Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 14.1 The intense
public interest in topics
related to biological
evolution and its scientific
versus religious
interpretations as surveyed
by Google as of August 5,
2009
Hits (10
6
)
Topic
1.
Intelligent design debate
21.3
2. Evolution theory
9.16
3. Evolution versus creationism
4.26
4. Darwin's theory
2.04
5.
ID versus evolution debate
0.64
6. Origin of life theories
3.65
7. Einstein's relativity
1.11
8. Big Bang theory
10.2
9. Obama's stimulus package
15.3
10. Obama's cabinet
10.4
11. Market economy
70.0
12. Washington DC news
121.0
Table 14.2 Four types
of debates on biological
evolution
Based on
Macroscopic data Microscopic data
Type
I
+
II
+
III
+
+
IV
Type II debates arise when a given set of molecular data obtained from
biological experiments can be interpreted in terms of more than one molecular
mechanisms, for example, the relative importance of random mutations versus
nonrandom recombinations in determining the genotype variations of an organism.
A molecular mechanism is defined here as a set of molecular processes that is
thought to account for a given empirical observation. Type III evolutionary debates
are concerned with the question as to how the macroscopic and microscopic aspects
of biological evolution can be bridged. Similar problems of connecting the macro-
scopic and microscopic events were encountered and successfully resolved in
simpler sciences, that is,
physics
and
chemistry,
in the past by introducing major
novel concepts (see Rows 1 and 2 in Table
14.3
). Similarly, connecting the
macroscopic
Darwinian theory of evolution and the
microscopic
theories of molec-
ular and cell biology may require invoking one or more new concepts as suggested
in the last three rows of Table
14.3
, which may turn out to be true or may be falsified
and replaced by better theories in the future. Finally, for a logical completeness, it is
necessary to include Type IV debates on evolution that are based neither on
macroscopic (e.g., fossil records) nor microscopic empirical data (e.g., coevolution
of DNA sequences among different species) but only on religious beliefs such as
those found in the Old and New Testaments of Christianity or in other similar
religious writings.
It was about a century ago that newly emerging experimental data forced
physicists to abandon
Newtonian mechanics
as a universal theory and replace it
with
quantum mechanics
(Plotnitsky 2006)
.
The quantum mechanical revolution in
