Dawkins playing bait and switch with guppy selection
by Jonathan Sarfati
In September 2009, Richard Dawkins released his book The Greatest Show on Earth:
The Evidence for Evolution. In it, he disparagingly referred to creationists
as “history-deniers”. But it’s Dawkins who is denying true history,
and his interpretation of the evidence is (sadly) faulty.
Published: 18 February 2010(GMT+10)
In Dawkins’ new book The Greatest Show on Earth, he supposedly presents
proof of evolution, as he admits that “the evidence for evolution is nowhere
explicitly set out” in his previous books. But much of his book is guilty
of the logical fallacy of
equivocation or “bait-and-switch”,
that is, switching the meaning of a single word (evolution) part-way through an
argument. For example, the real point of debate is whether all living things come
from pond scum, but Dawkins says:
“ … when there is a systematic increase or decrease in the
frequency with which we see a particular gene in a gene pool, that is precisely
what we mean by evolution.” (p. 33)
Yet throughout his book, Dawkins rails against “history deniers” or
“40 percenters” who deny “evolution”. But if this is what
he means by evolution, then I can’t think of anyone who denies it, including
the staff at CMI!
Dawkins uses many of the pages in his book to prove that
natural selection is a fact. Once again,
creationists taught this before Darwin, and it’s an important
part of the modern
biblical Creation/Fall/Flood/Dispersion model, explaining how
creatures adapt to the environment.
However, Dawkins himself compares most examples of natural selection to a human
sculptor removing clay, i.e. “chiselling” genes from the gene pool (p.
34). Such changes are in the opposite direction
required to turn bacteria into biologists.
Also, creationists have little problem with sexual selection, i.e. the selection
of characteristics preferred by the opposite sex in mate choice. This is potentially
a strong effect, since only those creatures that find mates can pass on their genes
to the next generation. However, it fails to account
for the peacock tail, the very thing Darwin invented the theory to explain!
It also hindered discovery of an important function for the huge
toucan beak: temperature regulation.
Dawkins does set out some good evidence that both natural selection and sexual selection happen, but
knocks down a straw man in thinking that this somehow proves particles-to-people
evolution or disproves biblical creation. The following is a draft extract from
our forthcoming book, The Greatest Hoax on Earth? Refuting Dawkins on Evolution.
Guppies
Photo wikipedia.org
Dawkins’ colleague Dr John Endler studied many populations of guppies in mountain
streams in Trinidad, Tobago and Venezuela. (pp. 133–9).1 Brightly coloured males seem to impress the females,
who “sexually selected” such colours. But they stand out to predators,
who would “naturally select” against this. As strong support for this,
streams with strong predators contain drabber males, while streams with weak predators
have more brightly coloured males with larger, gaudier spots.
Endler noticed that the “drab” ones are camouflaged by spots as well,
which blend in with the pebbles at the bottoms of their native streams. So he set
up experiments in a number of ponds, half with fine gravel and half with coarse.
He allowed guppies to breed freely. The number of spots shot up, presumably since
only sexual selection was at work.
Then after six months, he left some ponds predator-free; in others, a fairly weak
predator (given that no natural stream is really totally predator-free); and in
the remaining, he introduced a strong predator, a pike cichlid. In the ponds with
weak or no predation, the number of spots continued to rise, as sexual selection
was still operating. But in the ponds with the strong predator, the number of spots
dropped sharply. Evidently males with lots of spots were easily spotted and devoured,
so despite the females’ preferences, they had to be content with the survivors.
Also, Endler found that gravel size made a difference. Both strong and weak predators
promoted larger spots in pools with coarse gravel, and smaller spots with finer
gravel. This makes sense—the closer spot size matches gravel, the more camouflaged
the fish are. But in ponds with no predators, the reverse happened: fine gravel
promoted larger spots and coarse gravel smaller. Again, this makes sense—the
less camouflaged males stand out better to the females.
Evolution in action?
Belief in particles-to-people evolution is not necessary to understand real science,
including experiments on natural and sexual selection. And clearly belief
in creation does not ruin fascination for such science.
Dawkins relates a story Endler told about an encounter with a fellow domestic airline
passenger. This passenger showed much interest in Endler’s guppy research,
and amiably asked what Endler himself calls “excellent questions …
indicating that he was enthusiastically and intellectually following the argument.”
Yet when this passenger asked what theory underlined the experiments, Endler replied,
“It’s called Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.”
Then, by Endler’s account, this passenger quit the conversation, which Endler
calls, “really tragic”. Dawkins calls this passenger “closed-minded”
(p. 133).
But even if this account is unspun, it doesn’t prove what they claim. This passenger
might have been very annoyed at Endler’s cheap bait-and-switch. Dawkins commits
the same dishonest equivocation when he claims, “It is a spectacular example
of evolution before our very eyes.” (p. 139). It might have been better to
reply on the lines of, “Indeed, these are most ingenious experiments to support
natural selection, a theory known to creationists before Darwin. But do guppies
changing into guppies prove that fish evolved into fishermen? The changes don’t
show any new features, just different expressions of the same ones.” Yet this
type of change, which doesn’t add any new information, is usually the best
“evidence” of evolution and alleged disproof of creation that evolutionists
can come up with.
Furthermore, it shows that belief in particles-to-people evolution is not necessary
to understand real science, including experiments on natural and sexual selection.
And clearly belief in creation does not ruin fascination for such science. So Dawkins’
scare-mongering about “history deniers” destroying science education
is shown—even by his own account—to be wide of the mark.
Related articles
Further reading
Reference
- While Dawkins does not specifically reference his comments
about Endler’s research, it’s likely he’s referring to this paper
listed in his Bibliography: Endler, J.A., Natural and sexual selection on color
patterns in poeciliid fishes, Environmental Biology of Fishes 9:173–190,
1983. Return to text.
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