Dawkins TV 4 interview with John Mackay (UK Channel 4, 18th August 2008) is still drawing comment as we get repeated queries such as: “I have had the opportunity to view your recent interview with Professor Dawkins of Oxford University on British television. I have to admit I was astounded by your claims while talking with Prof Dawkins and also the clips I saw of you speaking on the podium. Surely you cannot seriously claim that things that are not observable by humans are not science? What about nuclear power? Not science? There are surely thousands of physicists around the world who could PROVE you wrong.”
How do we reply?
Evolution is a process – not a thing. It involves a change to living things. Evolution is not a discreet thing like an atom (visible or invisible – but detectable) and evolution is not just a force or an energy. Evolution involves living things which are both micro and macroscopic and the theory claims the micro has evolved into the macro over vast quantities of time, i.e. dinosaurs into birds over millions of years, or hydrogen into people over billions of years. For such a process to be claimed true, it must be observed happening at both levels and the best comment we have had on this process actually comes from Dawkins himself in an interview with Bill Moyers, NOW, 3 Dec 2004 PBS USA:
Moyers asked: “Is evolution a theory, not a fact?”
Dawkins replied: “Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening.”
Add to that the claims by Prof Steve Jones that the evolution of humans has stopped (BBC Radio 4, Today programme, 7 October 2008) and you have an unobserved process, even though the atoms that make up the observed human are largely unobservable. Evolution as a concept is definitely used as the framework into which living or dead entities are fitted into place in a neat diagram of evolution, but this is not evidence and it is not science – it is a world view imposed on the data and accepted by blind faith. (ref method, world view, philosophy)
Evidence News 29 October 2008