You are here: Evolution vs Creationism -> TimeLine -> April 8th Letter
Below is the text of the e-mail that I sent to The Dispatch on April 8, 1999. This letter was never published due to the fact that it exceeded the 500-word limit. Additional commentary from the e-mailed version is shown in my footnotes or in [ bracketed red text ]
On April 6th, 1999, a letter from Suzanne Rodriguez was published which contained many factual errors. Most of her assertions are straight from creationist literature, and have been disproved many times over. [ I frequently find myself pointing out to creationists that they have constructed a 'straw man' of evolutionary theory. This is the case here as well. A good place to start reading for a better understanding of evolutionary theory is on the 'talkorigins.org' site. In particular the 'What is Evolution FAQ'. ] Among her statements:
1. Evolution NEVER HAS BEEN (sic) ... taught in our public schools: Where Ms. Rodriguez gets this idea is beyond me. Evolution *has* been taught in our public schools for many years, as indicated in the March 4, 1999 article "Evolution class for Gilroy High" where GHS science teacher Nicky Austin states that it is taught in biology for two to four weeks.
2. Human history reaches barely past 4000BC, and solid archeological data supports this: To the contrary, archeological data goes back much farther than 4000BC, in many diverse locations. Clovis points have been found in North America that date back approximately 20,000 years. The cliff dwellings of Roque St. Christophe in France have been inhabited almost continuously for over 50,000 years.
3. The 'Colin Patterson' quote: Ms. Rodriguez here repeats a frequent mis-quotation of Dr. Patterson.
[ The real quotation says:
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test." ]
This quote is from a 1979 letter to creationist Luther D. Sunderland
and is referring to Dr. Patterson's book "Evolution" (1978, Routledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd.). Anyone who has actually read the book or the letter can
hardly say that Patterson believed in the absence of transitional forms.
[ For example, in his book, on pages 131-133,
Patterson writes:
"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . ." ]
What Patterson was saying to Sunderland was that, of the transitional
forms that are known, he could not make a watertight argument for any being
directly ancestral to living species groups. In fact, Dr. Patterson himself
rebuts the misquote in a 1993 letter to Lionel Theunissen where he states
"I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation
... is correct, and the creationists' is false." [
Dr. Patterson is quite chagrined that four quotes of his have shown up
in creationist literature. In the letter to Lionel Theunissen he
states "I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing
with creationists, cryptic or overt." In at least one of the published
'quotations', Dr. Patterson was secretly taped by a creationist
during an informal meeting of systematicists. This says a lot about
the moral values of the creationist who taped him, and the ones who continue
to misquote him after learning the truth. ]
4. Sir Fredrick Hoyle's probability calculation: This is in reference to Fred Hoyle's book "Evolution from Space" (JM Dent 1981) where he asserts that the organic proteins that life formed from fell to earth from outer space, and that otherwise there has not been enough time for DNA to evolve. Hoyle makes several errors in his probability calculations, and I don't know if he even holds this viewpoint any more. [ On further research, I find that Sir Frederick Hoyle is a proponent of panspermia which proposes that space is full of bacterial spores, and that this is the source of DNA here on Earth. Hoyle believes that DNA from space, in the form of these bacterial spores, is the common ancestor of all life on Earth. Hoyle places this event at the beginning of the 'cambrian explosion'. Panspermia is wedded to the Gaia hypothesis to create the theory of Cosmic Ancestry. Cosmic Ancestry is in fact a new theory of evolution. None of this supports Scientific Creationism. ]
5. Fossil record shows no progression of animals evolving outside of their own species, and only shows the immediate apperance of fully developed species: This is blatantly incorrect. Besides the many instances of fully documented speciation in the fossil record, there are modern observed speciation events both in the laboratory and in nature. New species are being formed constantly. In addition, Ms. Rodriguez's conclusion that the events where a new species appears suddenly in the fossil record can only be accounted for by special creation neglects the theory of 'punctuated equilibria'.
