Evolution on the Head of a Pin

"ma Pleg"
benjamin harubin 2010
digital photomontage

critics of evolution (namely, creationists or advocates of intelligent design) like to say that "evolution is just a theory", meaning, in loose parlance, guessy, uncertain and unproven.   it is a story, they say, among many stories.

rational scientists may concede a given amount of uncertainty, but will say that that is besides the point.  the value of a theory is in how useful it is, how well it plays with other theories, whether it can make successful predictions and whether results from experiments that support the theory can be reproduced.  it is also a valuable theory that provides new areas of study.  

a theory is not a tangible thing.  it is a mental construct.  it is an invisible scaffolding and its utility lies in the nature of what you are building.  

it is software, and is only useful when it is functioning.

you can't see something called "evolution".  it is not a thing.  or if it is a thing, it is a thing as big as the whole universe.   if you saw it you would be god or your head would explode (because antimatter).

you can see fossils, you can sequence DNA and you can compare phenotypes, but you can't see evolution.  evolution relies upon a massive web of interconnected disciplines, theories, and assumptions.  if you deny evolution, then you also deny geology, atomic theory, quantum mechanics, chemistry, materials science, cosmology, etc, and you must think that your MP3 player runs on dragon's breath and you are living in a freakin dream world.  

you can't see plate tectonics, but you can measure how much closer Africa is to America since last year.  

in other words, you can see bits and slices and tethers of "things" in a time web of memories, biases and assumptions (that is to say, models).  

science requires some form of independent verification (reproducibility), and so it also must necessarily involve more than one person and preferably a great consensus.   and this requires language.  science is an example of the trend of increasing precision in the use of language.   math, the language of science, is the most precise.   i must however point out that religion has its own need of language and has its own form of verification.  

the differences between the various models are a reflection of their specific functions.  theological models can be just as complex as scientific ones, down to centuries long debates on the estimation of number fnord of angels that can mosh on a pinhead.  

but i do not think that creationism or ID should be taught in a state funded science class.  aside from the principle of separation of church and state, it's false advertising.  

at least until the re-Synthesis, when information physics merge with thermodynamic evolutionary neurobiology.  when all facts become equal, each consisting of information, whose energy can be measured.  then, there will no longer be a clear distinction between science, religion, mysticism, art, politics or sport.  

when scientists realize the creative power of their models, they can make alternative futures of their choosing, like wizards.  

when religious engineers augment their practice with automation and algorithms, will the New Bionic Church churn out record numbers of the enlightened?

"embryo30"
benjamin harubin 2008
digital photomontage

when information reaches a critical threshold, where there is so much interpenetration of knowledge that we have entered a new kind of dreamtime, what will that big bad baby do, playing with a big blue bauble in space?