Re: Why Darwin's still a scientific hotshot
Quote:
Evolution is a law (with several components) that is as well substantiated as any other natural law, whether the law of gravity, the laws of motion or Avogadro's law.
Okay, i gotta question this statement. Out of the whole quote, which i mostly agree with, this one runs counter to my understanding of evolution. Not gonna argue with a PhD, of course, but for my own understanding:
What does the law of evolution say?
When i read about life forms that are described as unchanged (or more carefully, 'nearly unchanged') since the time of blah-blah, while other species or even orders changed or even started in the interim, that's never been a problem for me because i never thought any life form HAD to evolve. If it's either adaptable enough for many environs, or extremely adapted to the one environ it lives in, if it never faces a stressor that the gene pool needs to overcome, that random mutations never get the nod as being worth retaining over existing gene traits, it'll never evolve.
A 'law' of evolution would make it predictable, nu?
I always understood 'evolution' more as a scorecard, a result, than a law. We compare a gene pool at two different times, and if there are measurable differences in the genes, then we can say that evolution has happened.
Evolution as fact, no issue, as a theory, no problem. Would really like an explanation of the Law of Evolution, though. And someone needs to tell the guys at Talk Origins who say there never will be one.
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