
Misconceptions about Evolution - alphanumeric0
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php
======
maskedinvader
The biggest misconception in most people (at least from my perspective from
conversations involving evolution) is what constitutes a scientific theory, By
definition from [1] , "A scientific theory is a series of statements about the
causal elements for observed phenomena. A critical component of a scientific
theory is that it provides explanations and predictions that can be tested. ".

People I speak to think its just a theory, hence a guess, a hunch, and not a
fact, not proven etc, where as its actually the opposite of that, i.e we can
test the predictions it makes, its as close to being proven as anything can
be. If people can simply recognize the definition I bet more people can learn
and accept Evolution. [2] explains this better.

[1]:
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_theory](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_theory)
[2]: [http://www.notjustatheory.com/](http://www.notjustatheory.com/)

~~~
pcrh
This is literally semantics.

The vast majority of people know what an "accepted fact" is, and they also
know what a "proposed model of reality" is (even if they don't use such
phrases).

The opposition to evolutionary theory as a model of reality is a topic that
principally obsesses only a specific population: American Protestants.

In most of the Western world, including in the Catholic Church with its over 1
billion adherents, evolution is an "accepted fact" (or "scientific theory"
however that may be rendered semantically).

~~~
scott_s
It's not just semantics. Maybe some times it is, but not always, and I even
think, not usually. Many people don't actually understand the basics of
scientific theories, evidence and falsification. It requires going beyond
learning just the "scientific process", and going into the actual philosophy
of science. In my experience, that is not commonly known.

~~~
pcrh
Stressing the term "theory" by creationists attacking evolution is a
rhetorical device intended to imply that " _even scientists_ don't know".

Obviously, scientists, and other educated people, know that this attack is
misguided.

However, recognizing that such arguments are indeed rhetorical, rather than
logical, is a step towards not having to go through them again and again...

~~~
scott_s
I'm making a different point. People who make that attack have a fundamental
misunderstanding of how science works. They don't understand that it is not
possible to prove a theory correct, only falsify it. They don't understand
that quantity and quality of supporting evidence matter. They don't understand
the difference between "proof" and "evidence". They don't understand that
their arguments could be levied against _any_ scientific theory, including
ones that they accept. That they can do this means they don't understand how
science works.

But, nor do a lot of people who don't make such rhetorical attacks. I think
that the philosophy of science is an easy thing to miss - it's possible to
make it through a Bachelor's program in science without really being forced to
think about it.

~~~
pcrh
>They don't understand that their arguments could be levied against any
scientific theory, including ones that they accept. That they can do this
means they don't understand how science works.

Exactly, which is why epistemological arguments won't win the evolution versus
creation debate.

------
cubano
From my experience, it seems that the biggest misconception about Evolution is
that species evolve through some sort of conscious decision-making process,
and not really by natural selection and random mutation.

For example, I often hear that a big step in the primate-to-human evolution
was when one of our common ancestors "left the trees and started walking
bipedally", implying to me at least, that it was some sort of "hey, maybe we
should try this today" decision made by an individual to attempt it.

It wasn't. What really happened was that a mutation in the population allowed
one individual the ability to walk a bit more upright, and this conferred a
special ability for this individual to gather more food or have more
offspring, thus propagating the mutated gene(s).

I watch the pop-sci channels regularly, and even they fall victim to this
anthropomorphic trap about species "evolving-by-choice".

[edit] I just read this in the OP just below where I stopped...

 _MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection involves organisms trying to adapt._

~~~
astrodust
It's more subtle than that. For example, if walking enabled you to gather more
food, then anything that helps you walk better confers an advantage. If food
was in trees, walking would be useless.

The best hypothesis for what triggered this change was a shift in climate
where trees became less productive and thinned out more, meaning you often had
to move quickly from one tree to another on the ground. Anything that enabled
you to hustle faster like that gave you a big advantage.

With natural selection you do not have any choices. You survive or you die.

~~~
ars
> for what triggered this change

You are doing it too. A change is not triggered by anything - you are talking
as if there is some latent change waiting to be activated.

~~~
aethertap
A change in selective pressure would trigger a change in the output of
selection. The parent's point that reduction in trees would trigger a change
to more walking behavior makes sense to me - the environment changed, which
caused a change in selective pressures, thus making walking more favorable for
survival and "triggering" the change.

