Colin Patterson, FRS, was a palaeontologist and proponent of “transformed cladistics” based at London’s Natural History Museum, who raised a controversy in 1981 by rhetorically asking his colleagues at a conference, “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true?”
The quote got taken up by anti-evolutionists, Patterson got battered by the defenders of the Neodarwinian faith, and he subsequently denied any sympathy towards creationism. However, it’s always hard to know, since the Modern Synthesis was the original cancel-culture, exactly what such denials mean. Patterson’s other writings, especially on cladistics, seem to confirm that the whole of Darwinian theory was, at least, lacking in certainty for him.
On the controversy itself, he later wrote:
“…I mentioned a question (‘Can you tell me anything you know about evolution?’) that I have put to various biologists, and an answer that had been given: ‘I know that evolution generates hierarchy.’ In the framework of phylogenetic reconstruction and our current problems with it, another answer comes to mind: ‘I know that evolution generates homoplasy’ [or “convergence,” in the older jargon of systematics]. In both cases, the answer is not quite accurate. It would be truer to say, ‘I know that evolution explains hierarchy’ or ‘I know that evolution explains homoplasy.’ We must remember the distinction between the cart–the explanation–and the horse–the data.”
A theory is better, he concluded, when it arises from the data rather than being merely capable of explaining some of it. That’s especially true if the same process explains, as he pointed out, both similarities and disparities. If (as per my previous post) one comes to the view that the theory is in any case refuted by much of the data, then the scientific questions one is asking change, and “what you know about evolution” becomes largely irrelevant.
If palaeontologists didn’t spend time trying to establish evolutionary histories, there would be more time to study ancient ecosystems, physiology, climate changes and so on, which are not only more interesting, and more verifiable, but also have more application to understanding the present world.
So, having graduated (in my judgement) from the blanket acceptance of evolution I imbibed when I was six, even granting my lifelong questioning of its mechanism and the role of God, I thought it might be interesting to ask what I know about palaeontology in my dotage. “Knowledge” here, of course, means the conditional empirical, scientific sort of persuasion, rather than either mathematical certainty or the certainty of dogmatism.
Old earth
I start with the “knowledge” that the earth is as old as current science claims, and the larger universe likewise. There is an abundance of types of more-or-less concordant evidence for this, and when I take genre into account I see nothing in Scripture against it, one genre-insensitive interpretation of the Bible being, I think, the only strong reason to deny it.
Yet this belief of mine is amenable to revision, should dinosaur soft-tissue or Precambrian rabbits proliferate. Or, I suppose, if I were somehow persuaded that Adam did precipitate a cosmic fall in the last 10,000 years. This is what I mean by “knowledge” here.
Change over time
My second “certainty” is that the fossil record shows biota have changed over time, and that there is some kind of systematic order in their appearance, “from microbes to man.” This, however, is not adequate evidence of Darwin’s evolutionary tree, or even a forest, of life. For a start, as Eugene Koonin pointed out in a 2007 “state of the theory” review of evolution, it does not correspond to an increase in complexity as such, bacteria being as biochemically sophisticated as mammals.
On the face of it, the progressive appearance of say fish, amphibians, reptiles, and finally birds and mammals looks like moving from the primitive to the advanced. But who is to say that different bauplans were just more suited to different environments, or even that (like oxygenating plants) older biota were intended for systematically terraforming the world, in theological terms, or according to Michael Denton’s or Alfred Russel Wallace’s science, to become hospitable for mankind?
Besides, the customary division of prehistory into ages of dominant forms is somewhat illusory. In the present “age of mammals” there are still twice as many reptiles species as mammals, almost as many bird species as reptiles, and even 50% more amphibians than mammals. If we follow the fashion of classifying birds as theropods, we are still in the age of dinosaurs. And bacteria outnumber us all.
Non-evolutionary taxonomy
I also know that, pervasively throughout the biosphere from phylum to family, higher taxonomic levels have appeared first, followed by the radiation of lower levels. The classic example is, of course, the Cambrian explosion, in which multiple disparate bauplans are the first evidence of the new order. This is what Linnaeus might have expected to see as God diversified his major categories of form, but it is the opposite of what evolution would predict, which is the gradual divergence of species into phyla. The pattern of the fossils, then, resembles a mind-based theistic taxonomy rather than a chance-based Epicurean one.