6. The horse series shows no evolution
from one species to another: I'm not sure what 'horse series' Ms. Rogriguez
is referring to, but most modern taxonomists believe that the horse evolved
from a small dog-sized multi-toed mammal that is the ancestor of both modern
horses and whales. These sequences
are very well documented in the fossil record. Unless Ms. Rodriguez
would now like to argue that a whale is the same species as a horse,
[ or a tapir, or a rhinoceros, or an elephant, etc ]
I believe that she is incorrect here too. [
The common ancestor of the horse tree and the rhino/tapir tree is the 'hyracotherium',
and this is very well documented. See the 'Patterson quote' above.
The common ancestor of the whales and the horses, etc, is almost
certainly a condylarth, although there are still transitional gaps.
Just several years ago, there was still a large gap in the fossil record
of the cetaceans. It was thought that they arose from land-dwelling mesonychids
that gradually lost their hind legs and became aquatic. Evolutionary theory
predicted that they must have gone through a stage where they had were
partially aquatic but still had hind legs, but there were no known intermediate
fossils. A flurry of recent discoveries from India & Pakistan (the
shores of the ancient Tethys Sea) has pretty much filled this gap. There
are still no known species-species transitions, and the "chain of genera"
is not complete, but we now have a partial
lineage,
and sure enough, the new whale fossils have legs, exactly as predicted.
(for discussions see Berta, 1994; Gingerich et al. 1990; Thewissen et al.
1994; Discover magazine, Jan. 1995; Gould 1994) Says Carroll
(1988, p.505): "In the case of the cetaceans [whales] and the perissodactyls
[horses etc.], their origin among the condylarths has been clearly
documented ... we can see that the origin of the Cetacea and the
perissodactyls resulted not from major differences in their anatomy
and ways of life but from slight differences in their diet and mode of
locomotion, as reflected in the pattern of the tooth cusps and details
of the bones of the carpus and tarsus." (p. 505) See the Transitional
Vertibrate Fossils FAQ for more detail ]
7. The ape series shows we are not evolving: Again, I am unsure as to which 'ape series' Ms. Rodriguez is referring to. Frequently creationist literature uses scientific data from the 40's or 50's and argues against it, rather than against modern data. Perhaps this is the case here? [ Creationists often seem to present arguments in a way that indicates that scientific knowledge is immutable, unchanging. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the quest for knowledge that science entails. To the contrary; science states that all knowledge is provisional. There are no 'known facts'. That the Earth was flat was once a 'known fact'. That the sun rotated around the Earth was a 'known fact'. That life sprang spontaneously from decaying meat was once a 'known fact'. Science states that we humans are fallible. We make mistakes. Sometimes we even lie. Science encourages the winnowing of the truth from the non-truth, and everything is fair game for reexamination and reinterpretation, even the strongly held beliefs of science. ]
8. Evolution has never been observed: This is incorrect. See #5 above.
9. Evolution can never be observed: Also incorrect. See #5 above.
10. No new species has been develped in a laboratory: See #5 above.
11. Mutations are always negative: This is absurd. The epicanthic fold in the eye of an Asian is a mutation which protects against dry desert conditions. The dark coloration of the skin in an ethnic African, Asian, or Micronesian are all mutations which protect against radiation damage from the tropical sun. The barrel-chested build of an native of the Andes is a mutation which helps them survive in high elevations. The list of mutations just in human beings is practically endless. A 'mutation' means a change in form, not the creation of a monster, or a necessarily a new species. [ See also Modern Synthesis. As usual, creationists argue against straw men. Mutations are usually but not always negative. The exact ratio of beneficial to deleterious mutations is unknown and probably varies with the locus and the environment. Mutations have a very slim chance of taking hold in a population, even when they are beneficial. The beneficial mutations that have a competitive reproductive advantage are the ones that are the most likely to take hold (fixate) in a population.
