Op-Ed: Fitzgerald’s take on Darwin’s theory lacks valid reasoning

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Sometimes, simple mistakes can get the best of us. We can’t be right all the time, but we can at least strive to ensure that if we do screw up and say something completely false, it’s not in the campus newspaper. With that in mind, I was astounded by Peter Fitzgerald’s article on evolution that appeared in the last edition of The Maine Campus.

Fitzgerald’s faulty reasoning begins with misguided presumptions that evolutionary theory must account for a perceived lack of information in the fossil record, and that because Charles Darwin couldn’t prove his theory at the time, we must not be able to now. Neither of these statements has any merit.

Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” 150 years ago. In his time, Darwin didn’t have proof and he knew he didn’t, but he also knew he was onto something. Since then, we have collected mountains of evidence to support his theory, including libraries full of fossils, which has rocketed us to deeper understanding of the science of evolution.

The macroevolution that Peter requires as evidence is not evolution at all but a way in which we try to view it. Macroevolution crushes its timescales into periods short enough for us to observe and comprehend. Evolution actually happens in infinitesimally small degrees over vast periods of time, not in the huge leaps that Peter demands. We do not see “macro” change because evolution doesn’t occur that quickly. Ever. And here’s why: A single mutation in the genetic code means a small alteration to the genetic sequence itself.

Most mutations are detrimental to the organism, because nature has spent a long time honing a particular organism to its environment — for example, as in gazelles’ speed to outrun predators or bears’ thick fur to stave off winter cold. If an animal’s genes are mutated, then those useful  attributes can be weakened or even disappear altogether, making it less adapted to its environment, like a gazelle with gimpy legs or a bear with a patchy coat. In nature, where only the strong survive, the weak, mutated animals don’t live to mate and pass on their genes, and evolution is over for that branch of the great tree of life.

Peter’s statement that the current theory of evolution must be wrong because of Darwin’s lack of evidence is completely illogical. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially when the absence in question was in 1859. In Darwin’s lifetime — when it took months to cross an ocean — he was unable to collect evidence with the relative ease that we now can. Perhaps the great tragedy for Darwin was that his insight and brilliance came in a time when he just didn’t have the tools that we do now.

Evolution is happening constantly. One need only read a book written by a modern biologist or visit a museum and see exhibits of skeletons millions of years old, with structures so similar to ours, yet so clearly different. One need only study the genetic interrelatedness of all species to see more evidence for evolution. They need only examine the evidence here for us now, and suddenly the proof of evolution is no longer just circumstantial — it’s overwhelming.

Evolution is true and as close to a fact as any other fact we have discovered on this planet. Although Darwin may have not had the picture in focus, his camera was definitely pointed in the right direction. Mr. Fitzgerald’s, however, is not.

Timothy Stormann is a fifth-year financial economics and business finance double major.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010, 12:12 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.