History of the World, Part One

My apologies to Mel Brooks.

On Wednesday, a speaker came to present a case against what he considered macroevolution. Betwixt all the jumbled and what appeared to be slightly butchered “science,” he made the point that what is called origin science had a slightly less rigorous standard for what they considered as evidence of the origin of all of everything. However the entire evolution debate raises some important issues about science in general.

I am sure that everyone has a list of fundamental questions that they can ask and the questions, most assuredly, vary. My personal list of questions stems from the questions “Who am I,” “What am I,” “When am I,” “Where am I,” “Why am I here,” and “How am I here?” When and where, I have assured myself, will never be answered until there exists an absolute frame of reference for both. However, the last two questions apply to the debate. It is the purpose of science to answer how I am here, and the purpose of philosophy to answer, “Why?” and “What?” They are fundamentally different fields with different methods to achieve the answers. Science uses the scientific method that we are all familiar with, stumble across something and then get credit for stumbling on it as long as you can show everyone else how to stumble across it. Philosophy is more geared toward people who like using argument, common experience, and linguistic logic rather than repeatable experiments. “Why do we exist” is not a question answerable by science. Science can only depict the mechanisms by which we exist.

Intelligent design is a philosophical construct based on some people’s interpretation of the Bible to answer why we are here. It cannot be science because it fails to explain the mechanism by which creation occurred. It only asserts that because of certain premises (God created the world, creation occurred over six twenty-four hour periods, creation occurred in a specific order, death was non-existent until certain conditions were met, etc.), certain conditions have to be met by science in order for the construct and science to be mutually agreeable. Science would ask, “If God created, then how did he create?” If science demonstrates a method of creation then science has answered a question it can answer. The question of whether God actually created is up to the philosopher unless science can model God and show tangible, repeatable evidence of creation (convince God that creation needs to occur on an ad hoc basis or actually creating something). At least if intelligent design hypothesized a mechanism, then it could have a place in the scientific method.

Macroevolution is not science either for reasons eerily similar to that of intelligent design. It asserts that given a very long period of time, in an environment in which it is possible, spontaneous generation of life occurred. Not only did spontaneous generation occur, but also after a chain of changes, we end up with life as we know it. Again, there is no mechanism, only an assertion. There are collections of experiments that seek to show that various aspects of evolution could occur and the mechanisms by which they occur. The collection of experiments are science; it is hard to dispute something that can be shown repeatedly. However, a collection of experiments that show that macroevolution is plausible does not make macroevolution science. It still fails to hypothesize a mechanism from beginning to end that is repeatable.

Until a mechanism from beginning to end is proposed, there is no scientific question on the origin of the species. It is merely two different philosophies attempting to convince under the auspices of being scientific that it holds true. If there is experimental evidence of either side actually formulating a hypothesis of life from beginning until now, and has repeatable experiments demonstrating the hypothesis to offer them to be reviewed, great, but if not, then you really have no leg to stand on.