12. Evolutionists 'added time' to the history of the earth to allow for their theory: Ms. Rodriguez might as well say that the geologists added time to account for the old rocks they have found. The geological time-scale is well documented separate from any theory of evolution, and pre-dates Darwin by many years. Life is still a fairly recent event on earth, geologically speaking.
13. Geologic dating - "fossils date the rocks and rocks date the fossils": This oft-repeated assertion has been debunked many many times, and remains one of the primary errors in the logic of creationist literature. The fact is that all modern dating methods are in close agreement. It is interesting that the authors of popular creationist literature, such as Morris, or Gish, are still repeating this when it has been so thoroughly debunked. [ All modern dating methods have their errors, their circumstances where they will not work. Some methods only work on rocks. Some only work on vegetable matter. Despite this, there is very close agreement between the dating methods when they overlap. ]
14. Massive graveyards around the world with 'simple and complex lifeforms lie side by side': I am not sure what 'massive graveyards' Ms. Rodriguez is referring to, but simply having 'simple and complex lifeforms' side by side does not prove anything. Evolution does not always produce more complex life forms. [ This assertion on the part of Mrs. Rodriguez displays two common misconceptions about evolution: 1. That evolution is linear; and 2. that evolution always proceeds from simple forms to complex forms. Both of these are incorrect. ]
15. Most chemical processes indicate by reliable data that the earth is only thousands of years old: I am at a loss to account for this statement. What chemical process indicates that the earth is only thousands of years old? Perhaps this is the '2nd law of thermodynamics' argument? In that case, let me put it to rest. The earth is not a 'closed system', therefore the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply. While we're on termodynamics, what about the 1st law? The one that says that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form? [ Jack Penkethman pointed out in his excellent column of April 14 that Mrs Rodriguez likely meant the accumulation of metals in seawater. In 1965, Chemical Oceanography published a list of some metals' "residency times" in the ocean. This calculation was performed by dividing the amount of various metals in the oceans by the rate at which rivers bring the metals into the oceans. Several creationists have reproduced this table of numbers, claiming that these numbers gave "upper limits" for the age of the oceans (therefore the Earth) because the numbers represented the amount of time that it would take for the oceans to "fill up" to their present level of these various metals from zero. Unfortunately for the creationists, even if we accept their premise that these numbers establish "upper limits" (which we do not) they have serious problems. The range of 'dates' runs from a low of about 100 years (Aluminum) to a high of 260,000,000 years (Sodium). Unless they would like to argue that the Universe was created 100 years ago that is... ]
16. 'Developing complexity' (2nd law of thermodynamics argument): see above. [ This is also a frequent mis-statement of the theory of evolution, that 'simple' organisms always evolve into 'more complex' organisms. This is simply not true. Populations of organisms change in response to pressures placed on them by their environment (natural selection) or because of genetic drift, or because of other mechanisms. Sometimes that change is into a more complex form, sometimes it is not. ]
17. Human cells are too complex to have evolved: Perhaps in 6000 years, yes. However, life has been here a long time. Hoyle's probability calculations notwithstanding, there has been plenty of time for the complexities of the human cell to have evolved.
18. Many scientists are looking at the possibility that a higher power created the universe: This is true. It does not, however, prove Ms. Rodriguez's 'Young Earth Creation Scientist' viewpoint. Scientists look at many possibilities. Thats what they do.
We are fortunate to live in an era when information is freely available to everyone; at the library, in the newspaper, on the internet (http://www.talkorigins.org is a wonderful resource).
Creationists, and in particular 'Young-Earth Creation Scientists' would have us abandon our access to knowledge and move back to the dark ages, where only the religious viewpoint is tolerated. The list of sciences which would have to be abandoned under the creationist viewpoint is stunning.
I am perfectly happy to allow the creationists their viewpoint. Just don't try tell me that I am required to teach it to my children as science. [ I would no more expect a sunday-school teacher to be forced to teach evolution, than I would expect a science teacher to be forced to teach creationism ]
Last Update: 23 APR 1999