and over again, not a single shred of
actual scientific evidence “against” evolution has ever been found (not one!).
Scalia didn’t seem to even know enough (or care) to be embarrassed by his
own gross (and reactionary) ignorance. And keep in mind that President
George W. Bush has said that Scalia is his idea of a model Supreme Court
judge!
In the years since Edwards v. Aguillard there have been additional
important court cases, and many prominent scientists have testified in a
unified voice that so-called “creation-science” doesn’t have a scientific leg
to stand on. And the fact that there is solid scientific evidence for evolution
sun, etc.) should be taught as what they are: into thinking that the amendment did
well-established scientific facts. pass (when it did not) and that there is
Unfortunately, while there is in the U.S. now a federal law on the books that says
a general recognition of the importance of that teachers must teach Intelligent Design
science and many of its concrete achieve- Theory alongside evolution in the science
ments, the level of scientific literacy of the classrooms. But this is simply not true (not
population as a whole is actually extremely yet anyway!). The Santorum Amendment
low. This makes it easier for various kinds did not make it into the final text of the No
of Creationists to get over and mislead Child Left Behind Act (Public Law 107-110)
people just by trying to sound “scientific” signed by Bush in 2002. It did get included
(just by throwing in a few scientific words in the non-binding conference report which
and concepts along with their mystical accompanied this education bill (which is
hocus-pocus) even though there is actu- bad enough!), but it was not incorporated
ally nothing scientific about what they are into the actual federal law. However, none of
putting forward or about the methods they this has kept some of the Creationists from
are using. These days the Intelligent Design continuing to spread the lie that federal law
Creationists in particular are rather skilled now requires teachers to teach “Intelligent
at confusing and misleading even generally Design,” as the Creationists did recently
“educated” people, including members in the State of Ohio when they tried to get
of the press and other influential sectors creationist “alternative theories to evolu-
of society. A low level of scientific literacy tion” imposed in the science curriculum of
(working hand-in-hand with some reaction- public schools (these Creationists’ efforts
ary social and political agendas) may well were recently defeated and evolution is, for
have contributed to the astounding fact now at least, correctly being given strong
that U.S. senators initially approved the emphasis in the Ohio science curriculum).
Santorum Amendment 91 to 8, with not a Perhaps the Creationists hope that if they
single senator speaking against it! just keep repeating their lies long enough,
It was only later, when this was taken these lies will eventually become accepted
up in joint House and Senate discussions, as fact. In a land of short attention spans
that the decision was made to leave the and general scientific illiteracy, and given
anti-evolution (and anti-science) Santorum that they have the backing of some of the
Amendment out of the education bill. The top players in the federal government,
Santorum Amendment did not become fed- Creationists may yet manage to get over
eral law after all, but it sure came close! with this. This is yet another reason for
If at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie again people of integrity to really try to uncover
and become familiar with the actual truth
In a move that illustrates the typical
of things. [Return to main text on page 208] J
unprincipled methods of the Creationists,
many of them are trying to mislead people
212 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
around thinking that “nothing is ever sure,” how could we ever survive or
get anything done? Should we walk in front of a moving bus because “we
can’t ever really know for sure” whether we’ll get run over? Should we not
bother setting an alarm clock because we “can’t ever know for sure” that it
will ring, or that it even really exists, or that we really exist and have a reason
to get up? These examples may seem silly, but they make the point that,
even just to function in day-to-day life, we human beings really need to have
some way, some approach and method, which can help us to determine
when something is actually true (or false).
Of course we’ll never have absolute truth—in the sense that we’ll never
know everything there is to know about everything—but we do have some
means and methods for getting to the point that we can say, with a high
degree of confidence, that something is true—meaning that it actually cor-
responds to some aspect of material reality as it really is.
Again, the point is that it’s good and important to question everything,
but it’s also good and important to recognize that not everything is forever
up for grabs—sometimes we can know enough about something to accept
it as true, stop agonizing about it, and move on. Such is the case with the
basic theory of evolution.
But a lot of people in the United States today still don’t realize that we
can be that sure about evolution. Anti-evolution and anti-science Christian
fundamentalist Creationists have worked to confuse people’s thinking
on this since the late 19th century, typically becoming particularly active
and aggressive in times of social turmoil and when the overall direction
of society is being broadly questioned and debated. It’s especially at such
times that reactionaries resist all forms of social progress and call instead
for looking backward and “restoring core values and traditions.” Today is
no exception.
The Creationists have waged such determined anti-evolution and anti-
science campaigns in recent years that U.S. universities are now reporting
that they are getting very worried about growing scientific illiteracy in the
country as a whole as they notice that more and more freshmen are arriving
on campuses so poorly trained in even basic science that they actually believe
“the scientific community is divided on whether evolution happened” and
that “evolution is still just an unproven theory.” To state it clearly again:
both those notions are completely false. The scientific community (in the
U.S. and worldwide and in every field of science) is not “divided” on the
basic facts of evolution. The consensus is overwhelming that (a) life has
definitely evolved and that (b) the basic mechanisms involved in how life
evolved and continues to evolve (such as natural selection) are by now well
understood.
the words “theory of evolution” you will automatically think it hasn’t yet
been proven to be true. But, in scientific circles, the word “theory” has a
very different meaning: a “scientific theory” is what scientists call a complex
body of thought that ties together a number of different ideas and proposals
which successfully explain—from a number of different angles—the basic
principles and mechanisms involved in a natural process, such as the origins
and later change and development of some part of actual material real-
ity. So, for instance, scientists talk about the “theory of gravitation” or the
“Copernican theory” (of the motion of the planets, including the earth,
around the sun) but that doesn’t mean they’re “guessing” that objects fall
towards the earth because of the pull of gravity or that they’re “guessing”
that the earth goes around the sun rather than the other way around. The
theory of gravitation and the Copernican theory are by now well docu-
mented and supported by the accumulated scientific evidence, and the same
can be said of the scientific theory of evolution.
Of course scientific theories are always being further extended and devel-
oped as human knowledge expands and comes to understand some things
that we didn’t previously understand. And as knowledge develops, it is inevi-
tably the case that some old ideas are discovered to be wrong and therefore
need to be discarded. Science actually advances by calling into question and
critically reviewing previously established scientific notions. It is true that
there is always going to be more to learn and discover about everything. But
that doesn’t mean that we can never come down and say that something
is true. People who like to say things like “but you can never be sure” fall
into the mistaken outlook and approach known as philosophical relativism.
(Of course, since human knowledge is never complete and perfect, and is
always developing, people who think and act like they have “absolute truth”
about everything, or everything important, fall into the erroneous method
known as dogmatism, which is the “flip-side” of relativism.) But when we
say something is “true” it simply means that there is good, compelling and
concrete evidence (preferably from a number of different and mutually rein-
forcing sources and directions) that our understanding of something actually
does closely correspond to how that something really is in objective reality,
that is, in the real material world—which includes all that is part of the
natural world and which encompasses the features and workings of human
social organization as well. (See “Reality and Distortions of Reality—Objective
Truth and Subjective Influences” on page 216.)
Scientific theories (whether pertaining to the world of nature or
human society) do not get proven to be “true” overnight. Before any great
idea or set of ideas can be confidently said to be “true,” it has to get put
through the scientific crucible—that means it gets poked at and critiqued
and challenged and tested over and over again and from countless different
directions. A good scientific theory puts forward some predictions about
216 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
what we should expect to find in the real world if the theory is true; and
it is also makes predictions about some of the things we should not be able
to find in the world if the theory is true. This is known as the principle of
“scientific falsifiability”: a genuine scientific theory, as a matter of principle,
has to be capable of being disproved by facts (things which, if discovered,
things and that it is important to recognize do, including in science, and that we should
and identify these subjective distortions; but try to consciously sort these out; and, on
that doesn’t mean that all truth is relative or that the other hand, the basic fact that objective
it is not possible to discover the actual objective reality does exist independently of human
truth about the way things really are in nature and beings and that by becoming more fully
society. The notion that all truth is relative is a conscious of what constitutes a genuine sci-
recipe for idealist paralysis that just gives up entific method and aware of methodological
on trying to deeply understand how reality errors to avoid, human beings can actually
really is (independently of people’s notions zero in more and more closely (even if never
of it) and how people might consciously perfectly) on the actual truth of things. How
attempt to affect that reality. could we ever make concrete scientific advances
To get at the objective truth of things, what and transform reality in line with our intended
is required is the application of a consciously objectives (as in the development of antibi-
and consistently scientific method which otics, to use just one example) if objective
repeatedly grapples with objective reality reality didn’t really exist and if human beings were
and tests and transforms it to see whether totally powerless to determine with a fair degree
or not it conforms to predictions we make of confidence the objective truth corresponding to
about how it actually is at any given point, that actual reality?
and in what ways it may be changing and The more traditional “scientific Creation
developing. Yes we do all bring our subjective ists” try to argue as if they believe it’s OK
influences and outlooks to the task; but the to use the usual methods of scientific
actual truth of things (in actual objective investigation because when you do that you
reality) is there, whether we interact with it or can come up with “evidence” that evolu-
not, and regardless of any of our subjective tion didn’t happen, so therefore the story
opinions and preconceived notions. In con- of a Creator god told in Genesis must be
trast to subjective idealism or other forms of right. In reality, they don’t apply a genuinely
philosophical idealism (which includes beliefs scientific method, nor do they have any
in a supernatural realm existing above and legitimate scientific evidence that could pos-
beyond the sphere of actual material real- sibly support their viewpoint (they mainly
ity), it is science—a scientific outlook and make up absurd claims based on nothing,
method—which we must apply if we want to such as the idea that the order of the fossils
find out the actual truth of things. in different rock layers represents the order
Unfortunately, as Pennock explains, in which different animals drowned during
postmodernist relativism tends to view sci- the Biblical Flood!). They mainly try to make
ence itself as just another “narrative and people take their word for it that evolution
interpretive activity” (much like the writing isn’t a solidly supported theory in the hopes
of literary texts or other artistic pursuits) that people will allow them to propose their
and these relativists conclude from this that religious alternative in the science class-
scientific truths “are not objective but are rooms. But they’d still like people to believe
constructed by power relations and preju- that their creationist views are compatible
dices.” Here again, two things are being with modern scientific methods.
confused, or “jumbled together”: the reality But a number of the Intelligent Design
that human beings bring subjective out- Creationists are actually even more
looks and interpretations to everything they continued on next page
218 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
species evolved. Biologists can give many such examples of the kinds of
things that—if they were ever found to exist—would make a complete
shambles of evolutionary theory. So, like all good scientific theories, the
theory of evolution is falsifiable in principle—but, as a point of fact, science
continued from previous page we can’t get at the truth of things through
fundamentally anti-science than some of “naturalistic” science—that this can only
their Biblical literalist brethren, even though be done in the end through knowing God.
this may not always be immediately obvi- “Truth” in his view does exist, but it is only the
ous. However if you study what they say and truth of divine revelation!
write, you will see that some of them at least It is important to realize that this is what
(especially Phillip Johnson and his followers) the Intelligent Design Creationists want to
actually want to overthrow the whole way science is smuggle into the science classrooms, to
usually done! They want scientific knowledge be given “equal weight” with the theory of
to somehow be attained “through” religion, evolution, a scientific theory which, unlike
and therefore they want scientific methods “Intelligent Design,” has been repeatedly
to reflect this goal by incorporating the idea tested and verified (over and over and over
of God right into the pursuit of science—the again!) through concrete scientific obser-
replacement of the methods of standard vations and experiments. It is completely
“naturalistic science” with “theistic science” unconscionable to allow the obviously reli-
(science driven by God) is the openly stated gious theory of “Intelligent Design” (which
goal of at least their preeminent ideologue, has never produced even a single legitimate
Phillip Johnson. And they want access to scientific research article in a single legiti-
the science classrooms of high schools and mate peer-reviewed scientific journal) to be
even universities in order to accomplish this taught to our children as science. Today, the
stupendous “paradigm shift.” proponents of “Intelligent Design” (sup-
The philosopher Robert Pennock makes a ported by people in positions of highest
convincing case for the notion that this new authority, right up to the president) have
breed of Creationists have been very much succeeded in confusing many people into
influenced by postmodernist relativism. thinking that the theory of evolution is on
Phillip Johnson himself is a law professor shaky ground and is controversial in the
who identifies himself as a “postmodernist scientific community (when nothing could
deconstructionist” and denies that natural be further from the truth!); they have suc-
science can get to the actual objective truth cessfully lobbied to get some textbooks
of anything. He sees the theory of evolution rewritten to reflect their crackpot theory;
as just one subjectively interpreted story, they have rammed their program through
which happened to become dominant since some school boards; they have launched
Darwin’s time simply because the scientific lawsuits to try to undermine the separation
community managed to politically suppress of church and state; and, increasingly, they
the teaching of alternative theories such are succeeding in getting the mainstream
as the theory of divine design. He calls on media to grant them legitimacy and treat
people to free themselves from the sup- their theory as if it were serious science. But
posed tyranny of naturalistic science and its none of this changes the simple fact that
materialist rules of evidence. He argues that “Intelligent Design” is not and has never
been science. It is religion. And any political
The article “Marxism and the Enlightenment,”
by RCP Chairman Bob Avakian, also contains a very successes its proponents may achieve in con-
interesting and relevant discussion of this and related nection with the advance of a reactionary
questions. [This article appeared in the Revolutionary social agenda cannot change the fact that
Worker #1029 (December 2, 2001), and is posted Intelligent Design does not have a shred of
at revcom.us; and it has been included in the book
Observations on Art and Culture, Science and Philosophy by scientific credibility.
Bob Avakian (Insight Press, 2005)] [Return to main text on page 215] J
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 219
has never found anything (not a single thing) that actually falsifies it. It has,
however, found many, many things that support it.
The theory of divine Creation is a religious belief, not a scientific
theory. One of the sure signs of that is that the theory of divine Creation
is, by its very nature and definition, impossible to falsify. The Creationists
refuse to give people any examples of any kind of scientific discoveries that
they could accept as proof that their divine Creation theory is wrong after
all. They make a principle of this, because for them it is a matter of absolute
religious faith. But if you make a principle of saying that there is no possible
way that any information could ever come to light that would prove your
theory wrong, then you are, by definition, not being scientific, and your
theory has nothing to do with science!
Again, the theory of evolution was, from its very beginnings, falsifiable
as a matter of principle. But as it turns out, all the actual scientific data that
has been collected in the nearly century and a half since Darwin published
his major work on evolution has repeatedly supported the theory of bio-
logical evolution; and none of it has ever provided evidence to the contrary.
This more than anything is why there is such a broad and solid scientific
consensus on the matter.
RECOGNIZE, DEMAND
AND FIGHT FOR SCIENTIFIC TRUTH
Throughout this book, it is has been shown, from many different angles
and different sources, that evolution is a well-established scientific truth
which is upheld and applied by the vast majority of scientists in the world.
But just because something is true doesn’t mean it will prevail at all times,
especially when people who hold false views are able to wield or influence
the machinery of the state to spread and impose those false views. People
don’t always think about this enough. For instance, in the United States
today there are some people who understand that evolution is a proven
fact but who think that it’s just a waste of time to worry about the crazy
Creationists because, after all, they’re not going to be able to change the fact
that evolution is true. They seem to think that, at least in countries like the
U.S., society “will never go back to a time when most people didn’t know
life had evolved through natural processes”—so why waste energy address-
ing the creationist lunacy? But in my opinion it’s a serious mistake to be
complacent about such aspects of the “culture wars” in the United States.
I’ve heard the same argument made about the anti-abortion movement.
(“Don’t worry, these people are nuts; women in the U.S. will never have to
go back to the days when abortion was illegal and women did not have the
right to determine whether or when they would bear a child.”) Oh yeah?
Well, look around you—one step at a time the fundamentalist religious
forces have managed to chip away at women’s fundamental right to control
220 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
their own reproduction and in some parts of the country (especially rural
areas) it has already become a practical impossibility for many women. In
regard to evolution, the same types of fundamentalist reactionaries have
managed to confuse a lot of people, take over school boards and even get
disclaimers inserted into high school science textbooks, telling people that
evolution is “controversial” and “an unproven theory” (it is not!). So why is
it so hard to imagine that these people could make even further headway,
especially when their right-wing political programs are the order of the day
in the highest reaches of government?
And it’s not like there isn’t still a strong material basis for lots of people to
be ignorant and confused about this. Looking not only at the U.S. but at the
world as a whole, it is still the case that tremendous numbers of people have
never been taught even the most basic facts of evolution (many have never
even heard of it!): most believe instead one or another myth or superstition
about how all the plants and animals and people came to be. Furthermore,
the aggressively expanding Christian fundamentalist movement is a well-
funded and well-organized movement which gets significant financial and
ideological backing from conservative and reactionary political organiza-
tions. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christian movements in the United
States in particular are closely allied with the political Right and growing
fascist trends and developments (think back to the Santorum Amendment,
for instance). Thanks to this support, Creationists have significant and regu-
lar access to mainstream media, where their viewpoints and activities are
often reported uncritically and as straight news. They also own or control
a lot of media outlets themselves: their radio and TV programs, books,
pamphlets, museum exhibits, professional-looking web sites (just do a web
search for the word “creationism” or look up the web sites of the ICR or the
Discovery Institute) now reach (and no doubt confuse) millions of people.
They have money and other resources that allow them to regularly send
speakers on tour to address school boards and parents’ groups, to speak on
college campuses and in courtrooms, and to address Congress and other
government officials. And, as pointed out before, they have powerful ties
right up to the highest levels of the ruling class in American society.
Can a well-orchestrated and well-funded propaganda blitz in itself
“reverse” the truth of evolution? Of course not. But it can do a lot of social
damage by training legions of people (including the young and inexperi-
enced) to firmly and zealously believe in completely wrong ideas and to
increasingly reject not only evolution but even science more generally, as a
method for learning about things and for transforming the world.
Of course the government, military and big corporate sectors them-
selves have to regularly make use of actual science to carry out their
objectives (they need science to help them wage their wars or develop new
pharmaceuticals, for instance), so they are not about to throw all science
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 221
out the window. They will need to allow at least some people to continue
to be trained in actual scientific principles and methods and to learn some
actual truths about the way things are in reality—otherwise they could not
continue to function and to enforce their rule and domination in the world.
But that doesn’t mean they have to let everyone in on it!
For one thing, reactionary political forces have always found it useful
to try to pass off as genuine “science” all sorts of completely false and non-
scientific beliefs when it helps them to justify a reactionary political agenda:
it should be enough to think for a minute about all the phony “scientific”
theories of supposed racial or gender inferiority (phony “science,” which
rested on absolutely no legitimate scientific evidence!) which have been
used repeatedly to buttress and justify such things as the horrific enslave-
ment of Africans, the Nazi extermination of Jews, the countless forcible
restrictions on and coercion of women, and so on. So just because an idea is
not true, and a whole lot of people know it is not true, doesn’t mean it can’t
be put in the service of concretely aiding some very bad things!3
In short, don’t underestimate the damage that can be done by the
unchallenged promotion of wrong ideas, especially when they are being
presented as “scientific.” What the Creationists of different stripes are
doing by packaging their religious beliefs as “science” is not just trying to
make their beliefs more acceptable to a somewhat scientifically oriented
public, or trying to get their religious teachings into the public schools even
though the Constitution is supposed to guarantee that people in the U.S.
are not subjected to the imposition of religious doctrine and the tyranny of
religious clerics and diktats. What the creationist program is also doing is
working to undermine science itself—the whole method of science and the
whole way science trains and encourages people to learn about everything
in the world (and also how to change it) through a process of systematic
and repeated observations and interactions with the material world as it
actually is.
If the creationist frontal attack on science itself were ultimately suc-
cessful it would set science back literally centuries and limit us to trying to
understand and affect the world (or passively accept the way it is) on the
basis of superstition and belief in the supernatural.
So what can people, in particular those who are not professional sci-
entists, do to better understand what is wrong and untrue about what the
Creationists put forward? The accompanying insert, “Some Things You Can
Do to Learn More about Creationist Lies and Distortions” on page 222 offers
some suggestions and indicates important sources of information.
222 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
by the evolutionists!), while at the same of the basic kinds of plants and
time insisting that it’s OK for them (the animals by the process of sudden, or
Creationists) not to provide any proof for fiat, creation. We do not know how
their own theory of divine Creation, since of the Creator created, what processes
course by definition “you’re not supposed He used, for He used processes which
to be able to prove the existence of God or are not now operating anywhere in the
any of God’s actions anyway.” natural universe [Gish’s italics]. This
If you familiarize yourself with what’s is why we refer to creation as special
wrong with at least a handful of specific creation. We cannot discover by sci-
creationist “arguments” against evolution entific investigations anything about
and also learn to recognize the pattern of the creative processes used by the
what’s wrong with the kinds of methods they Creator.”
use to attack evolution, then you should be
able to better recognize any non-scientific Can anyone have any doubt at all that
religious belief pretending to be science, no creationism is an expression of a particular
matter what new garb it may be dressed up set of religious beliefs and has nothing
in (including in creationism’s latest incar- to do with science? As Stephen Jay Gould
nation—“intelligent design theory”—more put it: “Pray tell Dr. Gish, in the light of
on this later in this book). The creationist your last sentence, what then is ‘scientific’
arguments will keep changing as fast as the creationism?”
evolutionists answer them, but their wrong 4) Educate yourself about the broader
methods (methods which can’t possibly get at the political and ideological objectives of
actual truth of things) always seem to stay pretty the Creationists and about the kind of
much the same. So once you understand reactionary political forces they are allied
what’s wrong about their methods, it will be with and supported by.
easier to see through their lies and decep- Check out the money connections, and
tions even when they wrap them up in new most importantly look into the general
“scientific-sounding” words and ideas. politics and social programs of the kind of
3) Understand that so-called “scientific people who try to get local schoolboards
creationism” is not science; it is religion. to smuggle creationism into the science
In his 1981 article “Evolution as Fact classrooms or try to get Congress or the
and Theory” the well-known paleontolo- Supreme Court to mandate the teaching
gist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay of anti-evolution creationism throughout
Gould quoted Duane Gish, one of the most the whole country. It is no accident that the
well known lobbyists for the teaching of Creationists frequently rail against feminists,
“creation-science” and representative of the homosexuals, “minorities,” and immigrants,
Institute for Creation Research, as saying: for example, and that they can be counted
on to promote the most reactionary “tra-
“By creation we mean the bringing ditional values” around just about every
into being by a supernatural Creator dividing-line social question. J
224 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
some of the most traditional of the Creationists in that they claim that
everything in the Bible is the Word of God and therefore none of it could
possibly be wrong (that’s what “inerrant” means). In their view the Bible
must be accepted in its entirety as literal fact. Since a strict interpretation
of the Bible (for instance, calculating the number of generations which
have supposedly passed since Adam and Eve) leads to the conclusion that
the earth can only be a little over 6,000 years old (or 10,000 at the most),
the YECs automatically reject all the modern scientific evidence that this
planet is actually about 4.5 billion years old and that life-forms have been
around (and evolving) for roughly 3.5 billion of those years. The YECs take
literally everything that is said in the Bible, including that God created all
life in just a few days (literal days, of 24 hours each). They also believe as
literal truth the story of Adam and Eve (including that God made Eve out
of Adam’s rib), the story that Jonah lived for days in the stomach of a whale
(a mammal which the Bible mistakenly refers to as a big fish), the story of
Noah’s Ark and the Flood which covered the entire earth for 40 days, and
the story that Methuselah lived to be, literally, 9,000 years old! And just
in case you’re wondering: these Young Earth Creationists and people like
Duane Gish and others associated with the Institute for Creation Research
are not some kind of isolated lunatic fringe-elements in the broader world
of Creationists—these are the very same Creationists who have spearheaded
the campaigns to take over school boards and get the courts to force teach-
ers to teach “creation-science” in the public school science classrooms in
states such as Louisiana, Arkansas and Ohio, among others. Duane Gish
toured the country for years “debating” evolutionists on college campuses,
and the well-funded ICR runs a “museum of Creation,” publishes books
and pamphlets, runs a slick web site, etc. So this may seem like lunacy—and
in fact it is—but it is dangerous lunacy.
