SYNOPSIS: This is a 1-part response to the evolution vs. creationism issues
raised by David Wolfe's/Nature's First Law's recent "Science or science?"
posting here on Raw-Food that was based on creationist Phillip Johnson's
book "Darwin on Trial." For those who have some interest, but limited
patience, this is the "short" or "lite" version. I am also posting
concurrently an in-depth 4-part "official" industrial-strength version :-)
supported by more citations of the evidence and web links that reference
the evidence, to go on record in the Raw-Food archives. (Since this short
version is a stripped-down, condensed, and only somewhat rewritten version
of the longer version, I would suggest if you have interest you would
probably want to read either one or the other to avoid repetition. For
those who happen to see this elsewhere and don't have access to the
Raw-Food list, send me email if you would like the full version, and I'll
forward a copy to you.)

Just to be clear, the relevance of these issues to diet springs from the
fact that evolution undercuts the idea that purely vegetarian diets are the
"original" or "natural" human diet, since it shows from a number of lines
of evidence that humans have been omnivores since their inception. (It
solidly upholds a raw or predominantly raw diet, however.) There may of
course be other reasons for eating a vegetarian diet, but promoting it on
the basis it is humanity's "natural" diet based on scientific evidence is
to do so under false pretenses. This means that the only real recourse for
those promoting a vegetarian or fruitarian diet based on such grounds
(naturalism) is to attack evolution, which is the stance David's "Science
or science?" posting takes in utilizing creationist arguments.

Along with the refutations of creationism given here, there are also
pointers to easily accessed web links for further reading, which in most
cases (not all) are themselves supported by references to the peer-reviewed
scientific literature. Many of these links are from the
http://www.talkorigins.org (Talk.Origins) website, the collective effort of
many individuals (often researchers) who are also regulars on the
talk.origins newsgroup, which is the internet's focal point for evolution
vs. creationism debate. If something in this response is not referenced for
further reading, chances are good you will still be able to find more
in-depth material there with a little searching.

After outlining the refutations to creationism, the concluding section here
takes a look at how it can still be possible to believe in both evolution
and God (or supreme being, ground of being, etc.) for those who may have
trouble with evolution on those grounds.

----------

CREATIONIST ASSERTIONS AND THEIR REFUTATIONS

One can break down the arguments advanced in Phillip Johnson's book "Darwin
on Trial" and "Science or science?" into seven main lines, which are also
representative of most of the ones advanced by creationists as a group:

ASSERTION #1. There are no transitional forms between species in the fossil
record as evolution predicts there should be. Or at least so few or so
shakily supported by evidence as to be virtually none, and therefore
meaningless against the overall backdrop of gaps between the "sudden"
appearance of whole and complete new species seen in the fossil record.

REFUTATION: Simply false. There are literally hundreds of them, if not
thousands. Creationists either don't bother to look, or skate away from the
evidence by taking the impossible-to-reason-with position that no matter
how close the resemblance is between two successive forms in the fossil
record, it's still a "gap." Obviously they can take this infinite regress
as far as they like. For a compilation of the many known transitional
fossil forms, with accompanying analysis as to exactly why they are
transitional, click on the link
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html, titled "Transitional
Vertebrate Fossils FAQ," by Kathleen Hunt <[log in to unmask]>. There
are at least one hundred if not a couple of hundred or more examples (and
it is a partial list at that) of transitional forms here discussed in
meticulous detail. Some of these are direct species-to-species transitions,
not simply group to group (at the genus level or higher), thus effectively
eliminating the creationist objection of still-remaining gaps between. This
link is replete with references to the scientific literature (approximately
80-90 refs in all).

ASSERTION #2. Micromutation may exist (exemplified by the mechanisms of
random mutation and natural selection), but it does not (and cannot in
principle) explain the macromutational leaps required to create wholly
different species or new types of organisms and structures. Therefore some
"miracle factor" or unknowable "mystery factor" is required.

