An Edge in My Voice

by Harlan Ellison

  Well, the damned Tribune just sent me a note which reads in full as follows:

  “Thank you for your letter to the editor, replying to the reply of Dr. Gary E. Parker to your original letter, which we printed on January 24.

  “This is a controversy which is not likely to be settled in our lifetimes, certainly not in the letters column of this newspaper. We do not wish to prolong the dialogue at this extraordinary length. Each side would desire the last word.

  “Your letter is so interesting, however, that I have taken the liberty of forwarding it directly to Dr. Parker. I hope this meets with your approval.

  —Sincerely,

  Ralph B. Bennett

  Chief Editorial Writer.”

  First of all, as far as scientists are concerned, there is no controversy and whatever controversy there was was settled back when Huxley and Wilberforce battled it out. The current flap has been raised by fundamentalists for arcane reasons of their own, not because any scientists worth their reputations give credence to creationist ideas. Second, by giving the creationists last word, he makes it Creationists 2, George Olshevsky 1—a clear win in their favor; he could certainly have cut the debate after my second letter. Then we would both have had equal time, if nothing else. Third, forwarding the letter to Parker won’t convert him; Parker will just file it. In fact, the creationists could even send a few goons to my place (the address was on the letter—a requirement for publication by the Tribune) to throw rocks; those kind are not known for their subtlety of thought. I sent a postcard to Bennett expressing some of these thoughts, but I don’t think it will do much good.

  My question is, faced with this situation, what would you do? You have some experience dealing with these types, and any advice you could offer would be appreciated. I’ll even drop the subject entirely, if that’s what you recommend.

  —George Olshevsky,

  San Diego, CA

  From the San Diego Evening Tribune, Saturday, January 10, 1981:

  Creationist denies fossil’s use as proof of evolution

  By Robert Di Veroli

  Tribune Religion Writer

  Scientists who use the fossil record to say evolution is a fact are like people who think a Model T could change into a Model A, says Dr. Duane T. Gish, director of the Institute for Creation Research in El Cajon. “I can’t even imagine a scientist saying a thing like that,” says Gish, a biochemist whose organization promotes biblical creationism as a scientific alternative to the theory of evolution.

  It was Dr. Porter M. Kier, former director of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who said this week that “evolution is a fact,” because of “overwhelming and incontrovertible” evidence furnished by the fossil record.

  “There are more than 100 million fossils in museums over the world, all identified and dated. That’s 100 million facts that prove evolution without any doubts whatsoever,” Kier told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Toronto.

  “The fact is that among all those fossils, not one intermediate or transitional form demanded by the theory of evolution has been found,” Gish said in an interview.

  These transitional forms, or series of missing links between one kind of animal and another, should be lying around everywhere, but in fact are nowhere to be found, Gish added.

  “All these fossils are just that—records of animals that once existed, but they give no evidence of one kind of animal changing into another as the theory of evolution demands,” he said.

  “It’s just like going to a museum where you see a buggy, a Model T Ford, a Model A Ford, a V-8 Ford and a modern Ford. They’re all different kinds of Fords. You can assume that one model changed into the other, but there’s no intermediate forms to prove it.

  “The proof of evolution and what evolutionists have looked for ever since Darwin are these intermediate forms between one kind of animal and another. They themselves have said their theory demands them, but they’ve never found them.”

  Many confirmed evolutionists such as Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard and Dr. Karl Popper of England are saying they must develop a new theory of evolution precisely because these transitional forms have never been found, Gish said.

  He said one alternative evolutionists have discussed is the theory that one kind of animal “rather abruptly”—on a geological time scale—changed into another without going through the intermediate, transitional stages that could show up eons later as fossils.

  “In other words, they’re admitting there is no evidence in the fossil record for the gradual change of one creature into another demanded by the Darwinian theory of evolution,” Gish said.

  “That’s something we creation scientists have been saying for years. Now some very prominent paleontologists, evolutionists and other scientists are saying precisely the same thing.

  “This actually amounts to an abandonment of the Darwinian theory because the Darwinian idea was that change was slow and gradual and due to natural selection. Now evolutionists are saying that’s not so.”

  Gish said that more and more evolutionists are admitting evolution does not fulfill the criteria of a scientific theory, agreeing with Popper that while science rests on observation, the process of evolution cannot be observed.

  “No scientist has ever observed the origin of life or the evolution of anything,” Gish said. “It’s something you accept as a matter of faith, not fact. Actually, the fossil record supports creation, not evolution, but we don’t see either one taking place, of course.

  “Neither creation nor evolution can be tested in the manner required by a scientific theory. That’s why it’s unscientific to say evolution is a fact. That’s strictly a statement of faith.”

