Can you name any of these anomalies which “don’t seem to make sense?”
There have been various evolutionary quandaries, where it’s not clear how this or that organism evolved, but many of these have been resolved by further discoveries, which clarified the line of descent. There are some lineages that are still hazy, the evolution of bats for example, where our record of their lineage is poor because their bones are delicate and do not fossilize readily, but cases like these are not a source of confusion.
All the allegations I’ve heard of anomalies which supposedly do not make sense have been put forward by creationist or intelligent design proponents, and they were all based on some sort of misconception. There may be some outstanding sources of confusion in the field of evolutionary biology, but if you have any in mind, you’ll have to clarify.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive review, but evidence against the theory of evolution could occur in such cases as
A: Minor: traits are found where it is unclear how they could have evolved by a natural process, but not highly implausible. These are found on occasion, but are generally resolved in time. Many traits where the evolutionary pathway was once obscure are now understood, so the evidence of any particular trait is weak.
B: Major: Organisms are found in the fossil record where it is highly implausible that they could have evolved from existing precursors. Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian fall into this category. Highly complex and unusual organisms with no apparent precursors, when we should expect their precursors to have left some sort of record, such as large organisms with radial symmetry and internal skeletons, would also constitute strong evidence.
C. Extremely major evidence. Events like seeing a monkey give birth to a human, or humans give birth to mutants with wings or the power to throw bolts of lightning. Any highly reliable observations of organisms developing major, complex adaptations in a single step. For all that many people with low levels of scientific literacy think that this is the sort of thing evolution entails, this is actually the kind of observation that would essentially falsify it outright.
As for whether “existence happened by chance or design,” the meaning of this assertion is unclear. What do you mean by existence? Do you mean species as they currently exist? The phenomenon of life itself? The universe? The nature of the discussion will depend on what you actually mean, but I’ll note that a dichotomy between “design” and “chance” is probably not an appropriate characterization. If you drop a rock, must the fact that it falls either be by design or chance? If something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance.
Scientists tend to treat evolution as something that is essentially not in question because our evidence for it is overwhelmingly comprehensive. While there may be some instances of confusion, they are very minor in comparison with our existing body of evidence, so while further observations might alter our understanding of the process in some way, they do not threaten the entire edifice of evolutionary theory any more than the Pioneer Anomaly (which was in fact recently explained without any change to our understanding of physics) threatened to undermine the idea that gravity exists.
There can be any number of anomolies that can be discussed, lets just name the Cambrian Explosion as one of the main ones, albeit a very general one. Where would you put the problem of the Cambrian Explosion? A, B, or C? But more importantly, why?
Not sure what you mean by ‘if something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance’. All you would have to do is keep going back to the source of the rocks behavior in order to see if it was by chance or design. Are those rules you are talking about designed or by chance? And so on....If you agree that those rules that govern the falling of the rock, and the rock’s existence itself, (and yes, any rules that governed how it came to existence) came about by chance then you hold one side of the dialectic; that is you have a world-view that believes existence is produced through chance. You can’t say I dont believe in that because I believe existence has come about through natural laws, and so on, because in the end you would have come to some kind of conclusion as to whether those laws are by chance or designed.
You cannot escape these two conclusion, you must pick one or the other. If you pick the chance worldview, you are heavilly reliant on evolution to validate your worldview.
Well, we don’t know the exact cause of the Cambrian explosion, but there are a large number of plausible hypotheses, so I’d be hesitant to describe it even as A. I’d be more likely to put it in the same category as the lineage of bats, not known, but not particularly confusing either.
As to whether the laws of nature and so forth come about by chance or design, why would design resolve anything? Did the designer come about by chance or design? It just inserts another complex entity and pushes the question back a step.
If you pick the chance worldview, you are heavilly reliant on evolution to validate your worldview.
No, not at all. Evolution is one aspect of one field of one discipline. One can argue that existence came about by chance (and I’m not comfortable with that term) without referring to evolution at all; there are many other reasons to reject the idea of a designer.
See Desrtopa’s reply, below, regarding chance and design and whether a designer helps here. S/he said it better than I could!
