Evolutionary thinking doesn't do much for the Economy

If natural selection were both real and as important as evolutionists claim, then it would be reasonable to predict that there would be numerous studies actually measuring its significant influence. But, this is not the case. Evolutionary thinking hinders research—especially in medicine.¹

One initial challenge is that anything being measured must first be defined. For example, “Fitness” has variably been defined as relating to number of mates, fertility, gross number of offspring, number of offspring living to reproductive age, offspring in specific environments, or any combination of these. The eminent evolutionist Leigh Van Valen sums up the conundrum:

Yes, fitness is the central concept of evolutionary biology, but it is an elusive concept.... There are literally dozens of genuinely different definitions, which I won’t review here.... Is it that we can’t define it because we do not fully understand it.²

The American Naturalist published in 2001 the largest analysis of the degree to which selection of changes of specific physical traits in an animal group affects their fitness—as measured by survival, mating success, and offspring.³ It tabulated 63 prior field studies covering 62 species and over 2,500 estimates of selection. The highest median correlation of trait selection to fitness was a low 16 percent. This means 84 percent of changes were not explained by selection. It found that in studies with species sample sizes greater than 1,000, the correlation of selection to survival was essentially negligible.

Even the University of Chicago’s expert on evolutionary biology, Jerry Coyne, is forced to admit the contrast between natural selection and aritificial selection:

In contrast, artificial selection has been stunningly successful. Virtually everything that we eat, grow or pet has involved transforming a wild species, through selective breeding, into something radically different.⁴

But Coyne then goes on to the illogical conclusion that "Artificial selection constitutes a true experimental—as opposed to observational—test of the hypothesis that selection causes evolutionary change"! If it is not evidently illogical, please also note that artificial selectors have always observed limits to variability (after millennia of breeding for speed, there are no 100-mile-per-hour horses). Second, scientists have never created two fundamentally different kinds of organisms from a common ancestor. If intelligent selectors cannot obtain fundamentally different kinds due to innate limits to change, what evidence exists that environments can?

Supporters of selection should consider that the reason for selection’s irrelevance is not that it is weak beyond belief, but that there is, in fact, nothing tangible to measure.

"Natural Selection" induces people not to give the Lord credit for the incredible intelligence and machinery He has built into His creatures that enable them to adapt to environmental features.

Marko comments: yes, evolutionary thinking doesn't do much for the Economy! Except that it guarantees publically funded jobs for all the evolutionary scientists who are tenured at thousands of universities around the world. If we measured evolutionists by the tangible improvements that they make to peoples' lives, they would be found to be a bankrupting effort....

(extracted from Randy Guliuzza, Darwin's Sacred Imposter: Natural Selection's Idolatrous Trap, Acts & Facts, November 2011, Institute for Creation Research)

References (selected)

1. Guliuzza, R. 2009. Darwinian Medicine: A Prescription for Failure. Acts & Facts. 38 (2): 32.

2. Van Valen, L. 1989. Three Paradigms of Evolution. Evolutionary Theory. 9: 2.

3. Kingsolver, J. et al. 2001. The Strength of Phenotypic Selection in Natural Populations. The American Naturalist. 157 (3): 245-61.

4. Coyne, J. The Improbability Pump: Why has natural selection always been the most contested part of evolutionary theory? The Nation, May 10, 2010

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