Ten myths about evolution.

Darwin's tree of life. 

This is part of my series on myths about science (index).

Perhaps the most misunderstood topic in all of the sciences is evolution. Despite being one of the most successful paradigms ever, over 40% of Americans deny it and accept the idea that man was directly created in his current form in the recent past (Gallup, 2014). Anecdotally, however, much of this rejection doesn't seem to based on any sort of strong dogma. Many people are simply unaware of the facts behind the science.

I was once like this too. Like many of my fellow southerners, I was failed by the public school system and absorbed bad arguments from the culture around me. It was not until I started taking introductory science classes in college that someone who really knew their stuff explained to me how evolution works and why it is accepted universally by biologists.

The following list consists of common objections that I once believed to be true, yet were disproved by taking one intro class or by reading a popular level book. If you enjoy it, then please comment and share. I love feedback.

1: Survival of the fittest.

"Survival of the fittest means only the strong and ruthless survive." While many of us have heard this since we were children, this understanding is completely wrong. What is meant by "survival" is merely an organism passing on its genes to the next generation (i.e., having children). And "fittest" means organisms who are better adapted for their immediate, local environment. Thus, taken together, "survival of the fittest" means: the organisms which are the most likely to pass on copies of their genes to future generations are those who are better adapted to their immediate, local environment.

It should also be noted that many of the strategies used by organisms to last long enough to pass on their genes (i.e., mimicry, camouflage, reciprocal altruism) have nothing to do with strength or ruthlessness. 

2: There is no proof/just a theory

The idea that there is no evidence for evolution may be the biggest misconception in all of the sciences. Evolution is one of the most studied, successful, and supported theories ever. It is supported by evidence from all branches of biology. Most notably genetics, homology, paleontology, embryology, observed instances of evolution, and the geographical distribution of animals.

To see why the "its only a theory" objection is flawed, you need to understand what scientists mean by "theory." Rather than meaning "a hunch," they mean something like "a testable and well-confirmed explanation which organizes data and yields fruitful predictions." This is why the idea that diseases are largely caused by bacteria and viruses is called "germ theory." This explanation organizes mountains of data on diseases into a unified picture and has allowed scientists to make predictions.

3: The ladder of progress

Many people believe that evolution means that all living things are improving towards a perfect state. This is usually envisioned as a ladder with man at the top striving towards godhood with all other living things occupying lower spots on the ladder and striving to be like man. These lower living things are ranked and given their spot on the ladder based on how similar to man they are. The more like man they are in appearance, the higher their ranking is on the ladder. This idea, however, is not compatible with modern evolutionary science. In modern biology, living things are not striving towards being more like man. As we discussed in misconception #1, organisms are merely trying to pass on their genes. That's it.

The idea of a ladder of progress is actually a pre-Darwinian concept. The "great chain of being," as it is usually called, is the idea that there is a hierarchy of perfection that starts with God and descends downward through all other living things. This positions man under the angels and the other spiritual beings and then all other life under man. This idea is an adaptation of concepts found in the biological writings of Aristotle and the cosmogony of the Neoplatonists. It was later adopted from these sources and synthesized into the theology of the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas. 

4: The missing link

Perhaps the most popular belief in our culture is that there is a missing link between man and apes and this absence is a reason for doubting the cogency of evolution.  This criticism, however, misunderstands man's relationship to the other apes (chimps, bonobos, gorillas, gibbons, and orangutans). Biologists do not think we "came from" any one of these animals. They think we share common ancestors with them. These ancestors, such as the one we share with chimps, would be just as genetically different from chimps as it would be from us. This idea can be understood by the family analogy. Just like we share a common ancestor with our cousin (our grandparents), we share a common ancestor with chimps. For our more distant, second cousins (such as gorillas), you have to go back a further generation to great grandparents.

While the fossil record will always be incomplete because only a fraction of one percent of dead organisms fossilize, there is an absolute ton of amazing fossils left over from this branching process. I highly recommend reading up on them.

5: Evolution is random

It is certainly true that one of the two pillars of Darwinism is random mutation. If you are unfamiliar with random mutation, it refers to the fact that when genes are passed on to the next generation, they are not copied perfectly. These tiny differences usually do nothing, but sometimes they make the offspring slightly faster or slightly better a camouflaging themselves. These modifications accumulate overtime as genes are inherited from generation to generation (they do not "start over," which is every important).