If it weren’t so pathetic and at the same time so dangerous, one could
laugh at the incredible contortions these people go through to try to “prove”
that the earth’s most striking geological features (such as the great moun-
tain ranges, the great valleys and canyons, including the Grand Canyon,
the shape and relative positions of the continents, etc.) have been the way
they are today since the time of Creation, except for the ways they have
been shaped since then by nothing more than the effects of a 40 Day Flood
and only a few thousand years of wind and water erosion. It doesn’t matter
to them at all that all modern geologists agree that there has never been a
single Great Flood, covering the entire earth all at once, at any time in the
history of the earth. And it doesn’t matter to them that the life’s work of
modern geologists is doing science that requires an understanding of the
actual facts of earth’s geological history.
Unlike the human authors of the Bible thousands of years ago, modern
geologists now know a great deal about things like continental drift,
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 225
v olcanic activity, geological uplifts, wind and water erosion, the sliding and
crashing movements of tectonic plates in the structure of the earth, etc.
They understand, in very concrete and specific ways, how much the earth
has changed over time, and how these completely natural processes (which
we can still observe taking place) have shaped (and continue to shape) all
the landscapes and seascapes of our planet. Most geological processes
take place much too slowly for human eyes to detect, but they can still
be measured with modern scientific instruments and methods. Geologists
have gathered a tremendous amount of concrete scientific evidence show-
ing things like how different kinds of rocks formed at very different times
in earth’s history and how the face of the earth has changed many times
in the past. For instance, they can tell that there was a time when all the
continents used to be “stuck together” in just one single land mass they call
Pangea, before they were (a number of different times) pulled apart and
separated by shifting “plates” under the earth’s surface. Look at a map of
the world even today and you can still see very clearly how the east coast of
South America used to fit right into the west coast of Africa like two pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle!
Geologists can also tell that the whole middle of North America was at
one time covered by a shallow inland sea, which is why today we can find
fossils of all sorts of sea-dwelling creatures in the middle of the landlocked
midwestern United States, a thousand miles or more from the nearest
modern oceans. Geologists can calculate things like how much time it has
taken for high mountain ranges like the Himalayas or Andes to get “pushed
up” (and how much they are still “growing” in places) or how much time
it takes for the Grand Canyon or the deep canyons under the oceans to get
carved out and shaped. And because they understand many of the processes
involved and can actually measure the rate at which such changes take place,
the worldwide community of geologists will tell you with one voice that
there is absolutely no way all of this could have taken place in just a few thousand
years! The natural forces and changes which have shaped and continue to
shape this planet have taken millions and even billions of years to unfold.
Incredibly, none of what these scientists say (and routinely demonstrate)
matters one bit as far as the YECs are concerned: they are true dogmatists,
who cannot be shaken from their preconceived notions by any contrary
evidence. For them, if the Bible indicates that the earth is no more than a
few thousand years old, then that’s just the way it’s got to be! Since they
want to oppose evolution (because it contradicts the Bible), that means they
have to get their Creation stuff taught in science classrooms. But since a
religious viewpoint isn’t supposed to be imposed on anyone in the public
schools, they knew they had to try to wrap their religious belief in some
kind of scientific-sounding cover to get it smuggled in. So they coined the
term “creation-science” and simply proclaimed that this is an “alternative
226 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
scientific theory,” even though they use no scientific methods and can pre
sent no actual scientific evidence to support their claims. They’re deluding
themselves, but they’re also trying to pull one of the greatest con games
in all of history. Take a good look, and you will see that what they are
doing is not genuine “science.” The method of the Creationists is religious-
inspired apriorism: apriorism is when someone starts off with an untested
core assumption about the way things are, and then “works back” from that
assumption, looking for “evidence” that can be made to fit the preconceived
notion. The Young Earth Creationists start off with the untested assumption
that there is a supernatural power that created humanity and everything
else in just six days a few thousand years ago. And then they “work back”
from that and try to make their supposed “facts” (which consist primarily
of trying to show evolution is wrong) fit their theory. This is no way to get
at the truth of things, and it certainly isn’t science!
prob’ly happened...is that God must have created the earth and things like
the long-gone dinosaurs in a first act of Creation, millions of years ago,
but then He must have destroyed it all and started over from scratch with a
second act of Creation, and that’s the one that happened in just six days only
a few thousand years ago—that’s the one that’s described in the Bible.
No, you don’t buy this? OK, OK, then how about this, say the OECs:
the earth really is as young as the Bible indicates it is (that should at least
make the YECs happy); but, see, God just made it look much older! Of
course, this cross between the YECs and the OECs (known as “mature-
earth Creationists”) has never been able to explain why on earth God would
want to be such a deceiver and play such tricks on people.4
larger cosmos in such a way as to allow for the subsequent (later) unfolding
of certain natural laws. This included, in Till’s view, allowing living species
on earth to evolve on their own, through natural processes, in the ways
that have been explained by Darwinian evolutionary theory. So God’s role,
in this view, was more or less to set the universe in motion at the very
beginning (after which things could evolve on their own), plus to somehow
continue to oversee all that is and to imbue life with purpose—whereas
non-religious (secular) evolutionists argue that there is no reason to sup-
pose that any super-natural force has ever been involved in the unfolding of
natural processes on earth or anywhere in the cosmos, and that it is human
beings themselves who imbue life with “purpose.”
Despite the growing influence of anti-evolution Creationists in recent
decades, one form or other of “theistic evolutionism” remains a widely held
view among many clergy and other religious people in the United States.
As an attempt to bring together and reconcile religious belief in a super-
natural power with genuine scientific knowledge about the natural material
world, this kind of viewpoint runs into a lot of difficulties from both ends of
the creationism vs. evolution argument: On the one hand, it is considered
absolute blasphemy by the traditional anti-evolution Creationists, who feel
that any such concession to evolution science goes against the Bible and
welcomes in the influence of godless atheism. And on the other hand, any
thoroughgoing and systematic application of scientific methods will show
that there is absolutely no basis in the material world (other than in the
creative imaginations of human beings) to assume that any super-natural
force was or had to be in any way involved in initiating or directing any of
the natural processes taking place on earth or anywhere else in the universe.
For instance, as was discussed earlier, any serious grappling with modern
scientific investigations of the processes of “self-organization” of biochemi-
cal molecules shows how likely it is that the first basic building blocks of life
on this planet came together spontaneously out of some of the chemical
elements that we know would have been common in the “chemical soup”
of early earth and that there is no reason to suppose anything other than
such natural processes were involved when life first emerged on this planet,
some 3.5 billion years ago. And there are also no scientific grounds that
would lead us to suppose that anything other than completely natural
material processes were or had to be involved in the coming into being
and subsequent transformations of that broader portion of material reality
we call the known “universe”: in fact, increasing numbers of cosmologists
suspect that what we think of as the universe may itself be the result of a
completely natural process through which a number of different universes
get “sorted out” and themselves evolve (readers interested in evolution-
ary theory applied to the level of the universe might want to check out
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 229
cosmologist Lee Smolin’s interesting and provocative book The Life of the
Cosmos).
[Author’s note: In the time since these words were originally written, it has
become even more clear that the Christian fundamentalists are dead serious about
seeking to radically redefine what science is, in keeping with their religious beliefs
and agenda. For instance, at their prodding, in November 2005, the Kansas State
Board of Education approved changes in school curriculum standards which not
only call into question the validity of evolution, but which go even further, pro-
ceeding to literally redefine science and the process of scientific investigation in
such a way as to open the door to seeking super-natural explanations for natural
phenomena.]
What the IDCs have in common with the old-style Creationists (and
what immediately separates them from the overwhelming majority of
working scientists in every field all around the world) is the firm conviction
that natural processes and mechanisms (including biological evolution) are
not in and of themselves sufficient to explain the way life came into being on
this planet, or how all the living species of plants and animals, including
people, came to be the way they are today. The IDCs can often be quite
good at making themselves “sound” scientific; but, as we will see, they are
fundamentally no different than any of the other types of Creationists.
They still don’t have a single shred of actual scientific evidence to support
their theory of a divine designer of life, and they still don’t have any actual
scientific evidence which could lead us to call into question the well-estab-
lished facts of evolution.
But, before turning to the more “sophisticated” Creationists of the
“Intelligent Design” variety, it will be helpful, and important, to examine a
bit more what the more crude old-style Creationists put forward.
t hinking and about their past and current social purposes and motivations.
(And understood in that sense, it should actually be pretty obvious that sci-
ence does in fact have a great deal to say about religion—and in my opinion
should in fact say it! But this is a subject for another time.)
Ever since Darwin proposed his revolutionary theory that all life on
this planet had evolved out of a series of common ancestors over millions
of years, thanks to a purely natural mechanism he called natural selection,
scientists have been going out and checking it out to see if this holds up in
the real world. Does the fossil evidence conform to the predictions of the
theory of evolution?—check. Does the molecular genetic evidence conform
to the predictions of the theory of evolution?—check. Does the evidence
from similarities and differences of body parts and functions among living
species conform to the predictions of the theory of evolution?—check. Does
the evidence from the geographic distribution of species around the world
and their networks of ecological relationships correspond to the predictions
of the theory of evolution?—check. Can evolutionists provide examples of
the kinds of things we should not expect to find if the theory of evolution is
correct?—check. Well, has there ever been a single discovery, in any field of
science, which constitutes evidence of something that does not conform to
the predictions of the theory of evolution? No, not one—there is a ton of
concrete data in support of evolution that has been met with broad scientific
agreement but not a single piece of actual scientific evidence has ever been
found to disprove the theory of evolution. Not one. Seriously, what more do
we need?
By contrast the “scientific Creationists” start off with a religious assump-
tion: that God made the earth and the universe and everything in it and that
the living species of plants and animals did not evolve out of any pre-existing
different species because, as the Biblical literalist Creationists see it, species
were created by God separately and all at once only a few thousand years
ago, and they are still today just as God created them. Human beings in
particular, say the Creationists, were God’s “special” Creation, and so there
is no way humans could have evolved out of non-human ape-like ancestor
species. But, once again, this is not science: it is a religious or spiritual belief,
rooted in a myth—the Genesis story of Creation which people who lived
more than 2,000 years ago wrote down and which became the first part of
a religious text, the Bible.
So that’s what the traditional Creationists start off with. They want
to believe what they want to believe, and scientific facts be damned! Some
of them on occasion go out in the world and try to find “evidence” which
would fit their theory, while of course insisting that their theory cannot
possibly be disproved, no matter what. A few of them actually go looking
for remains of Noah’s Ark, or try to find fossil footprints of dinosaurs in
rock layers containing fossilized human bones in an effort to show dinosaurs
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 233
and humans lived at the same time (which would have to be the case if the
Genesis Creation story of all species being created at once were true). Or
they try to make calculations to show that the Grand Canyon could have
been formed by water erosion in just a few thousand years, rather than the
millions of years the geologists agree upon.
Biblical literalist Creationists don’t use any of the well-established
scientific methods, don’t publish in any scientific journals, and have never
been able to come up with a single piece of actual scientific evidence in
support of their religious theory. But that doesn’t keep many of them
from still wanting to “appear” to be “scientific,” especially when they are
trying to get their religious beliefs smuggled into science classrooms in an
attempt to confuse people and undermine evolution science, and science
more generally. So what do they do? Well, they spend a good deal of time
trying to make themselves look and sound “scientific” (at least enough to
try to fool people who have been denied a decent science education). As
mentioned earlier, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), one of the main
headquarters of the more traditional Biblical literalist Creationists, even has
a museum near San Diego that people can visit and which tries to look like
a natural history museum! People can go there and see colorful dioramas
and displays about the supposed shaping of earth’s landscapes and the sup-
posed origins of past and present life-forms, and read professional-looking
museum signs which “explain” (as if these were proven scientific facts) that
people are descended from Adam and Eve, that there once was a global
Flood which covered the whole earth, that all the species of animals alive
today are descended from the animals Noah managed to herd onto his
one boat when God sent the Flood, what Noah’s Ark probably looked like
(complete with diagrams!) etc, etc. Of course none of what they show is
supported by any scientific evidence (and all of it is actually contradicted
by tons of scientific evidence), but hey, what the hell, these displays are in a
“museum,” so there must be some truth to it, right? Well, no, not right. As
the old saying goes, caveat emptor (buyer beware)!
It is important to keep pointing out that the preferred method of the so-
called “scientific” Creationists is not actually to do any real science of their
own: they don’t conduct any experiments and investigations in keeping with
scientific standards or accumulate and present any actual scientific evidence
of their own. They are in fact unable to present any evidence that could
withstand any recognized scientific process of testing and verification. So
what they do instead is resort to just trying to “poke some holes” in their
nemesis, the science of evolution. They figure that by doing this they might
be able to convince people that evolution science rests on shaky ground.
They seem to think that if they could only get people to at least have a few
doubts about evolution—to start wondering a little about whether evolu-
tion might not just be a hyped-up and unproven fantasy of non-believer
234 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
in many different directions over the past 3.5 billion years, back and forth
along a number of different tracks, including along a lot of short-lived side
branches which, as it turned out, ended up in evolutionary dead ends. And
the evolution of life has also been frequently punctuated with extinctions
(the going out of existence) of species—including mass die-offs of a high
proportion of all the species alive at the time, a phenomenon which has
occurred at least five different times in earth’s history. One might say that
extinction is not exactly reflective of a uniform trend towards ever increas-
ing biological order and complexity!
In addition, many very simple organisms still thrive on this planet. For
instance, there are so many different species of bacteria, and their popula-
tion numbers are so great, that many biologists like to say the bacteria still
rule the earth! Similarly, it can be fun (and somewhat humbling!) to ponder
the fact that the estimated total weight (biomass) of the many different
known species of ants (and more ant species are still being discovered!) adds
up to roughly the collective weight of all the individuals who make up our
one single remaining species of humans.
But even if, by “increase in complexity” we simply mean that, in the
course of 3.5 billion years, life on this planet evolved features and mecha-
nisms which are much more complex than what existed in the simplest
bacteria, and that, in the overall course of evolving, life has diversified into
a tremendous variety of species and complex ecosystems, this still doesn’t
“violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” Why? Because this natural
law predicts that matter will tend to move towards increasing disorder
only in self-contained “closed” systems. But life on this planet is not in fact a
“closed” system—it continually takes in energy from an outside source (the sun).
As long as this external input of energy continues, there is no reason to
think that natural systems on this planet could not continue to produce and
organize additional biological “order” and complexity.
This false “objection” to evolution (the accusation that evolution sup-
posedly runs counter to the Second Law of Thermodynamics) is typical
of the methods of the supposedly “scientific” Creationists: they don’t even
know what they’re talking about, but they throw a little dust in the air and
make claims that sure “sound” scientific, and of course this can have the
effect of confusing people.
are willing to change their position? Of course not. They simply act like,
OK, that gap may be gone, but now there’s two gaps—because now there’s
one on either side of the new fossil discovery! And if those two gaps later get
“filled” by the discovery of even more missing link intermediates, they’ll just
act as if there are now four gaps that need to be filled...and so of course this
little game of theirs could go on forever. The Creationists will do everything
in their power to try to divert people’s attention from such things as the
already overwhelming, and constantly growing, evidence which connects
modern humans back to earlier primate ancestors through a long step-wise
series of intermediates (or, just to use another example, the evidence which
connects modern-day legless whales to earlier four-legged land ancestors
through a long series of step-wise evolutionary modifications taking place
over millions of years).
In addition to flat out lying about how there are supposedly no “inter-
mediates” showing step-wise evolutionary modifications in the fossil record
(when any biologist or paleontologist can point to quite a few such series of
“intermediates”!), the Creationists also fail to understand the fundamental
point that the theory of evolution itself predicts that it should be difficult
and likely even impossible to find fossilized remains of clear intermediate
species representing every single evolutionary modification in neat step-
wise fashion, including for the reasons explained above. And the fact is that,
given this, it is nothing short of amazing that so many millions of fossils
of so many different species have been found and continue to be found in
growing numbers on a daily basis.
But in addition to this, our current understanding of how evolution
actually works tells us that brand new species often evolve out of really small and
geographically isolated populations which are reproductively cut off from the
bigger ancestral population from which they were most recently derived.
For reasons that were reviewed earlier in this book (having to do, among
other things, with the disproportionate influence on small populations of
mutations and other changes in gene frequencies in a population), it seems
that major evolutionary innovations (dramatically different features of
form and function) are much more likely to appear at first in really small
populations than in a larger and more stable ancestral gene pool. And once
these evolutionary modifications appear, it takes a lot of time for them to
spread to significant numbers of individuals and to generate even more
diverse variations on a theme, so to speak. All this should make it pretty
clear why finding fossils of those very first small pockets of individuals
(which represent the first appearance of a brand new species) is actually
very unlikely—we tend to “catch” the evolutionary modifications that have
happened only a bit further down the time line, once they have become
more solidly established and widespread and have come to represent a larger
238 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
evolutionary branch. Given all this as well, it is even more amazing that so
many clearly intermediate life-forms have been found in the fossil record!
So, in sum, Creationists at one and the same time lie about “gaps”
in the fossil record that have long been filled by linked series of ancestors
and descendants, and also reveal their ignorance of how evolution actually
works in not understanding some of the basic reasons why the theory of
evolution actually predicts that not every single “gap” in the fossil record
will ever likely be filled.
and reassemble multiple times. It’s not a perfect system, and at each step in
this molecular process “copying errors” (mutations) can (and frequently do)
occur. Many of them are minor enough not to have any significant effect
on an organism’s offspring. But sometimes mutations cause functional
abnormalities that are severe enough to cause the malformation or even
death of egg or sperm cells or of an entire offspring. Genetic mutations that
are severe enough to kill an offspring or prevent it from ever reproducing
obviously cannot continue to spread from generation to generation. But not
all mutations are harmful, and so it is important to remember the old saying:
mutants are not monsters!
There are in fact many genetic mutations that don’t cause significant
harm to descendants, and some of these even contribute to helpful new
features or capacities that may provide descendants with some kind of new
reproductive advantage in a particular environment (especially if the envi-
ronment happens to be changing in important ways). These kinds of more
favorable new features will tend to spread by natural selection to increasing
numbers of individuals over the generations. For instance, the very first
bipedal (upright-walking) hominids were no doubt “genetic freaks” in one
sense (relative to the non-bipedal apes from which they were descended)
but bipedalism must have provided some major reproductive advantages
for these early ancestors of ours (and the environments do seem to have
been changing in significant ways around the time bipedalism emerged,
as discussed earlier) because it is evident from the fossil record that, once it
emerged, bipedalism took hold and spread and it was a distinguishing feature of
a great many successful new hominid species over the next few million years.
This is just one of countless examples of how mutations and other genetic
reconfigurations are not always harmful and how they can sometimes open
up whole new reproductively advantageous evolutionary pathways.
I won’t repeat here everything that has already been discussed about
how new species can come into being. I simply want to remind readers
that many of the changes involved in this process have actually been directly
observed (even if only on a relatively modest scale) both in the lab and in
the wild (where whole new species of plants have been observed to evolve
simply through chance doublings of chromosomes, for instance, or in cases
where geographically separated species of animals have been shown to
accumulate sufficient genetic differences over many generations that they
have become—or are in the process of becoming—wholly separate spe-
cies). And it is important to realize that population geneticists and other
evolutionary biologists are routinely able to actually measure such things as
the rates at which genetic changes are taking place in living populations, and
the degree to which these genetic changes are being sorted out by natural
selection in a given environment, producing descendant populations that
240 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
are different in measurably significant ways from their ancestors going back
a number of generations.
Again, especially when environments change, some genetic mutations,
instead of being harmful, can actually turn out to be very beneficial to
organisms and ultimately to their populations. The same can be said of the
typical reshuffling of genes individuals inherit from each parent in sexually
reproducing species, which ends up producing new genetic recombinations;
and of the kind of change in gene frequencies at the level of whole popula-
tions that can come about simply through “genetic drift,” as when individuals
migrate in and out of an area for instance. All this genetic shuffling provides
living populations with a constantly changing genetic pool—and it is this
that serves as the raw material of evolutionary change.
The Creationists don’t have a leg to stand on and just reveal their gross
ignorance when they insist that mutations are always harmful, that nobody
understands the mechanisms through which life evolves, and that the only
thing that could possibly explain why so many species seem so well adapted
to their environments is because a designer god made them that way. All of
these ideas have long been disproved by actual concrete scientific evidence.
also couldn’t care less that astronomers today can peer into distant space to
study stars, galaxies, super-nova explosions and so on, and can calculate that
many are billions of light-years away (they are so far away from us that often
what we are detecting now is actually how those stars and so on appeared
and what was happening with them billions of years ago!).
As we have seen, the Young Earth Creationists respond to all this by
claiming that either the physicists are simply making mistakes in all their
calculations of the age of the earth and the universe, or else the divine
Creator, for reasons known only to him, just decided to make the universe
look like it’s billions of years old, even though, these Creationists insist, it
really isn’t.
It’s important to understand that if these Young Earth Creationists were
right, and the earth really weren’t much older than what the Bible suggests,
it wouldn’t just be the entire science of modern biology which would go
down the tubes; it would also be all of modern physics, chemistry, geology,
and astronomy as well. All of these sciences, and much of what they have
accomplished in the past couple of centuries, is built on a foundation that
includes the understanding that the earth and its elements and what we
know so far about the larger universe is billions (not thousands or even mil-
lions) of years old.
The idea that all these fields of modern science could be so fundamen-
tally wrong (as the YECs insist is the case) is obviously ridiculous to anyone
who stops to think about it, and this seems to be part of what is driving
the emergence of the new school of Creationists who promote “Intelligent
Design” theory. As we will see, at least some of the Intelligent Design
Creationists (IDCs) are willing to set aside a rigidly literal reading of the
Bible, to accept the scientific evidence that the earth and the universe are
much older than what is indicated in the Bible, and to recognize many of
the advances made by modern astronomy, physics, geology, etc. But when
it comes to biological evolution, they try to argue that natural evolution-
ary processes and mechanisms can’t possibly account for all the features
of living organisms (such as the complex structures of some biochemical
systems functioning inside of cells) and so they too end up imagining that
a super-natural higher power, a divine designer, had to be involved at least
at some point in the process. (The Intelligent Design Creationists and their
mistaken beliefs will be discussed more a little later.)
But the Young Earth Creationists (including most of the so-called
“scientific” Creationists lobbying to change laws to enforce the teaching
of creationism in science classrooms) aren’t willing to give up on any of
their core beliefs, including the age of the earth and the fossils within it.
The YECs say all the scientists are simply wrong in calculating the age of
the earth at roughly 4.5 billion years. They say that evolutionists arrived
at this figure through circular reasoning: dating the age of rocks by the
242 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
fossils they contain, and then dating the fossils according to what rock layers
they are found in. This sure makes it sound like the evolutionists are apply-
ing bad scientific methods, doesn’t it? But the truth is that there really is a
consistent, time-ordered sequence of similar fossils that are found in similar
rock layers all over the world—layers of sediments which were deposited
and hardened into rock in different time periods of this planet’s history (dif-
ferent geological “eras”). This ordered chronology or sequence of different
kinds of rock layers and their associated fossils (known as the “geological
column”) is very familiar to geologists—it was known about even before
Darwin’s time. Geologists realized that the different layers in the geological
column had formed and accumulated at different times in the past and so
represented different eras in the geological history of the earth long before
anyone knew anything about the evolution of life. And there is a real (not
imagined) correlation between certain kinds of rock layers and certain
kinds of fossils, which is repeated all around the world. The more 19th
century geologists and early naturalists thought about this, the more this
started to suggest to some of them that what they were looking at was
evidence that not only the shape and form of the inanimate earth but also
the living creatures themselves had actually changed over time, had in some
way evolved.