REFUTATION: Again, simply false. While there is much about macroevolution
that is still unknown, several mechanisms have now been discovered to
generate macroevolutionary change. In addition, there are numerous examples
of gradual transition (microevolutionary) sequences in the fossil record
that, by the time the end of the sequence is reached, demonstrate
significant anatomical changes in form from the beginning to the end of the
sequence--in stepwise fashion--so that one can actually observe the
sequence of microevolutionary changes culminating in macroevolutionary
change. Again, see Kathleen Hunt's "Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ"
for examples of this at the above link.

A few of the genetic mechanisms that directly cause macroevolutionary
change have also already been uncovered (here quoting biologist Kenneth
Miller of Brown University in his 1996 online debate with Phillip Johnson
at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/odyssey/debate/):

    ...[A] number of well-understood mechanisms, including single gene
    mutations, produce changes that qualify as macroevolution. These
    include heterochronic mutations that alter structures by changing
    growth rates, homeotic mutations that change the identities of whole
    body parts, and paedomorphosis, which converts juvenile stages directly
    to adult ones. Indeed, the most recent issue of Science (Nov. 15 [1996],
    page 1082) reported that a single gene controls tunicate tail formation.
    [Tunicates are marine animals such as sea squirts. --Ward] Mutate it,
    the tail is lost. Restore it, tail comes back. Just another example
    of a genetic mechanism producing macroevolutionary change.

- Macroevolution has also been observed directly in the present-day. A
recent landmark experiment with Anolis lizards, colonizing islands in the
Caribbean to which they were newly introduced, showed adaptational changes
of up to 2000 darwins (a measure of evolutionary change) in leg length in
response to local environment, confirming predictions made ahead of time.
(Longer legs were more efficient on wider-diameter limbs and evolved in
response on islands with this kind of vegetation; shorter legs conferred a
survival advantage on smaller-diameter vegetation on separate islands where
they were introduced.)  Compared to stepwise changes of 1 darwin common in
the fossil record over much longer spans of time, these changes easily
qualify as macroevolutionary. The changes occurred in the time span of just
14 years. [The scientific reference here is: Losos, et al (1997) "Adaptive
differentiation following experimental island colonization in Anolis
lizards." Nature, vol. 387, no. 6628, 5/1/97.]

- In the case of the eye--one of the classic examples of a complex organ
that creationists say could not have evolved in gradual steps--biologists
have in fact discovered:

    ...many examples of primitive eyes among various species, ranging
    from the simplest eye spots of a few light-sensitive cells through
    progressively more complex forms to the complete, highly sophisticated
    mammalian eye.
         Together, these discoveries show how a series of many cumulative
    steps could create a human eye. In fact, biologists now know that eyes
    arose and evolved independently at least 40 times.

(The above quote is from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/interact/
longterm/horizon/010897/evolutn.htm - How Science Responds When
Creationists Criticize Evolution, by Washington Post science reporter,
Boyce Rensberger.)

Also, a recent computer model, using conservative assumptions plugging in
known features of microevolutionary mutation and natural selection,
generated a stepwise sequence depicting how the eye (in this case, the fish
eye) could have evolved gradually (with useful survival traits at each
partial step along the way) in 364,000 generations, which amounts to less
than 500,000 years in the fish-eye model. This is a relatively small slice
of time geologically speaking, thus showing that "sudden" evolution in
terms of the fossil record could in fact be very gradual, and easily
explainable via step-wise processes at the molecular and cellular level.
While this is of course at present a theoretical model, it still easily
refutes the creationists' objections that no one even has a plausible
_theory_ for how macroevolution in such a case as the eye could have taken
place. [Source: See Mark Vuletic's "Frequently Encountered Criticisms in
Evolution vs. Creationism: Revised and Expanded," at
http://www2.uic.edu/~vuletic/cefec.html#4.2, which contains over 60
references to the scientific literature.]