Natural selection, the second pillar of Darwinism, favors organisms that have those slight advantages. As generations pass and the fastest and best camouflaged organisms of each generation survive longer and have more offspring than their competition, the species as a whole changes. For example, suppose we have a population of mice living in an environment where being brown is a massive advantage. The browner mice will live longer than their less brown relatives. Their even browner offspring also will tend to survive longer and have more babies than their less brown siblings. As this pattern of survival by being brown proliferates over time, the mice population will become increasingly brown. This is how natural (non random) selection interacts with accumulated random mutations to drive evolution.

6: People come from monkeys

As I talked about in #4, people did not come from modern day monkeys. Instead, we share a common ancestor with them. This misconception is one of the major reasons why people expect there to be a "missing link." It should also be said that the reason that monkeys are not turning into people (as discussed in #3) is that evolution is not a directed process of being more manlike.

7: Nature's perfect balance

Nature is usually believed to be a harmonious whole which is in perfect balance. On the environmental level, however, this is false. The environment is in constant flux from external factors (meteors, etc...) and internal factors (the gradual moving of tectonic plates, the accumulation of certain gases in the atmosphere). These changes move the survival goalposts and force organisms to come up with new adaptations or perish.

As #5 points out, random mutation also means organisms slowly change. As small modifications accumulate in a lineage, organisms gain new abilities which are then selected for or against by their environment. This is quite different from how creationists think about animals. Unlike biologists, they believe that "dogs stay dogs (this is ironic because humans selectively bred dogs from wolves)" and "cats stay cats (again, ironic)."

8: Creationism disproves evolution

No it doesn't. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming (see no. 4) and the evidence for creationism is non-existent. If anything, evolution disproves the versions of creationism that are incompatible with it. If you would like to see point by point rebuttals of creationist arguments that are not included in this post, please visit Talk Origins.  

9: Intelligent Design is science

Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) is not a coherent theory. It is just creationism in a lab coat. To quote IDC proponent Paul Nelson:

Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a problem. Without a theory, it’s very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’ and ‘specified complexity’-but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.

Unlike IDC, evolution is a full-fledged theory. It unifies all areas of modern biology into a coherent framework, it informs biologists which puzzles they should work on, it makes novel predictions, and has great explanatory scope. IDC does not do any of this.

  

10: Evolution is immoral

This objection could be taken two different ways. The first is that natural selection favors organisms that are selfish and backstabbing. This means that it literally breeds for traits that are immoral. However many organisms survive long enough to pass on their genes because they use strategies like sharing food with their relatives. Bats, for example, share with their brethren who did not successfully acquire food. Likewise, bats who do not share become pariahs and their brethren will not help them if they are unsuccessful a following night. Human beings have evolved a very strong moral sense. Despite popular conceptions, the overwhelming number of human interactions are cooperative. .

The other way this claim could be interpreted is that if evolution is true, there can be no ultimate grounds for morality. While some very respected philosophers like Richard Joyce and Alexander Rosenberg believe this, does not eliminate ethics. Since Ancient Greece, philosophers have been doing morality without any appeal to the supernatural. These scholars charge that biology affects their ethical ideas in a positive way by illuminating how the world works. This, they argue, allows them to more effectively bring about what they think ought to be the case.

Conclusion

I hope that this helps you in your journey to understand science better and elucidate it to the general public. If you want to know more about any of the points that I discussed above, then consult the recommended reading list that is listed below. Those listed are among my favorite works in popular science and, at least it seems to me, are highly worth the read.

Recommended Reading

Alex Rosenberg's Philosophy of Biology explains all of the philosophical underpinnings of modern biology. It is also where I got my definition for survival of the fittest.

Neil Shubin's magisterial documentary, Your Inner Fish shows the stunning evidence that supports evolutionary theory. Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True also meticulously lays out the evidence in support of evolution. Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters is an excellent account of the fossil record.

Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker is a tour-de-force explanation of the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection. For my money, it is also the best work of popular science ever written.

Barbara Forrest's Creationism's Trojan Horse documents how the modern intelligent design movement is simply rebranded creationism.

Simon Blackburn's Being Good is a great introduction to ethics. If you want to learn about prosocial behavior in animals, then read Jessica Pierce's excellent Wild Justice.

Cameron Smith's The Top Ten Myths About Evolution is an excellent book. When I was trying to decide what to include on this list, I consulted it. This led be to use 9/10 of the categories that Dr. Smith outlined. This book also does a great job teaching the science needed to fill the voids created by abandoning creationism