As we have seen, the Young Earth Creationists explain the fact that dif-
ferent collections of fossils are consistently found in different kinds of rock
layers by saying ridiculously absurd things like that, during the supposed
40 Day Biblical Flood, some creatures must have drowned early on (and
immediately sunk all the way to the bottom), which supposedly explains
why their remains are now found in the deepest layers of sediments;
while some other creatures (the better swimmers and the more intelligent
creatures) must have managed to survive longer, which would supposedly
explain why their remains would be found in upper layers of sediments
deposited by the Flood. I find it actually incredible that adult human beings
of supposedly sound mind—especially people claiming to practice some
kind of “science”—could actually say such things with a straight face! Of
course, these Creationists are completely unable to explain why not a single
fossil organism is ever found “out of place” with respect to the geological layering:
were they all such equally bad, or equally good, swimmers?
Many biologists have a lot of fun exposing this nonsense. For instance,
Brown University biologist Ken Miller (a Catholic and a religious believer
who tries in various ways to reconcile science and religion, but who has no
doubts about the evolution of life) often makes the point that not a single
fossil of the flowering plants is found in the first 2 billion years of the geological
record—“not a dandelion, not a rose, not an acorn, not so much as a mustard seed”
(Finding Darwin’s God). And so he poses the obvious question: wouldn’t the
churning waters of the supposed Biblical Flood have mixed together many
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 243
of these seeds and plant parts and deposited them throughout the layers of
muddy sediments which later turned to rock? One would think so, but as it
turns out only plants that produce leaves (but no flowers), such as club-mosses
and giant ferns, are found in the older (lower) sediments. The distribution
patterns of fossils in the different rock layers has nothing to do with any
global Flood that supposedly covered the whole earth (and for which there
is also absolutely no evidence either): the real reason not even a single one of
the flowering plants has ever been found in the “lower” 2 billion years of
sediments is simply because flowering plants hadn’t yet evolved back then. In
fact, even though flowering plants dominate the earth today, they evolved
fairly recently—less than 100 million years ago—in what is known as the
Cretaceous era.
The Creationists also don’t have a good explanation for why all the
human fossils are found only in the very top layers of sediments. As Ken
Miller humorously points out, for the creationist Flood theory to be right,
it would have to be the case that all the humans alive at the time of the sup-
posed 40 Day Global Flood managed to swim or tread water for something
like 39 days, drowning only on the very last day!
And of course, as has been spoken to earlier, the age of things and the
time at which they lived is something which is not just a matter of specula-
tion but which can now be quite accurately and consistently determined
through a great many scientific dating techniques, including various forms
of radiometric dating based on the known rates of decay of radioactive ele-
ments in the earth as well as newer techniques of molecular dating. There
are so many dating techniques now, and it is so clear that scientists can get
reliable approximations of the age of just about anything by using a combina-
tion of such techniques (to see whether they keep coming up with the same
age), that it is getting harder and harder for anyone to take seriously the
Creationists’ so-called “critique” of actual scientific dating or to entertain
seriously the Creationists’ notion of the Biblical Flood being responsible for
the orderly distribution of species in the geological layers.
While the YECs still stubbornly cling to the literal Biblical view of a
young earth and a divine Creation of everything all at once (and no more
than 10,000 years ago), more and more Creationists seem to be willing to
abandon this view, accepting the old age of the earth, accepting that the
fossils reveal that different plants and animals lived in different eras, but then
concluding either that God must have engaged in multiple acts of creation at
different times, or, alternatively, that God simply created the beginnings of
life but then allowed life to evolve.
Because this kind of “modified” creationist view is in stark conflict with
what is said in the Bible, it is a source of great tension and disagreement
within creationist circles.
244 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
sacks (like our distant reptilian ancestors) not because we need them (we
don’t) and not because they make sense from the standpoint of any kind of
conscious and intelligent “design” (they don’t) but simply because these are
left-overs from an earlier evolutionary time, the kind of marks and reminders
of past history and of distant ancestors which all living species (including
people) carry within them to this day. Creationists don’t have any good
explanations for these kinds of features—once again they can only attribute
these apparent “design flaws” to the capricious and mysterious mind of
God.
Not surprisingly, one of the reasons many religious people in modern
times reject such creationism and actually recognize and accept the scien-
tific evidence of evolution (even if they choose to still believe in God) is
because they don’t particularly like the idea of conceiving of God as some
kind of “deceiving trickster” who made everything in just the right way to
fool people into believing that things are older than they are and that life
evolved when it really didn’t. They’d rather try to “redefine” God in some
new ways—ways which don’t involve rejecting the accumulated scientific
evidence about the great age of the earth and the universe or the evidence
that all life has evolved and that even people evolved from non-human
ancestors.
Unfortunately creationism remains far from a dead issue among other
sectors of people. In fact the new breed of Creationists known as the
Intelligent Design Creationists (IDCs) are currently growing in influence,
in part because they are perfectly willing to completely abandon much of
what is said in the Bible which science has long proven to be factually incor-
rect, while still clinging to the belief that living species could not have come
to be the way they are merely through natural evolutionary processes and
insisting that some kind of super-natural “intelligent designer” (in other
words, God) has been involved at some point in the process. We will further
discuss the Intelligent Design Creationists and their baseless attacks on evo-
lution science (and science more generally) in the next section.
try to take over local school boards and change textbooks and state laws set-
ting criteria for science education; they still launch courtroom challenges to
try to get the government to order public school science teachers to teach
a set of religious beliefs (so-called “creation-science”) in clear violation of
the constitutional separation of church and state, etc. But while this is all
still going on, these Biblical literalist promoters of so-called “creation-sci-
ence” (the ones who insist that every word in the Biblical story of Genesis is
literally true) have been increasingly discredited in recent years as growing
numbers of scientists from all fields of science have stepped forward to
expose and denounce so-called “creation-science” as pseudoscience (phony
science) and to explain, over and over again, why the scientific evidence for
evolution is rock solid, how the methods of the Creationists are not at all
scientific and how they are promoting not science but religion.
Although the Biblical literalist Creationists who were trying to get
“creation-science” taught in the public school science classrooms were very
active throughout the 1980s and 1990s and made some gains, they also suf-
fered some significant setbacks, especially in the wake of their defeats in a
number of the more high-profile court cases during those years. For instance,
in a very important case in 1982 known as McLean et al. v. Arkansas Board of
Education, many prominent scientists from a number of different fields of
science (including a number of Nobel Prize winners and some well-known
evolutionists such as Stephen Jay Gould and Francisco Ayala) got together to
explain to the Court why evolution is such a well-established fact of science
and once again to make the case that there is absolutely nothing scientific
about so-called “creation-science.” In addition to the testimony from the
scientific community, a number of religious scholars and philosophers of
science also joined in to further explain the differences between science and
religion and to make clear why “creation-science” does not belong in the
science classroom. The result was a setback for the Creationists. Then in
the 1987 Louisiana case known as Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court
ruled that it would be unconstitutional to order that “creation-science” be
taught in science classrooms alongside the science of evolution (a law the
Creationists had managed to get the state of Louisiana to adopt) because
this would require that students be taught a particular religious belief in state
run schools (including the belief that a super-natural power created human
beings) and this would clearly be unconstitutional. Despite all these set-
backs, the traditional Biblical literalist Creationists are far from down and
out, and to this day they are spreading a lot of confusion at the grassroots
level, where they continue to try to get local schoolboards and legislatures
to force teachers to teach anti-science creationism, and they have had some
success in getting some school textbook publishers to insert little evolution
“disclaimers” into high school biology textbooks, encouraging kids to think
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 247
that evolution is not a settled question and to keep their minds open (!) to
(obviously religious) alternative theories.
The Creationists are not satisfied with the successes they have had
(taking advantage of many people’s ignorance and gullibility) at the local
and state levels. They want to impose the teaching of their religious dogma
on the country as a whole. And to be successful at doing that—especially in
the wake of those high-profile courtroom losses and widespread denuncia-
tions of creationism by an increasingly outraged scientific community—they
need a new strategy: they need to find some new arguments to get over with
a general public which has become a bit more aware and suspicious of the
anti-scientific nature of their “creation-science” claptrap in recent years;
and they also need a revamped legal strategy if they hope to get U.S. courts
to give a green light to the forcible teaching of a religious viewpoint and
agenda in the public schools.
This is where the new breed of “Intelligent Design” Creationists comes
in:
The Intelligent Design Creationists are increasingly in the forefront
of trying to undermine the science of evolution and smuggle faith-based
theories of life into the high school science classrooms. And they are even
making some beginning inroads into some college campuses! These new
Creationists are much more slick than their Biblical literalist brethren and
they therefore have the potential to create a great deal more confusion and
harm, including among people who are relatively well educated.
Phillip Johnson, a Berkeley professor of law, is generally recognized as
the leading ideologue of their movement. A believer in divine Creation,
Johnson knows enough about the law and the U.S. Constitution to realize
that the legal strategy of the so-called “scientific Creationists” of the ’80s
and ’90s (promoting the Biblical Creation story as literal truth) is unlikely to
succeed in changing the laws at the national level. So he is revamping the
terms of the creationist argument: no more talk about the Bible, Genesis,
Adam and Eve, Noah, or the idea that God made everything in six days.
That kind of talk makes it too easy for the theory of divine Creation to be
barred from the classrooms on the basis that it is teaching a specific religious
viewpoint (duh). Johnson realizes that the Biblical literalist Creationists have
been hurting the creationist cause by coming off too much like fanatically
irrational religious dogmatists.
What to do? Well, why not make it look like it’s the other way around?
Yeah, that’s it... make it look like it’s the evolutionists who are stubbornly
close-minded and dogmatic and that they have turned the science of evolu-
tion, and “scientific naturalism” in general, into what amounts to a new
state religion! And then make it look like your breed of new Intelligent
Design Creationists are by contrast much more open-minded and reason-
able people, who are pretty much open to any possibilities, but who simply
248 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
“feel” that evolution is far from proven, and that in addition there are good
and rational reasons to think that it is more likely that a divine power created
biological life. You can do this, Johnson basically argues, without explicitly
promoting the Biblical story of Genesis, and if you handle it that way you’ll
have a much better chance of being able to convince Congress and the
Supreme Court that it would be “viewpoint discrimination” (and therefore
unconstitutional) to keep the “alternative” scientific theory of Intelligent
Design out of the science classrooms or any other public venue.
Of course the basic problem with this version of creationist reasoning
is still that:
1) there is plenty of concrete scientific evidence that conclusively supports
the fact that evolution has occurred (and that life continues to evolve), and
which has demonstrated time and time again some of the basic mechanisms
through which evolutionary change takes place (such as natural selection).
So the theory of evolution is not just some kind of untested “viewpoint”
which could just as equally be true or false; and
2) the theory of “Intelligent Design” is an alternative “viewpoint”
alright—but it is still a religious viewpoint and cannot be legitimately passed
off as any kind of alternative science.
In fact, as we will show, Intelligent Design is just as lacking in scientific
basis as all those older versions of “scientific creationism.” It can however
be more confusing (and to a broader variety of people) for the following
reasons:
The more traditional old-style Biblical creationism has often been pro-
moted by relatively unsophisticated people who more often than not end
up coming off like irrational zealots and who are obviously deeply ignorant
of even the most basic scientific principles and practices. But the Intelligent
Design people are generally a mild-mannered bunch that includes a number
of highly educated scholars and college professors. Some of them even have
multiple graduate degrees in fields such as law, philosophy, mathematics,
engineering and even a few with degrees in biochemistry and molecular
biology. And while they generally do admit to believing in a super-natural
higher power and divine Creation as a matter of religious background and
ongoing faith, they also insist that they are the ones who are being truly
scientific, because, unlike the evolutionists, their minds are supposedly not
clouded by the institutionalized secular prejudices of modern American
science. Phillip Johnson in particular strenuously argues that secular science
(science which seeks to understand the natural mechanisms of natural pro-
cesses without reference to any super-natural power) needs to be replaced
with a theistic science—a method of doing science which would actively
incorporate the idea that God exists into the scientific process itself! With
this broader philosophical broadside the Intelligent Design Creationists
aligned with Phillip Johnson show themselves to be even more profoundly
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 249
at the beginning of the 19th century, the Reverend William Paley famously
argued that only a divine designer could have brought into being something
as complex as a human eye. Charles Darwin himself was very aware of
such arguments, which were popular throughout the 19th century. In The
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Darwin paid a lot of attention
to explaining how, given enough time, complex features of living things
(including something like the human eye) could in fact have been brought
into being and shaped by nothing more than the simple and entirely natural
mechanism of natural selection. Modern evolutionary biologists today
know Darwin was in fact correct, and can trace and map out the likely series
of step-wise evolutionary modifications involved in something like the evo-
lution of mammalian eyes in much greater detail than Darwin could ever
have imagined. But, even back in the 1860s, Darwin had grasped the basics,
which is a lot more than can be said about the modern-day “Intelligent
Design” people who are resurrecting William Paley’s tired old argument.
At the same time, today’s IDCs are finding some new ways to “mod-
ernize” the creationist “argument from design”: not only do these IDCs
seem perfectly willing to cut their losses and accept that the Bible is not
the literal Word of God (this of course infuriates the old-style Biblical lit-
eralist Creationists who accuse them of “selling out” the Bible) but they
generally also go even further, and accept the fact that life-forms on this
planet have undergone some amount of biological evolution, and even that
some amount of biological evolution continues to occur (this, of course,
also lands them in trouble with some of the more traditional anti-evolution
Creationists, with whom they’d still like to maintain some kind of united
front on basic religious grounds).7
These modern-day IDCs don’t all speak with a single unified voice, but
in general their opposition to the theory of evolution could be summarized
as follows:
1) “Intelligent Design” tries to oppose the theory of evolution on
philosophical and methodological grounds
The “Intelligent Design” people (and in particular their head ideologue
Phillip Johnson) basically argue that modern scientists have fallen into a fun-
damental error by adopting the methods of “scientific naturalism” through
which science traditionally seeks to understand natural phenomena by
investigating exclusively natural processes (the only kind of processes that
can be investigated!). They say that modern scientists are wrong not to
make room for an operating assumption that an overarching super-natural
force could be overseeing and guiding these natural processes and the uni-
verse as a whole. “Scientific naturalism,” which concerns itself only with
natural phenomena, is how all modern science is actually done, and it is
how all modern scientific advances are actually accomplished. Despite this,
IDCs like Johnson insist the modern scientific community is prejudiced and
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 251
closed-minded for not allowing for God and building this possibility right
into the scientific process itself. But the fact is, and most scientists (even
the ones who are religious) are very clear on this: if scientists abandoned
the secular methods of science and attempted instead to investigate the
workings of the material natural world under the guidance of an outlook
and method which takes as its fundamental point of departure the idea that
there exists a super-natural realm (which, by definition, is not subject to the
laws of change and development of the material world and which cannot
itself be investigated or verified), this would end up completely destroying the
scientific process and would cause modern scientific advances and the overall devel-
opment of human knowledge to grind to a halt! I will return to some of these
philosophical issues a bit later on.
2) Intelligent Design tries to oppose the theory of evolution on
“scientific” grounds
The IDCs go on to claim that any scientist who frees his or her mind of
the supposed prejudice of “scientific naturalism” and is willing to be “open”
to the idea of God will come to realize that there is actual evidence in the
world around us that life was designed by a higher power, a conscious intelli-
gence. Today the “Intelligent Design” claims that attempt to masquerade as
science seem to center on William Dembski’s idea of a “design filter” (also
known as the “design inference”) and, even more so, biochemist Michael
Behe’s argument about “irreducible complexity” in natural systems.
To briefly summarize these two pseudo-“scientific” arguments:
253
254 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
able to clot. He argues that these kinds of highly complex molecular sys-
tems could not have been shaped merely by natural evolutionary processes
(which, like Dembski, he also incorrectly refers to as “chance” processes).
Therefore, he concludes, the very fact that such complexity even exists is
itself concrete “evidence” of “intelligent design”—i.e., that some kind of
conscious intelligence (basically a divine super-natural power) must have
stepped in at some point to bring such complex processes into being.
Behe and other IDCs have extended this reasoning even further, argu-
ing that some biological systems can be described as “irreducibly complex.”
They define a multi-part biological system as “irreducibly complex” if
it appears it would collapse and stop being functional if it were missing
even just one of its interlocking parts. Using examples from his field of
biochemistry, Behe points to a number of systems (in this case biochemical
reactions) which would in fact be unable to perform their current functions
if they were missing even one of their components. He then declares that
he considers this proof of design by some kind of conscious intelligence
(in other words, god). Why? Why would it necessarily be the case that, if
a particular biochemical system can’t perform its particular (current) func-
tion unless it has all its parts up and running, this is automatically proof
of “intelligent design”? Because, argues Behe, natural biological evolution
couldn’t possibly have brought all those necessary parts into being (and into
such complex coordinated functioning) all at once, in one fell swoop. Even
if this were true, the evolutionists point out, we know that natural evolu-
tion is perfectly capable of bringing complex systems into being through
a step-by-step process spread out over a very long period of time, rather
than all at once. But Behe simply doesn’t believe evolution could have built
up complex biochemical processes one step at a time. Why not? Because,
argues Behe, a system still missing some of its parts would be non-func-
tional (and even likely to collapse) and so it could never provide organisms
with a reproductive advantage and therefore natural selection would never
favor such piecemeal evolutionary development and allow such incomplete
and non-functional systems to spread over the generations.
But as we will see, the only reason Behe and his fellow IDCs can’t under-
stand how relatively simple and well-known evolutionary processes could
have brought such genuinely complex features and processes into being
without any super-natural powers having to be involved is that (a) they
don’t actually understand how evolution works, and (b) they don’t even
understand the nature of biological complexity very well. But, since Michael
Behe is one of the most influential of the current crop of Intelligent Design
Creationists, and since the fact that he is a trained biochemist is probably
enough to mislead some people into thinking that he must know what he’s
talking about, it is worthwhile examining, and refuting, his arguments in
some detail.
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 255
yet been fully described or understood in complete detail, and then basically
acting as if what is not yet completely understood (by him or by scientists in
general) is automatic proof of god’s involvement in the matter.
If this sounds familiar it should: it’s basically no different than the rea-
soning of the more old-fashioned Biblical literalist Creationists who try to
discredit evolution by pointing to some “gaps” in the fossil record (or “gaps”
in human understanding more generally), only to turn their attention to
something else that has not yet been found or understood as soon as those
particular “holes” get filled by the advances and development of science.
But let’s look a bit more closely at Behe’s specific arguments.8
In his book Darwin’s Black Box and in his various presentations, Behe
often likes to start off by making the point that: “for the Darwinian theory of
evolution to be true, it has to account for the molecular structure of life.” This is
in fact very true, and any evolutionary biologist will readily agree with this.
But then Behe goes on to say that the “purpose” of the book he has written
is “to show that it does not.”
This is a bold claim, but the reality is that Behe has ultimately failed in
his mission: the examples of complex sub-cellular biochemical systems he
claims represent “evidence” of Design are nothing of the sort, and there
is nothing which legitimately would cause one to think that they can’t be
accounted for by standard principles and mechanisms of evolution.
Let’s look at this a bit:
Behe’s basic argument is that evolution may account for the features of
life at every other level of organization, but not at the sub-cellular molecular
level. Unlike the Young Earth Creationists, for instance, Behe is at least
willing to acknowledge that the universe is billions of years old, and even
that living species are biologically related to each other through lines of
common descent. “I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms
share a common ancestor) fairly convincing,” Behe writes, “and have no
particular reason to doubt it.”
According to the biochemist and evolutionist Ken Miller, who has per-
sonally debated Michael Behe on a number of occasions, Behe even goes so
far as to say that he has absolutely no problem with the idea that humans and
apes shared a common ancestor. (OK, now he’s really distanced himself from
the Biblical literalist breeds of Creationists!) But if Behe accepts so much
of the concrete evidence of evolution and common descent then what is it
about the theory of evolution that Michael Behe doesn’t agree with? Well, it
seems that it’s only the complex biochemical systems operating inside cells
which he thinks are evidence of divine design—he just doesn’t believe they
could have come about simply through the known mechanisms of entirely
natural biological evolution.
As a biochemist, Behe knows many of these systems well. Actually
part of his problem seems to stem from his being too narrowly focused on
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 257
other biologists would ever even bother to respond to Behe’s silly argu-
ments if it weren’t for the fact that he has been built up as something of a
poster-boy for the larger “Intelligent Design” movement.
How could it be possible for all of the molecular information needed
for all the “later” complex biochemical processes—the ones operating in
organisms that even Behe admits had not even evolved until hundreds of
millions of years after the first appearance of life—to already have been
contained in the very first living cells (the ones that didn’t even use these
processes) billions of years ago? Behe says he can’t prove it of course, but he
speculates that a lot of “preformed” genetic information (which would not
be called into action for hundreds of millions of years) must have been kept
dormant thanks to the control of a regulatory gene (the kind of biochemi-
cal “on-off switch” that we find in many sub-cellular systems today) that
Behe imagines must have remained “turned off ” for hundreds of millions
of years.
Again, this is really, really bad science! Of course we know that there
are regulatory genes in today’s living cells which sometimes keep certain
molecular functions temporarily “turned off.” But it is completely ridicu-
lous to suggest that genes coding for all the sub-cellular molecular functions
which “later” appeared could have already been present in a dormant
(“turned off ”) state in the very first living cells and then been passed on from
when a reporter goes to interview a lottery seem miraculous anymore when you con-
winner who has just won a big jackpot: the sider the huge number of players who didn’t
big winner might seem to have benefited win anything at all).
from some kind of miracle of divine inter- It is a demonstrated fact that, as soon
vention, until you remember the much, as self-reproducing life emerges, it naturally
much greater number of lottery players who starts to evolve. It does this through a com-
are not being interviewed because they bination of chance factors (such as “copying
didn’t win anything! Similarly, it could seem error” mutations) and non-chance factors
to some people that the fact that life exists (such as natural selection, which “sorts
on “our” planet means we must have ben- out” reproducing individuals in relation to
efited from some kind of “miracle” or divine particular environments). The natural devel-
design, until you remember that life as we opment of the many different (present and
know it could only evolve under certain envi- past) species on earth through evolution,
ronmental conditions and that—in relation without any supernatural “designer” having
to the many, many other planets and parts been involved, could seem hard to believe,
of the known universe which don’t seem to unless and until you get a sense of how
have conditions which could support life this process actually works and you put the
as we know it—it’s not that surprising that existence of the many different species in the
there would be only a much smaller number larger context of the operation of the evolu-
of places (such as “our” planet and likely tionary process over not just a few decades,
some others) which just happened to have or a few hundred or a few thousand years,
environmental conditions in which life could but millions and billions of years.
emerge (much as the chance emergence [Return to main text on page 257] J
of one or a few big lottery winners doesn’t
260 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
species of tree, and such uniformity in turn produces little variety in food
and other resources that other species can make use of. So the diversity of
animal species occupying that environment tends to be very low as well
(in fact, despite the number of trees, such a pine plantation is something
of a biological wasteland). It is, in any case, a very simple system. By con-
trast, think of a tropical rain forest (or even a mixed deciduous forest in
North America): there you will find a great many different species of trees,
of shrubs, of fungi and flowering plants—and all this will create a whole
complex patchwork of many different pockets of resources and habitats,
which will be used in a near infinite variety of ways by thousands of differ-
ent species of insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and so on.
And one way or another (directly or indirectly) the various components
of this overall system—including all these different species of plants and
animals—interact and interconnect in complex ways. A great many species
are actually directly inter-dependent in such systems: they are unable to be
fully functional and to sustain themselves in a healthy state one without
the other. This is true, for instance, of the two-way interactions that bind
animal pollinators (insects, birds, bats, or even monkeys) with the flowering
plants they pollinate, or bind predators with their prey. In fact, these kinds
of complex interactions are often so integral to the healthy functioning of
a larger complex ecosystem that if you take out some of these living links
(by killing off too many insects and birds with pesticides or causing the
extinction of a top predator, for example) entire biological populations, and
sometimes even entire ecosystems, have been known to collapse.