ASSERTION #3. The idea that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" (that
embryological development of an organism before birth should _exactly_
retrace its species' evolutionary development) has been shown to be in
error; therefore evolution is in error.

REFUTATION: Nobody in the evolutionary community gives credence to the
above idea anymore. It is therefore puzzling why Johnson even included it
in "Darwin on Trial" at all (or David Wolfe in his "Science or science?"
essay), other than to go over the history of past evolutionary thought,
because it has been decades since anybody seriously thought that
embryological development of organisms prior to birth ought to _exactly_
recapitulate their species' evolution as seen in the fossil record.

What evolutionists _do_ say is that later evolutionary forms have
inherited--as they have in other of their features--an embryological
developmental pattern from earlier ancestors which has been modified.
Johnson's misplaced emphasis seems based on the misunderstanding of
assuming that the embryological developmental sequence of animals can only
be changed by mutations that are tacked onto the _end_ of the previously
existing embryological sequence. (This was in fact assumed by earlier
evolutionary theorists of the past.) If this were the only route for
changes, then it could indeed plausibly cause a species' embryological
development to mirror the species' evolutionary development as it unfolded
in the past. But as we now know, that is not how it happens. In fact,
mutations can, do, and have introduced changes into the embryological
developmental sequence of species at any given point in the sequence--not
just the end of it--making the embryological development of any given
animal suggestive of its early evolution at times, but at other times not.

It has been a long, long time now that this "embryological" idea of
evolutionary recapitulation has been scrapped. It is creationists who stick
themselves with this old idea, not evolutionists.

ASSERTION #4. Modern molecular genetics is nothing new in terms of what it
actually allows us to determine about common ancestry of fossils. It is
just a newer methodology for classifying organisms by certain physical
features (in this case genetic features). Therefore, measuring genetic
distance between creatures cannot be used to impute ancestry any more than
fossil forms can.

REFUTATION: Not so. Since genetic molecular sequences are the actual
physical pieces of organisms (with occasional mutations, which give rise to
the "genetic distance" between organisms) that are handed down from one
generation to the next--a process which can be directly observed in the
laboratory--quantified similarities in molecular sequences is direct
evidence of genealogy. Recent molecular genetics techniques have enabled
biologists to determine the amount of "genetic distance" between currently
living species and reconstruct an evolutionary tree of the past based on
this completely independent source of evidence (i.e., independent from the
fossil record). As it has turned out, the picture from the molecular
evidence agrees with the fossil record very closely with only very minor
differences (usually in areas where exact relationships have been debated
anyway). That it has done so is spectacular confirmation of the
evolutionary genealogical relationships as judged by the fossil record.

ASSERTION #5. Evolution is not a fact, it is merely a theory.

REFUTATION: This idea comes about because of a misunderstanding of how the
word "theory" and "fact" are used in science. The facts are very simple: If
you assume the evidence in the fossil record (not to mention the evidence
for and observable instances of modern-day speciation and macromutation) is
explainable at all physically, the ONLY explanation that makes any logical
sense is evolution. You have to assume, unless creatures and fossils
materialize out of thin air, that parent creatures reproduce child
creatures in an unbroken sequence of genealogy from past to present--just
like we see today. Given that, there is no other factual alternative than
that early fossil forms in the nested and hierarchical succession of
changing fossil forms in the geological record gave rise to later ones via
some physical route of continuity through ancestry, unless you propose some
arbitrary, unexplainable exceptions to physical causation and posit an
external supernatural cause. It is not in doubt that some kind of
evolutionary process had to have occurred to explain the evidence we see.
What remains a theory are the _details_. That evolution occurred (however
it may have occurred) is a fact; _how_ it occurred is what is still being
worked out theoretically.

