Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

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Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

• Hot Topics 3
• March 15, 2006
• Austin Peay State University
• UC 303

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EvolutionMost information in this presentation
is taken from Campbell, N.A. Biology (Menlo
Park, CA Benjamin-Cummings, 1987)

• Refers to all the changes that have transformed
  life on Earth
• from earliest beginnings to seemingly infinite
  diversity that characterizes it today
• Most pervasive principle in all of biology today
• Diversity of organisms
• Origins of organisms
• Relationships of organisms
• Similarities and differences of organisms
• Geographical distribution of organisms
• Adaptations of organisms to surrounding
  environments

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Plato (427-347 BC)

• Two worlds
• Real world that is ideal and eternal
• Illusory world of imperfection that is perceived
  by using our senses
• Idealism (essentialism) would argue that
  evolution would be counterproductive in a world
  where organisms were already perfectly adapted to
  their environments

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Aristotle (384-322 BC)

• Organisms ranged from very simple to very
  
  
  complex
• All living forms could be arranged on a scale on
  increasing complexity
• No vacancies and no mobility on this scale
• Species are fixed, permanent on their rung of
  this ladder of life

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Judeo-Christian culture

• Old Testament creation story of Genesis
• Species individually designed and permanent
• Natural Theology a philosophy of early
  biologists who saw the adaptation of species as
  evidence that the Creator had designed each and
  every species for a particular purpose
• Classification became major goal of natural
  theologians to reveal steps of the scale of life
  that God created

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Geology

• Geological change can result from slow,
  continuous actions this means the Earth must be
  much older than 6000 years
• Very slow and subtle processes that persist over
  great lengths of time can cause substantial
  change (gradualism) even in living organisms

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Paleontology

• Founded by the French anatomist Georges Cuvier
  (1769-1832)
• Study of fossils began with the realization that
  history of life is recorded in strata containing
  fossils
• The deeper the stratum the more dissimilar the
  flora and fauna are from modern life
• Chronological series of older to younger fossils
  leading to modern species

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Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

• Published On the Origin of Species by Means of
  Natural Selection on Nov. 24, 1859
• Species were not specially created in their
  present forms but had evolved from ancestral
  species
• Described the mechanism for evolution (natural
  selection)
• Challenged prevailing scientific views and ideas
  deeply rooted in Western civilization

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Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

• Dropped out of medical school at age 16
• Enrolled in Christ College at Cambridge
  University to become a clergyman (most
  naturalists and scientists at that time in
  England were clergy and nearly all viewed the
  world in the context of natural theology
• Darwin became the protégé of Rev. Henslow, Prof.
  of Botany
• Joined the crew of the H.M.S. Beagle at age 22 to
  sail around the world to chart South American
  coastline (1831)
• Collected thousands of species, particularly 14
  different species of finches on the Galapagos
  Islands

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Excerpt from The Voyage of the Beagle

• "Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure
  in one small, intimately related group of birds,
  one might really fancy that from an original
  paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species
  had been taken and modified for different ends.
• Charles Darwin

http//www.rit.edu/rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFi
nch2.html
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http//www.rit.edu/rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFi
nch2.html
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Darwinism

• Descent of life (evolution)
• All organisms are related through descent from
  some unknown prototype that lived in the very
  remote past
• As descendents of that inaugural organism spilled
  into various habitats over millions of years,
  they accumulated diverse modifications
  (adaptations) that fit them to specific ways of
  life
• The history of life is like a tree with multiple
  branching and rebranching from a common trunk all
  the way to the tips of the living twigs. At each
  evolutionary fork is an ancestor common to all
  lines of evolution branching from that fork.

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Darwinism

• Natural Selection
• Individuals of any population vary from one
  another in many characteristics
• Variations can be inherited
• Overproduction - members of a population produce
  more offspring than the environment can support
• Those individuals whose inherited characteristics
  fit them best to their environment are likely to
  leave more offspring than less fit individuals

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Evidence for Evolution

• Biogeography geographical distribution of
  species (islands have plant and animal species
  more closely related to the nearby mainland than
  to any other mainland)
• Fossil Records succession of fossil forms is
  compatible with other lines of evidence
  (biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology)
  about the major branches of descent in the tree
  of life
• Taxonomy taxonomic schemes of natural
  theologians correlates to relatedness determined
  by hereditary evidence
• Comparative anatomy common skeletal features
  (homologous structures) in related organisms
  (forelimbs of cats, bats, whales, humans, etc.)
• Comparative embryology closely related
  organisms go through similar stages in their
  embryonic development (gill slits in fish, frogs,
  snakes, birds, humans, etc.)

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• Molecular Biology the same hereditary material
  (DNA) is common to ALL organisms and related
  species have closely related DNA sequences

Stebbins, G.L. Darwin to DNA, Molecules to
Humanity (San Francisco Freeman, 1982
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• Biochemistry
• Common chemical reaction types
• Common reactive functional groups
• Condensation to build large biomolecules
• Hydrolysis to degrade large biomolecules
• Common chemical elements
• (98 are C, H, O, N, P, Ca, K, S)
• Common biomolecules for energy (ATP) structure
  (proteins)
• Universal genetic code

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• Common biomolecules for structure (proteins)

Stebbins, G.L. Darwin to DNA, Molecules to
Humanity (San Francisco Freeman, 1982
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Current Attempts to Teach Intelligent Design in
Science Classes

• Dover, PA US District Court rejected attempt by
  school board to require science teachers to read
  a statement at the beginning of 9th grade biology
  classes promoting alternatives to evolution such
  as ID
• Judge Jones ruled that ID is nothing less than
  the progeny of creationism

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• El Tejon, CA Americans United for Separation of
  Church and State (AUSCS) filed suit to stop the
  school district from allowing a course that
  promotes a religious perspective about the
  origins of life (Philosophy of Design advocates
  ID and other concepts of creationism)

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• Kansas Board of Education recently approved state
  science standards that weaken the role of
  evolution in teaching about the diversity of life
  and encourages inclusion of ideas such as ID in
  the science curriculum

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• Robert P. Kirshner (president of the American
  Astronomical Society) Scientific theories are
  coherent, based on careful experiments and
  observations of nature that are repeatedly tested
  and verified. They aren't just opinions or
  guesses. Gravity, relativity, plate tectonics,
  and evolution are all theories that explain the
  physical universe in which we live. What makes
  scientific theories so powerful is that they
  account for the facts we know and make new
  predictions or subject itself to a test.
  Intelligent design is not so bold as to make
  predictions or subject itself to a test. Theres
  no way to find out if it is right or wrong. It
  isnt part of science.

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Examples of Species That Did Not Survive Evolution
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More Pictures