So any “complex” biological system, whether at the molecular level or
at the level of a whole larger ecosystem, is made up of a web of many
interlocking and interdependent links between different life-forms. The
sheer number and variety of links often seem to provide complex systems
with greater relative “steady-state” stability than can typically be found in
much simpler systems. But if too many of the links in a complex system get
disrupted (or even if just a particularly critical link gets disrupted, as might
be the case when a top predator is eliminated from a system, for instance)
then it is the case that even such complex systems can collapse, in which
case they often “fall hard” (unfortunately this is exactly what has been
happening to the vast bulk of the planet’s richly complex rain forests—a
human-engineered disruption and dislocation of some of this planet’s
most rich and complex ecosystems which is taking place on a monumental
scale).9
Why bring up this question of complex ecosystems in a discussion of
Behe’s Intelligent Design proposals which focus on the sub-cellular level?
In part to make the point that the sub-cellular molecular world Behe talks
about does not have a corner on biological complexity. And yet, as far as
I know, Behe doesn’t choose to argue that these other levels of biological
262 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Even the evolution of the very first simple and primitive “eye-spots,”
which are simple clusters of a few light-detecting cells with only very limited
light-detecting capacities (and which can still be observed in various living
organisms today) would have been likely to provide any animals which had
them with a huge reproductive edge in any environment in which there is
any light at all (just think of the kind of reproductive edge that an organism
could gain from being able to even just crudely detect motion and shadows
and in this way evade predators, for example).
So in reply to the argument that Creationists have been making since the
19th century—“what good is half an eye?”—the short answer is: “plenty!”
Later on, any genetic modifications which occurred among the descendants
of these organisms, and which happened to cause further improvements in
the ability to see in various ways, would also likely to be heavily favored by
natural selection (and this is clearly what has happened!), producing even
fancier eyes and expanded visual ranges.11
What these examples illustrate, once again, is that biological structures
and systems can evolve from the more simple to the more complex (and
sometimes the other way around, as in the case of the blind cave fish) in a
step-wise evolutionary process spread out over a very long period of time.
The evolution of increased complexity in any system doesn’t have to happen
“all at once”: less complex and more limited “partial” systems and features
present in older evolutionary lines can still be perfectly functional—to a
different degree, or in a different way.
The first part of evolutionary biochemist Ken Miller’s book Finding
Darwin’s God is full of examples of actual observable biochemical evolution-
ary pathways which could easily have undergone such series of step-wise
evolutionary modifications before later producing what Behe thinks of
as “irreducibly complex systems.” This is no different in essence than the
well-documented step-wise evolutionary processes we can see in the fossil
record, as we discussed earlier and which Miller also reviews. For instance,
there are three little bones in the middle ear of mammals which make up the
apparatus that allows people and other mammals to hear. This system fits
Behe’s definition of “irreducibly complex,” because if you remove any one
of those bones, all hearing is lost! So how could evolution have come up
with enough simultaneous mutations to generate such a complex three-part
system “all at once”? Well, that’s just it—evolution didn’t do it “all at once.”
Time-ordered sequences of fossils reveal that evolution “built” a mammalian
inner ear out of some of the rear jaw bones which existed in the reptile-like
ancestors of the first mammals. Reptilian jaws had undergone many earlier
evolutionary modifications themselves over time, and the result of some
of these earlier evolutionary processes had been that, in some of these old
evolutionary branches, the reptilian jaw bone components had (over many
generations) moved way back towards the back of the head. And we can
266 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
also tell, by looking at the fossils, that at a certain point in this evolutionary
process, the position and interrelationship of some of those rear jaw bones
would have been configured in such a way that they would just have hap-
pened to pick up sound vibrations. This wasn’t “planned” or “designed”
by any outside power—it just simply emerged as a by-product of some of
those earlier evolutionary changes which had long been reconfiguring the
relative positions of the bones in the rear jaw. But imagine what an advan-
tage it would likely have been like for some of these reptile-like creatures
to develop even limited hearing. Natural selection would have been very
likely to preserve (and over time to further develop) this capacity to hear
(which helps to avoid predators, and so on). As I’ve stressed many times,
such an evolutionary progression is never bound to happen, but in this case
we know that it did, because we can see evidence of these changes in the
fossil record of extinct species—including in a species of intermediate fossil
which has bony parts in the far back of the jaw that still served a function
in relation to opening and closing the jaw, but which are situated in such a
way that we can also tell they would have picked up on sound vibrations.
So this is an example of a more complex system (the three-part mammalian
inner ear) evolving out of a simpler one, which fulfilled a different function
previously.
The emergence of the more complex (and better hearing) mammalian
inner ear out of an evolutionary modification of pre-existing reptilian
jaw bones and a simpler hearing apparatus is just one of many examples
that shows that Michael Behe is flat-out wrong when he argues that “an
irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by numerous,
successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precur-
sor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition
non-functional.”
As Ken Miller sums up: “To fashion the three-bone linkage that conducts
sound from the eardrum, evolution didn’t have to start with a non-work-
ing incomplete one-bone or two-bone middle ear. Instead it started with a
perfectly good reptile-style ear, which had a single internal bone. Then it
grabbed two other bones from a different organ, the jaw, and used them to
expand and improve the apparatus.” And you can actually see that transi-
tion in the fossil record.
Another thing that is important to remember is that geneticists and
evolutionary biologists have also known for a long time that sometimes
even very minor genetic changes can lead to very big changes in function.
This can happen, for instance, when a relatively minor genetic restructuring
ends up changing the rate at which some structures (or a whole organism)
develops. To refer to an important example discussed earlier in this book,
it is thought that a slowing down of overall rates of development (which
could have come about as a result of chance mutations) may have played a
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 267
crucial role in opening the door to a huge leap in brain capacity and related
functional abilities at a certain point in the evolution of our own human lin-
eage. Members of the human species are born much more “undeveloped”
and helpless than the infants of other primates, and humans take much
longer to develop and mature, but this also goes along with having brains
that continue to grow and develop outside the mother’s body for a long
time after birth and in interaction with the richly stimulating and diverse
outside physical and social environment. Thus, what may have started
off as a simple genetic modification occurring in an ancestral species of
humans—such as a mutation in one or just few genes which just happened
to slow down rates of development—seems likely to have opened the door
to the tremendous increase in intelligence and behavioral flexibility which
is the hallmark of our current human species (all of which would have been
strongly favored by natural selection).
Or consider another example: In the plant world there are a number of
species of flowering trees which engage in what’s called mast-flowering and
fruiting. What this means is that all (or most) of the individual trees in a
population of such trees manage to flower all at the same time, and gener-
ally also end up producing their seeds or fruits at the same time. This makes
for an extremely efficient system of pollination and seed dispersal because the
mast-flowering and fruiting of so many individuals all at once serves as sort
of a great big advertisement to the insect or bird or other species which visit
these flowers to obtain food (sugary nectar and/or seeds and fruits) and in
so doing end up unconsciously “helping” the plants to reproduce. In visiting
the flowers for food, the insects, birds, etc., also pick up male pollen and
end up transferring it to the female flower parts where it fertilizes the plant
“eggs” and starts a new seed growing. The species of animals which visit
the trees to eat some of the fruit end up unconsciously “helping” the plants
to disperse their offspring (many seeds go through the digestive systems of
animals and are later released in their droppings in new locations).
Pollination and seed dispersal occurs in much the same way in many
species in which individuals don’t flower or fruit all at the same time, but
the point is that mast-flowering and fruiting in some species makes for
increased efficiency, as both pollinators and seed dispersal agents can’t miss
these showy events and often “key in” to the flowering and fruiting sched-
ules of these particular plant species, actively concentrating on visiting
these species when they are flowering or fruiting. Of course, the plants and
the animals engaged in this complex series of interactions obviously don’t
“know” they’re being so efficient and so tightly locked in a web of such
exquisite interdependency, and yet this complex system also didn’t have to
be planned or designed by any outside force. Such wonders of nature are
actually pretty easily explained by the well-known, well-documented and
often-observed mechanisms of natural selection operating on genetically
268 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
One of the significant things about this experiment, as Miller points out,
is that “it shows how two proteins, two parts of a biochemical machine, can
evolve together” (emphasis added).
The Lactose-Galactosidase Story
Do we know for a fact that natural evolutionary processes can produce
even very complex multi-part biochemical systems? Yes, we do. For instance,
Miller discusses the example of bacteria which produce an enzyme called
galactosidase, which enables the bacteria to digest a sugar called lactose.
These bacteria also have a regulatory gene which controls the production
of that enzyme. That control gene is “switched on” when lactose is pres-
ent in the surrounding environment, but it remains temporarily “switched
off ” when there is no lactose available for the bacteria to feed on (natural
selection often seems to favor the evolution of such energy-conservation
mechanisms in populations of living organisms—in this case the presence
of the regulatory on-off switch means that the bacteria don’t waste any
energy making the galactosidase enzyme when there is no lactose to use
it on).12
But here’s where the lactose-galactosidase story gets really interesting:
A few years ago a researcher named Barry Hall conducted an experiment in
which he chemically “deleted” the gene which made the galactosidase enzyme, so
now the bacteria couldn’t make the enzyme needed to digest lactose any-
more. Then he placed these altered bacteria in an environment containing
lactose (which those bacteria could no longer digest), and simply allowed
the bacteria to reproduce on their own for many generations. And it just
so happened that after a period of time (many bacterial generations) some
mutant strains of bacteria happened to emerge which were once again capable
of digesting the lactose. But how could this be, since Hall had completely
deleted the gene required for the production of the necessary enzyme?
The answer to this apparent “mystery” illustrates some important evo-
lutionary mechanisms at the biochemical level. First of all, as the bacteria
reproduced, generation after generation, small genetic mutations started
to appear, due to the usual chance genetic “copying errors” that always
occur (randomly, in no preset or predetermined directions) whenever
living organisms reproduce. At one point, one of these chance mutations
happened to occur in a different gene than the one which had originally
produced the galactosidase enzyme—but this mutation now allowed this
different gene to start producing the enzyme which digests lactose! So now
those mutant bacteria could, once again, eat lactose. In addition, in at least
some individuals in these same mutant strains, an additional mutation hap-
pened to appear in the regulatory gene which controlled the mutated gene
which had started to produce the missing enzyme: now the regulatory gene
was changed in such a way that it could once again switch the production of
the enzyme “on or off,” depending on whether or not lactose was present
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 271
in the bacteria’s environment. And then a third change took place: some
generations later, some of these same mutant bacterial strains, grown now
in a different sugar environment, started evolving additional mutant strains
(still through the same kind of simple random mutations which are always
happening as organisms reproduce) which now happened to switch “on”
the production of a protein in the bacterial cell membranes (known as lac
permease) which makes it even easier for bacteria to take in lactose from the
outside environments. Imagine how well bacteria which had all three of
these mutations must have fared (how well they would have reproduced) in
any environment that happened to contain the lactose food source!
In this way we can see that a living population of organisms, which at
first could not eat lactose at all, evolved (over many generations) into popu-
lations which could easily and efficiently make use of this food source—and
this evolutionary process took place through a purely natural and com-
pletely undirected and unscripted combination of chance mutations sorted
out by non-chance natural selection (since in a lactose containing environ-
ment the bacterial strains which happened to evolve the capacity to digest
lactose would have produced more descendants than those that could not
eat lactose, resulting in the natural spreading of these evolutionary modifi-
cations over the generations). As the evolutionary biologist Doug Futuyma
(quoted in Miller’s book, Finding Darwin’s God) summed up: “Thus an entire
system of lactose utilization had evolved, consisting of changes in enzyme
structure enabling hydrolysis of the substrate; alteration of a regulatory gene
so that the enzyme can be synthesized in response to the substrate; and the
evolution of an enzyme reaction that induces the permease needed for the
entry of the substrate. One could not wish for a better demonstration of
the neo-Darwinian principle that mutation and natural selection in concert
are the source of complex adaptations.” (emphasis added)
Miller points out that this is exactly the kind of really complex multi-part
biochemical system that the Intelligent Design Creationist Michael Behe
generally considers to be “irreducibly complex” (and which he therefore
doesn’t believe could have evolved on its own). The way Behe looks at such
a system, he would likely argue that it can’t function properly without all
its parts being present all at the same time (because the protein which helps
bring lactose into the bacteria would, in Behe’s view, be of no use if the
galactosidase enzyme needed to digest the lactose weren’t already present;
and that enzyme in turn would be of no use in the absence of the regula-
tory gene to turn it on when lactose is present in the environment; and in
turn such regulatory genes would be of no use if the enzymes they turned
on or off weren’t there in the first place...) So such an intricate multi-part
biochemical system is exactly the kind of thing Behe thinks could never have
evolved in separate steps spread out over time—and that, Behe insists, con-
stitutes “evidence” of the involvement of some kind of intelligent designer.
272 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
But the example we just went through is direct proof that such a complex
multi-part biochemical system can in fact evolve completely naturally and
all on its own, in a number of steps spread out over time. As Ken Miller
concludes about this concrete example: “We know that it was not designed.
We know it evolved because we watched it happen right in the laboratory!”
In sum, there is every reason to believe that the evolution of the various
complex biochemical systems present today in many living cells evolved in
just such a step-wise fashion, out of different, simpler, but still functional
pre-existing biochemical machineries which existed in earlier lines of ances-
tor organisms.
The “blood-clotting cascade”
This biochemical system is one of Behe’s favorite examples of a sup-
posedly “irreducibly complex” biological system which he believes couldn’t
possibly have evolved simply on its own, through merely natural evolution-
ary processes. The way blood clots in living mammals and other vertebrates
(animals with backbones) involves an incredibly complex series of steps—a
kind of “chain reaction” (or “cascade”) of proteins which causes blood
components to stick together and form a kind of plug or “clot” which stops
vertebrates from bleeding to death at the site of a wound. I won’t even try
to spell out all the steps involved in vertebrate blood clotting—trust me,
it really is complex! But, as Ken Miller puts it, “The key to understanding
the evolution of blood clotting is to appreciate that the current system did
not evolve all at once. Like all biochemical systems it evolved from genes and
proteins that originally served different purposes.” (emphasis added)
It is known that much simpler blood-clotting mechanisms have existed
in the past (systems in which simple clumps of protein fragments func-
tioned as primitive clots, for instance); and in fact we can still find such
“simpler” clotting systems in today’s living invertebrates (animals without
backbones). It is therefore reasonable to suspect that such simpler clotting
systems could also have been present in invertebrates which lived long
ago, including in the invertebrates which were the ancestors of today’s
vertebrates. It is also known that such simple and commonplace events
as chance gene duplications (spontaneous “doublings” of certain genes,
which can occur accidentally in the course of genetic reproduction) could
have resulted in genetic modifications in the clotting mechanisms of some
invertebrates, leading to improved clotting. This is a development which,
whenever it happened to appear, would likely have been heavily favored
by natural selection, especially in the descendant vertebrate lines, since the
blood of vertebrates happens to be maintained under much higher pres-
sure than in invertebrates. (This means that vertebrates can bleed out much
more easily; selection would almost certainly favor the spread of any muta-
tions which happened to improve more rapid and effective clotting under
these new circumstances.)
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 273
It has been suggested that the gene for one of the most important
vertebrate clotting proteins, fibrinogen, likely emerged originally through a
simple random “gene duplication” of a gene that was present in an ancestor
species but which initially had nothing to do with clot formation. And in fact
a gene that still produces a “fibrinogen-like” protein (but which has nothing
to do with blood clotting), has been discovered in some living species of
invertebrate sea cucumbers. This strongly suggests that the evolutionary
modification of a protein which already existed in earlier invertebrate ances-
tor lines (where it served an entirely different function) is the likely source
of the chemically very closely related fibrinogen molecules which today
perform a different function (clotting) in their vertebrate descendants.
But do we have concrete evidence that brand-new biochemical func-
tions and processes can emerge through such natural evolutionary processes
without completely disrupting pre-existing functions and killing off organisms
and populations?
This is an important question to explore, because one of Behe’s claims
is that complex sub-cellular biochemical modifications are unlikely to have
evolved on their own (without a “designer”) because, especially at this sub-
cellular molecular level, any significant evolutionary modifications would
have been too likely to severely disrupt an organism’s entire functioning.
But is this true?
Consider the fact that molecular geneticists now know that things like
simple random gene duplications are commonplace occurrences. And it is
apparently often the case that such gene duplications occur without having
much effect one way or the other on any of the organism’s functions. But if
such a gene duplication occurs and a mutation then also occurs in the “extra
copy” of the gene, this can result in a new function (such as the new clot-
ting function in a protein that wasn’t previously involved in clotting). If
such a change happens to provide organisms which have this new function
with a reproductive advantage, we know that the new feature will tend
to spread to more and more individuals over the generations (by simple
natural selection). And if this change takes place only in the “extra copy” of
the duplicated gene, this new function can be “added in” without losing the
original function of the original gene.
An example of just this sort of thing can apparently be seen in lobsters.
Lobster cells have a protein which is involved in nourishing the lobster eggs
(the vitellogenin protein). It appears that, at some point in the evolution-
ary past, the gene responsible for this protein spontaneously doubled, and
that the “extra copy” of the gene then underwent some degree of genetic
modification which happened to allow it to play a role in clot formation.
But, throughout this evolutionary process, the original form of the gene
continued to function: it still continued to be involved in egg nourishment.
It is only the extra and slightly modified duplicate copy of that original
274 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
gene which became involved in the new and additional function (clotting),
so there is every indication that this new function evolved without in any
way disrupting the original biochemical process (the production of the egg-
nourishing protein).
The blood clotting process in lobsters is different than the blood clot-
ting process in vertebrates (which, as a sidepoint, shows that there is more
than one evolutionary pathway which can bring forth similar functions).
But this example nevertheless shows that Behe is wrong to assume that
such step-wise evolution would spell disaster for living organisms: it is a
concrete example of how evolution can work to produce whole new func-
tions out of pre-existing genetic material (through just the kind of relatively
small and routine changes which are known to occur randomly) without
in fact causing the total loss of a pre-existing function, or other major and
detrimental disruptions of an organism’s overall functioning.
A QUESTION OF METHODS,
A QUESTION OF STRUGGLE
As has been already examined at some length, the basic methods which
the IDCs (Intelligent Design Creationists) use to investigate the world and
try to get at the truth of things are actually quite wrong and unscientific.
For instance, whenever they run into a complex process which science can’t
yet fully explain or understand, they immediately jump to the conclusion
(no doubt based on their preconceived religious assumptions) that some
kind of conscious intelligence “designed” at least those aspects of life’s
features or processes which we can’t yet fully explain. And they stick to
this completely unscientific reasoning and approach despite the fact that
a great deal of accumulated scientific evidence about the actual workings
of natural processes (including known evolutionary processes) provide
ample reason to expect that still incomplete human knowledge about natural
processes and mechanisms will keep growing into more complete knowledge
of those same processes. But it is important to realize that actual scientific
understanding (and advances made on the basis of that understanding) will
continue to expand only if we continue to apply systematic methods of
materialist scientific analysis to the exploration of the natural world and
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 275
is why they argue for “theistic science” (which means god-based science).
They actually believe science would be better done that way, whereas the
vast majority of scientists are convinced that if theistic beliefs and principles
became part of the basic conception of and approach to science and the
day to day operations of science, science itself would go down the tubes—as
indeed it would. So here, in broadly sketched outline, we see two opposing
camps lining up in what is already becoming a key battle in the “culture
wars”—two very opposing outlooks and methods for how to both under-
stand, and seek to transform, existing material reality. Only one of these
basic methods and approaches (the methods of “naturalistic” science, also
known as “materialist” science) expresses real confidence in humanity’s
ability to increasingly understand and ever more consciously transform
reality on its own, without recourse to an imagined super-natural world.
The other approach (undertaking so-called “theistic science”) would from
the start define limits beyond which human scientific investigation could
not proceed, and would ultimately surrender human initiative to under-
stand (and transform) material reality and instead wait (and wait) for divine
revelation.
material reality really does exist, and we know for a fact this is so because we
can bounce off of it in various ways and then observe the resulting ripples
and transformations that occur as a result of our initiatives.
If a rotten tomato existed only in your imagination, it wouldn’t splatter
all over the place when you drop it on the floor. So “material reality” is not
some kind of subjective dream or illusion which exists only in the imagina-
tion of human beings where it might be subject to limitless redefinitions
or reinterpretations. This may seem obvious to most people, but it is not
uncommon to still hear some people say that “we can’t really be sure objec-
tive material reality really exists.” Such people often agonize that maybe
“reality” is “only an idea” in the mind of people (or in the mind of someone
or something) and so maybe we should just accept that reality “is” whatever
individual human beings at any given point think it is. In philosophical terms
this way of looking at things is called subjective idealism.13
Of course, many people will point out that the conditions of life and the
social position and relationships of individuals and larger social groupings
inevitably color their perceptions of how reality really “is.” And this is true.
Any individual, and any social grouping, can fall into making subjective
interpretations of what is supposedly “true” that don’t at all correspond
to actual material reality, (in other words, people can be wrong!). And it
is also very true, as many of the “postmodernist deconstructionists” have
argued, that people who occupy positions of power and influence in society
generally have a disproportionate opportunity to impose on the broader
public what their particular perceptions and interpretations of reality are at
any given time, and that they will tend to give disproportionate emphasis
to those perceptions and interpretations of reality that happen to be most
in line with their own particular concerns and objectives (whether they do
so consciously or not).
But the fact that people are capable of being “subjective” and distorting
truth doesn’t mean that truth—that which actually corresponds to objective
material reality—doesn’t exist. The philosophical idealists and relativists
deny either that objective reality actually exists, independently of human
perceptions, or conceptions, of it; and/or they argue that there is no way
to determine what objective reality actually is, and what is objectively true
and not true, that all notions of truth, and all perceptions or conceptions of
objective reality, are simply the subjective ideas (or “narratives”) of different
people, or groups of people, with each having as much (or as little) claim
on the truth as the others. But concrete proof is all around us that mate-
rial reality exists “objectively,” which means that it exists independently of
human beings or their imaginative subjective conceptions (and distortions)
of it. And, at the same time, concrete proof is all around us that human
beings can investigate, learn about, and in fact determine the truth about,
many different aspects of (though never all of ) objective reality. When we
278 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
interact with outside reality, things happen and things change, and we are
ourselves affected and changed in the process. How could any of this take
place if material “reality” were just a figment of our imaginations?14
That’s the thing about objective reality—it doesn’t disappear just
because some individuals choose not to believe in it. And you can “make it
come to light” and actually see “what’s there” by actively interacting with
it, manipulating it in various ways to make its properties come to the fore.
This is what scientists (including evolutionary biologists) actually do when
they collect observational data and conduct scientific experiments. When
they have a theory about what something might be like in the real world,
they make predictions about what they would expect to find in the real
world (and also about what they would expect to not find) if in fact their
theory is correct. And then they go out in the world and actively interact
with reality (conducting various kinds of investigations or experiments)
and discover whether or not their original predictions hold up. This is how
all scientific knowledge is ultimately extended and developed (in both the
natural and social sciences)—in the crucible of scientific practice, which
tests and verifies whether the material world and its workings actually do,
or do not, conform and correspond to the predictions we make about it. So
it’s not like there’s nothing we can ever do to get at the truth of things!
The challenge we face is not so much to ascertain that material real-
ity exists, but to figure out, and consistently apply, methods of scientific
investigation which can best minimize our subjective distortions, and sys-
tematically uncover what’s actually real.
By contrast, the methods and outlook of the Intelligent Design
Creationists would, if allowed to prevail, seriously undermine or even
demolish the most basic scientific methodology. By proclaiming the exis-
tence of a super-natural power or influence (an “intelligent designer” which
supposedly exists outside of detectable material reality and which is not
itself part of “matter”) the IDCs are, first of all, like all other Creationists,
condemning us to a perpetual state of ignorance by telling us that there
is a whole other sphere of non-material reality out there that supposedly
influences everything about our lives but that we will never be able to learn
about through the standard methods of science, since (by definition) such a
super-natural power would exist outside the reach of natural science (which
can only explore and investigate tangible material objects and processes).