Can you name any of these anomalies which “don’t seem to make sense?”
There have been various evolutionary quandaries, where it’s not clear how this or that organism evolved, but many of these have been resolved by further discoveries, which clarified the line of descent. There are some lineages that are still hazy, the evolution of bats for example, where our record of their lineage is poor because their bones are delicate and do not fossilize readily, but cases like these are not a source of confusion.
All the allegations I’ve heard of anomalies which supposedly do not make sense have been put forward by creationist or intelligent design proponents, and they were all based on some sort of misconception. There may be some outstanding sources of confusion in the field of evolutionary biology, but if you have any in mind, you’ll have to clarify.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive review, but evidence against the theory of evolution could occur in such cases as
A: Minor: traits are found where it is unclear how they could have evolved by a natural process, but not highly implausible. These are found on occasion, but are generally resolved in time. Many traits where the evolutionary pathway was once obscure are now understood, so the evidence of any particular trait is weak.
B: Major: Organisms are found in the fossil record where it is highly implausible that they could have evolved from existing precursors. Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian fall into this category. Highly complex and unusual organisms with no apparent precursors, when we should expect their precursors to have left some sort of record, such as large organisms with radial symmetry and internal skeletons, would also constitute strong evidence.
C. Extremely major evidence. Events like seeing a monkey give birth to a human, or humans give birth to mutants with wings or the power to throw bolts of lightning. Any highly reliable observations of organisms developing major, complex adaptations in a single step. For all that many people with low levels of scientific literacy think that this is the sort of thing evolution entails, this is actually the kind of observation that would essentially falsify it outright.
As for whether “existence happened by chance or design,” the meaning of this assertion is unclear. What do you mean by existence? Do you mean species as they currently exist? The phenomenon of life itself? The universe? The nature of the discussion will depend on what you actually mean, but I’ll note that a dichotomy between “design” and “chance” is probably not an appropriate characterization. If you drop a rock, must the fact that it falls either be by design or chance? If something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance.
Scientists tend to treat evolution as something that is essentially not in question because our evidence for it is overwhelmingly comprehensive. While there may be some instances of confusion, they are very minor in comparison with our existing body of evidence, so while further observations might alter our understanding of the process in some way, they do not threaten the entire edifice of evolutionary theory any more than the Pioneer Anomaly (which was in fact recently explained without any change to our understanding of physics) threatened to undermine the idea that gravity exists.
There can be any number of anomolies that can be discussed, lets just name the Cambrian Explosion as one of the main ones, albeit a very general one. Where would you put the problem of the Cambrian Explosion? A, B, or C? But more importantly, why?
Not sure what you mean by ‘if something happens as a predictable, inevitable consequence of the rules regarding how things behave, it makes little sense to call it a consequence of chance’. All you would have to do is keep going back to the source of the rocks behavior in order to see if it was by chance or design. Are those rules you are talking about designed or by chance? And so on....If you agree that those rules that govern the falling of the rock, and the rock’s existence itself, (and yes, any rules that governed how it came to existence) came about by chance then you hold one side of the dialectic; that is you have a world-view that believes existence is produced through chance. You can’t say I dont believe in that because I believe existence has come about through natural laws, and so on, because in the end you would have come to some kind of conclusion as to whether those laws are by chance or designed.
You cannot escape these two conclusion, you must pick one or the other. If you pick the chance worldview, you are heavilly reliant on evolution to validate your worldview.
Well, we don’t know the exact cause of the Cambrian explosion, but there are a large number of plausible hypotheses, so I’d be hesitant to describe it even as A. I’d be more likely to put it in the same category as the lineage of bats, not known, but not particularly confusing either.
As to whether the laws of nature and so forth come about by chance or design, why would design resolve anything? Did the designer come about by chance or design? It just inserts another complex entity and pushes the question back a step.
No, not at all. Evolution is one aspect of one field of one discipline. One can argue that existence came about by chance (and I’m not comfortable with that term) without referring to evolution at all; there are many other reasons to reject the idea of a designer.
See Desrtopa’s reply, below, regarding chance and design and whether a designer helps here. S/he said it better than I could!