Rapid appearance and stasis
The handful of postulated text-book examples of gradual evolution have all, or nearly all, been discredited. Stephen Jay Gould’s “dirty trade secret of palaeontology” is indeed the norm. There are both morphological and genetic discontinuities at the chronological head and tail of most taxa (and also between morphology and genetics). However, there is indeed often some similarity between the old forms and those which replace them (like three-toed horses giving way to single-toed). On the assumption of common descent, then, most taxa appear to arise by saltation.
But as Richard Dawkins rightly pointed out, evolution that is not gradual but saltational lacks any explanatory power, let alone a credible theory. It may as well be classed as a miracle – or better, an act of creation. For that reason, although God would be well able to transform species by creational transformation in the womb, like turning water into wine, it does not seem to be a very parsimonious mode for him. It would be just as easy to create taxa de novo like Moses’ frogs and gnats, and avoid mothers having to suckle monsters or offspring trying to find a mate with the same number of chromosomes, or join a herd that won’t expel it. Accordingly, I have come round to the scandalous position of regarding universal common descent as unlikely. O tempora, o mores! But that’s what happens when you get old enough to think for yourself.
Common descent at the lowest taxonomic levels seems less implausible, subject to programmed variation (phenotypic plasticity and epigenetics) and natural selection. Stuart Burgess suggests the taxonomic family as the unit, and others the genus. That said, what can be established from the fossil record appears to be that it is species which exhibit stasis, with only minor variations such as change of size over the life of the species, and extinction after 3-10 million years, usually, barring mass extinctions.
Genetic entropy
Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, I believe, first described genetic entropy, that is the gradual deterioration of a species’ genome, to the point that purifying selection no longer prevails, and the species eventually goes extinct. This is perfectly compatible with the observation that nearly all mutations are mildly deleterious, and that nearly all of the few advantageous mutations work by disabling functions. At some point, the self-replicating machine factory packs up. It is, though, incompatible with the theory that random mutations have responsible for endless new species over 3.5 billion years. Genetic entropy also seems congruent with the fossil predominance of stasis and extinction.
Although I have not seen this connection made by others, it fits the familiar pattern of this perishable world, in which individuals die but “by the Spirit of God” (Psalm 104:30) offspring are created to replace them. The fossil record suggests the same may be true of species. Darwinian evolution, however, on reflection resembles perpetual motion, as well as assuming a mutability of form that would make Aristotle turn in his grave, and did make animal breeders in 1859 shake their heads in disbelief.
Ultimate design
This is Stuart Burgess’s phrase. Darwinian evolution predicts merely adequate structure and function, and also a vast number of “failed” species. However the fossil record, like the current biosphere, exhibits only well-adapted forms, and those in highly constrained numbers. Sometimes those forms are at the theoretical optimum.
As I outlined in my last post, we now know the fossil record to be incomplete but representative. Evolution would predict vastly more dead species than living, each with very few preserved individuals. The opposite being the case, ie billions of individuals from a few hundred thousand species, the evidence for a wasteful production of poor designs is entirely lacking.
I’ve no doubt missed some of the things I believe palaeontology to show. But it’s enough to convince me that, were my childhood ambition to be a palaeontologist to come true, combined with an elixir of youth, there would be an entirely different research programme to play with than trying to make genealogical connections between taxa. As Linnaeus found, you can do taxonomy without evolution, so classification would still have a place… less so cladistics. My palaeontology would take account of teleology at every level, not just the individual struggle (unexplained by Darwin’s theory) to survive.
For example, imagine an evolution-free posing of the question of why particular biospheres existed at particular stages of earth’s history. What is needed for functioning ecosystems in a world containing Titanosaurs or Quetzalcoatus? And were those systems a necessary stage in preparing for our present biosphere, or just an opportunity to demonstrate the divine ability to create Brobdignag? What purpose in the story of life did mass extinction events serve, if catastrophism is made (like Noah’s flood) a functional aspect of creation history?
Of course, I have no answers to such questions, and no insights into how they might be researched.
But I knows what I know.
