Which means it can't be a fact.
Evolution is a fact.
Actually, it's a massive collection of facts – a "super-fact" if you will
– from many disciplines in all parts of the world. It is well understood,
by those who are willing to understand it. It, like every other aspect of
reality, "isn't yet fully explained," and may never be. That's real life for
you.
Built upon this super-fact we find the Theory of Evolution by Natural
Selection, the accepted realization that various known, natural phenomena are
sufficient to understand the origins of the great variety of living things.
Granted, there are (almost) certainly additional mechanisms of
inter-generational change that we haven't even imagined, much less understood
and explained. This knowledge underpins much of the awe and wonder that
scientists experience about the biological part the universe. (The scientists'
awe and wonder about other parts of reality are underpinned by other
discipline-specific knowledge.)
When we speak of evolution, we usually speak
of the evolution of and in species. However, it is observed that any context
can host evolution, so long as the context meets certain simple preconditions.
First, the context has an imperfect mechanism of replication of a population of
replicants. Second, the context has a selection filter operating upon the
replicants, such that some imperfections are favoured and others are disfavoured
(by whatever criteria the filter uses). Third, the replication rate for each
member of the population depends on its favour/disfavour score, such that a more
favoured member has a higher replication rate than a less-favoured member. Note
that survival vs non-survival is not essential in general, just like it
is not essential in nature: pre-replication non-survival is merely a
replication rating of zero, and survival does not necessarily imply subsequent
replication.
It's most interesting when the criteria of the selection
filter is not uniform over the replicating population. Conway's Game of Life
(q. v.) is a very simple, but most interesting example of the process of
evolution in a non-biological context: here, the filter criteria have nothing to
do with the characteristics of the individual, but only with the population
characteristics of proximity among individuals. The imperfection of replication
in this context has to do with the replicants' proximities: this is implied by
the definition of selection filter.
It's a matter of belief, it's a
religion. Fact is, it seems to work (most of the time :-).
There is
no belief required, or even desired, since evolution (and all other ideas which
are well-established enough to merit the 'theory' designation) works in all
in-scope cases that have ever been examined. It's the cases that will be
examined in the future that keep the sciences humble, knowing that the sciences
are not religions, have no place for faith or religion in their work, and
knowing that all the currently accepted ideas (whether conjecture, observation,
hypothesis, "law", or "theory") are provisional, subject to being shown
incorrect.
Nor is evolution (as a super-fact or as an understanding) a
religion, since it has no preordained body of Truth that Must Be Accepted (or
Else); has no Authority who declaims upon Right and Wrong; and has no "holy"
writings whose Truth and Correctness are never to be doubted.
It is
this demand for certainty, this need for absolutes, that sends the bulk of
humanity haring down all sorts of stupid paths, at the behest of confidence
tricksters and con-men, that leads to so much strife in the
world.
Indeed. That's why Science, as a discipline, retains the
humility to recognize and teach that certainty is probably never going to be
obtainable — the best we can do is to not bother with faith, but make the
best sense we can of our observations in the actual universe around us
(an idea known as empiricism), always remain ready to recognize and correct the
inevitable incompleteness and error when corrective information becomes
available, and (of utmost importance) seek out information which can show
previous ideas to be false.
Oh, and I include in my list of
tricksters and con-men the liberal-arts journalists who preach about what
science can and has done (without bothering to check their facts first
:-)
Indeed, those people who teach about their misunderstandings of
science as if those misunderstandings were Truth – they are a serious
problem for the scientist and non-scientist alike. It's not just 'what science
can [do] and has done" — they misstate the very nature of science, as if
it were a search for Truth and Certainty, rather than merely the best
understanding that can be derived from the currently possible
observations.
As well, there are those who teach the arrogance of faith and
revelation, the idea that Truth and Certainty can be obtained by ignoring
reality (and its sources of error) and seeking in the imagination (teaching the
hubris that such revelation can be and is free of error). This can be first-hand
revelation, from one's own musings; second-hand revelation from an authority
figure's imaginings, usually the leader of some church; or nth-hand revelation
from some "holy" writing of unknown provenance. ---
--Bill. NAL:
question the answers, especially mine. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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