Understanding the difference between the way the words "fact" and "theory"
are used in science is important because the creationist arguments rarely
fail to confuse the forest for the trees--to be so myopic in their
objection to the _details_ of evolutionary mechanisms and the fault-finding
they engage in--that they slyly divert attention away from what is the real
issue. Which is that there is no other logical explanation for the fossil
evidence we see without invoking supernatural explanations. At some point
you either assent to the logic of the explanation or paint yourself as
someone who is in principle predisposed to reject reasonable explanations
in preference to untestable supernaturalist faith. As one oft-quoted
evolutionary scientist has said:

    Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the
    earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or
    are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry.
    By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need
    study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as
    history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly
    learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms.

--Theodosius Dobzhansky "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light
of Evolution", American Biology Teacher vol.35 (March 1973) reprinted in
Evolution versus Creationism, J. Peter Zetterberg ed., ORYX Press, Phoenix
AZ 1983, quoted at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html -
Science as both a Fact and a Theory, by Lawrence Moran
<[log in to unmask]>.

For more on the above point, click on the link just given, which contains a
discussion with further summaries of this issue, including more from the
scientists themselves (Gould, Mayr, Dobzhansky, Futuyma, etc.).

ASSERTION #6. Evolution contains certain axioms or tenets such as "survival
of the fittest" which are framed as "tautologies"--statements that are true
by definition in a way that makes them either meaningless or unfalsifiable.

REFUTATION: Scientists themselves sometimes do mistakenly fall into the
trap of using the "survival of the fittest" criterion as a simplistic
tautological statement. However, in its strict definition, the statement
does not depend on a tautological equation. Defined strictly, fitness is
the degree of match or "fit" between a physical trait and how well that
function performs in the environment the organism lives in. Fitness is
therefore tied to TRAITS and physical FUNCTIONS and how well they "do the
job" they are designed to do in terms of their DESIGN--especially in
comparison to other variations of that trait. Fitness is thus a question of
"good design," and how well that design survives is a RESULT (i.e. survival
itself is not the entire definition).

This resulting degree of fitness can also be expressed as a _relative_
mathematical probability indicating the tendency of a certain trait to
survive against other variations of the trait--i.e., it is probabilistic,
not deterministic. The point in this is that tautologies are always totally
deterministic, such as in saying that the most fit are always the ones who
survive. (That way of stating the equation IS a tautology.) However,
expressing fitness in terms of relative probabilities of one trait (gene
variant) vs. another in a statistical equation recognizes that survival is
not a certain nor determined thing--it depends on contingencies--yet there
are still strong tendencies for survival that make the fittest (those with
the best design given their niche) the ones who survive _on average_.
(Otherwise no one would be saying "survival of the fittest" in the first
place.)

Finally, what creationists rarely bother to mention is that the father of
the idea that evolutionary arguments like "survival of the fittest" were
nothing but tautologies--Karl Popper--later recanted his views. John
Wilkins, in his series on "Evolution and Philosophy: A Good Tautology is
Hard to Find" on www.talkorigin.org at
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/notes.html says the following:

    Note 1. The article by Stamos [1996] is by far the best review of
    Popper's views on evolution, and I recommend finding it if you have
    access to an academic library. Popper later 'recanted' his claim that
    Darwinism was unfalsifiable and a tautology (which were related
    arguments in Popper's view), in "Natural Selection and the Emergence
    of Mind", Dialectica 32(1978), pp. 339-355, but it was rather weakly
    done. This recantation is rarely cited by those who interminably argue
    about the tautology argument.

See the link just above for more discussion of the "tautology" argument.

ASSERTION #7. Lastly, the "rules of science" are supposedly philosophically
biased by "materialistic naturalism" and rigged at the outset against any
other explanation than evolution.

REFUTATION: If by philosophically biased, Johnson means that science does
not accept supernatural explanations because they cannot be tested, then
science stands rightfully accused, and has nothing to apologize for. If
however, he means to suggest that the rules of science (that physical
events have physical explanations and causes, and they must be testable
against the evidence) preclude any other explanation than evolution by
their very nature, he is simply wrong.

