More views on evolution

Luther Roberts strongly objects to the ACS position paper on the teaching of evolution and says it implies that all ACS members agree with it (C&EN, Dec. 12, 2005, page 3). I, and I'm sure many others, strongly agree with the ACS position and would have been very disappointed had it not been published. Several other scientific organizations, to their good credit, have issued similar statements. Roberts brands these as dogmatic, dismissing out of hand any opposing view. He also disagrees with the ACS portrayal of creationism and its proponents as unscientific. He also says that evolutionism is "uncontested theory."

Here are some observations held by many scientists, including many of us who are also people of faith: Evolution is a theory; although often contested, it's a well-founded one. Valid criticism comes from additional good science, and the theory grows and gets better.

Creationism and intelligent design are not science. They are dogmatic, with preconceived conclusions that are not testable and are not even worthy of standing as scientific hypotheses. They are not theories-at least not scientific theories. U.S. District Judge John Jones recently ruled in Dover, Pa., that teaching intelligent design in public schools is not even legal.

Evolution does not address the origin of life in general. It is not necessarily atheistic. Many of us scientists who are people of faith both subscribe to good scientific findings, including evolution, and believe in our respective faiths. One does not have to choose between one's faith and evolution, exclusive of the other.

In another letter in the same issue of C&EN, Antonio Monge says that "logical explanations cannot [always] be reached through scientific experimentation." Neither can religious belief provide logical explanations, in most or all cases. That's why adherents take religious explanations on faith. When Monge "looks up to the firmament" I hope that he is not "shooting for the stars." The concept of the firmament-concentric, hard spheres surrounding Earth-was laid to rest by Galileo. That practicality doesn't make the concept any less beautiful.

The world and universe are wonderful, regardless of how much we try to explain their workings, and even more so the more we learn. Some things are meant to be explained; others are to be taken on faith. Don't attempt to prove the existence of God; that's insulting.

Bob Buntrock
Orono, Maine

In reading the many opinions as to whether C&EN should or should not take a stand on the issue of intelligent design versus evolution, it is troubling to see from the letters that so many readers-who claim to be scientists-don't seem to have a clue as to what constitutes scientific theory. Have they never heard of the principle of consilience?

What makes an explanation scientifically valid is not that it necessarily be known to be true. Rather it is that the proposed explanation seems valid or correct in light of all that is currently known about the subject and that it can be consistently tested, verified, or shown to be a false assumption. The blind acceptance of a doctrine or an explanation that one simply believes to be true with no ongoing, testable corroboration, or which cannot be falsified, is, on the other hand, purely a matter of faith.

Undoubtedly, there are scientists who promote their pet theories in the face of opposing evidence. But at some point, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary-be it alchemy, astrology, blood-letting, or what have you-proponents of said theories either concede that they are wrong, or if they persist in such belief, what may at one time have been considered a scientifically valid hypothesis is consigned to the category of ideology or faith.

Intelligent design, be it true or not, is speculation, while evolution is a testable theory. A theory is a model put forth to explain existing fact. It is not a wild guess or unfounded speculation. If observation and evidence repeatedly support a theory, then it becomes accepted as valid and most likely true and becomes part of generally accepted scientific rationale. If new evidence emerges that is counter to the theory, the theory is modified or discarded altogether and replaced with a new theory that better explains the facts. For Darwin, a creationist at the outset, the facts came first and then came his theory, which still remains the most generally accepted, and only scientific, explanation for how the variety of life in the world around us came to be.

This process of connecting the evidence from numerous fields of scientific endeavor is termed consilience, or the process of arriving at the best inference given the available data. The term was first introduced in 1840 in "The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History," by William Whewell, in which he maintains that science works by testing hypotheses in a variety of ways, arriving at the same conclusion from different angles. If a given hypothesis withstands multiple independent tests, as evolution most certainly has from numerous fields of investigation, then one can be increasingly confident that the hypothesis is in fact correct. In Whewell's words: "The Consilience of Inductions takes place when an Induction, obtained from one class of facts, coincides with an Induction, obtained from another different class. Thus Consilience is a test of the truth of the Theory in which it occurs."

Ronald M. DiSalvo
Marina del Rey, Calif.