29 November 2001, 830 words
I'm not surprised that the author of "Another leap of faith" (Express, 27/11/01) decided to adopt a pseudonym. Signing as 'Leon Patterson', this individual claimed to be a Natural Sciences lecturer at UWI. But, were it not for the assurance of my editor, I would never believe that anyone with even a basic grounding in biology could write an article so rife with bad science, false logic, and outright lies.
Let me deal with the false logic first. 'Patterson', a creationist, throughout the article adopts the principle of "proof by ignorance" - i.e. suggesting that because certain phenomena cannot be explained empirically (e.g. how DNA formed, or the first cells) there must be a supernatural or Divine explanation. This is not an approach that would persuade any competent scientist or philosopher.
Then there is the bad science. 'Patterson' uses the standard creationist argument that a wing or eye could not have evolved, because "half-a-wing is useless for flight" and "the muscles, blood vessels, nerve connections, and light-sensitive pigments within a complicated lens eye all managed to evolve simultaneously from a simpler and adequate pinhole eye."
The core principle of Darwinian evolution, however, is that adaptations occur when small changes take place over thousands and millions of years, with each change giving some reproductive advantage to the individual. A tree-dwelling creature that had webbing that allowed it to leap greater distances would have been more likely to survive falls, evade predators, hunt over a larger area: and therefore leave more offspring which would have inherited its mutation.
The evolution of webbing to wing over a sufficiently long time span is well within the bounds of probability. Ditto for a complex eye from light-sensitive cells. If you find this doubtful, think of the number of different dog types which humans have artificially bred, from Alsatian to Pekinese, within just hundreds or thousands of years from the wolf.
Or consider this thought experiment devised by the evolutionist G. Ledyard Stebbins, who imagines a mouse-sized animal which gets larger by an undetectable ratio every generation. Stebbins calculated that in 12,000 generations, the animal would evolve from the size of a mouse to the size of an elephant. Assuming five years for every generation, this process would take about 60,000 years: an eyeblink in geological time.
'Patterson' is apparently ignorant of these basic facts of evolutionary biology. And it beats me how a lecturer in Natural Sciences could write the following sentence: "The evidence for micro-evolution (the evolution of new genetic varieties and lower taxonomic groups such as genera or species) can be demonstrated readily, leading some to declare evolution as 'fact'; however, the evidence for macroevolution and abiogenesis is much more elusive and can only be inferred."
Apart from the apparent ignorance of Linneanean classification revealed by this argument, 'Patterson' actually admits that there is evidence of the evolution of species, which is macroevolution. So I cannot understand by what sleight-of-mind he then dismisses Darwinian evolution. Moreover, even an undergraduate biology student would know that, under the pressure of natural selection, microevolution must affect macroevolution - well, any biology student who wasn't taught by 'Patterson'.
Finally, there are the outright lies. 'Patterson' writes that "despite more than a century of intensive searches, palaeontologists (who study fossils) have unearthed only a few possible transitional forms..." I do not know how someone who claims to be a natural scientist can be ignorant of the fact that hundreds of transitional fossils have been discovered by palaeontologists. But, in the unlikely even that 'Patterson' is that ignorant, a simple search on the Net would throw up long lists. (The fact is, though, that even if there were no examples of transitional fossils, the evidence from genetics, biochemistry, anatomy, zoology, botany and geology would still point to Darwinian evolution.)
Even more outright a lie is 'Patterson' quoting the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins as writing that the origin of life on Earth was the outcome of "sheer naked coincidence [and] unadulterated miraculous luck". The only context in which Dawkins, undoubtedly the UK's most prominent atheist, would have said this (and 'Patterson', of course, does not give the source) was to ridicule the simplistic arguments of creationists.
In fact, in his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins has a whole chapter on this issue of luck and writes: "The origin of life can be a very improbable event indeed by our everyday standards, or indeed by the standards of the chemistry laboratory, and still be sufficiently probable to have occurred, not just once but many times, all over the universe."
Finally, 'Patterson' writes that he respects my opinions but not my "arrogance and intolerance". It is true that I am very intolerant: specifically, of liars and people who deliberately perpetuate ignorance. I have noticed, however, that religious believers tend to be quite tolerant of such persons: which is one reason among many that I prefer to be an atheist.
Copyright©2001 Kevin Baldeosingh