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Last updated: 22 May 2022
Darwin is famous for his theory of Natural selection. Natural selection is the idea that stronger, fitter, species will live to reproduce, and those weaker and less fit don’t reproduce as often. This leads to the “selection” by specific traits of animals. While this idea is not off the mark, and does seem to present a valid argument for the diversity and change of species, it led to the development of a much more problematic science.
Charles Darwin’s ideas are based from empirical evidence that species exist and evolve through selection. The traits which match most well to the environment will “select” those species that can resist a competitive environment.
Examples of Natural Selection
The easiest and most common example is of Darwin’s finches: the finches’ beaks are unique dependent on the type of food available in the environment on certain islands. Those with specific beaks will be able to eat the food contained in the specific environment more easily, thus spend less time and energy on procuring food and more time mating.
This is a sensible argument and seems to regard truth. In this sense, animals can “evolve” or change as the environment changes, and random mutations which can introduce more favorable traits might select for new variants.
Another good example are bacteria or viral species and antibiotic resistance. As virulent microorganisms grow and mutate at high rates due to the nature of their DNA replication, these organisms are selected for those which can naturally resist antibiotics. As we kill off all the microorganisms that aren’t immune to the antibiotics, those who have naturally manifested a favorable mutation, have “evolved” to be resistant to the antibiotic, and will not die. Thus, a new colony arises and spreads which are no longer resistant to an antibiotic. In the virulent microorganism, we can more easily witness natural selection and evolution on a much shorter scale, and the theory of natural selection is more easily supported.
With species of animals, several people (notably Darwin and Wallace, as well as many scientists since) have witnessed firsthand the variations of species and are the fathers of this idea of evolution and natural selection. The idea comes from empirical evidence that (extant) species exist in variations, and other species exist which are extinct. Darwin meticulously spent a chunk of his life (~10 years) seeking out animals with his own eyes, then rationalizing his ideas and writing about it back in his estate. The idea of natural selection is true because we’ve seen it with our eyes, and this is what happens in nature.
The Issue with the Theory of Natural Selection
The problem arises when one starts to speculate on unseen history, on events which are not witnessed firsthand, and based on current evidence. While we cannot predict the future, we also have trouble predicting the past. The future can be extrapolated from the present (and past), and the past can be extrapolated from the present (and nearer past). It is this extrapolation which induces problems into the core of ideas which are not witnessed firsthand and readily documented.
This is like a funnel stretching infinitely outwards with both narrower ends sitting at the present while the wider ends are things which we predict from the present. The width of the funnel depicts the probability of truth, and as the funnel becomes wider as we move away from the present into the future or past, the probability of events which could occur is less and less.
This makes events predicted at a time far away from now to be less and less possibly true. This is because there are certainly variables which we cannot predict, and each variable has other variables which affect it. With contingent events, these depend upon a multitude of factors, which are contingent upon other many factors. The farther in the causal chain we go, the more variables are in the probability equation, and so it become exponentially less probable when we move away from the initial event source.
This is like a road with many forks. If we have no knowledge of which path will be chosen, we cannot predict where the traveler will end up, or which previous path he has taken if we have not witnessed their previous movement. Sure, we can speculate that they took paths A, b, or C, but this is not 100% certain.
Things such as fossils introduce an idea of a prior organism which might have lived in the past. We see bones conducive to an organism long past. But it’s not necessary that these bones ever had any flesh, since extrapolating that flesh existed on these bones is a correlative or inductive idea. And inductive speculations are never 100% necessarily truthful, while correlation does not mean causation.
For instance, we can use math to make this more clear. If we assume 1000 variables at the start of time, and we permute these together, then we get:
P(n,r) = P(1000,1000)P(n,r) = P(1000,1000)
= 1000!(1000−1000)! = 1000!(1000−1000)!
= 4.02E^2567
That’s roughly 4 x 102567 different permutations of variables. For comparison, there’s a predicted 7 x 1022 stars in the universe. The permutation is more than 111 times greater in magnitude. Then if we consider this over the billions of years the universe is said to predicted to exist, we multiply this exponentially greater.
The percent chance of a universe creating life as it is, is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000……1% (with too many zeroes to practically list here). We might even say this chance is infinitesimally small.
The main idea I’m trying to make clear is that anything which is not witnessed through empirical means has no necessary truth (that this is the full and only truth) to it. There are many speculative theories out there which are certainly not truthful. Speculation is based on correlations between events we have seen and things which are similar. Similarity does not breed identity. Anything which has to do with the past is certainly not a necessary truth, lest what is recorded in books as “history”… even then history is skewed towards the victor.
