
Evolution (or Darwinism) is one of those beliefs that in debates and pub arguments is nearly always pitted against Creationalism and by virtue of that comes out smelling smugly of science. But like a boxing champion choosing his own challengers, or a politician refusing to answer questions unvetted by his aides, to me this rather contrived binary opposition seems like a rum deal, something promoted to hide the present crisis of credibility concerning the Theory of Evolution.
Darwin's Theory of Evolution laid out in his Origin of Species supposes that all the species on the planet evolved from simple single-cell life forms through a process of Natural Selection - which is kind of like The Weakest Link for ameoba - those that adapted, prospered and those that didn't, didn't. Anyway, according to Darwin all this happened over an extremely long time period, some four or five billion years.
Darwin said: "Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps."
He also pointed out that, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
Later on in his life he admitted, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
There are also lots of problems with Darwin's conception of unicellular life forms as being simple. Recent advances in molecular biology have shown that these lifeforms are incredibly complex, containing thousands of intricate parts each with a specific function. So in no way has there been a slow evolution from the unicellular towards increasing complexity and design improvement, they were already incredibly complex. It could be said there was an evolution of kinds towards bigger animals, though the dinasaurs put paid to the idea that bigger is better.
Regarding God, Darwin doesn't cite a first cause or explain how the first 'simple life' form came to be, so there's no reason for any major opposition between scientists and most religions, save various types of fundamentalism and Creationalism.
So why when Darwin's Theory of Evolution has been so long ago debunked sientifically is it so pervasive in our culture? Is it because we like the idea of things progressing naturally towards perfection? For in this sense Evolution has a lot in common with Gnosticism, Buddhism and Hinduism. It's a story of a race towards Nirvana with mother nature (aka Gaia) at the top of the pyramid. A very seductive dream.
Personally, I believe in survival of the fittest, but that what constitutes being the fittest can change in a split second. One minute humanity is lording it over the cockroach crushing them under our heels. The next - after a sudden and devastating thermonuclear attack - the cockroach is king.
Politically, what we're hoping for these days is the reverse of the above. We want the psychopathic cockroach elite that now call the shots in the West to perish and give way to an uprising of humanity.
Now that's what I would call Evolution.
Solutions # 55: Question everything, and that means EVERYTHING!