And of course this would also mean that we could never really be sure of
anything, since the measly explorations of material reality we can conduct
with the materialist methods of natural science would, according to this
view, be “missing” that whole other crucial non-material dimension of
things. If that were true, we’d essentially have to call into question and even
reject everything we’ve ever learned and achieved through science because,
after all, how accurate could any of it be if all along we’ve supposedly been
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 279
missing such a big part of the picture, and since the methods of “natu-
ralistic” science cannot, by definition, be used to explore and investigate
anything that is not part of tangible material reality. If what the IDCs are
saying were true, wouldn’t modern science be essentially useless? Think
about it.
Essentially that is the logical extension of the kind of thinking that is
promoted by Intelligent Design’s leading theoretician, the Berkeley law
professor Phillip Johnson. He is basically arguing that the standard meth-
ods of science (so-called “naturalistic science”) are no good and should be
abandoned altogether! What should we replace them with? A new kind of
“theistic science” which would build into the methods science uses to inves-
tigate things the core assumption that a super-natural “designer” exists, or
at the very least the assumption that such a super-natural power could exist
and influence natural processes and all of life.
But that’s not science, it’s religion. And it’s religion aimed at undermin-
ing science.
We can’t learn about reality only by thinking about it (though think-
ing about it is one important part of the process!). The way scientists can
learn about things (and ultimately verify whether a particular idea about
reality is true or not) is to actively interact with aspects of real, tangible
reality—poking it and probing it in various ways, so to speak. And you just
can’t do that with something the Creationists assume exists but which, by
their own definition, has no tangible material presence. So what Johnson is
really calling for is throwing all of science as we know it out the window
and replacing it with blind religious faith.
Of course some of the “Intelligent Design” types don’t go quite this
far: some of them (like the biochemist Michael Behe) speak of a “personal
God,” don’t think of themselves as seeking to overthrow the basic methods
of science, and are content to proclaim that they’ve simply found concrete
tangible “evidence” of the existence and influence of an intelligent designer
in the features of living organisms. As we have discussed previously, Behe
claims that the very complexity of some biochemical reactions that occur in
living cells is itself convincing “evidence” that an intelligent designer must
have been involved at some point in shaping and directing the development
of life. Since he’s pointing to an actual material aspect of reality, which can
actually be detected with standard materialist scientific methods (the real
biochemical reactions he is discussing) you might at first think that maybe
at least a few of those IDCs are managing to stick to the basic methods and
principles of science. But that’s not in fact the case.
Just look at what an IDC like Michael Behe is proposing: He points
to some real biochemical reactions which everyone can agree are actually
“complex.” So far so good. But then he says he sees “evidence” of “intelligent
design.” Where? Well, he basically says, the complexity itself constitutes the
280 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
evidence (because he can’t figure out quite how evolution could have pro-
duced such complex chemical reactions—so therefore God must have done
it). But is he talking about actual scientific evidence about a “designer,” the
kind of evidence that comes from applying the standard methods of science
to “poke and probe,” test and verify whether an idea about reality is correct
or not? No, of course not. He’s not at all talking about that kind of “evi-
dence.” So basically what he is calling “evidence” is just an idea—an idea in
his own mind about what something he is actually observing (natural com-
plexity) supposedly represents (the influence of an “intelligent designer”).
Yet there’s no way science could actually concretely test and verify Behe’s
idea that an intelligent designer actually “designed” that complexity (even
Behe would likely agree that is impossible). But if that’s the case, he can’t
legitimately say that he’s found any kind of “scientific evidence” of design;
he’s just coming up with an untested—and untestable—idea, and he’s doing
so on the basis not of science but of religious belief.
And Behe and all the other Intelligent Design Creationists also violate
one of the basic principles of science in essentially declaring some parts of
reality off-limits to scientific exploration and understanding. They make the
fundamental error of thinking that “something we don’t yet fully under-
stand” is actually “something we’ll never be able to understand.” Once
again they “find god” in one or another “gap” in human understanding.
As we have seen, Michael Behe doesn’t understand how the natural pro-
cesses of evolution could have brought into being some complex chemical
reactions all on their own (in large part because he doesn’t really understand
how evolution actually works). But because he personally doesn’t under-
stand it, and also because the general scientific understanding of all the
steps involved in the evolution of some of these biochemical processes is in
fact not yet complete, he automatically assumes that all this must somehow
be the work of God and that we’ll never be able to fully understand how
it all came into being. Once again, this is religion, not science. And it is
religious faith being used against science—it objectively discourages the use
of systematic scientific methods for making further discoveries (including
about evolutionary mechanisms involved in producing biochemical com-
plexity) and deepening our understanding of actual reality.
Mao Tsetung used to like to say that “If you want to know the taste of
a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.” In other words, it’s
not enough to have “beliefs,” “convictions” or even “expectations” about
the way reality is (or the way it has been, or might become). If you want to
get to an understanding of the way something really is (or the way it has
been, or the way it might become) you can’t just do it by staring at your
belly button: you have to actively and systematically investigate it; you have
to poke and probe reality in various ways. You can form some theoretical
idea in your mind about the way reality might actually be (and again, doing
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 281
this is actually an important part of the process) but then you also have to
go out and actively and repeatedly test and verify that theory. And the way
you do that is to systematically investigate reality by first of all bringing to
bear previously accumulated and previously verified human knowledge (such as
the whole body of accumulated scientific understanding known as the theory of
evolution) which can help better illuminate and clarify a new problem or
question; and then you make verifiable predictions about what you should
(and also what you shouldn’t) be able to find in the world if your particular
idea (or theory) about a piece of reality is correct and actually corresponds
to the way something really is.
In other words, you don’t have to “start from scratch” every time you approach
a new problem, as if nothing in nature or society had ever been previously proven to
be true! But, since all matter is always in motion (continually changing), you
can’t get to know it by making predictions from the sidelines—you have to
grab a hold of it while it’s passing by, so to speak, and consciously act on it
(“bite into the pear”) to see what happens and then learn from that.
Active and well-thought-out human investigation and experimentation
(whether in relation to the organization of the world of nature or human
society) is a process which can and will itself change some of the features
of reality (you are going to affect it, like it or not), but repeatedly examining
whether or not these changes seem to be taking place in line with predicted
expectations is one of the best ways to learn and confirm more about the
actual truth of something.
Do you see how damaging it would be to the advance of science and
human knowledge about the actual material world more generally if the
Creationists, including the “intelligent design” types who call for the replace-
ment of “naturalistic science” with a “theistic science,” had their way and
were allowed to dictate the practice and the teaching of science?
Creationists at least had the excuse that the sciences of molecular genetics
and of developmental biology didn’t even exist yet. But today’s Intelligent
Design Creationists have no such excuse—today there is a much greater
basis to understand just how such evolutionary modifications can and do
take place. For instance, we now know that it takes very little genetic and
developmental modification to go from a pre-existing vertebrate arm bone
to a wing, or even to a fin for that matter.
The combination of molecular genetics and developmental biology
has shown us that very small genetic mutations can at times have large
effects on bodily forms and functions. Sometimes all it seems to take is for
a genetic mutation to cause a slight slowing down or speeding up of the
rate of development of particular structures, or even of whole organisms.
And, as we have seen, sometimes an important new structure has evolved
out of some pre-existing structure which used to serve a completely different
function in an ancestor species. A well-known example of that is the panda’s
“thumb,” which it uses to grasp and hold things like the bamboo it eats.
This looks and functions very much like a thumb, but on closer examina-
tion it turns out not to be a finger bone at all but a modification of a wrist
bone. Evolution is full of such examples of pre-existing structures present
in ancestor species being transformed (through relatively minor genetic
modification) into new structures capable of entirely new functions in a
descendant line.
Some (though not all) evolutionary modifications produce new adapta-
tions, as living populations evolve in continual back-and-forth interaction
with their physical and biotic environment—the physical climate, land-
scapes, and so on, as well as the other living (“biotic”) plants and animals
which are present in the same area. It is in this way, for example, that, over
evolutionary time, some plant species have evolved in seemingly finely
tuned tandem with some of the animal species (insects, birds, bats) that
pollinate them. Some plant species produce flowers that are near perfect
“fits” for the tongues of the insects or the beaks of the birds that pollinate
them, or have evolved the ability to synchronize their flowering schedules
(all individual plants in local populations of such a species flower at the
same time), which serves as a mass signaling to pollinators and increases
successful pollinations. Similarly, we know of many examples of species of
plants or animals that have evolved in tandem (co-evolved) with species that
eat them. There is concrete evidence, including in living populations, that
prey species tend to evolve improved defenses in relation to their predators
and that predator species tend to evolve more efficient predation strategies
and mechanisms in relation to their prey. In fact, these kinds of continual
back-and-forth relations between species are a driving force of evolutionary
change, resulting in many specific adaptations.
284 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
material which are in no way tied to any specific “purpose” or any par-
ticular “direction.” And even natural selection itself is not a “perfecting”
mechanism. As complex and marvelous as they are, the mammalian eye
or the wings of birds are not absolutely perfectly suited to their respective
functions. And they did not evolve—nor were they designed—“for” their
specific functions.
It just so happened that in populations of genetically varied individuals
living in light-filled environments, individuals with improved light reception
and an improved ability to discriminate shapes would almost certainly have
an enormous reproductive advantage over individuals with more limited
sight; so any new genetic features (arising through chance mutations and
recombinations) which happened to improve sight (in whatever fashion
or to whatever degree) would tend to spread over the generations. Wings
were not designed “for” flight either: randomly occurring modifications of
vertebrate forelimbs could (and did) lead to a number of different functions
other than flying, including swimming (fins), digging (scoop-like append-
ages of moles), or climbing and swooping (as in “flying” squirrels, whose
arm webbing allows them to climb tree trunks and soar between trees,
although not truly fly). On the other hand, any genetic modifications which
happened to produce features which allowed individuals to more fully “fly”
and therefore to function a good part of the time in zones previously unoc-
cupied by any other species (the sky) would almost certainly have given
those individuals quite a reproductive edge, and allowed the innovation of
true flight to spread and diversify quite rapidly once it had emerged (as in
fact it did). But this still doesn’t mean flight was “bound to” evolve: it’s just
that when this capacity did evolve, it would likely have given individuals
enough of a reproductive edge as to be preserved, consolidated and spread
by natural selection.
Michael Behe actually admits that he can imagine how the basic struc-
ture of a mammalian eye might have evolved in stages from some more
primitive pre-existing structures (such as simple light-sensitive eye spots
and the like); but what he can’t get his mind around is how something as
complex as vision itself could have come about in this way. He is referring
to the complex integration of a number of different biochemical processes
which have to operate in concert to enable a mammalian eye to actually
see. That’s where he draws the line and says that these molecular processes
have so many different components that he just can’t see how they could
have evolved. At least at the molecular level, he argues, such things seem
genuinely “irreducibly” complex and therefore this in itself is evidence of
design. But, as we have seen, all sorts of biological systems are complex
(meaning that they are made up of many interlocking components) and
complexity exists at every level, from the molecular, to the cellular, to the
level of organs, whole individuals, whole populations, whole ecosystems.
286 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Just because something is complex does not mean it cannot have been
derived from some simpler pre-existing structures, or even been co-opted in
whole or in part from a pre-existing structure or structures which had very
different functions.
And it is also important to remember: that there is generally a lot of
redundancy (multiple copies of things) in living biological systems; that it
is whole populations (made up of genetically diverse reproducing individu-
als) which evolve, and then only over multiple generations; that natural
selection repeatedly “sorts out” the many different individuals who actively
interact with their outside environment (as some of them are able to con-
tribute more descendants to the next generations than others); but that it is
the entire genotype of reproducing individuals (the totality of their genetic
make-up, as opposed to just one or another gene or gene cluster) that is
subject to that sorting-out selection process. One implication of this is that
lots of different mutations and genetic recombinations can emerge and
get passed on from generation to generation even if they don’t have any
particularly notable effects on the reproductive capacity of individuals at
the time. Intelligent Design Creationists act as if most significant genetic
modifications (occurring through mutations and the like) would necessar-
ily tend to harmfully disrupt the bodies and the functioning of individuals
in which these modifications appear, and that this would generally result in
any such modifications getting eliminated from the gene pool as organisms
got sick or died. But, this is not in fact the case: in part because there is so
much redundancy in natural systems (including at lower levels of organiza-
tion, such as the biochemical molecular level) there is no reason to suppose
that the basic components of many highly integrated biological systems
(including those of complex biochemical reactions) could not have evolved
in a series of somewhat distinct evolutionary steps (rather than necessarily
all at once) without all hell breaking loose.
Methodologically, many of the IDCs seem to me to be very stiff and
actually unable to really and fully appreciate the genuine complexity and
diversity of life, including the extent to which there is a lot of “slop” and
redundancy in natural systems which “allows” for a certain amount of
departure from established norms without entire systems collapsing as a
result. Aside from the fairly obvious fact that they are working back from
wanting to make room for the assumption that god exists, it seems to me
that part of the IDCs’ methodological problem is that they look at com-
plex processes in a very narrow and reductionist manner which artificially
divorces what is happening at one level from what may be simultaneously
happening at another level. For instance, Michael Behe, as a specialist in
biochemistry, focuses in on something like the complex machinery of pro-
tein synthesis taking place inside a cell, and argues that even a very slight
modification in this molecular apparatus can totally disrupt the synthesis
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 287
that evolution is real. So, on the one hand, it is obvious that learning the
facts of evolution doesn’t in and of itself cause people to automatically give
up on religion and belief in god. But, on the other hand, it is true that
an understanding of evolution and how science has repeatedly proven and
documented that evolution is a fact can and does cause many people to
call into question fundamental, “literalist” religious notions—and, indeed,
even religion more generally. So it is not without reason that the religious
fundamentalists in particular cannot simply rest easy with the knowledge
that many people have managed to hold onto their religious beliefs while at
the same time accepting evolution as a scientifically established truth.
The Creationists are linked to, and a key force within, a social and politi-
cal movement largely rooted in the zealotry of Christian fundamentalism,
which considers that the slightest departure from the supposed “revealed
Word” of the Christian God will bring hell and damnation upon the land.
And many of them think it already has: they see American society as being
in a state of moral decay—but not, as others might suggest, because of
the arrogance and grasping brutality of the American Empire as it runs
amok in the world invading, pillaging, occupying distant lands, everywhere
imposing its will by force and crushing entire peoples in the name of
corporate profit and world domination. No, this isn’t the kind of “moral
decay” the Creationists are concerned about! It is the “morality” of people
on the home front that particularly concerns them: they look around them
and they see trouble, trouble everywhere—women insisting they have the
right to control their childbearing; immigrants ignoring borders in their
search for work; Black people and other oppressed nationalities unwilling
to passively resign themselves to subjugation and “play by the rules” which
are stacked against them; young people getting increasingly alienated and
restless for global societal and environmental change; people who oppose
unjust wars and the American occupation of other lands and who insist
that the lives of people “over there” (wherever) are no less valuable than
the lives of Americans...all this is deeply upsetting to these fundamentalist
reactionaries. They worry also about a decline in the traditional respect for
government, police and other established authorities (including churches).
And they lump together all that disturbs and horrifies them—you name it,
abortion, prostitution, AIDS, women and children who defy the man of
the house, drug abusers, homosexuals, environmentalists, godless atheist
communists, secular humanists, non-white troublemakers...the whole of
society is pretty much going to hell in a handbasket as they see it! And all
they can think of is that if they could just get “God and the Bible back into
the schools” (and into the policy-making halls of government, and into the
institutions of science themselves) everything would be alright again. That’s
why these anti-evolutionists are the same people who want to impose both
prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools (with the religious
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 289
phrase “under God” included in the pledge), support imperial wars waged
“with God on our side,” and continually try to break down the separation
between church and state which poses an obstacle to the imposition of a
theocracy run by religious fanatics!15
In the United States today it is the Christian fundamentalists who are
trying to move things in the direction of theocratic rule. They work to
impose their particular religious beliefs on every private and public domain
(and so far they have successfully influenced—and found powerful backers
and allies in—everything from local school boards and PTAs to the Congress,
Supreme Court and White House). Their campaign to impose the teaching
of creationism isn’t about their right to their personal religious beliefs, and
it certainly isn’t about any “holes” in the well-supported theory of evolu-
tion. It is about the desire to recast the whole of social and political relations in
the U.S., to bring them more in line with a Christian fundamentalist outlook
and agenda, all the better to serve an empire with “god on its side” (“God
Bless America!”).
It is ironic to note that people like the Taliban or other fundamental-
ist Muslim clerics are routinely criticized in the U.S. for the way they try
to impose rigid theocracies. But that’s exactly what these Christian fun-
damentalists would increasingly like to do! And their attempts to place
anti-evolution Christian fundamentalist candidates on school boards, get
courts to force schools to include religious doctrine in the science classrooms
and insert anti-evolution “disclaimers” in science textbooks, and start build-
ing up anti-science “Science and Religion” clubs and institutes on college
campuses (a recent trend)—all this fits into their larger reactionary social
and political mission. And they have the financial and political backing of
highly placed politicians, as well as heads of major financial institutions and
corporations, along with relatively easy access to mass media, so it’s not like
they are being relegated to “fringe” status by any means.
And don’t for a minute think the “Intelligent Design” Creationists are
really any different, just because they are more literate and sophisticated
and know how to argue in seemingly more reasoned and collegial tones
than many of the old-style “scientific Creationists.” Some of the IDCs may
be embarrassed to be lumped together with old-style Biblical literalists
and may even reject the name Creationist; and some of them, like Michael
Behe, may insist that theirs is a “personal” God, and may even allow that a
certain amount of evolution has in fact occurred (in accordance with God’s
overall designs). But none of these attempts to present creationism with a
more modern and “reasonable” face changes the essence of what they’re
all in bed with: the creationist movement in the United States today is an
organized political and social movement which is attempting to reverse
established scientific methods and knowledge and replace it with religious
dogma, in the service of an extremely reactionary ideological viewpoint
290 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
and political program. And every single word which tries to mislead people
into thinking that the theory of evolution is not fully supported (at least as
well as any other theory in all of science) by mounds of scientific evidence,
and every absurd suggestion that such things as biological complexity are
actually “evidence” of divine design, immediately becomes incorporated
into the larger mission and program of the right-wing fundamentalists; and
this will continue to be the case regardless of what any particular individual
Creationist might think about that larger mission and program.
Especially given this larger social and political context, I find it rather
disturbing that many evolutionists and other scientists (with a few notable
exceptions) often seem to make a point of bending over backwards to
constantly reassure everyone that evolution science (and science more gen-
erally) poses absolutely no threat to religious doctrines and beliefs. For one
thing, this is not necessarily true: while recognizing that evolution is a well-
established scientific fact does not, in and of itself, necessarily cause people
to abandon religious beliefs (as is made very clear by the large number of
people who acknowledge the facts of natural evolution while still believing
in god), there is little doubt that even a beginning understanding of how life
(including our human species) has evolved through natural processes may
cause many people to seriously question and reexamine long-held beliefs in
one or another god or other super-natural power. In line with this, I have
appreciated physicist and cosmologist Steven Weinberg’s bold statement
that:
“One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make
it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make
it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this
accomplishment.” (“A Designer Universe?” reprinted in his book, Facing Up:
Science and Its Cultural Adversaries)
Evolutionists should not be defensive about the fact that the reality that
life has evolved through entirely natural processes (which are within the
grasp of human understanding) objectively challenges many traditional
religious beliefs: a scientific understanding of evolution and how it works
should be promoted not according to whether it does or doesn’t weaken
the hold of religion—it should be promoted on the basis that evolution is a
demonstrably true fact of life.
Now to be fair, many of the scientists and others who go to extra
lengths to remind people that science is not trying to undermine religion
seem mainly to be trying to show respect for individuals’ personal religious
beliefs (which they may or may not share) and trying also to emphasize the
correct point that science is a method human beings have devised for learn-
ing about natural material reality—stressing that the methods of science
are such that they can only be applied to the investigation of strictly natural
(i.e., material or non-super-natural) processes and phenomena—those that
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 291
have a clear and concrete existence in the tangible material world. This is
all true. But that doesn’t mean scientists and others should go overboard
and take a completely hands-off attitude towards human belief in a super-
natural realm, constantly repeating “to each his own” and “the province of
science is science and the province of religion is religion” or “science doesn’t
have anything to say about religion because it is by definition limited to
addressing only natural phenomena which can be scientifically tested and
verified.”
In my view it is actually very unscientific to claim that “science doesn’t have
anything to say about religion.” It is of course true that science cannot test
for the presence of any supernatural force or power, which by definition
(and believers admit to this) has no tangible existence in the natural mate-
rial world. But what about human ideas about gods and other supernatural
forces or powers? Doesn’t science have anything to say about that? Can’t
scientific methods be applied to uncovering where such ideas came from,
and how they have been given material expression by human beings? What
about the social history which concretely records when and how human
beings in different parts of the world started to tell or write down stories
about various super-natural realms (the social origins of the many differ-
ent kinds of creation myths and religious scriptures from all around the
world)? What about the roles that religious belief, rituals and practices have
played, and the purposes they have served, at everything from the personal
individual level to the larger societal (and world) level? And what about the
history of how religious beliefs have changed over time (whatever happened,
for instance, to the ancient Egyptian, Greek or Roman gods that people
used to believe in as firmly as many modern-day people now believe in the
God of the Jewish, Christian, or Islamic scriptures)?
Can’t the same kind of scientific methods which are used to investigate
questions in any other historical science (evolution, cosmology, archaeology,
comparative linguistics, and so on) be applied to investigating the history of
human belief in supernatural powers? And can’t the methods of science be
applied to gaining a better understanding of why some religious beliefs have
at times been officially encouraged and promoted or, alternatively, severely
restricted or even targeted for annihilation? All these phenomena—and the
various human beliefs in a supernatural realm themselves—undeniably have
real, tangible, material existence even if the objects of such beliefs (gods or
other super-natural powers) by definition have no such tangible material
presence. So aren’t all these various religious phenomena and beliefs open
to systematic scientific investigation and exploration, by the usual methods
of science? If so, it would be much more in keeping with the methods of
science to acknowledge that the sphere of human religious belief is not
actually “outside” the province of science, and to stop making defensive
292 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
claims that “science doesn’t have anything to say about religion”—for that
is clearly not the case.
The very same scientific methods of investigation (which have verified
over and over again the basic principles and mechanisms of how life has
evolved, and continues to evolve, without a divine designer having had to
be involved in any way) can also be applied to getting at the truth about
both the social origins and the mechanisms of change over time (through
cultural, rather than biological, evolution) of the various human ideas
about the super-natural. In short, I would argue that applying a scientific
methodology—and in particular the outlook and methodology of dialec-
tical and historical materialism—to arrive at an understanding of what is
represented by religion, and how it actually leads away from systematically
understanding and changing reality, is both possible and necessary.
Even many religious believers acknowledge that human beings have
often done a great deal of harm to other human beings in the name of
religion. But, on the other hand, experience has also shown that no good
has ever come from trying to forcibly coerce people to give up (or for that
matter to take up) the practice of religion. Among socially progressive
people, many religious believers and non-believers will no doubt continue
to find many ways to make common cause and to join forces in upholding
and promoting the actual truth of things around many important social
issues, without making belief or non-belief in God a dividing line question.
Actively resisting the attempts of the organized Creationists to spread doubt
and confusion about the well-established scientific facts of evolution—and
to undermine science more generally—is one of those issues.