Extending this idea that facts which we accept as truth which are not empirical includes: dinosaurs once roamed the land, certain species existed in the past although we’ve never seen them alive, or that all life arose from a big bang. We cannot know for certain that energies compounded into atoms, then molecules and a primordial cesspool of molecules (primordial soup) gave rise to the first living organism(s). These molecules eventually, through probabilistic combinations, created proteins, RNA, and lipids; eventually, culminating in a cell. These predictions occur contingently (if such as such variables are lined up right), and as I’ve noted, predicting variables at a length of time is problematic (the traveler on the forked road).
My qualm is with the idea that we (life) arose from a “primordial soup”. I cannot disagree that scientific evidence has shown that with the speculated conditions which were available at the time of the primordial atomic soup, macromolecular structures such as proteins and RNA were created. Laboratory experiments show that under specific conditions, the conditions we speculate were available at the time of primordial soup, can produce life. It’s impossible to know if this was the actual truth billions of years ago—nobody was there to witness it.
We simply speculate that “something existed back then in which a big bang creates the conditions necessary for a primordial soup to create life”. Scientific inquiry bases itself on proving valid arguments, but arguments which may not have sound premises. That’s to say the conditions we speculate to exist are the premises, and if these premises are true, then the resultant conclusion is true. IF a big bang created the concurrent atoms, and IF these atoms came into a common primordial pool, then life arose this way. These ifs make me a little uneasy, as the ifs are not certainly true.
A contentious statement: the religion of Science
The idea of a bang and life arising through the physical manifestations of the atomic interactions is a story which is told by a cult (or religion) of people called “scientists”. This is no different than any other religion because we must have faith that these uncertain premises are certainly true. We blindly accept science as giving the truth because it is pushed on us religiously as certain knowledge. Yet, those wise and intelligent creatures who can transcend the wool of media and education can certainly logically see that science is just another set of culturally accepted faiths in possible truth. Inductive methods and projections are often not very good reasoning methods. Have you ever looked at the weather, saw rain announced for tomorrow, and then it never rained?
As a religious person of Christian faith who believes that the good Lord our God created the entire universe, I am perhaps slightly biased in my view. Yet, I have also completed a Bachelor of Science degree, and have strong scientific roots. I know that the religion I accept is based on faith. Yet, science is simply another faith, albeit one which is more empirical, logical, and objective. Science is good for noting correlations in the “now”, based on empirical observations. It is not as good at projecting or speculating away from what was observed.
My ultimate thesis of the world is that god created things at a certain point in time, including animals and Adam and Eve (creationism), but gave the capacity for these animals to evolve, to be subject to natural selection. Creation did not arise from a primordial pool of life, creation arose from the almighty will and power of God.
Perhaps God first did make a primordial soup, but got bored at its simplicity and it being an unconscious being, and sped up the evolution process to human life (albeit in his image). Although this specific idea I think is less accurate. I think my idea bridges Darwin’s ideas and my Christian faith, but rejects the idea that life arose from a “big bang”. A bang which has no basis to how the big bang occurred, or why. In the Christian faith, this “big bang” is initiated through the almighty power of God.
What science notes from a big bang, a valid argument leading from premises to conclusion is that something was there to introduce an energy into the universe. The universe then gradually came to be formed through interactions of the first particles, leading to more complex interactions, etc.… The quarks and leptons formed the atoms, which formed the elements, and then the molecules.
Where this leaves us
Darwin left us with empirical scientific evidence that diverse species exist and are subject to natural selection. Natural selection drives evolution of species. This is all that is certainly true. This idea acted as a seed which blossomed into the idea of a big bang and primordial pool of life because it must corroborate the evidence of evolution, and this corroboration requires there must have been less and less complex species as we go back since species are becoming more specialized. Species adapt to their environment in the way that those most suited will live on, and sometimes rogue species sometimes develop which are more fit than the previous. This was adapted as the premise which supports an idea that previous organisms less complex than animals existed. Darwin’s idea problematically blossomed into less accurate depictions of the universe.
Science tells one story, while religion tells another. Religion has been documented over the ages, while science has only existed for hundreds of years. I believe that science and religion can be bridged between creationism and evolution, but that there was a point of creation from God that things began to evolve from. This idea introduces so many problems and irregularities into mainstream scientific thought. Science should quit focusing on things which are not empirically observable, and focus on making work what we have evidence to work. Darwin most likely had it right, but science doesn’t certainly know its certainly. It’s possible that religion has it right, and its possible that science has it right; yet, science certainly isn’t necessarily true on the matter.
Philosophy, Science, and Knowledge 
