Back to School Part IX

We continue to examine the work of authors George Johnson and Jonathan Losos in their biology textbook, The Living World ((Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008). In their chapter on evolution and natural selection, these accomplished evolutionists begin by (1) misrepresenting the relationship between microevolution and macroevolution and biological variation here, (2) making a non scientific, metaphysical, truth claim that just happens to mandate the truth of evolution here, (3) making the grossly false statement that the fossils themselves are a factual observation that macroevolution has occurred here and here, (4) making a series of misrepresentations by carefully selecting the evidence to provide to the student and protecting it with circular reasoning here, (5) misrepresenting the molecular evidence here, (6) presenting the student with a blatantly false history of evolutionary theory here, (7) introducing the usual if-and-only-if evolutionary reasoning here, (8) repeating the centuries old religious argument that bad design proves evolution here, and (9) making a fallacious argument that evolution’s low probability events are not actually low probability after all here.

After this incredible litany of evolutionary canards one might wonder when the lies are going to stop. Unfortunately not yet. Johnson and Losos’ next move is to address the question of mechanism. We have discovered phenomenally sophisticated mechanisms that allow organisms to adapt to challenging conditions. And we know how breeders can produce different plant varieties and animal breeds. But how does macroevolution come about? How do new designs and body plans arise? The answer given by Johnson and Losos is problematic:

Is microevolution (evolution within a species) the mechanism that has produced macroevolution (evolution among species)? Most biologists that have studied the problem think so. [302]

This logic is so riddled with problems it is difficult to know where to start. What Johnson and Losos have in mind when they refer to “most biologists” is, of course, evolutionists. Evolution skeptics certainly do not think it is obvious that adaptation mechanisms also produce entirely new designs.

But evolutionists are people who dogmatically insist that evolution is an obvious fact—beyond a shadow of a doubt. It would be perverse and irrational, they say, to doubt it. Thus there is a credibility problem, for Johnson and Losos are using the testimony of people who insist the unlikely must be a fact. This evolutionary mandate is driven by metaphysical concerns, so immediately there is the question of tainted testimony.

This question also arises for a second reason. Setting aside evolution’s metaphysical undermining of science, the mere fact that the testimony is from evolutionists means Johnson and Losos argument is circular. The problem is that arguments between evolutionists about mechanism are based on the assumption evolution is true in the first place.

In other words, the question for evolutionists is not whether known biological mechanisms explain the large-scale change evolution requires. The question, rather, is given the fact of evolution, do known mechanisms explain the large-scale change needed? If the answer is “no,” then the premise that evolution is a fact is undermined. Obviously evolutionists have a motive to answer “yes.”

So Johnson and Losos base their argument on testimony from people with questionable scientific credibility in general, and strong potential bias on this particular question. Right from the start we have problems.

But let’s set these problems aside for the moment and examine the argument. According to Johnson and Losos, most evolutionists think microevolution mechanisms are also the mechanisms behind macroevolution.

This is probably true, but it is by no means a given, even amongst evolutionists. There certainly are evolutionists who conclude that macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution.

This sentiment may not be held by the majority of evolutionists, but it certainly is a legitimate position within evolutionary thought. And importantly, the majority seems to rely more on inertia than data.

Stephen Jay Gould often complained about a textbook orthodoxy that uncritically passes on the doctrine of microevolutionary mechanisms as sufficient to explain all of evolutionary history, without support. The rapid appearance of biology’s new designs, Gould elaborated, cannot simply be explained as extrapolations from Darwinian changes which we observe in modern populations.

Evolutionists don’t necessarily agree, but then again they don’t have a convincing explanation of just how such extrapolations occur. It is convenient to point to the results of breeders and the adaptations we observe in nature, but even the complex mechanisms behind these changes do not provide us with scientific evidence that they also can produce entirely new designs and body plans.

All of this is well known and that fact makes Johnson and Losos’ argument particulary stunning. Yes, the majority of evolutionists probably would agree that microevolutionary mechanisms are all sufficient. But that is hardly a sufficient rebuttal to the problem as Johnson and Losos present it to be.

How could Johnson and Losos possibly present such a misleading argument to the unsuspecting student? How could the small army of reviewers allow for this misrepresentation, and how can educators allow for such stilted logic, while teaching the student that critical thinking is paramount?

The answer is that evolution has substantially damaged science, and the teaching of science. Religion drives science and it matters.