Author’s Postscript
As this book goes to press in Spring of 2006, a number of positive
developments and exciting new discoveries are dealing further blows to the
dogma of the Creationists and their attempts to impose it on society:
• In Dover, Pennsylvania, where the local school board ordered
that Intelligent Design be presented to students as an alterna-
tive to evolution, a group of parents successfully sued to put a
stop to this blatant attempt to smuggle religion into the public
school science curriculum. In what is being seen as a landmark
decision, a federal judge ruled that teaching Intelligent Design
as an alternative to evolution in the public schools is clearly
unconstitutional and a violation of the separation of church
and state. The judge stated forcefully that Intelligent Design
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 293
Chapter 8 Endnotes
1. The horrible brain-wasting disease known as “mad-cow disease” is caused by
virus-like bits of proteins called prions, which have gotten into and sickened normally
herbivorous (non meat-eating) cows as a result of their being fed a highly unnatural
diet of growth-enhancing high-protein feed supplements made up of the ground-up
organs of related mammals, such as sheep. These prions then passed into human
beings (who are also mammals) when people unknowingly ate the meat of these
diseased cows and as a result also contracted a devastating and fatal brain-wasting
disease. The practice of feeding ground-up carcasses or organ remains (offal) of
butchered domesticated species (such as pigs, sheep, cows, etc.) to other domesti-
cated animal species across species lines—despite the fact that nothing in these species’
evolutionary history would have led them to encounter and process these particular
food sources in the past—has apparently become rather commonplace in modern
agriculture. An understanding of even some of the most basic principles of biological
evolution can sound the alarm about such unwise practices—which, if unchecked,
will no doubt lead to an increased occurrence of devastating diseases.
2. Even though pigs are not quite as closely related to us as are chimpanzees and
other apes, it is thought that pigs may actually be better candidates for cross-species
organ transplants into humans than primates. Why? Because while apes are by far
our most closely related relatives among currently living species (thereby making their
organs especially similar to ours), they appear to be actually too closely related to
us to be good sources of replacement organs for sick people. For one thing, exactly
because chimpanzees are our closest living relatives and have so many features in
common with us, many people find it deeply disturbing (and even ethically and mor-
ally wrong) to consider routinely killing any of the great apes (chimpanzees and also
gorillas and orangutans), even if it could benefit human beings. But even leaving aside
for now this complex question (as well as problems having to do with the need to
keep these very endangered species from going extinct), a knowledge of evolution
tells us that transplants from apes could be very dangerous to humans because the
fact that the human lines and ape lines split from a common ancestor not so very
long ago (roughly some 5 million years ago or so, which is not much considering the
3.5 billion years life has been evolving) means that there is an increased chance that
viruses and other disease-causing organisms in apes could spread to humans through
such organ transplants, and that what sickens apes could also sicken humans. So pigs
are considered an interesting compromise, because their relationship to humans
in evolutionary terms is recent enough (at least recent enough to have very similar
organs), but distant enough that disease organisms they may carry have themselves
evolved separately for a longer period of time and are therefore at least somewhat less
likely to be able to sicken humans.
3. In this regard, it is worth reflecting on what has happened in recent years to
distort and discredit genuinely scientific ideas and theories about the organization
of human society and the experience of socialism in particular: Just a few decades
ago, in progressive circles, it was broadly recognized as true that alternatives to
capitalism were not only desirable but in fact possible and realizable; that socialist
and communist ideals were objectively in synch with the largest interests of human-
ity, even if not everyone realized this yet; and that positive initial steps had been
taken to implement these ideals in practice (for instance, through the Russian and
Chinese revolutions, in the days before revolutionary leadership was overthrown
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 297
in those countries, bringing capitalists back to power). These social truths were in
fact derived from a great deal of accumulated scientific evidence—about the course
of human social history and what happens under different forms of human social
organization; about what constitutes the material basis for fundamental change
at any given time; and about what actually took place in Russia and China when
they were still socialist countries, before capitalism was restored. The possibility
as well as the desirability of revolution aimed at forging a radically different socialist
and ultimately communist future was “in the air,” and at the same time grounded in
actual material reality. But in just a few dozen years, thanks first of all to the loss of
state power by genuine revolutionaries and their replacement by counterrevolution-
ary leaders in China (following after the same basic process of reversal in the Soviet
Union), but also thanks to a concerted reactionary propaganda campaign aimed at
discrediting the very idea of socialist revolution and communism, we now have a
situation where even among progressive people, a great many, especially in the U.S.,
firmly believe that “socialism may have been a good idea but it has been proven that
it doesn’t work.” They lightly dismiss it as a “failed experiment” even though there
is plenty of concrete evidence of real and unprecedented social accomplishments
and advances made under socialism, and of the fact that the reversal of these revolu-
tions had more to do with the remaining reserves of imperialism and the remaining
antagonistic class forces within socialist society than with problems inherent to the
socialist project itself. Today many people say they “have heard” that “Mao Tsetung
was a brutal dictator who wantonly killed millions and millions of people and turned
Chinese society into a totalitarian nightmare”: but how many of these people have
even looked into this even just a little bit to determine whether this is really true or not?
In fact, any serious and open-minded scientific investigation of the actual facts of
what happened in China quickly shows this is a complete fabrication and a turning
of reality upside down. But that doesn’t keep such lies from being repeated over and
over again and from being picked up unquestioningly and without investigation, even
by some people who claim to have an educated, sophisticated and critical approach to
things and who in fact should know better than to swallow such propaganda whole.
4. I’d love to see people inspired by Richard Pryor’s brilliant comedy and social
satire do a skit or comedy routine about all these “inventive” Creationists—perhaps
along the lines of Pryor’s wonderful routine about little kids lying about “what
prob’ly happened” to try to explain away the obvious evidence of a broken lamp at
their feet.
5. “Theism” refers to the belief that God or other super-natural powers exist. It is
the opposite of “atheism” which holds that God or other super-natural powers don’t
exist, other than in the minds and ideas of human beings.
6. And this is especially true because, while Intelligent Design Creationists work
to undermine evolution science (and in fact all of secular science) with arguments
which seem designed to hoodwink more educated audiences, the Biblical literalist
Young Earth Creationists will likely continue to target and have disproportionate
influence among the most poor and the most oppressed sectors of society—those
who have traditionally been denied the opportunity to learn much about science
and the scientific methods which can be used to uncover the actual workings of the
material world, and who at the same time often feel the need to fiercely hold on to
long-standing traditions of spirituality and religious faith through which past genera-
tions sought both a will to endure and a sense of community.
298 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
7. Readers of this book who want to look into the arguments of the Intelligent
Design Creationists in greater detail could check out the following, who are among
the most active, prominent and influential of the current crop of Intelligent Design
types: Phillip Johnson, a law professor; William Dembski, a mathematician who also
holds degrees in philosophy and theology; Stephen C. Meyer, a philosopher; Jonathan
Wells, a molecular biologist who also holds degrees in religious studies; and Michael
Behe, a biochemist.
8. Anyone interested in a blow by blow refutation of Michael Behe’s specific
arguments about supposed biochemical “design” should check out the first part of
the book Finding Darwin’s God, written by another working biochemist, Ken Miller of
Brown University. Miller tirelessly takes on the anti-evolution Creationists in his writ-
ings and in lively and entertaining debates, and he is good at popularizing many of
the basic facts and mechanisms of evolution. And since most people know very little
about how things work at the sub-cellular molecular level, the first part of his book
can be particularly helpful in refuting Behe’s specific design arguments, as Miller is
able to examine some of the very same complex sub-cellular processes and systems
that Behe claims are proof of design. Miller gives lots of examples of likely evolution-
ary precursors of these biochemical systems and explains in straightforward terms
the errors in Behe’s methods and why there is absolutely no reason to deduce from
the structure of any of these systems that standard evolutionary mechanisms were
not involved in bringing them into being. Unfortunately Miller—who is a staunch
defender of evolution but who also believes in God—has devoted the whole second
half of his book to trying to reclaim the concept of God from the Intelligent Design
people and other anti-evolution Creationists. And in his attempts to reconcile the
science he knows is true with the religion he believes in, Miller ends up making some
unprincipled and completely unwarranted attacks on some very good evolutionists
who happen not to share his belief in God. While I was quite disappointed by all this,
it doesn’t change the fact that there is still much we can learn from Ken Miller’s cri-
tique of Intelligent Design as seen from the perspective of a working biochemist who
also happens to understand biological evolution. (And, from a different angle, and
more by negative example, we can no doubt learn much from examining the second
part of his book as well, even if we come to diametrically opposed conclusions.)
9. While some partial “environmental restorations” have been attempted on
a relatively limited scale (with mixed success) in recent years (especially in much
“simpler” ecosystems), the sad fact is that, once any truly complex ecosystem has
been fundamentally dislocated, human beings (so far at least) have absolutely no
means to restore the innumerable interdependent connections between living
species which make up any such system—and this is in large part because there is
no way to recreate the biological processes through which these many connections
evolved, one in relation to the other over hundreds of millions of years. This is an aspect
of the evolution of life on this planet we would do well to reflect on some more
before we go around assuming that it would always be possible to, at some later
point, repair what has been fundamentally damaged.
10. Once again this goes back to the old 19th-century “argument from design” put
forward by people like the Reverend William Paley who thought they saw evidence
of divine design in the complexity, and apparent “perfection,” of structures such as
a human eye or the wing of a bird. Modern biologists now understand not only that
such structures are not in fact “perfectly” adapted to their respective functions—for
Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, In the Name of God 299
instance, mammalian eyes have blind spots, and the wings of bats and birds are not
actually as efficient and aerodynamic as some of the wings human engineers can
design—but also that such structures could have been built up in stages, through
well-understood evolutionary processes spread out over long periods of time.
11. Conversely, the evolutionary process has reversed gears in many species of
blind cave fish, which are descended from species of fish that had seeing eyes, but
which now spend their whole lives in the dark, where continuing to produce such
useless eyes would likely be energetically wasteful; it does turn out that natural selec-
tion has worked to eliminate sight in species of fish that live in these dark caves.
12. As a sidepoint, we can see from this example that “on-off ” biochemical
regulatory “switches” really do exist in various sub-cellular systems. Earlier in this
discussion we commented on Michael Behe’s absurd idea that an intelligent designer
might have packed the very first living cells (billions of years ago) with ALL the
genetic biochemical information and processes that would ever be needed by ALL the
many different later species of organisms—including those that he admits wouldn’t
even have appeared until millions or even billions of years later. He imagines that all
those later biochemical processes might simply have been kept “turned off ” for those
millions or billions of years (until it was time to activate them in various much later
appearing species) by keeping them under the control of just such an on-off bio-
chemical switch. But again, one of the things that renders this argument so absurd is
that all these inheritable biochemical on-off switches and the inheritable biochemical
processes under their control would not have remained intact and unchanged over so much
time: they would themselves be subject to repeated mutations and other evolutionary
modifications as individuals reproduced and populations evolved over those millions
and billions of years!
13. Such idealism stands in stark contrast to the materialist outlook, which recog-
nizes the existence of matter independently of anyone’s mind or ideas; and idealism
is most fundamentally and consistently opposed by the outlook and methods of
dialectical and historical materialism, which is a scientific outlook and method which
can be used to explore, interact with, and transform things and processes in the real
(material) world, both in human society and in the whole broader world of nature.
It does so on the basis of systematic investigations of whatever particular historical
pathways and processes have brought some aspect of reality into being, and of the
dynamic interplay of contradictory (or “dialectical”) elements which exist in any
thing or process, and which at any given time both characterize that thing or process
and also spur and channel its ongoing change and development. From Marx to Mao
and right through to today, many “scientific socialists” (communists) have sought
to consciously and systematically apply this scientific method to gain a better, more
comprehensive and systematic understanding of the differing forms of human social
organization throughout history, how society changes over time, and the role of con-
scious human initiative in effecting these societal changes. But materialist methods
which are both historical and dialectical are not just the province of social revolution-
aries and are not applicable only to human society and its historical development:
such methods can (and should) illuminate all areas of human investigation and expe-
rience. In fact, the method of dialectical and historical materialism is just as applicable
to the natural sciences as to the social sciences. While most working scientists today
would not acknowledge this, either because of a lack of familiarity with some of
the terms involved (dialectics in particular) and/or prejudice against dialectical and
300 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
Glossary
adaptation: Any inheritable feature of organisms which increases their likelihood
of survival and reproduction in a particular environment; a process of genetic
change in a population that is driven by natural selection. All plant and animal
species interact with both living and non-living components of their envi-
ronments (other living organisms, as well as features of landscape, climate,
etc.) Over time, natural selection (occurring over a great many reproductive
generations) often “fine-tunes” the “fit” between organisms and a particular
environment. For instance, cactus plants have spines (which are modified
leaves), an adaptation which reduces water loss in dry desert conditions; hum-
mingbird species have long thin beaks which are adaptations to the tube-like
flowers from which they draw sugary nectar. Some previously advantageous
specialized adaptations sometimes cause problems for organisms when envi-
ronments change: evolving panda bears adapted over time to eat only bamboo
plants; today their bamboo habitats are disappearing, and panda bears are get-
ting close to extinction.
adaptive radiation: The spread and diversification of organisms as they move
into newly open or available ecological “niches” and then undergo a series of
further evolutionary modifications in the process of adapting to these new
conditions.
allele: An alternate form of a single gene.
Alvarez hypothesis: The proposal that an asteroid or other large extra-terrestrial
body smashed into the planet around 60 million years ago, causing sudden
and dramatic changes in the global environment and in this way triggering or
contributing to the mass extinction of a high proportion of living plant and
animal species (including the last of the dinosaurs) in the late Cretaceous. In
the time since this theory was first proposed in 1980, a large impact crater left
behind by just such a collision has been discovered just off Mexico’s Yucatán
Peninsula.
amino acids: Chemical units which are the basic “building blocks” from which
protein molecules are assembled. Some 20 different amino acids combine in
many different ways to make a great many different kinds of proteins in living
organisms.
anthropology: The study of human beings, from the time of our earliest diver-
gence from the apes all the way through today. Anthropology is a historical
science which investigates our early origins and our similarities and differences
with related species (physical anthropology), as well as the cultural evolution
of human social customs, belief-systems and modes of social organization as
they change over time (cultural anthropology).
301
302 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
BCE: Before the Common Era (this is the secular equivalent of B.C.)
biochemistry: The science dealing with the many different chemical reactions
which take place in living organisms.
biotic environment: The external environment an organism lives in that includes
all the other living plants and animals in a locality (as opposed to the abiotic or
non-living physical environment).
bipedal: Walking-upright on two legs (as opposed, for instance, to “knuckle-
walking” like the apes). The appearance of this evolutionary modification in a
line of African apes roughly 5 million years ago is the milestone which marks
the very beginning of our own hominid line.
bipedalism: The ability to regularly walk upright on two legs.
branching event: The point at which evolutionary modifications accumulated
over many reproductive generations lead one evolutionary line to significantly
diverge (“split-off ”) from a pre-existing line, like the branches on a tree or
bush.
Cambrian explosion: The name given to the burst of biological diversification
which took place at the very beginning of the Cambrian geological era
(approximately 540 million years ago), producing tremendous numbers of
new species.
camouflage: An evolutionary adaptation which allows some species to blend into
their background environments, often increasing their chances of avoiding
predators, or of being detected by their own prey. The white fur or feath-
ers of many animals which live in snowy environments are an example of
camouflage.
Carbon-14 dating: A method of determining the age in years of organic (carbon-
based) material by measuring the decay of radioactive carbon-14 isotopes.
carnivorous: Which eats meat.
chloroplasts: Chlorophyll-containing “organelles” found inside plant cells.
Chloroplasts contain their own separate DNA, and are thought to have once
been free-living microorganisms, but they now function exclusively as part of
the energy-producing machinery of the plant cells they are part of.
Christian Fundamentalist Movement: An increasingly influential fanatical sub-
set of Christians who insist on a very strict “literalist” interpretation of the
Bible and who are seeking to impose a comprehensive reactionary social
and political program on society. In recent years they have made significant
inroads into all branches of government (including the military and the White
House) and have waged systematic and well-funded campaigns to break down
the separation of church and state; to undermine the teaching of evolution
and redefine science along religious lines; to ban abortion and other reproduc-
tive rights; to oppose gay rights and to promote intolerance and bigotry more
generally; to force prayer into the public schools and religious scriptures into
the courthouses, etc. They are working to impose their brand of absolutist,
patriarchal, fundamentalist moral values on every aspect of public and private
life and seek to move all of U.S. society in the direction of theocracy.
co-evolution: A process of parallel evolution whereby two different interacting
or interdependent species evolve together over a long period of time, with
changes in one species spurring an adaptive response to that change in the
304 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
other. Flowering plants and their pollinators, predators and their prey, or host
species and their parasites often reveal evidence of co-evolution.
codon: The basic unit of the genetic code; made up of three adjacent nucleotides
which code for one amino acid, or which signal a “stop” or “start” in the pro-
cess of protein synthesis.
cold-blooded: Cold-blooded animals such as fish or reptiles are unable to maintain
a constant internal body temperature. Instead their body temperature rises or
falls along with changes in the temperature of the outside environment. (Also
see “Warm-blooded”)
complexity: A system is said to be complex if it has many (rather than just a few)
different “parts”, working together in some kind of larger integrated process.
Any complex biological system (from the molecular level to the level of whole
ecosystems composed of many interacting species) is made up of a web of
many interlocking and interdependent links.
consilience of evidence: Refers to the existence of mutually reinforcing streams
of evidence, coming from many different directions, all pointing to the same
conclusion. For instance, there is a great deal of consilience of evidence,
coming from many different fields of science, which support the fact that
evolution has occurred and that life is continuing to evolve.
continental drift: The movement of continents in geological time owing to the
movement of the plates in the earth’s mantle, caused by plate tectonics.
convergent evolution: The evolution of features which are similar in form or
function, but derived from different underlying parts, occurring in separate
evolutionary lines that are not descended from a recent common ancestor.
For instance, desert plants belonging to completely different lineages (such as
cacti in North America and euphorbs in Africa) are strikingly similar in appear-
ance—an example of convergent features which likely evolved as adaptations
to similar environmental conditions.
cosmology: A branch of physics and astronomy which investigates the history,
structure and evolution of the universe.
creationism: The religious belief that the universe, our planet and all of life were
created by a god or other supposed super-natural force. (See “Creationists”)
Creationists: Proponents of one or another form of creationism. The most tradi-
tional Creationists believe the Creation story in the Bible is literally true—that
a divine higher power created all the different kinds of life-forms separately,
all at once, in just six days, and only a few thousand years ago. While there are
different variants of Creationists, all creationism, including Intelligent Design
creationism, is predicated on the belief that a divine supernatural being or
force is to one degree or another responsible for the origin and evolution
of life. Creationism in all its forms is religion and is not science. (Also see
“Intelligent Design”)
Darwin, Charles: Geologist and globe-trotting naturalist who launched a revolu-
tion in human thought when he published The Origin of Species by Means of
Natural Selection in 1859. He not only recognized that life had evolved, but
went beyond that to explain some of the principal mechanisms involved in
how life evolves. While the science of evolution is continually being extended
and further developed, Darwin’s core concepts and principles have withstood
Appendix A: Glossary 305
the test of time and rigorous scientific testing, and they form the foundational
core of modern biology.
dating techniques: Modern science can use a variety of scientific techniques to
calculate (and then further confirm) the age of just about anything. This has
allowed us to accurately date the age of the earth itself, as well as that of every
plant and animal fossil ever found, thereby allowing us to better understand
the sequential unfolding of the evolution of life on this planet.
deconstructionism: Refers to a method of reading and discussing literary texts that
emphasizes the multiplicity of possible readings and interpretations, and the
subjective influences which any reader or author can bring into any text. For
the relativist deconstructionists, there can be many possible “truthful” inter-
pretations of reality. By contrast, scientific materialists, while acknowledging
the many subjective interpretations and distortions of reality, nevertheless
emphasize that objective reality does exist (independently of such subjectivi-
ties), that not all “truths” are equally valid, and that scientific methods can be
applied to all spheres of life to uncover and verify objective truths, defined as
that which corresponds (as closely as possible at any given time) to the way
material reality actually is.
“descent with modification”: Darwin’s correct characterization of the basic
process of evolutionary change, occurring over many successive reproductive
generations.
differential reproductive fitness: A measure of how some individual organisms,
in a given local environment, end up producing more offspring (which in turn
are able to survive and reproduce) than other individual organisms of the
same species living in that same environment. Such “fitness” does not imply
any other kind of superiority.
divergence: In understanding how evolution produces whole new species, “diver-
gence” refers to a species diverging (splitting) from a common ancestor.
One example of this is how roughly 5 million years ago a species of African
ape “split” into divergent lines: on the one hand, the line which eventually
produced modern African chimps; and, on the other hand, the line which
eventually produced modern humans.
DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid; the basic genetic material found in the cells of
all organisms, made up of two chains of nucleotides wound together in a
double helix; DNA contains chemical information which can be passed on to
descendants.
ecology: The branch of biology which investigates the interactions of organisms
with one another and with their physical environments, and the larger pat-
terns and dynamics of whole ecosystems.
ecosystem: A complex system and network of interactions made up of a physi-
cal environment and all the living plant and animal populations living and
interacting within that environment.
embryology: The science dealing with the formation, development, structure
and functional activities of embryos, the earliest stage of development of
organisms.
environment: An organism’s surroundings, made up of the physical or abiotic
environment (such things as climate, soil, water, temperature, landscapes and
306 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
so on) and the biotic environment (the other living organisms in the same
environment).
eukaryotes: Cells whose DNA is contained inside a nucleus. (Also see
“prokaryotes”)
evolution: In a basic sense, evolution means change over time. All life evolves, and
it does so through completely natural and unconscious processes, including
natural selection. The evolution of all the plant and animal life we see on this
planet today (including people) is the result of repeated instances of “descent
with modification” through a long series of shared ancestors, starting with
some simple bacteria-like organisms some 3.5 billion years ago.
evolutionary “novelty”: A brand new feature or characteristic that emerges in a
living population of plants or animals through the processes of evolution.
extinction: The dying out of a species or of a multitude of species (as in the case
of mass extinctions). Extinction is the counter-point to speciation (the emer-
gence of new species) and has played an important role in shaping the larger
patterns of the evolution of life on this planet. Some species have lasted for
millions of years, but the vast majority of all the species that ever lived are
now extinct.
falsifiability: An important characteristic of all genuinely scientific theories. As
a matter of principle, a theory can be deemed scientific only if it is open to
being disproved by new facts (things which, if they were ever discovered to be
true, would prove that the particular theory is wrong). Like all good scientific
theories, the theory of evolution is falsifiable in principle, but as a point of fact,
science has never found a single thing that actually falsifies it. All scientific
data has repeatedly supported the theory of evolution, and none of it has ever
provided evidence to the contrary. By contrast, the theory of divine Creation
is a religious belief, not a scientific theory, since by its very nature and defini-
tion it is not subject to being tested and is not open to the possibility of being
falsified.
fossil: The preserved traces and remains of plants and animals which died long ago,
but whose bodies got covered up by soils and sediments which later hardened
into solid rock, thus sealing them in and preserving them. The age of any fossil
can be calculated with a relatively high degree of accuracy thanks to modern
dating techniques applied to the geological layer in which it has been found.
founder effects: A change in gene frequencies and reduction in overall genetic
variation that can occur when just a few individuals (containing only a small
proportion of the total genetic variation available in a source population)
migrate into a new area and found (start) a new population. Extremely small
founder populations often seem to accumulate evolutionary modifications at
a disproportionately rapid rate and with disproportionately significant effects,
which can give rise to a new species. (See also “genetic drift”)
gene: The basic unit of heredity; genes are made up of sequences of DNA
nucleotides which provide the chemical assembly instructions for a protein
molecule or an RNA molecule, or which serve a regulatory function in such
assemblies.
gene frequency: The relative occurrence of a particular allele in a population.
gene pool: The total of all the alleles of all the genes present in a population.