  Gish said those who accuse creationists of basing their views on religious faith are thus basing their own views on an act of faith, not on fact.

  “Neither creationism nor evolutionism is a valid scientific theory,” he said. “When they talk about their evolutionary theories on the origin of the universe or the origin of life they are operating outside the limits of empirical science. They are in the realm of metaphysics, not science.

  “We just believe in presenting both sides and letting the students decide for themselves.”

  From the San Diego Evening Tribune, Saturday, January 24, 1981:

  Report from creationist under attack

  Editor:

  Looking through the stack of Evening Tribunes that has accumulated while I was out of town, I came across an item titled “Creationist denies fossil’s use as proof of evolution,” by Robert Di Veroli, on page A-7 of the Jan. 10, 1981 issue. Di Veroli reports comments by Dr. Duane T. Gish on the theory of evolution, in response to the assertion by Dr. Porter M. Kier that “evolution is a fact” backed up by “evidence furnished by the fossil record.”

  As reported therein, Gish’s comments are complete garbage. He seems quite ignorant of the entire fields of biology, geology and paleontology. Were it not for the alarming fact that the influence of creationists shows signs of seeping into legitimate science textbooks and classrooms, and thence into the minds of children still too young to distinguish truth from rubbish, I would not waste my time writing. I write in the hope that what I say will at least see print and be presented to the public as a reasoned alternative to Gish’s reported statements.

  —Gish is reported as saying, “The fact is that among all those fossils, not one intermediate or transitional form demanded by the theory of evolution has been found.” This is utterly false. It would be false if even one transitional form were known, but it so happens that practically every fossil ever found can be regarded as intermediate or transitional between earlier and later forms. The details of just what is meant by “intermediate” and “transitional” are subject to proper scientific debate, and it is here that the creationists try to drive their wedge.

  As examples of “transitional forms,” I can cite the entire fossil records of horses, elephants, rhinoceroses and
humans. I can cite Archaeopteryx, a form perfectly transitional between dinosaurs and birds. I can cite Presbyornis, a recently discovered fossil bird transitional between ducks and long-legged shorebirds. And I can refer the reader to numerous texts describing countless others. Gish further is reported as stating, “These transitional forms…should be lying around everywhere, but in fact are nowhere to be found.” The transitional forms are lying around everywhere; Gish seems to lack the wit and perception to see them.

  —Gish is reported as saying, “Many confirmed evolutionists such as Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard and Dr. Karl Popper of England are saying they must develop a new theory of evolution precisely because these transitional forms have never been found.”

  Further, Gish notes, “In other words, they’re admitting there is no evidence in the fossil record for the gradual change of one creature into another demanded by the Darwinian theory of evolution.” When Darwin published his theory in 1859, the fossil record was still far too sparse for scientists to decide on the details and mechanisms of the causes of evolutionary change.

  Now, after 122 years of collecting fossils from all over the world, scientists are in a far better position to determine why species change into other species. Darwin’s principal discovery that species have changed into others over the course of geological time, is the fact of evolution. For various reasons, not all scientific, these changes were thought to have taken place gradually and slowly.

  The accumulation of evidence in the fossil record now requires a serious look toward revising this “gradualism” and replacing it with “punctualism.” This states that species change quickly and abruptly, not gradually, into other forms.

  The idea of evolutionary change itself is not questioned; only the rate of change is being examined. Gish’s statements as reported in the article are designed to mislead readers into thinking that scientists want to abandon the theory of evolution for the “theory” of creationism. I cannot think of any assertion that would be further from the truth.

  —Gish observes that, “No scientist has ever observed the origin of life or the evolution of anything. It’s something you accept as a matter of faith, not fact.” I would like to know how Gish can expect scientists to project themselves 3 ½ billion years into the past to observe a process which took several hundreds of millions of years to occur. Obviously no scientist has ever observed the origin of life! That does not mean that it did not take place, and that certainly doesn’t mean that we can never understand the process.

  No scientist has ever seen an atomic nucleus, but we nevertheless have atomic bombs. No scientist has ever seen an electromagnetic field, but we nevertheless have radio and television. For that matter, I have never seen Gish, but I think that his existence is a fact, based on the evidence of his photograph in the Tribune.

  Just because a process is too slow to be perceived over the very short span of recorded history does not mean that we cannot infer its existence in ways that make sense. We are presented with a panorama of life on Earth extending backwards in time to its very beginnings, a panorama presenting science with patterns from which inferences can be made. One inference, biological evolution, is supported by countless data from the natural sciences. It is no longer something to be taken on faith, as it may have been in 1859, but a fact the acknowledgment of which is necessary for further progress in biology, paleontology, biochemistry, biophysics, immunology and medicine to take place.

