Evolutionary predictions from RE: Assurance of faith

>Therefore the best we can do in evolutionary theory is to indicate some basic scientific processes that can be studied in the lab and say that with the aid of those processes all came to be. What is then the difference between Genesis and evolutionary theory? Quantum mechanics is a deterministic theory and indeterminism is a consequence of measurements. Theories in physics still can prescribe outcomes and attach unambiguous probabilities to all possible outcomes. Evolutionary theory can never achieve that owing to the complexity of the problem and so is replete with unproven assumptions, e.g. that life results from non-living matter, etc.<

But this is no different from the efforts to apply the theories of physics to cosmology. Both theories in physics and evolutionary theories can make very specific, testable predictions about a small, well-constrained system. They can also provide retrodictions about the sorts of patterns that we ought to see when looking at evidence of past events (e.g., laws of physics suggesting a range of H/He/Li/Be ratios produced by the Big Bang; evolutionary theories suggesting the sorts of transitional forms to expect in the fossil record). Both in physics and in evolutionary biology, there are areas of uncertainty, competing models, inadequate data, etc., but this does not negate the general credibility of the conventional models.

I think the main problem here is semantic confusion about what we mean by evolution. Certainly, all the details of biological evolution, starting from abiotic precursors and ending with the modern diversity of organisms, are not worked out the way one could apply F=Gmm/rr to two objects of known mass, but that is not a very equivalent comparison.

    Dr. David Campbell
    Old Seashells
    University of Alabama
    Biodiversity & Systematics
    Dept. Biological Sciences
    Box 870345
    Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
    bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com

That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa

                 
Received on Thu Mar 25 15:48:45 2004