------
snowwrestler
A misconception that affects the way people think of both evolution and
climate change, is the idea that the study of the past is a necessary and
integral part of the theory. That's not necessarily true.

Darwin generated his theory of natural selection by observing living species
throughout the world, and Mendel developed this theory of genetic inheritance
by working with living plants. Biologists studying evolutionary processes
today continue to work with living creatures like viruses, bacteria, and
insects.

Likewise, the theory of global warming was developed by observing current-day
phenomena, like the Earth's surface temperature, absorbtion and re-emission of
light by certain gases, the rate of CO2 absorbtion by the ocean, the quantity
of manmade and natural emissions, solar energy inputs, orbital variations,
etc.

In both cases, it was this study of the present that created additional
questions that could be answered by looking at the past. Evolution gave
scientists a new way of organizing and studying the fossil record--that was a
_result_ of the theory of evolution, not the cause. Likewise, the study of
current climate change raised a whole host of questions that scientists could
try to answer about the past.

Quite a lot of science works this way. Astrophysics is well known for the Big
Bang theory, but the roots of the science are in observing the stars we see
today, including our own sun.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
> A misconception that affects the way people think is the idea that the study
> of the past is a necessary and integral part of the theory.

> the roots of the science are in observing the stars we see today

I agree with your point, but just made me smile in that we tend to look at a
lot of (possibly) long dead stars from our past, too!

~~~
maskedinvader
>I agree with your point, but just made me smile in that we tend to look at a
lot of (possibly) long dead stars from our past, too!

haha, well said. Although to take it to an extreme, every observation or study
would have to have been by studying the past right from the milliseconds in
the past to light years in the past.

------
marcelsalathe
I just recently published a book called "Nature, in Code"
[[https://leanpub.com/natureincode](https://leanpub.com/natureincode)] that is
largely about Evolution - explained by implementing key concepts in
JavaScript. It is also a beginner's book for people to learn programming.

From a personal perspective, I've always understood a concept much better once
I implemented it in code. Because of that, I started teaching population
genetics primarily as a computer lab class. This book is an attempt to be more
broad (in terms of subject, and reach).

------
Someone1234
First thing I did was search this article for "gene expression." Had nothing.

I think it is safe to say that this article is behind our current
understanding about "evolution" and is in fact spreading some new myths as a
direct result.

In the last five or so years it has become more and more clear, that while a
mother cannot alter her unborn child's DNA, the mother's environment can cause
different gene's within the child's DNA to be activated or deactivated.

So our traditional understanding about "random mutations" and "survival of the
fittest" being the primary means by which organisms change or evolve looks to
be a gross oversimplification. Since discovering gene expression, the
environment may very well shape how the offspring's DNA is used.

There are tens of studies on this, but the vast majority since 2010 (so
literally last five years). But the results they're providing give us an
entire new avenue to look down and the impact on our understanding of
evolution likely needs to shift as a result.

Keep in mind nobody is suggesting people (or animals) have direct control over
gene expression, in fact our understanding of how it works is still
undeveloped.

This paper covers the topic briefly [PDF]: "Evolution of Gene Expression"
[http://www.umich.edu/~pwlab/Wittkopp%20et%20al%20reprints/Pr...](http://www.umich.edu/~pwlab/Wittkopp%20et%20al%20reprints/Principles_of_Evolution_V-7.pdf)