  —Gish is reported as saying, “Neither creation nor evolution can be tested in the manner required by a scientific theory. That’s why it’s unscientific to say evolution is a fact.” Gish is correct when he asserts that creation is not a theory; but he is incorrect when he asserts the same about evolution. A theory is a logical structure built up in a consistent manner by inference from a body of facts. A theory, to have any scientific value, must specify tests of itself, that is, make predictions that can be verified. For example, the theory of evolution predicts that the fossil record will be progressive in time, because species changes build on one another. You cannot have a wing without first having an arm; you cannot have an arm without first having a front foot; and you cannot have a front foot without first having a fin. The theory of evolution predicts that fins will come before feet, feet will come before arms, and arms will come before wings.

  This is exactly what is observed in the fossil record when the transitional forms between fishes and birds are lined up in chronological sequence. I have never seen a statement of the “theory” of creationism anywhere—I think because no such thing exists—but the few disconnected scraps I have assimilated lead me to believe that creationism would predict the appearance of species in the fossil record completely at random, with no visible relationship to one another.

  Six-legged gzorkles would be just as likely as housecats, and we could have birds in the Devonian period just as easily as we could have them in the Cenozoic. Yet nothing like this exists. The fossil record is orderly and systematic.

  Creationism is not the correct description of the way things happen in real life. There is no earthly reason to present creationism as a scientific theory to young people, who have a hard enough time with science already without this added pseudoscientific baggage.

  —George Olshevsky,

  Member

  Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

  Linda Vista

  From the San Diego Evening Tribune, Saturday, January 31, 1981:

  Evolution-creation debate in full cry.

  Editor:

  In his lengthy letter (VOP, 1-24-81), George Olshevsky attempted to defend evolution against the creationist statements of Dr. Duane T. Gish reported earlier. As one who taught evolution in my college biology classes for several years, I can sympathize with Olshevsky’s intentions, but unfortunately, the points he raises are sufficiently out of date and error laden to embarrass contemporary evolutionists.

  As examples of “transitional forms” (“missing links” supposed to show how evolution occurred), Olshevsky cites horses, humans and Archaeopteryx (a “reptile-bird”). These are the same examples I used long ago with my college classes—the same examples that creationists like Dr. Gish have used in winning debates with noted evolutionists at major universities across the country!

  Practically every fossil discovery once hailed as a transition from some animal to man, for example, has been discarded. Neanderthals are now known to be people (Homo sapiens), some of whom suffered bone diseases. Piltdown (Eoanthropus) and Java Man (Homoerectus) are also hoaxes. Nebraska Man (Hesperopithecus) was reconstructed, flesh, hair and family, from a single tooth—the tooth of an extinct Pig!

  Only the African australopithecines, such as “Lucy,” remain as possible links to man. But, according to USC’s Charles Oxnard, these forms did not walk in the human manner, and human types (e.g., the Kanapoi hominid) precede man in the fossil sequence, which means these forms could not have been man’s ancestor.

  The “reptile-bird, Archaeopteryx, was the “missing link” discovery I preferred to use with my class. It had teeth, claws and a tail like a reptile, yet it had wings and feathers like a bird—“a form perfectly transitional between dinosaurs and birds,” Olshevsky says. And that’s what I thought, until some astute students pointed out that Archaeopteryx had completely developed feathers and the fully functional furcula (“wish bone”) and wings of a strong flyer—and no hint of how scales might have evolved into feathers, or legs into wings. Furthermore, bones of typical birds have been found as far down in the geologic sequence as those of Archaeopteryx, so Archaeopteryx specimens we have obviously could not have been the ancestors of those birds.

  Conceding that Archaeopteryx is no transitional form, Yale’s Ostrom proposes that the real “missing link” between reptiles and birds is “pro-avis,” a form supposed to show how scales and arms evolved through a flapping, insect-catching stage before becoming the true feathers and wings of Archaeopteryx (American Scientist, Jan. / Feb. 1979). However, Os
trom also states quite clearly: “No fossil evidence of any pro-avis exists. It is a purely hypothetical pre-bird, but one which must surely have existed.”

  Now I have to admit to my classes that such a statement is pure faith, “blind faith” at that. Although Ostrom is a first-rate scientist, his view is not scientific; it cannot be inferred from the fossil evidence, since none exists.

  Olshevsky concedes that evolution may have been taken on faith in 1859. Indeed, Darwin recognized the absence of intermediate varieties and the presence of complex and diverse life forms in the lowest known fossil-bearing rocks as “perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.” Olshevsky’s assertion that later discoveries gave substance to Darwin’s hope is woefully at odds with the evidence, including my own doctoral work in paleontology and extensive fossil collection, and with the cutting edge of contemporary evolutionary thought. As the Field Museum’s David Raup puts it:

  “Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded…ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information.”