Evolution, Schmevolution

Back in November I believe, the Daily Show with John Stewart on Comedy Central had a four part program on the theory of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design (ie Creationism dressed up to look scientific). Lately, I have been thinking more on this rather hot issue. Indeed, 80 years after the Clarence Darrow trial aka "The Scopes Monkey Trial," teaching Evolution in school is still hotly debated. I am in agreement with one of the panelists that John had on the show in the 4th showing of the series, that school boards should let teachers decide what to teach and butt out of their curiculum. If parents don't like it, they can move their child somewhere that teaches something more to their liking, or teach them what they believe themselves.

So, my thoughts on this issue? Simply put, evolution is fact, not theory. A statement echoed by Carl Sagon in his award winning PBS series Cosmos (which is being rebroadcast on the Science Channel). Dr. Sagon, and many others in the fields of Biology point to nature for their examples of evolution. There is far too much biodiversity and too many living examples of evolution. Even now, when we have mapped the human genome, we have found that we are genetically related to every living creature, plant or animal, on this planet. Seems plain to me that if there were a Supreme Being who directly created us out of clay molding as the Bible suggests, there would be absolutely no gentic similarities whatsoever. What attributes to the lack of acceptance of such a proven concept? Well, two reasons stand out in my mind. One, a fundamental lack of understanding of just how the evolutionary process works and two, the fact that your mind has to think logically and scientifically to understand the evidence presented. I will attempt to explain it in a understandable way.

The first problem is that human arrogance leads us to believe that we are the end result, that the idea is we went from monkeys, to hominids, to neanderthals, to modern humans. Creationists grasp on this concept and point out that the fossil records show many of the "links in the chain" occurred at the same time, the most prominent example being that for a period of about 10 or 20 thousand years, neanderthals and modern humans (cro magnon) co-existed. However, according to evolution, this is not how it works. The key to evolution is diversity. Even Darwin knew that. To continue to use neanderthals and cro magnon's as examples, our species and the neanderthal species were two branches on the same bush, as were the other hominids. Essentily the human bush. Cro magnon (us) had the benefit of being the only branch that survived (although recent evidence suggests that another branch of humans, pygmy humans or "hobbits" as some have called them, who were approx. an average of 1 meter tall, had survived until roughly 13,000 years ago whereas neandthals died out roughly 30,000 years ago). Apes, which Creationists are fond of saying that we Evolutionists claim we descended from them, would be a completely seperate bush, with Gorillas, Orangotans, and the various other species of primates being being branches of the primate bush. Its more accurate to say we descended from a common ancestor, an animal that was neither monkey nor human but had features of both. At some point they would have diverged into the two bushes of today, the monkey bush and the human bush. Carl Sagan had a very good explanation of how evolution works, relating artificial selection (human selection) to natural selection (see the story "The Mystery of the Samurai Crab" Cosmos 2, Chapt. 3, 10 min.).

The second road block to understanding evolution is a bit more difficult to overcome. You can't educate everyone on biology, science, etc so that they can understand these concepts. The simple fact is that people have an easier time believing in what is easy for them to understand. To most people, a supreme being creating humanity is an easier concept to grasp than understanding the underlying biological principals that lead to the evolutionary process. But when you read (or listen) to Carl Sagan's explanation of how the evolutionary process functions, he describes it in a very beautifully simple way that (hopefully) most "lamen" people could understand (if they would listen). In today's world of uncertainty, we need to turn to people who provide a well thought out, fact based explanation using scientific concepts and principals, rather than listening to people who comfort us with lies and misinformation (whether or not they believe in such rubbish). Sometimes fact is truer than truth.

In conclusion, I'll leave you with this final quote:
"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
- Theodosius Dodzhansky, 1973

Update (2/13/2008):
I found video's to The Daily Show's series Evolution, Schmevolution. The first is a video of a panel he did with experts in Evolutionary Science, Religious Creationism, and some nut hippie. If you do a search for "Evolution" you'll find some interesting clips on The Daily Show website.

Daily Show: Evolution, Schmevolution Panel