~~~
redblacktree
The field is called "epigenetics," correct?

~~~
Someone1234
Yes but "transgenerational epigenetics" as it is sometimes known has a lot of
baggage (and bad ideas). In fact if you look at it historically it has a very
bad track record.

Gene expression is something relatively recent that may shake things up (and
the research is looking positive). However it doesn't mean that everything
within the field of transgenerational epigenetics is accurate or proven.

------
tokenadult
I have previously read the site kindly submitted for discussion today and have
recommended it (here on Hacker News, too, as I recall) before. This site is
well worth a read. A comment asks for a recommendation of a book about
macroevolution, transformation to new species among descendant organisms, and
I can not only recommend two books, but also a free website. The website is
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution,[1] which I have recommended often to readers
here on Hacker News. The books are _Why Evolution Is True_ by Jerry Coyne[2]
and _The Greatest Show on Earth_ by Richard Dawkins.[3] Both books are very
readable and interesting and well deserve your attention. There are other good
recent books about evolution that help fill in the research findings that have
occurred since you or I finished our formal schooling.[4]

[1]
[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-
Coyne/dp/0143...](http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-
Coyne/dp/0143116649)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Show-Earth-
Evolution/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Show-Earth-
Evolution/dp/1416594795/)

[4] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-
Evolutio...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-
Evolution/dp/061861916X/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-
Ye...](http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-
Year/dp/0307277453/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Forms-Most-Beautiful-
Science/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Forms-Most-Beautiful-
Science/dp/0393327795/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-
Evolu...](http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-
Evolution/dp/0393330516/)

------
api
My favorite is "survival of the fittest" \-- a catch phrase so prone to
misinterpretation and so oversimplified that it's basically wrong.

~~~
Kiro
What's wrong with it? Or how do people misinterpret it?

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Two main ideas I think people may get wrong.

One is that there needs to be survival of an individual (not dying), while it
rather refers to survival of a species (not going extinct). This survival thus
has little to do with actual life or death, rather it has to do with
reproduction. For example a one-day-fly is, generally spoken, in a terrible
situation when it comes to survival, it's life/death perspective is awful,
just one day. But it survives as a species because its able to reproduce so
rapidly that even a short life doesn't make the species go extinct. Evolution
doesn't care for survival of an individual as long as that individual manages
to reproduce before it does.

The second is that there is somehow some 'fitness' variable, the better the
more you survive. So a lion would be more fit than say a fly because it's
stronger. But this too refers to a different concept, which is that 'fit' is
in relation to the environment. A fly is quite fit to live in many
environments over long periods of time, whereas a lion isn't fit for many
environments and will have trouble surviving say changes in climate and
habitat. Fitness is thus purely in relation to its environment.

So really 'survival of the fittest' is more like 'species fit for the
environment will survive long enough to reproduce', or something to that
effect. From this then originates the argument that random mutations of a
species will create different offspring that is more or less fit for the
environment, and those more fit will survive, those less fit will not. That is
survival of the fittest. And again, when I refer to survive, I mean the
species, on the basis that when individuals of a species are fit for their
environment, they have a good chance of reproducing enough offspring before
death preventing the species from going extinct.

~~~
Retra
>Evolution doesn't care for survival of an individual as long as that
individual manages to reproduce before it does.

Evolution doesn't care ever, regardless of whether you reproduce or not. You
can evolve to the point of extinction just fine.

------
organsnyder
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the berkeley.edu domain alone will be enough to
raise the hackles of the people that really need to read this.

My employer has a blog series that covers many of these issues with skeptical
Christians as the intended audience:
[http://biologos.org/blog/series/evolution-
basics](http://biologos.org/blog/series/evolution-basics)

~~~
WillNotDownvote
Lots of people need to read it, including many who consider themselves
scientifically literate. Evolution is a very widely misunderstood field, to
the extent that many people with _biology degrees_ harbor a number of
misconceptions about it.

~~~
eatonphil
Then how can we expect anyone else to understand it? If this is the case, why
should anyone even try? I'm not saying you're wrong, it just begs the
question: "If the people who have undergone training to be prepared in this
field can not understand it correctly, why should I (who am not remotely
related to the field) understand it correctly or even try to?"

~~~
sago
People with CS degrees can still harbour misconceptions about programming or
computers. That doesn't mean there is no way to understand computer science,
nor no reason to try.

In fact, in an ideal world, evolution wouldn't be an important thing for most
people to understand. It is disproportionately important because it is the
point of attack of fundamentalists against scientific modernity, and a naive
view of evolution can leave people susceptible to their propaganda, and
therefore more likely to politically oppose science.

------
senthil_rajasek
I highly recommend Richard Dawkins' 1991 Royal Institution Christmas lectures.
Dawkins is also an evolutionary biologist.

