John Rennie discusses Creation Science John Rennie, the Editor in Chief of Scientific American wrote an article on Creation Science entitled Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense I read the article, and wrote a critique of his reasoning. Here is a brief excerpt:
5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution. Evolutionary biologists passionately debate diverse topics: how speciation happens, the rates of evolutionary change, the ancestral relationships of birds and dinosaurs, whether Neandertals were a species apart from modern humans, and much more.
Call me crazy, but aren’t the first two at the very heart of evolution? If they are in debate, then isn’t the whole theory debatable? Mr. Rennie is in the unadmirable position of saying, “We know it happens, but we aren’t quite sure how it happens, why it happens, how long it takes, and oh by the way, we’ve never seen it happen.”12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve.
Speciation is probably fairly rare and in many cases might take centuries. Furthermore, recognizing a new species during a formative stage can be difficult, because biologists sometimes disagree about how best to define a species. The most widely used definition, Mayr's Biological Species Concept, recognizes a species as a distinct community of reproductively isolated populations--sets of organisms that normally do not or cannot breed outside their community.Here is the key: “…because biologists sometimes disagree about how best to define a species.”
Isn’t it a bit problematic to try and describe how speciation occurs when you can’t even agree on the definition of ‘species’?
If your interest is piqued, read the rest here.
Posted by Rich at June 24, 2002 11:36 PM