Appendix A: Glossary 307
genetic code: The chemical “rule book” for making different proteins out of dif-
ferent combinations and sequences of amino acids. The genetic code is nearly
universal—it is the same in all living plant and animal species, from the simplest
bacteria to the most complex mammals (with only a few very minor variations
found in some micro-organisms). This is yet another strong indicator that all
life is descended from common ancestors.
genetic drift: Random change in the gene frequencies and overall genetic diversity
of a population over time due to chance occurrences rather than natural selec-
tion. Examples of genetic drift include instances when a population loses some
genetic diversity due to deaths or out-migrations of individuals, or because
a small part of a population has become cut-off and reproductively isolated
from the larger source population. Genetic drift can contribute to populations
evolving in significantly new directions. (Also see “founder effects”)
genetic engineering: The use of modern techniques of molecular biology to
directly manipulate the genetic material of living organisms or insert into
them genes from another organism in order to alter the hereditary traits of a
cell, organism, or population.
genetic recombination: The formation of new gene combinations; in particular,
the random process of genetic “reshuffling” that occurs with each new gen-
eration of sexually reproducing plants or animals as offspring inherit part of
each parent’s DNA and the different bits of inherited genetic information are
recombined (reassembled) in new ways; an important source of new genetic
variation in living populations.
genetic variation: A measure of the overall diversity present in a population that
is attributable to inheritable genetic differences among individuals; it serves as
the “raw material” of evolutionary change from one generation to the next.
genome: The full set of DNA sequences in a cell or organism.
geologic column: The ordered chronology or sequence of different kinds of rock
layers and their associated fossils.
geologic time: The time scale used to refer to the major periods and events in the
earth’s history, encompassing billions of years.
geology: The science that studies the origin and structure of the earth and the
rocks of which it is composed, as well as the physical, chemical and biological
changes it has undergone or is now undergoing.
genotype: The complete set of genes found in the cells of an organism. (Also see
“phenotype”)
genus: A group of animals or plants within a family, closely connected by common
characteristics. A genus is divided into species. For example, the genus Homo
is part of the larger family Hominidae; it includes the species Homo sapiens as
well as other now extinct human species.
God or gods: One or more super-natural forces or beings some people claim exist
and have special powers over life and the universe; an unscientific religious
belief not grounded in material reality.
habitat: The location and features of the area in which an organism lives. For
instance, many rattlesnakes live in a desert habitat.
herbivorous: Which eats plants.
308 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
heredity: The process through which inheritable genetic characteristics are passed
down from one generation to the next.
heterozygous: Having two different alleles of any one gene. (Also see
“homozygous”)
hominids: The hominids include all the species of mammals that are more human-
like than ape-like; they encompass the whole great variety of related species
ranging from the very first upright-walking hominids that split off from a line
of African apes around five million years ago, all the way through to fully
modern humans which emerged about 200,000 years ago.
Homo genus: This is the genus (collection of related species) which includes our
own species plus all the earlier and now extinct human species.
Homo sapiens: Our own species; all humans alive today belong to this one single
species. All our previous hominid ancestors, including some earlier human
species, are now extinct.
homologous features: Parts of bodies that are made up of very similar structures
(derived from common ancestors) but which now serve somewhat different
functions. For example, the hands of primates, the front legs of moles, the
wings of birds, bats, or flying dinosaurs, and the flippers of whales and pen-
guins are all composed of the same basic bony parts, but in each species these
parts serve different functions (grasping, digging, flying, swimming, etc.).
Homologous features are very common in nature; they contradict the Biblical
story of separate Creation and are instead strong indicators of shared ancestry
and “descent with modification.”
homology: A feature shared by a set of species and derived from their common
ancestor.
homozygous: Having two identical alleles of any one gene. (Also see
“heterozygous”)
human evolution: Human beings are descended from a long series of pre-existing
non-human species. The evolutionary line which led to modern human beings
(known as the “hominid” line) split off just a few million years ago from the
line of African apes which gave rise to modern chimpanzees. The “hominids”
on our side of this evolutionary “split” include all the species that are con-
sidered to be more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees. Today’s
human beings all belong to one single species, the only one remaining out of
the series of diverse hominid species. In the process of learning about these
past ancestor species and the environments in which they lived, we are learn-
ing more not only about who our most direct ancestors were, but also about
what it means to become fully human.
individual: In biology, this refers to a single organism capable of independent
existence; such an organism can also be a member of a compound organism
or colony. Biological populations are composed of many individuals of the
same species.
inheritable characteristic: Characteristic or feature that an animal or plant can pass
on to its offspring. This is distinguished from an acquired characteristic which
an organism may acquire during the course of its lifespan but that cannot
be passed on to its offspring. Only inheritable characteristics are involved in
evolutionary change.
Appendix A: Glossary 309
marsupial mammals: The group of mammals that lack a placenta and give birth
to young which must finish developing by suckling in a pouch on the outside
of the female’s body; examples include kangaroos and opossums. (See also
“placental mammals”)
mass extinction: The extermination of a large proportion of the planet’s species by
climatic, geological, cosmic, or other environmental events. There have been
at least 5 major waves of mass extinctions up to this point. Each had profound
effects on the subsequent evolutionary history of life as whole evolutionary
lines disappeared or were sharply curtailed while others flourished and diversi-
fied under the dramatically changed conditions. Some scientists today argue
that we are already seeing the beginning of a 6th wave of mass extinctions,
one directly attributable to the extremely rapid and domino-like effects of the
global environmental destruction and depredations caused by human beings
in just the last couple of centuries or so.
microevolution: Small-scale evolutionary change involving such things as changes
in gene frequencies within a population, and extending to the emergence of
new species. (Also see “macroevolution”)
mimicry: Form of adaption in which one species has biologically evolved to
simulate the traits or appearance of another species. Mimicry often helps
organisms avoid predators. For instance, some species of insects blend into
the background because they have evolved to look like sticks or leaves; non-
poisonous king snakes have evolved to look almost exactly like poisonous
coral snakes; some species of perfectly harmless insects have evolved black
and yellow bands, a pattern which mimics the classic “warning coloration” of
venomous bees and wasps, which many predators have learned to avoid.
mitochondria: A kind of organelle found in eukaryotic cells and involved in energy
production.
mitochondrial DNA: A kind of DNA found in mitochondria; present in female
egg cells but not in sperm, mitochondrial DNA is passed down only through
females; because of this it has been helpful in tracing evolutionary lineages
and patterns of geographical distribution of species, including in our own
human line.
“modern synthesis”: The combination of Darwin’s theory of natural selection
with the discovery of the basic principles and mechanisms of genetic inheri-
tance. Developed in the first half of the 20th century, the “modern synthesis”
both confirmed and extended basic Darwinism, providing a more complete
and comprehensive understanding of the underlying dynamics of evolution-
ary change.
molecular biology: The branch of biology that studies the nature of biological
phenomena at the molecular level involving genetic information and cell func-
tion through the study of DNA, RNA, and proteins.
molecular clock: A method of estimating the approximate time of divergence
(split) of evolutionary lineages, based on estimating the degree of change in
DNA sequences which undergo a steady rate of change over time.
molecular dating: A technique which makes it possible to calculate the approxi-
mate time when two different evolutionary lineages last shared a common
ancestor, based on the degree of similarities and differences in their DNA. For
example, the 95-99% molecular similarities between human DNA and chimp
Appendix A: Glossary 311
DNA can be used to calculate that the human line split off from the line of
apes leading to modern chimpanzees about 5 million years ago.
mutation: A change in inheritable genetic material, most commonly due to a
“copying error” during the process of DNA replication. Mutations can be
harmful, beneficial, or neutral. They contribute to the genetic variability in a
population which serves as the raw material for evolutionary change.
myth: An imaginary story made up by human beings and told and retold over the
generations; can be appreciated as art, but, taken literally, myths are mislead-
ing and often used to reinforce and justify particular social customs, values,
relations and institutions.
natural selection: A prime mechanism of evolutionary change; it has frequently
been directly observed; it happens completely on its own, without the need of
any supernatural “guiding hand”; however it is not a completely random or
“chance” process. New features which were not present in earlier generations
emerge in individual organisms simply as a result of various kinds of random
genetic “reshufflings” of the inheritable genetic material which was present in
the previous “parent” generation. Many such changes have little or no effect on
the individuals or their populations. But (and this is the part which is not just
“chance”), when new features just happen to provide individuals having those
features with a “reproductive edge” in a particular environment—allowing
them to produce more offspring, who in turn produce more offspring, than
individuals who don’t have these new features—the new features will simply
end up being passed on through their descendants to an increasingly greater
proportion of the individuals which make up the population in the following
generations. In this way, the new features tend to spread throughout an entire
population of plants or animals. This is evolution by natural selection.
nested hierarchy: A pattern of “group within group” classification that all living
species fit into when grouped on the basis of a succession of shared character-
istics. Things that are not actually related to each other by shared ancestry and
continuous lines of common descent do not fit into nested hierarchies. The
fact that all living things do, is one of the many indications that all species are
the product of descent with modification from common ancestors.
neutral mutation: A genetic mutation with no observable effect in terms of the
offspring’s ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.
niche: An ecological “niche” can be relatively narrow or broad. It refers to the
ways in which a plant or animal species occupies a given environment—the
habitat it lives in, the resources it consumes, and its network of interactions
with other species.
nucleotide: A single unit building block of DNA and RNA.
omnivorous: Which eats a wide range of foods, including plants and animals.
organelles: Small structures (mini-organs), such as chloroplasts and mitochondria,
which perform specialized functions inside eukaryotic plant or animal cells.
Many are thought to have once been free-living symbiotic organisms which
later evolved to become fully integrated into their “host” cells.
organisms: Living things.
paleoanthropology: The science that studies the fossil and cultural remains of our
various hominid ancestors.
312 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
paleontology: The science which studies ancient plant and animal life, mainly
through the collection and analysis of fossils; paleoecologists study fossil
evidence of entire communities of past plants and animals and how they may
have interacted.
Pangea: The name given to a super-continent which began to break apart around
260 million years ago into separate continents. As a result, many groups of
organisms became more reproductively isolated and followed distinctly differ-
ent evolutionary pathways.
phenotype: The physical and functional features of an organism, produced by
the interaction of its genotype with its environment during growth and
development.
phylogeny: The study of the evolutionary history of a lineage; often illustrated
by a branching tree or bush showing the relationships between ancestor and
descendant species.
placental mammals: The group of mammals bearing young which develop inside
the female, nourished by a placenta. (See “marsupial mammals” for an alter-
nate evolutionary pathway among the mammals)
plate tectonics: The branch of science which studies how the earth’s crust is made
up of a series of sections or “plates,” which very slowly collide with, slide
under, or move past other such plates. Over geological time, such processes
caused the continents to move away from each other and into their present
positions. The slow but powerful forces and motions of colliding plates also
helps us to understand how whole mountain ranges have been “pushed up,”
as well as the current activity of earthquakes and volcanoes.
polyploidy: A process of “chromosome doubling” which sometimes occurs
during reproduction, either within a species, or as a result of a hybrid cross
between two different species. It produces new varieties of organisms with
multiple sets of chromosomes—often launching a whole new species in just
one generation. Speciation by polyploidy is rare in animals, but it is extremely
common in plants. About half the flowering plant species on this planet are
thought to have originated by polyploidy.
population: A group of organisms that interbreed and share a gene pool.
population genetics: The branch of biology which studies factors which cause
changes in gene frequencies in populations of organisms and the effect of such
changes on evolution and adaptation.
prokaryotes: A cell in which the DNA is not contained inside a distinct nucleus.
Bacteria and other microorganisms are examples of prokaryotes. (See also
“eukaryotes”)
protein: A molecule made up of amino acids. Many proteins perform important
functions in living bodies; for instance, all enzymes, which facilitate many
chemical reactions, are proteins.
“punctuated equilibrium”: The theory that the rates of large-scale evolutionary
change unfolding over geological time have been variable and characterized
by extended periods of very gradual evolutionary change occasionally inter-
spersed (“punctuated”) with bursts of relatively more rapid and concentrated
change.
recombination: See “genetic recombination.”
Appendix A: Glossary 313
the fittest” (and should therefore be accepted by all as the “natural order of
things”). It is important to know that social Darwinism is not scientific, never
had anything to do with Darwin, and that it can find no legitimate basis or
justification in Darwin’s actual scientific theories concerning the biological
evolution of life or in the science of evolution as a whole.
spandrel: An essentially neutral or non-adaptive feature which appears as a by-
product of the evolutionary modification of pre-existing features but which
itself confers no particular reproductive advantage or disadvantage to organ-
isms having this feature and is therefore not particularly subject to being
spread or eliminated by natural selection. At a later point such features may
become integrated into more complex mechanisms and processes performing
some entirely new functions, and may become subject to natural selection in
this new context.
speciation: Evolutionary divergence (“splitting” or “budding off ”) of a brand new
species, out of a different pre-existing ancestor species. A new species is said
to have emerged when a population of organisms has accumulated enough
evolutionary modifications to make it impossible for these organisms to suc-
cessfully interbreed with organisms in the ancestor populations. Full speciation
is a process that takes place over a great many reproductive generations.
speciation event: Birth of a new species, as an evolutionary divergence from a
pre-existing species.
species: A biological species is a set of organisms which can successfully interbreed
(mate with each other) and produce viable fertile offspring (young which will
be able to survive and in turn reproduce). To qualify as a species, a group of
organisms has to be reproductively incompatible with all other species.
stasis: A period of evolutionary stability marked by relatively little change.
subspecies: A subdivision of a species; often made up of populations which differ
in geographic distribution and have some variations in features but are still
capable of interbreeding when their ranges overlap. For instance, among birds
in the U.S., Western and an Eastern subspecies of meadowlarks have slight
differences in their songs and in the color patterns of their feathers.
super-natural: The word supernatural literally means “above,” or “outside of,”
the natural world. Often as a matter of proclaimed religious faith, people
who believe in the supernatural insist that some things exist which cannot be
explained by natural laws and phenomena and which can never be investigated
or verified by scientific methods. By contrast, science seeks only natural expla-
nations for natural phenomena. Through systematic and repeated investigation
and experimentation (and without reference to any supposed supernatural
power), science uncovers and explains many features and processes of material
reality which were not previously understood by human beings. For instance,
science has shown that people experiencing “fits”—who were once thought
to be possessed by supernatural demons—are actually just suffering from the
completely natural disease known as epilepsy.
symbiosis: An association between two or more interacting species, which evolved
over time, and through which at least one of the species derives some benefit.
For instance cleaner wrasses are a type of fish which eats parasites off other
fish—a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.
theism: A belief in a god or gods (the opposite of atheism).
Appendix A: Glossary 315
theocracy: A form of political rule in which government and the laws are based on
strict adherence to religious doctrine as interpreted by religious authorities.
theory: While in everyday language, a theory often means a guess or something
that has not been proven to be true, in science a theory refers to a complex
body of thought that ties together a number of different ideas and proposals
which successfully explain, from a number of different angles, the basic prin-
ciples and mechanisms involved in a natural process, such as the origins and
later change and development of some part of actual material reality. Scientific
theories which have been repeatedly tested and verified and that are now sup-
ported by extensive accumulated scientific evidence, such as the theory of
gravitation, the Copernican theory (of the motion of planets, including the
earth, around the sun), and the theory of evolution, are considered by the
scientific community to be well-established scientific facts.
transitional fossils: Fossils that represent “links” connecting ancestor and descen-
dant species of evolving organisms; they often combine features typical of
earlier ancestor species with features typical of descendant species. (See also
“intermediate fossils”)
vertebrates: Animals descended from common ancestors that all have backbones,
including the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. (See also “inver-
tebrates”)
vestigial feature: A nonfunctional feature which is an evolutionary “left-over,”
carried over from distant ancestors. One example in humans is the coccyx, or
“tail bone,” which is an anatomical carry-over from our earlier ancestors.
warm-blooded: Characteristic of animals that can maintain relatively constant
body temperatures regardless of the fluctuations in the temperature of the
outside environment.
Appendix B
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Holt and Co., New York.
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[Textbook]
316
Appendix B: Selected Bibliography 317
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Sunderland, MA.
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Gould, S. J. 1987. Darwinism Defined: The Difference between Fact and Theory.
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Co., New York.
Gould, S. J. 1981. (rev. and expanded 1996) Mismeasure of Man. W. W. Norton &
Co., New York.
Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. The Belknap Press of Harvard
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318 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
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K
A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE OF CREATIONIST LITERATURE
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Van Till, H. 1986. The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling Us About
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Wells, J. 2000. Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Regnery Publishing, Washington,
D. C.
Appendix C
GEOLOGICAL TIMELINE
319
Appendix D
320
Appendix D: Defend Science Statement 321
The situation is so serious that more than 6,000 scientists have already
signed the “Restoring Scientific Integrity” statement of the Union of
Concerned Scientists, which denounces the Bush Administration for “abuse
of science”; and Scientific American published an editorial under the title:
“Bush-League Lysenkoism: The White House Seeks to Bend Science To Its
Will.”
CONSIDER THIS:
* Particular Christian fundamentalist “moral codes” are increasingly
imposing restrictions on what kinds of questions can be investigated by
scientists and what kinds of answers scientists can come up with. HIV-
prevention studies have come under attack for even attempting to study
prevalent sexual practices. Funds have been cut and researchers have faced
intimidation and harassment from fundamentalists inside and outside of
government who insist that scientific study of HIV/AIDS begin and end with
the demand for “abstinence-only” programs—regardless of the human and
social cost. Research into human sexuality in general has been suppressed
and faulty studies and outright disinformation about the effectiveness
of condoms and other birth control methods have been promoted and
disseminated by the Administration. The Department of Health and
Human Services is known to have deleted from its web site scientific health
information which conflicted with the Administration’s “abstinence-only”
approach to sex education...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* Entire new fields of scientific inquiry, like stem-cell research, with potential
for path-breaking medical breakthroughs, are denied federal funds because
of fundamentalist religious objections...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* Scientists whose findings conflict with corporate interests or policies of
the Bush Administration face threats of retaliation or denial of funding.
There have been “gag orders” forbidding government scientists from talking
publicly about important scientific questions and, at times, even mentioning
terms like “global warming.” In studies by government scientists on global
warming and its potentially devastating consequences for the planet and
humanity, titles of reports have been changed and whole sections deleted
by high political officials. There are repeated efforts by government officials
to over-rule scientists on such things as which plant and animal species
to include on the “Endangered Species” list, which natural habitats are in
critical need of preservation, how to set air and water quality standards, and
so on...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* In a practice many have denounced as “Scientific McCarthyism,” scientists
who are candidates for scientific advisory boards and panels have been
asked how they voted or whether they support particular policies of the
Administration, and some have been denied appointments because of their
political views...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
* Official government-run bookstores at the Grand Canyon have carried
books promoting as fact the literalist Biblical notion that the Grand
Canyon was formed only a few thousand years ago by “Noah’s Flood,” in
direct contradiction to the overwhelming geological evidence and scientific
consensus that the Grand Canyon contains rocks that are billions of years
322 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
old and that the Canyon itself was carved out by a river, over a very long
period of time, millions of years ago...THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
And that is not all: Here we are in the 21st century, and the head of the
government himself, George W. Bush, refuses to acknowledge that evolution
is a scientific fact! THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
The President claims: “On the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on
how God created the earth,” and then sits smugly by while Creationists
carry out an assault against evolution in classrooms, museums, libraries,
government bookstores, and even IMAX movies and science theaters.
No, Mr. President, the verdict is NOT out on evolution. EVOLUTION IS
A FACT—IT IS ONE OF THE MOST WELL-ESTABLISHED AND WELL-
DOCUMENTED FACTS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE. TO DENY AND
ATTACK EVOLUTION IS TO DENY AND ATTACK ONE OF THE MOST
FUNDAMENTAL FACTS ABOUT ALL OF NATURE AND REALITY AND ONE
OF THE MOST CRUCIAL FOUNDATION STONES OF ALL OF MODERN
SCIENCE.
Evolution is not a matter of “controversy” in the scientific community: It is
recognized as a fact by the overwhelming majority of scientists in the U.S.
and throughout the world. Evolution is just as well-established as the fact
that the earth goes around the sun—a scientifically-demonstrated truth
which, several centuries ago and for some time, was also opposed and even
viciously suppressed because of a religious inquisition, resulting in great
harm to science and to humanity. We cannot, and will not, allow the same
kind of thing to happen with the scientific fact of evolution.
Therefore, we, the undersigned scientists and members of the scientific
community, are issuing this urgent call to everyone in society to take up the
challenge to DEFEND SCIENCE.
To be clear: Many who continue to hold religious beliefs can and should rally
to this call to DEFEND SCIENCE. This is not about science trying to destroy
religion. It is about defending science from a specific right-wing political
agenda which, coupled with a fundamentalist, Biblical-literalist religious
ideology, is setting out to implement a program that will fundamentally
pervert and undermine science and the scientific process itself.
Individual scientists may be atheists or agnostics, or may hold various
religious beliefs; and their politics range over the full spectrum of
political views. But one thing the overwhelming majority of scientists
have in common is their understanding that, when conducting scientific
investigation and applying the scientific method, it is essential to use as a
starting point previously accumulated scientific knowledge—the storehouse
of well-established scientific evidence about reality which has previously
been arrived at through concrete and systematic scientific observation and
experiment and has been subjected to rigorous scientific review and testing.
This is what we scientists stand on as our foundation when we set out to
further investigate reality and make new discoveries. This is how science has
been done and how it has advanced for hundreds of years now, and this has
allowed science to benefit humanity in countless ways.
Appendix D: Defend Science Statement 323
Genuine science never proceeds from, or uses as its starting point, any set
of subjective “beliefs,” “opinions” or “faith-based edicts” handed down
by religious or secular authorities and proclaimed to be beyond human
questioning, testing and investigation. To bring into the scientific process
assumptions, religious or otherwise, which were not arrived at by scientific
methods, and which by definition cannot be tested by scientific methods,
would destroy science as science.
In conclusion: We must refuse to accept a situation where scientific inquiry
is blocked or its findings ruled out of order unless they conform to the
goals of the government, to corporate interests and to the ideology of
religious fundamentalists; where dogma enforced by governmental and
religious authority takes the place of science; where the scientific approach
of seeking natural explanations for natural phenomena is suppressed. We
must insist on an atmosphere where scientists are allowed to seek the
truth, even when the truth conflicts with the views and policies of those in
power, and where the scientific spirit is fostered, where science education
and the popularization of the scientific method are valued, where people
are encouraged to pursue an understanding of how and why things are the
way they are; where all that has been learned by humanity so far, all that has
repeatedly been tested and found to be true, serves as the starting point for
further investigation of reality.
IT IS UP TO US. IT IS TIME TO TAKE A CLEAR AND DECISIVE STAND
IN DEFENSE OF SCIENCE. THIS IS OF CRUCIAL AND URGENT
IMPORTANCE NOT ONLY FOR SCIENTISTS BUT FOR PEOPLE
THROUGHOUT SOCIETY, FOR HUMANITY AS A WHOLE AND FOR
FUTURE GENERATIONS.
