Dear Editor,
The letter from Joseph McCormack entitled
”
The Achilles Heel of Evolution: Natural Selection
”
is entirely based on a complete and absolute misunderstanding of
what the term
”
natural selection
”
means.
Dear Editor,
The letter from Joseph McCormack entitled “The Achilles Heel of Evolution: Natural Selection” is entirely based on a complete and absolute misunderstanding of what the term “natural selection” means.
He describes natural selection as “a mysterious force in nature that cherry picks mutations” and says that, “Natural selection is not testable, cannot be reproduced, and cannot be predicted.” This is so wrong as to be almost laughable – if it was not so worrying that such a simple concept is being misrepresented.
Imagine two rabbits being chased across a meadow by a wolf. One rabbit runs faster than the other. All other things being equal, the slower rabbit will be caught and eaten. The fast rabbit will survive to run another day. Over time, future generations will tend to be descended from the surviving faster rabbits, (the slower ones having been eaten are less likely to leave surviving offspring). So over time the average speed of the rabbit population will rise. That is natural selection working on the rabbits.
In the same way, of two wolves running at different speeds after a single rabbit, the faster one will usually catch the rabbit and eat better than the slow one. This makes the fast wolves more likely to survive and reproduce. That is natural selection acting on wolves.
Obviously speed is not the only factor – camouflage, agility, caution, hearing and dozens of other factors affect the survival chances of rabbits and wolves alike. But to say that natural selection cannot be tested or reproduced is simply and completely wrong. Natural selection is all around us and happens every time two creatures compete for something that affects their survival chances.
The bigger question of whether natural selection something that “just happens” or whether it is one of God’s ways of shaping the world around us is not one I feel qualified to answer.
Malcolm Morris, Hong Kong
