Anyone who has seen me in my undies knows that evolution has a reverse gear. Scary but true.

Natural selection is just like Occam's razor – often misapplied. Natural selection does not mean that humans evolved from monkeys. It only means that genetics that are successful in theire environment will be passed on. Why are monkeys still around if humans evolved from them? Because their survival rate is sufficient that they can breed enough to make up for their losses. It's the definition of any successful species. If human encroachment into their habitat wipes them out, what is that but natural selection in action?

If God was calling the shots (ala creationism), would humans be allowed to depopulate entire species in the Amazonian rain forests? Only we can stop ourselves from clubbing baby harp seals into extinction. Baby seals can't defend themselves, nor can they afford lawyers on their own. If we choose to, they can be naturally deselected in a New York minute.

The reason people are so afraid of natural selection is that it utterly lacks compassion. It is brutal, cold, and ugly. It is also very real, and it always has been. We are just the first species on Earth so successful that we get a choice in the matter.

Hi Jyb,

Seems to me you might be drawing an undue equivalence between natural selection and evolution. It is not the selection of beneficial traits that is at question, rather it is the force that brings those traits to the test.

Here's an analogy I like to use (for what it's worth).

Your spouse asks you to go to the store for ice cream. You get in the car, start the engine, press the accelerator, and direct the car on the path to the store. An evolutionist would explain the wear on the tires that occurs on the trip as the result of friction between the tire and the road. It can be tested, measured, and with test results in hand the amount of wear can be predicted for future trips. The Evolutionist might even go all the way back to the science of combustion as generating force that eventually results in the friction. The Evolutionist might even view your actions as contributing to the tire wear.

By contrast, the creationist would suggest that it is the unmeasurable drive that motivated your spouse to desire ice cream that led, eventually, to the tire wear. They do not necessarily deny the physical factors involved. The downside to the creationist view (or perhaps the up side if you are a creationist) is that the initial motivating force is unknowable: is it the desire for ice cream, or the motivation to invent ice cream to be desired, or perhaps the force that led cows to produce milk to be used as ice cream… etc.

In this analogy, natural selection occurs when you buy new tires. You choose a brand that will not wear out as quickly.

I'd just like to inject a little anthropology to this if I may. The problem with a "missing link" theory is, if one truly understands the theory behind evolution and the associated process of natural selection, there can be no "missing link". Unfortunately, the idea of a "missing link" is a leftover relic of the Victorian era of science. During this period when scientists of the time were trying to understand Darwin's new theory on evolution, they placed the entire process on an idea known as "Linear progression". This is the thought that man and his ancestors evolved in a straight line so to speak. I’m sure you are all aware of the old charts that used to be displayed in science classes showing a monkey on one end, and a modern day human at the other, with all the supposed changes in between. This is linear progression, and anthropologists who study evolution know this to be wrong. Unfortunately in this case, the media industry still uses the term to promote discoveries such as this because it still invoke a sense of sensationalism to those who are less informed. The evolutionary process would be more akin to a tree with many branches. Some branches reach dead ends, while other branches continue to grow. The only thing that the branches have in common with each other is the trunk, which would represent the early formation of ALL life on the planet, not just man and primates. This is a simplified explanation, and the evolutionary process is certainly more complicated than this, but my point is that currently in the field of anthropology there is no ongoing search for a “missing link”. Fossils such as this are studied in depth and differences and similarities are noted in order to help us reach a better understanding of our early origin

It should be noted that evolutionary theory is not in its infancy; the theory is robust with an enormity of evidentiary weight. Like the real Dawkins, I feel that there will be changes in our understanding of natural selection, though I don't believe it will be turned on its ear.

Well said!