challenge and change

Debate Reflection Assignment
Jagmeet Chahal
HSP 3MO
Mr. Seth
October 8th, 2012

Reflection Assignment

Evolution vs. Creationism, this debate has been going on for many years now. Which one is true, Evolution which is the change in the physical as well as mental characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Or Creationism which is the religious belief that humanity, life, Earth, and the universe itself was created by a superior being which most people call “God”. Natural Selection is the process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. All in all, science is evidence without certainty while religion is certainty without evidence. Evidence ultimately wins every single solitary time. Therefore the theory of evolution is the way to go because,

What is evolution; chapter I explains Darwin’s theory of evolution, which applies to all species, new species are descended from earlier forms. This means that organisms with similar characteristics are likely to have shared a common ancestor sometime in the past. The more traits shared by organisms, the closer their evolutionary relationship. This principle of “common descent” explains why anthropologists are interested in studying nonhuman animals, particularly primates (the mammalian order that includes monkeys, apes, and humans), with whom humans share the closest common ancestor.

Fossil Evidence
In the first chapter, Coyne discusses the basic conceptual framework of evolution, and clarifies the common misconceptions about how the science works, and the creationist misuse of the word "theory". The second chapter is a brief but compelling overview of the fossil evidence of evolution, drawing from the most familiar recent examples (Tiktaalik and the origin of tetrapods, the origin of birds from dinosaurs, and the origin of whales) as well as some that are more obscure. Even though Coyne is a neontologist, he does a good job of showing the difficulties that paleontologists endure while finding fossils, the strengths and limitations of the fossil record, and how important the fossil evidence has become for establishing the actual course of evolution. Given the limited, outdated, and inaccurate coverage of the fossil record in most college-level evolutionary biology textbooks, it is a pleasure to see paleontology given a seat at the "high table" of evolutionary biology, even before any of the neontological evidence has been mentioned. I have some small quibbles about outdated taxonomy and Coyne's insistence on gradualism (which most paleontologists would dispute), but overall this is one of the best summaries of the fossil evidence for evolution that I've ever seen by a non-paleontologist.

Not Falsifiable/Testable: Evolution is, in theory, vulnerable to countless falsifications and countless tests of its truth. Find a single species that fails to display all of the major fingerprints of evolution, find a single fossil that is not where it is supposed to be in the geologic column, etc. and evolution would have a problem on its hands. It would have to explain the anomaly. That is, evolution is falsifiable. Rather amazingly, given the millions of species on our planet and the millions of fossil findings, no compelling anomalies have been found. Creationism, however, is invulnerable to falsification. Every apparent falsification can be ignored by appeal to “mystery” or the limits of human understanding. Generally speaking, arguing with a claim that cannot be falsified either empirically or on the grounds of coherence is a waste of time. The philosopher Bertrand Russell made this clear with the example of “Last Thursdayism.” In theory, the entire world could have been created last Thursday and all of the memories we have of life before last Thursday could be part of the initial set up of the creation. Of course, one could never test or disprove this theory, and believing it adds nothing to our understanding of the world. Creationism is just like Last Thursdayism. There are really only two reasons to argue with creationists; first, to help them understand why so many people think their affirmations are ridiculous; and, second, to stop them from causing trouble, either in our classrooms, or our society.

AGE OF THE EARTH