Apparently so. Oh I don't mean in the vaguest sense of defining it as "change over time". If that is all it means then of course evolution is true. In this world change is inevitable. If all it means is "a change in gene frequencies over time" then again, of course that is correct. It is merely a subset of the first definition. Heck, even if God personally genetically engineered the founding members of every new family of life that ever lived on this earth, both of those definitions would still be true because neither specifies the power behind the change.
Merriam Webster defines it as "descent with modification from preexisting species." There is no doubt that happens too, but even this definition dodges the real question of whether this process is responsible for all the variation in life in earth's history. For example, domestic dogs are an example of descent with modification from pre-existing species, wolves, but this does not mean that squid and eagles shared a common ancestor by natural descent. To assume otherwise based on the wolf-to-dog evidence alone is a gross example of the scientific error of "unsound extrapolation of data." This is the mistake of assuming that a given amount of known change can tell us about change that we don't really have the data for.
One might even argue (as I would) that domestic dogs are an example of intelligent design (through selective breeding) as well as an example of Webster's definition of evolution. I would add further that if an Intelligent Designer fashioned every family of life on earth by modifying life forms from pre-existing families then this process would also meet Webster's definition of "evolution". So then one can legitimately "believe in evolution" and still "believe in creationism". One can believe that "evolution happened" without believing that evolution did it all.
My point in the two-above paragraphs is that it is extremely difficult to extract a definition of "evolution" from naturalists which even acknowledges that a question might exist as to whether this process relies on natural means alone and can be extrapolated so that it can be rightfully considered the sole explanation for all variation in living things. The naturalistic premises are not stated in the definition, nor the absolute totality of the dogma as expressed in practice, but so many naturalists go on to act as if they were stated.
Too many of them refuse to even see my point on this. They just won't allow themselves to see it. I don't like to start out by questioning motives, but when real engagement is avoided it leads to the question of motives. So by now I view this as a tedious attempt to rig the definitions in order to obscure the rational bases for reconsidering their premises. Is that science or dogma? Is it the business of science to obscure questions or answer them? It is particularly irritating coming from people who present themselves as the arbiters of honest inquiry.
Those of you in the science community who may be tempted to feel offended by this, if there is substance to what I say then being offended doesn't do anything to solve the problem. I think many people outside the science community see things as I do even if they can't articulate why they find engaging with you so frustrating. You may be tempted to write off their reaction as a result of ignorance and hard-headedness on their part. Don't do that. You will never get better doing that. Even if your unwillingness or inability to consider the argument from truly neutral premises is even 1% of the problem, that's the 1% that it is your responsibility to do something about. Add to it that enhancing your ability to see things from other premises can only make you better at science and life.
An honest definition of evolution as used by most in science today would be something like "The theory that natural processes alone produced changes in genes over time, and this combined with natural selection formed new varieties of organisms so that all living things are related to all other living things via natural descent". Webster gets closest to this with their alternative definition of evolution "the scientific theory explaining the appearance of new species and varieties through the action of various biological mechanisms (such as natural selection, genetic mutation or drift, and hybridization)".
This definition is more forthright than those commonly used because it comes closest to specifying natural means and gives examples of those means. To use a science phrase, "it is more testable" than the definitions that naturalists often try to foist on me when I attempt to engage them on the issues I have described above. Even this definition from Webster doesn't address the totality aspect of the theory which naturalists attempt to impose. That is to say, the belief that this represents the only means by which new forms have appeared and it is powerful enough to have produced all of the change we have found in the time it is proposed to have done so.
I apologize for having taken so long to get to the evidence which prompted the title to this article. I am a mere messenger and in order to make the message clear I had to spend a great deal of time dispensing with the fog generated by those whose interests are not met by such clarification. But the bottom line to me is that even if every living thing on earth descended from other living things via natural descent with no assist from an Intelligent Designer (aside from us humans as described with dogs and wolves above) considerable evidence suggests that they still don't have the mechanisms by which this occurred correct.
That's right, despite all the supremely confident assurances that they are right and implications that you are a dolt for failing to "trust the science" on these questions, some recent research has turned up some surprising mechanisms for change in organisms that have nothing to do with the traditional factors.
This recent study shows how asexual organisms can adapt to their environment even in the absence of genetic information. It comes on the heels of earlier studies like one I wrote about here showing that fly behavior is altered without changes to the genome but rather through epigenetic changes that are not heritable the way genetic changes are.
Another study I wrote about suggests that Lamarck was right even though his ideas have been rejected for over 100 years. Jean Baptiste Lamarck was the first to outline a coherent theory of evolution, though not the one accepted today. He didn't know about genes. He thought there was some material force in the universe, like electromagnetism, which drove life to increasing complexity. He called this a "complexifying force". But his second major thesis is the one he was most known for: that animals can prompt biological changes in themselves by the use or disuse of a function. There was, he proposed. an additional "adaptive force." In his mind this change would then be hereditary.
Well, it turns out squid edit their own RNA. Their DNA can say one thing, but the messenger RNA can be altered, outside the cell nucleus, to make different proteins. I don't think there is any evidence such changes would be heritable, but it does speak to Lamarck's second thesis within the life of an animal. As far as his first thesis goes, what if the "complexifying force" isn't a force at all? Whatever its called, his ideas were rejected long ago, but these studies all suggest some neo-Lamarckism is in order.
I haven't even seen any serious attempt to examine if these findings challenge the existing ideas about evolution, but it seems almost intuitively obvious that they do. Right off hand, I wonder how the cumbersome process described in traditional evolutionary theory can even get off the ground? If living things can adapt to their environment without waiting for chance to produce a gene that works better in that environment, then traditional evolutionary mechanisms seem an inferior redundancy. That one squid with a mutation which helps him survive better in a given environment is outcompeted by myriads of his kind who functionally adapt in a similar way based on epigenetic changes that respond directly to the environment and not chance. How then do even beneficial mutations become established in such cases? There is built-in variability in living things which occurs completely outside the process described in the textbooks.
Look, maybe there will be a sensible way they can fold these findings into what they already know and improve the odds that nature did it all. Maybe they will just sweep these questions under the ever-more-lumpy rug. I don't know. I just know that the smug air of certainty that they have got most of this figured out is unjustified based on findings from their own community. And that their failure to engage in a reasonable manner is going to have consequences. The confidence-gap that people have in the voice of the scientific community is beginning to waiver, despite a ramp-up effort by the establishment media to herd everyone into line. And that gap is going to grow because its based on real underlying and unaddressed issues in the community.
This is where I could go off on another long riff about what it means as a Christian who is a scientist to put your vocation under the Lordship of Christ. But I won't do that. There are others better positioned than me to do that, and they ought to be the ones to do it. But surely humility, a desire to serve, and considering others before yourself along with honesty are big factors in that endeavor.
My book about early Genesis is far more about Theology than science, and that's good. I've come to see we won't really get the science right, big picture anyway, without getting the theology right.
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