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| Paul Braterman |
Prof
Braterman holds the degrees of MA (1st cl. Hons), DPhil,
DSc from the University of Oxford, and has spent his professional
career at the University of Glasgow, and the University of North
Texas, where he was Regents Professor. While in Texas, he came into
contact with biblical creationism, and observed its corrosive impact
on science education. He has worked on problems in chemistry related
to the origins of life, and to conditions on the early Earth, and has
served as an adviser to NASA’s Astrobiology Institute. He is now a
committee member of the British Centre for Science Education, which
exists largely to resist creationist infiltration. In this piece, he
responds on behalf of the (United Kingdom) National Secular Society.
This is a non-party-political organisation with members from across
the social and political spectrum. Honorary Associates include MPs
and peers, as well as leading figures from politics, journalism, law
and the arts.
Evolution
is real science; creationism is fake philosophy
A reply
to O Evolucionismo e o Criacionismo à luz do Método Científico (read this article below)
Evolution is not an optional
Cosmovisão but a fundamental scientific theory, and one of the most
successful scientific theories of all time. Biblical creationism is
not a Cosmovisão
either, but a set of factually
mistaken beliefs about the world and the Bible.
Prof Vieira argues
that the present-day theory of evolution, and biblical creationism,
are not in fact rival theories, but representations of differing
untestable Cosmovisões, and that the difference between them is
philosophical rather than scientific. He is mistaken on every count.
Evolution is a scientific theory, not only about the past, but about
processes operating and observable in the present. It has made
numerous successful predictions and passed many severe experimental
tests. It explains facts that could not even have been imagined when,
150 years ago, the theory was put forward in its modern form. The
creation story of Genesis can be tested against observation, and
fails. It makes statements contrary to known fact, so that, however
great its significance to us, we cannot regard it as an accurate
historical narrative.
Prof Vieira claims that there is no
scientific evidence for evolution. He is wrong. Two excellent books
presenting this evidence, both available in Portuguese, are A
Historia De Quando Eramos Peixes by Neil Shubin, and A
Evidência da Evolução; Porque é que Darwin tinha razão
by his colleague at the University of Chicago, Jerry Coyne. There is
also an
excellent on-line site, with hundreds of references to
the primary literature, summarising the main arguments, and new
findings supporting and illustrating the fact of evolution are
reported every day.
Shubin’s book begins with a
beautiful example of evolution as a predictive theory. Lower Devonian
rocks contain no land vertebrates. Upper Devonian rocks contain
plenty. Therefore evolution predicts that there should be fossil
evidence for intermediate forms somewhere in the middle Devonian. The
earliest known land vertebrates are amphibians, which would have
required fresh water, and this and other detailed arguments suggested
that rocks around 375 million years old, formed in river deltas,
would be the best place to look. Prof Shubin and his colleagues
mounted an expedition to a location in the Canadian Arctic where such
rocks were exposed, and discovered the predicted intermediate form, a
fish with a wrist, which they called Tiktaalik.
Notice that if these rocks had shown a sudden transition without
intermediates, or if they had been full of rabbits, dinosaurs, or
fried chicken bones, this would have disproved the evolutionary
account.
Coyne’s book lays out with great
clarity the facts that are explained by evolution, all of them
examples of the “evidências palpáveis” in support of evolution,
“que possam ser submetidas ao escrutínio do Método Científico”,
whose existence the learned Professor denies. These include (a) the
way living things can be arranged in families on the basis of their
anatomy, (b) copious fossil forms (of which Tiktaalik is one
example) showing how different categorias biológicas
are descended from a common ancestry, (c) our
knowledge of how new species arise (Prof Coyne is also an author of
the more technical book Speciation),
(d) the family trees deduced from DNA evidence, (e) the fact that
these three independent methods – anatomical relationship, fossil
record, and DNA comparison – give the same tree, or rather
branching bush, of life, and (f) the examples of evolution that we
see all around us. In addition (g), we can and do perform laboratory
experiments that demonstrate and elucidate evolution, and (h) the
whole of plant and animal breeding consists of evolutionary processes
harnessed to our wishes, with artificial selection replacing natural
selection.
Prof Veiera presents two kinds of
reason for his claim that evolution is not science. One is the fact
that it does not explain the origin of life, the Solar System, or the
Universe. But this is no argument at all. Atomic theory does not
explain the origin of atoms, the Solar System, or the Universe, but
no one doubts that it is a scientific theory. The other one is that
it does not explain the transformação das espécies do nível de
Ordem para o nível de Família na Taxonomia Biológica aceita
modernamente. As we have seen, this is not true. Shubin’s book, for
example, gives a very clear account of the origin of the
transformação of fish to amphibians, and Carl Zimmer’s A
Beira d'Agua, Macroevolução e a Transformação da Vida
describes the transformação of land mammals to whales. But even if
it were true, a theory should not be rejected just because there are
things we cannot yet explain. Unanswered questions are as essential
to all kinds of science as unquestioned answers are to some kinds of
religion.
Regarding biblical creationism, this
does make some very precise and verifiable claims. It asserts, for
example (Genesis 1:20 – 25), that birds and whales were created
before land animals. Now we know that birds are descended from land
dinosaurs, and that whales (free review article here;
also Carl Zimmer’s book mentioned above) are descended from
terrestrial mammals. So we must infer that if, as Prof Vieira
believes, God is responsible for the content of Genesis 1, He did not
intend it to be used as a biology textbook. I note in passing that
many Christians, including Catholics, Episcopalians, and Methodists,
have no problem with the fact of evolution, and that only extreme
Evangelical groups, such as the adventistas do sétimo dia to
which Prof Veiera belongs, regard Genesis as a literal
historical record.
Finally, does it matter? Yes, to
Brazil’s past, present, and future. Regarding the past, the mineral
wealth of Brazil can only be understood using genuine science,
including evolution and its companion, deep-time geochemistry. For
example, the banded iron-formations of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero
in Minas Gerais owe their existence to the release of oxygen by
photosynthesizing bacteria more than two billion years ago, and the
oil and gas of the continental shelf were formed by the decay of
ancient organisms in the Cretaceous. The present includes the
responsibility of managing the Amazon basin, something that can only
be done wisely by respecting the evolved relationships between its
many species. And all of us will need real science, and a recognition
of scientific reality, as humankind faces its troubling and unsettled
future.
Paul S. Braterman,
Professor Emeritus, University of North Texas
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Chemistry, University of Glasgow
48 Nith Street, Glasgow G33 2AF, Scotland, UK
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Chemistry, University of Glasgow
48 Nith Street, Glasgow G33 2AF, Scotland, UK
@paulbraterman http://paulbraterman.
My first non-technical book, From Stars to Stalagmites, http://www.rsc.
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British Centre for Science Education (BCSE)