Darwinists, Creationists and Evolution

Johnson produced a classic piece of disinformation. By liberal use of the word random , Johnson hints at the popular misconception that Darwinian evolution is random. Not so: Natural selection is highly directed. Johnson claims that natural selection lacks “the required creative power” to explain adaptation of organisms. Numerous experiments show this claim to be absurd. Finally, Johnson states that fossil lineages lack gradual transformations among species. Actually, such transformations are common, whether in Paleozoic trilobites, Mesozoic reptiles or Cenozoic mammals. To be sure, transformations in many other lineages are abrupt. In these cases, Harvard’s Stephen J. Gould and others invoke evolutionary mechanisms other than natural selection, but emphatically do not conclude that there has been no evolution!

These misrepresentations pale in comparison with Johnson’s claim that science “involves proof by experiments and observation.” Actually, what is essential is the possibility of disproof . The only worthwhile scientific hypotheses are those capable of being falsified. To take an example, Darwin pointed out several ways to falsify his hypothesis that natural selection is the major mechanism of evolution.

Contrary to Johnson’s claim, scientists are not conspiring to ignore the “hypothesis” that God has guided evolution. Instead, it is simply not obvious how “hypotheses” requiring divine intervention can be made falsifiable, and thus scientific. One might proceed by considering that the “hypothesis” that God created life will be falsified if scientists succeed in making life in a test tube, and the “hypothesis” that God created species separately will be falsified if scientists experimentally transform one species into two.

But will Johnson and his supporters really agree that their religious beliefs are subject to disproof by criteria such as these?

NICKOLAS M. WASER

MARY V. PRICE

Professors of Biology

UC Riverside