I have great praise for much of the letter, “Evolution is not a plot” [Herald, April 23], which describes the overwhelminglystrong evidence for the evolution of micro-organisms. My degrees are in physics, so I’ve had to be an autodidact in biology, organic chemistry, history, theology, etc. I worked in geophysics for several years.
When I was on the faculty of a religious college, Dr. Biology Kenyon (whose husband was Dr. Greek Kenyon) stated, “We teach evolution but we don’t leave God out.” A few years later at a secular college, an irreligious member of the biology faculty made a statement which I expurgate: “There’s got to be something going on out there besides evolution. You breed a fruit fly for a jillion generations, and what do you get? Another fruit fly!”
The problem for me with macro-evolution is complexity. Can random chance produce enough mutations sufficiently rapidly to explain all changes? How many mutations in DNA are required to produce the differences in structures observed in contrasting a cold-blooded organism with a comparable warm-blooded organism? What is the normal rate of production of mutations? How can one mutation (that produces no enhanced value for survival) be established in the evolutionary chain so that the next mutation needed to establish a new system can take its place in the chain? (This argument is not original with me. I believe it was raised by Professor Behe in his conjecture of intelligent design.)
Until questions like those can be answered, I do not see that Darwinian chance should be taught as a total explanation of the development of living things. It looks suspiciously like a faith to me. As a partial explanation, and a good basis for further study, yes.
Newtonian physics is not a total explanation either, even though his Laws of Motion and Theory of Gravitation were thought to be the absolute truth for maybe 200 years because their predictions turned out to be so close to reality when the experiments were performed. But as experiments became more accurate in the late 19th century, physicists had to modify Newtonian mechanics because experimental evidence required it.
Biology is much more complicated than physics. Can biologists modify their theories if required?
Spencer L. Williams, Alexandria