325
326 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
genetic variation 11, 29-30, 48-49, 51, 61, 68, Homo neanderthalensis 142, 144, 157, 164, 178
71, 72, 77, 84-85, 90-91, 97, 105, Homo rudolfensis 142-144, 178
165-169, 172-173, 251-252, 262- Homo sapiens 18, 122, 124, 131-132, 134,
263, 268, 284 143-145, 148, 155-159, 163-165,
geographic distribution of species 75, 110, 168-170, 177-178, 293
232 homologies/homologous features 105, 114
geologic column 242 hormone and receptor experiments 269, 294
geologic stratification 20 horses 82, 101
geological time-scale 31, 33, 91, 198 horseshoe crabs 10, 89
geological timeline 319 human anatomy
geological uplifts 188, 225 backbone, imperfection of design 104,
Giant Pandas 102 109-110
gills 103-104, 244 foramen magnum 150-151
ginkgo trees 10, 16, 89 larynx, position of 109-110, 160
giraffes 29, 143 pelvic hole, size of 136
Gish, Duane [Creationist] 223-224, 240, 245 skeletal similarities with chimpanzees
glaciations 197 126
“God of the gaps.” See Creationists/Anti- human evolution 120, 125-132
evolutionists: “God of the gaps” ability to transform nature and society
argument 170, 172-175, 199
Gona Research Project 293 brain development and expansion 136-
gorillas 40, 66, 74, 120, 123, 125, 139, 150, 156, 137, 148-150, 159
164, 296 changes in nutrition, impact on 161
Gould, John 24 cultural evolution 155-156, 168, 170,
Gould, Stephen Jay 35, 55, 86, 117, 169, 197, 172-175
200-201, 213, 222-223, 246, 263, descended from a line of apes 125-127,
326 130, 139-140
Grand Canyon 46-48, 87, 188, 224-225, 233 emergence of bipedalism 128, 132, 137,
Grant, Bruce 44 148-149, 153-154
fire use 142-143, 163
H impact of environmental changes on
habitat. See environment 160-163
Hall, Barry 270 “imperfections” 104-105, 109-220, 244
Hawaiian honeycreepers 78, 106 language 60, 113, 126, 138, 150, 154, 160,
hemoglobin 48, 115, 166-168 163
historical sciences 69-70, 291, 300 migration out of Africa 143-144, 158,
HIV. 51, 174, 183 See also AIDS 164-165
homeotic genes 137 stone tool use and manufacture 138, 142,
hominids 18, 66, 100, 110, 120, 124, 127-132, 144, 163
134, 140-147, 156-165, 168, 172, hummingbirds 59-60, 106
177-178, 239 Huxley, T. H. 81, 130, 201
fossils of 10, 150-152, 282, 293
two biggest leaps in hominid evolution I
136-139, 148-150 ice ages 16, 31, 319
Homo, genus 136-138, 142, 147, 148, 159-160, idealism 217, 277, 299-300
163, 177-178 immunity/immune system 173-174, 184
Homo erectus 123, 138, 142-145, 148, 157-158, impact craters 93
163-165, 168, 293 “impact winter” 93
descendants in Asia 142-145, 158, 164, imperfections of nature 49, 62, 104-105, 108-
166 112, 224
descendants in Europe 142-145, 164 individual variation 11, 25, 28, 40, 71, 172
Homo ergaster [African Homo erectus] 124, 138, industrial melanism 44, 46
142-144, 146, 148, 163-164, 168, inheritable characteristics 9, 25, 40-43, 90,
178 172-173, 176, 204, 240, 268, 299
Homo floresiensis 158 insecticide 72
Homo georgicus 143 Institute for Creation Research (ICR). See
Homo habilis 124, 142-144, 164 creationist organizations
Homo heidelbergensis 142
330 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
J M
Jablonski, Nina G. 169 macroevolution 28, 33, 39-40, 53-54, 73-74,
Java Man 142-143 198
John Paul II 72, 176 mad cow disease 184, 296
Johnson, Phillip E. [Intelligent Design maladaptive features 104, 108
Creationist] 192-193, 210, 218, malaria 48-49, 166-168
229, 236, 247-248, 250, 275, 279, mammalian eyes 250, 264, 285, 299
298 Mao Tsetung 280, 297, 299, 325
Margulis, Lynn 199
K marsupial mammals 107, 111
Kansas State Board of Education 209, 230 Marx, Karl 22, 299
Kauffman, Stuart 202-203 Masai 167, 169
Kenyanthropus platyops 141 mass extinctions 18, 31-32, 92, 94, 133
Kettlewell, H.B.D. 44-45 five major waves 31, 91-92
Kikuyu tribe 167, 169 K/T boundary mass extinctions 91, 93,
knuckle walking 140, 151, 244 133
Koran, the 14, 118 possible sixth major wave underway 32
K/T boundary 94 mast-flowering/fruiting 267-268
K/T boundary mass extinctions 91, 93, 133 materialism, dialectical and historical 216,
Ku Klux Klan 171 292, 299-300
Kuhn, Thomas 216 Materialism and Empirio-Criticism 300
material reality 13, 193, 215, 217, 297, 300
L “culture wars” and, 276
lac permease protein 271 scientific method and, 217, 229-231, 290
lactose 270-271 scientific theory and, 215, 230-231
lactose intolerance 167 truth and, 276-281
Lake Turkana 141 mating rituals 75, 84
Lake Victoria 89 matter in motion 281
language 112-113, 163, Mayr, Ernst 55, 84-85, 222
evolution of 66, 69, 123, 126, 137-138, McLean et al v. Arkansas Board of Education 246
150, 154 Mendel, Gregor 55
position of larynx, and 160 meteor/meteorite. See asteroids
lateral gene transfers 72 methane 8-9, 192
laws/legal cases/legal issues Methuselah 224
“Balanced Treatment Act” (Louisiana) Meyer, Stephen C. 298
208 microevolution 28, 40, 54, 73-74, 86, 134, 198
Edwards v. Aguillard 208, 211, 246 micro-organisms 204
First Amendment 208
Index 331
Miller, Kenneth E. 242-243, 255-256, 259, 263- “Old Earth Creationists” (OECs) See
266, 269-272, 298 Creationists/Anti-evolutionists:
Miller, Stanley 8, 192 categories of
Miller, Veronica 51 orangutans 156, 164, 296
mimicry 57 Ordovician period 31, 91, 319
mitochondria/mitochondrial DNA 165, 199, organ transplants 184-185, 296
204, 206 origin myths. See creation myths
“modern synthesis” 43 Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
modification of function 282 The 21-22, 130, 250
“molecular clocks” 17, 139, 164 ostriches 143
molecular dating 16, 102, 139, 243 oxygen 7, 48, 92, 197-199
molecular genetics 184, 191, 232, 283
molecular record 100, 103 P
morality 121, 156, 190, 249, 287-288, 296 Padian, Kevin 94
mule 82, 97 Paleozoic period 19, 319
multicellular organisms 67, 196-199, 234 Paley, Reverend William 250, 298
mutations. 16, 72, 84, 137, 173-174, 191, 206- Pangea 225
207, 237, 239-240, 259, 264-273, Pan paniscus. See bonobos
283 See also “copying errors” Pan troglodytus. See chimpanzees
neutral mutations 17, 37, 78, 286, 299 Paranthropus aethiopicus. See Australopithecus
as random factor 68, 91, 251-253, 262 aethiopicus
speciation and, 47, 76-78, 135, 237 Paranthropus boisei 142
mycoplasmas 205 Paranthropus robustus 142
myths 12-15, 39, 118-119, 180, 220, 232, 291 parasites 146
parent populations 76-77, 85, 160
N parent species 66, 71, 76-77, 80, 85, 165, 168,
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) 127, 174
212 PBS, “Evolution” series produced by 51, 202-
National Center for Science Education 203, 222
(NCSE) 171, 203, 207, 213, 222 peacock 108-109
natural selection 21-30, 34, 49, 70-71, 119, 138, Peking Man 142-143
162, 172-174, 191 pelvic hole, size of in relation to brain growth
adaptation and, 40-42, 44-46, 57-63, 270- 136
271, 284 Pennock, Robert T. 216-218, 222-223
artificial selection, compared to 25-26 peppered moth (Biston betularia) 40-42, 44-46
as non-random factor in evolution 68, 91, Permian period 31, 91-92, 319
252-253, 255, 284 pesticides/pesticide resistance 52, 72, 261
inheritable variation, necessary for 43, philosophical idealism. See idealism
71, 284 philosophical relativism. See relativism
key mechanism of evolution 39, 200 photosynthesis 58, 92
not the only mechanism of evolutionary phylogenies. 100, 102, 111, 115, 206 See also
change 30, 202-203 family trees
reproductive advantage, and 27, 76, 78, placental mammals 107, 111
91, 108, 176, 239, 264, 285 plate tectonics 225
sexual selection as a variant of 108-109 Plato 81
naturalistic science. See secular science. Pledge of Allegiance, in public schools 288
Neanderthals. See Homo neanderthalensis Pleistocene period 16
nested hierarchy 101, 111-113 Pleistocene extinctions 16, 31, 319
niches 84, 107, 133 Pleistocene Ice Age. See ice ages
nitrogen 17, 198, 205 pollination 59-61, 82, 261, 267-268, 283
Noah’s Ark 15, 186-187, 195, 233, 249, 275 polyploidy 75, 82, 97
No Child Left Behind Education Act 209, Pond, Finn 207
211-212 Pond, Jean 207
nuclear war 32 populations 11-12, 25, 28-30, 40
founder populations 78, 83-84
O genetic variation, and 25-27, 29-30, 42-43,
objective reality. See material reality 48, 63, 68, 77, 85, 90-91, 112,
166-169
332 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
reproductive isolation of 30, 46-49, 55, religious fundamentalism vi, 1-4, 49, 73, 87,
74-78, 80, 83-84, 88, 96-97, 135, 113, 120, 123-125, 171, 174, 186,
165-166, 170, 174 208-209, 212, 214, 219-220, 230,
sexually reproducing 72, 74, 78, 240, 253 288-290, 295
small populations 29, 84-85, 97, 159, 174 Religious Right vi, 125, 220, 320
postmodernist deconstructionists 216-218, reproductive advantage 27, 29, 37, 41, 51,
277 57-59, 62, 68, 78-79, 96, 160, 169,
Powell, Justice Lewis F., Jr. 208 173, 178, 239, 253-254, 263, 285
prayer, in public schools 288 reproductive fitness 26, 37, 61, 173
predator-prey interactions 61, 90, 283 reproductive incompatibility 55, 74-75, 95
predator species 78, 90, 145, 152, 184, 283 reproductive isolating mechanism 83-85, 135
prey species 61, 90, 145, 152, 283 reproductive isolation 30, 46-48, 55, 74-80,
prions 296 83-85, 87-88, 95-97, 135, 159-160,
“Progressive Creationists” (PCs) See 165-166, 170, 174
Creationists/Anti-evolutionists: ribosomes 205
categories of RNA (ribonucleic acid) 9, 16, 102, 205
Project Steve 212-213 messenger RNA 205
protein assembly 204-205 ribosomal RNA 205
protein synthesis 9, 205-207, 286-287 transfer RNA 205
“proto-humans” 153 rock layers. See geologic stratification
Pryor, Richard 297
public schools 73, 186-187, 208-209, 211, 213, S
221, 224-225, 246-247, 288, 292 Sahelanthropus tchadensis 129, 141
punctuated equilibrium theory 55, 86, 193, Santorum, Rick 209-212
195-203 Santorum Amendment 209-212, 220
SARS virus 182-184
Q savannas 152, 161-162, 177-178
qualitative change 10 Scalia, Justice Anthony 208, 210-212
quantitative change 10, 84 Schoenborn, Cardinal Christoph 81
science 199
R characteristics of 214-219, 230-231
raccoons 102 creationist attempts to redefine 195, 218,
race 230, 275, 287, 289
biological concept 75, 166 falsifiability of scientific theories 70,
social concept contrasted with biological 216-219
concept 166-169, 171 scientific methods 69-70, 81, 119, 193,
racial differences 75, 166-169 217-218, 229-231
racism 75, 166, 171, 221 secular, contrasted with theistic 186,
radioactive dating/isotopes 17, 243 218, 227-230, 248, 275-276, 279,
rain forests. 65, 84, 261-262 See also tropical 281, 287
forests. “scientific creationism.” 34, 186, 223, 230,
random/non-random factors. 37, 49, 51, 240, 248 See also Creationists/
68, 86, 91, 173, 191, 251-253, Anti-evolutionists
255, 259, 262, 269-271, See also scientific naturalism. See secular science
variation: random genetic scientific socialists 299
rates of evolution. 29, 33, 51, 83, 85-86, 89-90, Scott, Eugenie C. 213 See also National
197, 200-203 See also punctuated Center for Science Education
equilibrium theory sea turtles 89
recombinations 47, 58, 68, 72, 76-78, 84, Seaborg, David 206
91, 95, 135, 240, 252-253, 268, Second Law of Thermodynamics 234-235,
285-286 275
Red Pandas 102 secular humanists 181, 288
reductionism 286 secular science 195, 248, 287, 297
redundancy (in living biological systems) seed dispersal 267-268
206-207, 286 selective advantage. See reproductive
regulatory genes 258, 270-271 advantage
relativism 212, 215, 300 sexual dimorphism 160
postmodernist relativism 216-218 sexual reproduction 72, 78, 173, 240, 253
Index 333
sexual selection 108 “transitional” fossils 50, 87, 130-131, 266, 293
Shubin, Neil H. 294 transitional species 50, 147, 293
sickle cell/ sickle cell anemia 48-49, 166-169 transposons 206
Sileshi, Semaw 293 “tree of life” 43, 101, 114-115, 203
Sims, Karl 191 Triassic period 31, 91, 319
skin color 75, 166-169 trilobites 19, 196, 319
smallpox 173-174 triplets. See codons
Smolin, Lee 229 tropical forests. 95, 140, 162, 177, 325 See
social communication 123, 153, 160 also rain forests
social coordination 66, 123, 137-138, 162-164, truth, objective 215-218, 277
168 Turkana Boy fossil. See Homo ergaster
Social Darwinism 171
socialism 296-297 U
spandrels 263 U.S. Congress 208, 210, 212, 220, 223, 229,
speciation 29, 70, 83, 85, 94 248, 289
extinction and, 30-32, 74, 85-86, 88, 91- universal genetic code 105, 202-207
92, 94, 132, 158
founder effect and, 29-30, 33, 39, 63 V
genetic drift and, 29-30, 33, 39, 46, 63, 68, Valley of the Whales 77
84, 91, 97, 200, 240, 253 Van Till, Howard 227
environmental changes and, 31-33, 41-42, variation
46, 85, 92, 136, 140, 143-145, 159- as raw material for evolutionary change
162, 176, 197, 201 11, 51, 54, 68, 71, 250-251
small populations and, 30, 84-85, 96, 159, individual 11-12, 25, 28, 71, 166-169, 172-
165, 175, 237 173, 176
speciation events 74-75, 88, 90, 99, 135, in populations 25-27, 29-30, 42-43, 48, 63,
159 68, 77, 85, 90-91, 112, 166-169,
squirrels, Kaibab and Abert’s 47-50, 83, 87 176, 251-252, 262, 268
stasis, relative. 55, 84, 86, 176, 198, 201 See random genetic 11
also punctuated equilibrium universal genetic code and, 105, 202-207
theory. vertebrate forelimbs 285
stem cells 184-185 vestigial features 62, 77, 104, 114
sterile hybrids 82, 97 vitellogenin protein 273
Stone Age Institute 293 volcanic activity 92, 94, 133, 188, 225
stone tools 132, 172, 177
early use of 138, 152-153, 157, 161 W
early manufacture of 138, 142-144, 147- Wallace, Alfred Russell 37
149, 152, 158, 163 weapons of mass destruction 125, 145
subjective idealism 217, 277, 300 Weinberg, Steven 258
super-nova explosions 241 Wells, Jonathan [Creationist] 44, 298
superstition 11, 119, 122, 199, 220-221 whales 104-106, 121, 180, 224
symbiosis/symbiotic 45, 59, 199 evolution from terrestrial mammals 39,
50, 77, 87,
T intermediate fossils and, 100, 237, 282
taxonomic classification 81 White House 52, 209, 289
tectonic plates 225 wings 24, 41-42, 104-105, 282-283, 285, 298-
Tertiary period. 93 See also K/T boundary; 299
K/T boundary mass extinctions
“Theistic Evolutionists” (TEs) See X
Creationists/Anti-evolutionists:
categories of
Y
“Young Earth Creationists” (YECs) See
“theistic science” as unscientific concept 218,
Creationists/Anti-evolutionists:
229, 248, 275-276, 279, 281
categories of
theocracy 208, 289-300
Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico 93, 133
Thornton, Joseph W. 294
“Tierra” evolution simulations 191 Z
Tiktaalik roseae 294
Toumai fossil. See Sahelanthropus tchadensis
334
Photo Credits
Cover: [Galaxy] NASA/JPL/Caltech/Harvard- Richards RJ Pieau C & Raynaud A (1998) Haeckel,
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; [Bacteria] Embryos and Evolution. Science, 280: 983-986.
CDC/Janice Carr; [Moth] Emily Roesly; [Chimp] Images are Copyright © 2005 M.K. Richardson.
© Ira Struebel. Image from BigStockPhoto.com; Courtesy of M.K. Richardson; [Human embryo]
[Fern] Mark Miller; [Trilobite] Kevin Walsh; Courtesy of Congenital Anomaly Research Center,
[Dinosaur] Angelo Vianello. Image from Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine;
BigStockPhoto.com; [Girl] © Antonia/Dreamstime. [Blind Cave Fish] © Ken Lucas/Visuals Unlimited;
com; [Michelangelo painting] Photo © Design [Homologous features illustration] Monroe W.
Pics Inc. Strickberger, Evolution, Third Edition, 2000, Jones
and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, MA www.jbpub.
PHOTO SECTION com, reprinted with permission
Page 1: All photos © 2006 Jupiterimages Corporation Page 9: [Anteater/left] © 2006 Jupiterimages
except: [First row, third photo] Monika Wisniewska/ Corporation; [Anteater/right] Jason Crabb/
iStockphoto; [Fourth row, third photo] Alexander iStockphoto; [X-ray] Harry Thomas/iStockphoto;
Omelko/iStockphoto; [Fifth row, first photo] Photo [Peacock] © 2006 Jupiterimages Corporation;
by Scott Bauer/US Department of Agriculture; [Kangaroo] © 2006 Jupiterimages Corporation;
[Fifth row, second photo] Photo by Jack Dykinga/ [Earth] © 2006 Jupiterimages Corporation
US Department of Agriculture; [Fifth row, third
photo] TSteciw/iStockphoto Page 10: [Eyes, from top to bottom] Dan
Schmitt/iStockphoto; © 2006 Jupiterimages
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Creative Commons; Attribution ShareAlike License © 2006 Jupiterimages Corporation; Steve Geer/
v. 2.5: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- iStockphoto; © 2006 Jupiterimages Corporation;
sa/2.5/; [Egyptian painting] Egyptian antiquities, [Mollusk eye illustration] Monroe W. Strickberger,
Louvre Museum, Paris, photographer: Guillaume Evolution, Third Edition, 2000, Jones and Bartlett
Blanchard, July 2004. Licensed under the Creative Publishers, Sudbury, MA www.jbpub.com, reprinted
Commons; Attribution ShareAlike License v. 2.5: with permission; [Moths] Stephen Dalton/NHPA/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/; Photoshot Holdings
[Scandinavian myth illustration] Northern Antiquities,
1847; [Navajo blanket] In private collection; Page 11: [Discus cichlid] Terry Healy/iStockphoto;
[Michelangelo painting] Photo © Design Pics Inc. [Mbuna cichlid] Joe Nicora/iStockphoto; [Fish
in lake] Mike Liu/iStockphoto; [Kaibab squirrel]
Page 3: [Earth] © 2006 Jupiterimages Corporation; Courtesy Arizona Game and Fish Department;
[Stanley Miller] Courtesy of Scripps Institution of [Grand Canyon] Gary M. Stolz/U. S. Fish and
Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Wildlife Service; [Abert’s squirrel] Courtesy
[Fossil microorganism] Courtesy of J. William Arizona Game and Fish Department; [Viperfish]
Schopf, UCLA; [Mammoth] Paul Senyszyn/ Maher/iStockphoto; [T-Rex] David Coder/
iStockphoto; [Elephant] © 2006 Jupiterimages iStockphoto; [Trilobite] John Archer/iStockphoto;
Corporation [Australopithecus aethiopicus skull] Photo © Bone
Page 4: [Ammonite] © 2006 Jupiterimages Clones® www.boneclones.com
Corporation; [Durodon] University of Michigan Page 12: [Bacteria] CDC/Janice Carr; [Pig]
Exhibit Museum; [Archaeopteryx] Museum für Jeroen Peys/iStockphoto; [Bacterial resistance
Naturkunde Berlin; [Tiktaalik illustration] National illustration] Image courtesy of the UC Museum
Science Foundation and Zina Deretsky; [Tiktaalik of Paleontology’s Understanding Evolution
fossil] Ted Daeschler/© Academy of Natural website (evolution.berkeley.edu); [Coral] © 2006
Sciences/VIREO Jupiterimages Corporation; [Rainforest] Yves
Page 5: [Darwin] Portrait of Charles Darwin Grau/iStockphoto; [Soldier bug] USDA Agricultural
(1809-82), 1840 (w/c on paper) by Richmond, Research Service
George (1809-96), © Down House, Kent, UK/The Page 13: [Chimp skeleton] Photo © Bone Clones®
Bridgeman Art Library; [Finches] Drawing by www.boneclones.com; [Human skeleton]
John Gould in Darwin’s The Zoology of the Voyage Photo © Bone Clones® www.boneclones.com;
of H.M.S. Beagle. Image provided by The Complete [Chimpanzees] © Steve Bloom/stevebloom.com;
Work of Charles Darwin Online. Reproduced [DNA comparison] From: Feuk L, MacDonald
with permission; [Corn] Photo by John Doebley; JR, Tang T, Carson AR, Li M, et al. (2005)
[DNA illustration] NASA Marshall Space Flight Discovery of Human Inversion Polymorphisms by
Center (NASA-MSFC), Illustration by Dr. Frank Comparative Analysis of Human and Chimpanzee
Cucinotta, NASA/Johnson Space Center, and DNA Sequence Assemblies. PLoS Genet 1(4):
Prem Saganti, Lockheed Martin; [Fruit fly] e56. Licensed under the Creative Commons
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& Louise Leakey] Courtesy of Dr. Meave Leakey drawing by Ardea Skybreak and Insight Press;
[Australopithecus garhi skull and Ardipithecus ramidus
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335
336
About The Author
Ardea Skybreak was formally trained as a biologist specializing in evo-
lutionary biology and community ecology. She is committed to broadly
popularizing science and the scientific method. Skybreak feels strongly that
when people are deprived of a scientific approach to reality, they are robbed
of both a full appreciation of the beauty and richness of the natural world
and the means to really understand the dynamics of change in nature and
society.
Skybreak comes from a cosmopolitan background and has traveled
extensively and interacted with people of many different cultures. From
a very early age, she was encouraged to become a critical thinker and sys-
tematically trained as an intellectual in the European tradition. This fueled
a wide and diverse range of interests and passions in a great many spheres
of both arts and sciences.
Skybreak was profoundly influenced during her high school and college
years by the great upheavals of the 1960s and the way in which “revolu-
tion was in the air.” The Vietnam War; Malcolm X; the Black Panthers;
the radical movement for the emancipation of women; China, the Cultural
Revolution, and Mao—were for her, as for so many others, formative.
Pursuing her passion for biology, in the early and mid-1970s Skybreak
accumulated significant research experience in both the lab and the field.
A true explorer, she was at her happiest when she could combine discuss-
ing the latest theoretical concepts with her fellow biologists and slogging
through wet tropical forests on some field research expedition. She taught
college level science, published in professional journals, earned a masters
degree, and was well on her way to earning a PhD in biology.
As a young working scientist, Skybreak was living exactly the life she
wanted to live, but at the same time she continued to be outraged by
social injustice and felt a compelling need for revolutionary change in the
world. Before completing her PhD thesis, she made the difficult decision
to leave the PhD program to devote herself fulltime to broader social and
political commitments. However, she never lost her passion for scientific
investigation, her love of adventure, and her enthusiasm for applying and
337
338 The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism
popularizing the methods of science, without which she feels there can be
no valid understanding of reality or of how to change it.
Ardea’s life experiences and work have taken her from major urban
areas the world over to exotic wilderness locales, from teaching in academia
to working in factories for minimum wage.
She is equally at ease engaging with artists and intellectuals or sitting
with the residents of a housing project around their kitchen table talking
about life and philosophy.
As a writer with a revolutionary communist perspective, she has
explored a wide range of social, political, scientific, and philosophical
topics. Her writings include Of Primeval Steps and Future Leaps: An Essay on
the Emergence of Human Beings, the Source of Women’s Oppression, and the Road
to Emancipation; “Some Ideas on the Social Role of Art”; “Not in Our Genes
and the Waging of the Ideological Counteroffensive”; “Remembering
Stephen Jay Gould”; and “Working with Ideas and Searching for Truth: A
Reflection on Revolutionary Leadership and the Intellectual Process.”
A voracious reader and observer of popular culture, she draws on history,
philosophy, cultural anthropology, political science, art, music, movies—as
well as the natural sciences—to make her subject matter come alive. At the
core of everything she writes, and what her latest book conveys so power-
fully, is the importance of “knowing what’s real—and why it matters.”