The Real Difference Between Theories, Laws
As a scientist I have respect for scientists, but the Jan. 9 guest column, “The Difference between theories and laws,” was so full of creationist nonsense that it requires an answer from another scientist.
There is no difficulty with the authors’ definitions for hypothesis and law. The definitions appear to be copied from the American Heritage Dictionary (accessible through Yahoo), but the definition the authors used for theory is seriously misleading. It, too, is apparently copied from the dictionary, but of the six definitions listed for theory, it is the sixth definition, the common, unscientific one, they chose to use: “An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.”
The first definition is the scientific one: “A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.” Use the right definition, and the authors’ complaints about evolution being only a theory can be rightly dismissed.
Apparently, the authors are unaware that science never “proves” anything without a doubt, since no scientist can collect or test every relevant fact in the universe. Scientists are never certain that an exception to a theory does not exist. Everything in science is tentative. For example, Newton’s Laws of Motion were overturned by Einstein when new data demonstrated that Newton’s Laws did not fully explain the data.
The opinion piece continues with a few old creationist charges that are so poor that a premier creationist organization, Answers in Genesis, has published a document for its readers urging them to stop discrediting the creationist cause by continuing to use them. Creationists should read AIG’s web document, “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use.”
— As early as 350 B.C., Aristotle argued that the earth was round. Educated Greeks and Romans agreed, as did scholars during the European Dark Ages. The idea that those scholars believed in a flat earth is largely a myth of the 1800s, as demonstrated by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould’s article, “The Late Birth of a Flat Earth.” Scientists did not promote belief in a flat earth.
— The “Where are the transitional species (i.e., missing links)?” charge is another creationist ploy. Science keeps finding more transitional species, but for creationists, it’s never enough. Anthropologists have found convincing evidence that pre-human species moved into environments favoring walking rather than living in trees. Evolving man replaced more primitive pre-human species that could not compete with us in our living space, not chimps. Chimps are still around, because we don’t generally live in jungles and trees. That difference historically protected apes from extinction, but not for long now as humans destroy the jungles and kill apes for “bush meat.”
— The most laughable charge is the authors’ contention that evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law roughly states that energy will eventually assume its least useful state in a closed system where no additional energy is added. The earth is not a closed system. We have a sun that continues to supply ample energy needs for life on earth, including evolution. Simply growing up or even breathing would be a reversal of the Second Law if the earth was a closed system. Most creationists including AIG have stopped using this argument.
Evolution has had 145 years of research and tens of thousands of papers and scientists testing it. Intelligent design proponents have yet to devise a research program to test their ideas. If gaps in evolutionary research are support for ID, then as science closes the gaps, the intelligent designer becomes more superfluous. Why put the intelligent designer in such a demeaning position? Frankly, the beauty and intricacy of the evolution of life through time developing into the marvelous biological world in which we live is proof enough that the intelligent designer knew very well what he or she was doing with evolutionary processes.
The charge of conspiracy that scientists are misleading the public to protect science is lamentable. Most any scientist would love to insure his or her everlasting fame by developing a scientific theory that successfully replaces a current theory. The fact that scientists have to keep refuting false and misleading creationist charges makes one wonder where the real conspiracy actually is.
If other “flaws” in evolutionary theory are of the same caliber as those listed in the article in question, I doubt science has much to worry about except for the apparent pervasiveness of ignorance over knowledge in America today.
W. Konrad Crist has been a practicing geologist and geophysicist for 25 years and has three college degrees in earth science and geology. He lives in Wellsville.