There is in fact a potential scenario that would point to another
explanation than evolution: If the fossil evidence had shown that as far
back in time as you care to go, the existence of animal and plant life
matched just the kind we have today with no changes in form, and no new
species over the eons--from the earliest beginnings of life on earth until
now--_that_ would show that evolution is false. But of course that's not
what the evidence shows. Thus, it's not the "rules of science" that rule
out any other explanation than evolution. It's the _evidence_ that does.
And Johnson doesn't like that evidence, so he decides he doesn't like the
"rules of science" and blames them for eliminating his option of invoking
supernatural cause where none is needed to explain what we see.

----------

This takes care of the primary objections that creationists have to
evolution that can be discussed in the scientific realm. However, I think
the real problem some people have with it--aside from David Wolfe/NFL's
problems with evolution in undercutting vegetarianism and fruitarianism as
the "original" or "natural" human diet--is not something really scientific
at all, but something deeper on the existential level, something I can
sympathize with, and which is probably a big concern for some people here.
So I thought I would go into this just a little bit for the fun of it here,
and the question is:

DOES ALL OF THIS MAKE RELIGION AND GOD OBSOLETE?

In "Darwin on Trial," Johnson engages in the sophistry (slick but
fallacious reasoning) of trying to convince us that something that is
really an a-priori FAITH (in something behind the physical realm that we
can't examine with scientific techniques) is an EXPLANATION for the changes
seen in the fossil record. But faith is the very epitome of the LACK of an
explanation. Which is not to say that there may not be some kind of
meaningful, "existential" sense in taking a view of the universe as
exhibiting a kind of metaphysical unity that calls forth an emotional
response, or sense of communion or oneness with the universe, that we human
beings call "God," "the ground of being," etc.

But for Johnson to call the only physical explanation that meets the test
of the physical evidence "philosophical materialism" is a gross
mischaracterization. Or--it may be fair enough to say evolution is a
material explanation, but for Johnson to then want to complain that his
supernatural faith cannot be allowed as science (because it is in principle
scientifically untestable) is to want to have it both ways. If you want a
testable, scientific (verifiable) explanation that can actually be
researched and examined at all, it is going to have to be one that has some
mechanisms that can be examined in the physical world where we can see the
consequences so that it is available for testing in the first place.

But--for the sake of discussion--let's go ahead and take Johnson up on his
proposal here for just a moment anyway. Suppose we imagine a universe that
operates in just the way the creationists imagine: that God is behind the
engineering of every single event and mechanism that happens. Even if
that's true, even if God _is_ somehow behind every single minute step in
the mechanisms behind every single thing that happens in the entire
universe, does that mean the material mechanisms aren't explainable? Given
all that science has discovered so far, it certainly doesn't seem to mean
that the material mechanisms don't exist ANYWAY (God or not) and that we
can't explain them, or that they have any less predictive power than we
know they do from utilizing them all the time in science.

Even if we imagine this kind of universe, the mechanisms still remain the
ROUTES through which everything we can see in this world actually occurs.
That is, God may be the source, but without the mechanisms, God's "intent"
would have no way to express itself in the visible ("material") world.

And why should it make any difference to creationists, anyway, if the only
way things can ultimately reach their visible manifestation in the physical
world is through such mechanisms? So what? Does that take anything away
from God's power or omnipotence if he/she/it is seen as being behind those
mechanisms in some way? On the contrary, it would just show how all-present
such a God is. But the fact that God may be BEHIND the mechanisms is still
FAITH. The EXPLANATIONS or mechanisms themselves that we can be scientific
about are still in the material world where we can see them, and test them.

The idea (even if we were to grant the fact) of God--or any supernatural
element--behind it all still remains an act of FAITH in such existence,
because it is not something that can be substantiated by anything we can
truly call an EXPLANATION (something verifiable by testing or examination
of evidence). So again, even if God *is* behind it all does not invalidate
the physical explanations that the evidence leads us to regardless. It just
means we can't "get at" God it/him/herself through physical explanations.
What it says is that even if we assume there must be some "existential"
(spiritual, metaphysical, religious, whatever) reason that the mechanisms
exist AT ALL, for instance, it will ultimately still remain a metaphysical
interpretation or view, and not something we can ever know by science.

