Darwin's Theory of Evolution Not Dead Yet

Aug. 29, 2010 - PRLog -- University of Bristol researchers appear more adept at self-promotion than science.
'Calgary researcher's room-to-roam proposal may be fittest theory' was the headline  of an article written by Jamie Komarnicki and published in the Wednesday, August 25, 2010 of the Calgary Herald.  It seems one way or another, news organizations across the world have picked up and reported that University of Bristol researchers Michael Benton, Sarda Sahney and Paul Ferry have developed a replacement for current evolutionary theory with which Charles Darwin is most closely associated.

The world-wide attention is not surprising. A new theory of evolution would be big news and worthy of such attention. Unfortunately for the University of Bristol research team, that is not what we are dealing with here.  Far from groundbreaking, the University of Bristol research team study appears to be rather pedestrian.  How did such a profoundly ordinary study become a global sensation? Well, start with a research team more adept at self-promotion than good science and add in a gullible media.  To create a perfect storm of confusion, have one of the interviews conducted by The Calgary Herald, a newspaper with a strong, almost maniacal, anti-evolution and anti-Darwin agenda.

The Sarda Sahney Interview

Which appears to have happened here. The Calgary Herald article was apparently the result of an interview conducted with one of the research team members, Sarda Sahney who happens to reside in Calgary. From what is contained in the article, it appears that much of the confusion was generated by Ms. Sahney in framing the discussion in terms of 'survival of the fittest'.  She is quoted in the article as saying: When Darwin was talking about survival of the fittest, he saw individual animals and species competing with each other for resources. This is a gross simplification that creates a convenient and easy to knock-down straw-man. Writer Jamie Komarnicki  follows this up with: A cornerstone of evolutionary theory -- Darwin's famously coined "survival of the fittest" -- is being questioned by researchers at the University of Bristol who argue competition isn't the driving force of evolution. Apparently, Jamie couldn't be bothered to do even the most rudimentary research.

Darwin didn't coin use the phrase survival of the fittest. That was done by Herbert Spencer who proposed it as a synonym for natural selection. Darwin occasionally used  the phrase but only within this limited definition -  in which fittest meant a fit within in an ecological or environmental niche - not, as Ms. Sahney and Jamie Komarnicki infer, a competitive battle in which the most physical fit or strongest species wins. By framing things in this way, Ms. Sahney essentially sets up Darwin and modern evolutionary theory as simplistic and outdated, making it all the easier to posit her own room-to-roam replacement. Whatever Ms. Sahney intentions though, she must have been aware (or certainly should have been), of the fuss this would create along with the headlines.  I guess that's how you get your picture in the paper.

Richard Feynman once said in describing science:  .  .  . reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled.  Evidently, University of Bristol researchers have taken it upon themselves to put public relations before reality in an effort to fool the rest of us.

To Ms. Sahney's credit, she is quoted at the end of the article as saying: We're not saying Darwin is wrong; we're just saying he didn't have all the information and we can expand upon his theories. But this is a rather flaccid statement. Would anyone have paid attention if Ms. Sahney put reality clearly before public relations and said: Nothing we are proposing conflicts with evolutionary theory or Darwin. We are suggesting the availability of new environmental space may have been a more important factor than competitive pressures in driving speciation on land.


The Role of the Media (and The Herald).

While the role of the research team members in this mess shouldn't be excused, neither can the role of the media.

First, is the general ignorance of the press.  The media doesn't understand science and refuses to invest the money or time to obtain some expertise. Now I am not talking rocket scientists here. To bend an old quote, before any member of the media writes a science story, two things should be true; the writer should have taken a university level science course and should have passed it. When ignorance is combined with the belief that every story must be dumbed-down for a public comprised of idiots, we get a double whammy of stupid. (It may well be the public is comprised of idiots  but the media would be wise to remember that we are all members of the public - bloggers and  newspaper editors included.)

Second, the deliberate twisting of  facts and stories to fit an agenda. The Calgary Herald will grasp at any straw that looks as if it could support an anti-Darwin argument. All that any researcher would have to imply is that something may disagree with Darwin, and you are sure to get a full-blown over-the-top piece of nonsense claiming that science has discovered that Darwin and evolution are wrong or about to be replaced.

Third, the willingness of newspapers to run stories they pick up 'on the wire' without taking the time to do any fact checking. No newspaper should run a science story that originated from the Herald without doing a little checking of their own. Perhaps the Herald could put up the media equivalent of those dangerous goods signs. It could read something like: Caution, this science story was written by staff of the Calgary Herald. We have no flipping idea what we're talking about.

So where does all this leaves us?

Well, don't expect a revolution in evolutionary biology anytime soon. Darwin and evolution are quite safe despite rumors and news reports to the contrary. The implication in  'Calgary researcher's room-to-roam proposal may be fittest theory' that Darwin and evolutionary theory are about to be replaced, is absolute nonsense.

Researchers need to be careful and balance the need to promote, with the need to tell the truth. In science, truth trumps public relations. Anything else and we end up in a Fleischmann and Pons world where scientific integrity is sacrificed for the cameras.

The Calgary Herald still can't get a scientific story straight, Their anti-science and anti-evolution biases are just too strong. No one, including other journalists, should ever trust a science story originating with the Herald.

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ASkepticRTN is dedicated to battling pseudo-science and superstition in the media. Specifically where facts, rationality and truth have been sacrificed upon the alter of entertainment.