And basically, this is how many people who are scientific can still remain
religious, or how those who are religiously inclined can still accept the
evolutionary evidence. Johnson himself says on p.14 of "Darwin on Trial":
"I believe that a God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted
to do so, but who might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary
process instead." One can't help but ask: WHAT, THEN, IS YOUR PROBLEM WITH
EVOLUTION, PHILLIP!? He has just said he can conceive of a God who might
possibly work through such processes. And he admits throughout the book
that he is willing to accept microevolutionary processes (random mutation
and natural selection pressures) are valid for microevolutionary events.
The main thing he is balking at philosophically is physical explanations
for macroevolution.

Yet there are numerous other theists and Christians who have long since
made peace with the fact of evolution, and don't see any necessary conflict
between its explanations for physical life on earth with an ultimately
spiritual view of the origin of the universe that puts God on another,
transcendent level of creation. It is a terribly poor bet when you look at
the history of science if one believes it is suddenly going to fail at
fully explaining macroevolutionary events just like it has so far
successfully explained much else that has gone before in the physical
realm. The fact is, religion has been on a retreat from material
explanations that have dashed its hopes for direct supernatural causes of
material events ever since the time of Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and
Newton. And each time the "event horizon" for material explanations gets
pushed ever further back, they eventually manage to accept it, and then
find new mysterious places God is still operating in the interstices. (In
evolution this strategy is called the "God of the gaps.") To be fair, of
course, not all theists resort to this kind of infinite regress, and
instead do genuinely rethink their ideas of God at a higher level.

Now if in response to this, they have been able to refine or reframe their
idea of God differently in response to be more in tune with what is
actually known about the universe (which one would think they ought to
welcome the opportunity to do)--why does Johnson have such a big problem
with macroevolution? Ultimately I think it probably comes down to the
problem most fundamentalist-creationists have: they simply don't like the
idea humans could have come from the same ancestor that also gave rise to
our cousins the chimp or the gorilla. They see chimps dressed up in clothes
as caricatured humans at circuses or on television and experience visceral
distaste because it goes against their idea of man as made in their image
of God. Well, they may just have to change or refine their idea of what God
is all about, is what I would say.

Now of course, frankly, I have to wonder if David Wolfe is the type of guy
who truly believes in creationism, or is just using its arguments as a
front for his dislike of evolution for showing that NFL's idea that pure
fruitarianism and vegetarianism constitute the "original" diet for humans
is just plain wrong. (Again, this is not to say that there might not be
other reasons for a vegetarian diet, but that it is humanity's original,
"natural" diet is emphatically not supported by the evolutionary evidence.)
For example, in his introduction to "Science or science?" David says, "Both
the theory of evolution and creationism are forms of pseudo-science"--yet
he has to side with the creationists anyway to make his points. Whatever
the case, the deception and dishonesty in this line of thinking are plain
to see.

And that brings us to perhaps the most telling philosophical difference
between evolutionists and creationists or their supporters such as NFL,
which doesn't really have anything to do with any of the specific arguments
that we've seen above that Johnson and Wolfe have tried to focus attention
on. It is instead the issue of making one's arguments under false
pretenses. And for that, I'll conclude this with this quote from Edward Max
at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/plaisted.html:

         No one should be forced to value the scientific method over
    religious faith. However,...those who hold a view of creation based on
    religious faith should not try to pretend that their belief is based on
    unbiased scientific judgment.
         ...When creationists invoke the unfathomable workings of God as
    an alternative explanation for any evidence that contradicts their
    position, they may satisfy themselves that they can cling to their
    beliefs without facing a stark challenge to their faith; but when they
    do so, I believe they relinquish the right to be taken seriously as
    participants in unbiased scientific discourse.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>