[http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/1991/richard-
daw...](http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/1991/richard-dawkins)

------
debacle
The biggest confusion I have seen from evolution comes from the causality. "$x
evolved $y so it could $z"

The reality is much messier and involved a lot of $x dying before one of them
was born with something sort of like $y.

------
mark-r
The article itself contains a misconception.

Genetic variation doesn't always come from random mutation. Firstly, there may
already be genes in the population that just have never been combined yet.
Secondly, DNA can integrated from the environment under the right conditions.
The amount of human DNA that is estimated to originate from viruses is
astounding. And bacteria have been known to develop antibiotic resistance by
taking it from unrelated bacteria that already have resistance.

~~~
sago
> Genetic variation doesn't always come from random mutation.

The article didn't imply it did. It says mutation generates genetic variation,
not that all genetic variation is generated by mutation.

A -> B does not imply B -> A

~~~
mark-r
I was speaking specifically of this line:

> That genetic variation is generated by random mutation — a process that is
> unaffected by what organisms in the population want or what they are
> "trying" to do.

I have nothing against the second half of that sentence.

Perhaps a better explanation was available elsewhere in the article and I
missed it. The link originally went to the middle of the page instead of the
beginning, so I wasn't taking it in order.

~~~
sago
Ah, sorry. Earlier on it gave the version I was responding to. Still I think
in science it is better to not assume universal qualifiers unless they are
explicit.

------
jfb
This is a good page, but one thing it doesn't touch on (presumably because of
the intended audience) is the fact that an understanding of genetics is
necessary but insufficient to explain speciation, variation in heritable
traits, much of modern biology. Epigenetics is tremendously important, and a
reductivist use of genetics via metaphor is what gets people talking about a
"gene for X". It ends up, IMO, causing more harm than good.

------
yugai
I think most people have a missconception about the mutation-process, recent
research find that it's not very random and environment influences a lot. That
is a radical difference from previous evolutionary-biology which was a
missconception about the evolution process in itself, the new neo-evolutionary
theory is closer to reality.

The old evolution-theory is spread more than other scientific theories
primarily because it has inferences onto politics, society and religion. It
acts as a scientific narrative of life, most often the information spread is
inaccurate according to the theory itself, but it's primarily used to justify
politics.

While the old evolution theory had inferences in beginning of 1900 of anti-
race, anti-weakness and anti-homosexuality (nazi, racial-biology) after 1970
the inferences instead change to be pro-race, pro-homosexuality (homosexuality
is created by evolution for a purpose instead of a error now). The interesting
thing is that while the inferences from evolution theory changed, the theory
itself was the same, it's just the politics around it that change. Evolution
theory is used to support politics as a contemporary narrative. You can pretty
much justify anything by creating a purpose of why evolution wanted something
to occur, like "The evolution wants us to create babies and progress
technology.", "The evolution theory wants women to be better at hearing baby
screams."

The new neo-evolution theory instead brings a whole range of new inferences.
If the environment can change mutations and progress itself then environment
becomes important. Inferences from the old theory was that people were
predefined from birth by their biology and this became the basis for many
sciences today like psychiatry. When the premises of other sciences become
questioned, the sciences need to updated.

Without having a discussion about epistemology I think it's impossible to
understand the difference from fact, theory, hypothesis and truth. Just
because predictions from a theory is true it doesn't mean that the theory is
the truth, it just means that it does accurate predictions. Most of scientific
theories have been revised and it would be naive to think that neo-evolution
theory is the definitive end definition about evolution.

If evolution-theory would be distributed without inferences on politics I
don't think it would be a hot topic at all

------
VikingCoder
My brain always goes meta when people attack evolution as "just a theory."

I start to think to myself - "Well, you don't understand... New theories are
formed all of the time, but the ones that are the most fit survive..."

And then I realize I'm practically using evolution to explain what a
scientific theory is, so that the person can understand that evolution is not
"just a theory." D'oh!

------
charlieflowers
I recently read some HN posts about research to stop aging. Then this.

Makes me curious -- does anyone do research involving some kind of organism
with very short generation times, whereby the experimenters attempt to only
allow the oldest individuals to reproduce?

The idea would be to apply "artificial selection" that optimizes for
longevity.

Does anyone know of any research similar to this being done?

------
ThomPete
The biggest conception about evolution is the question about whether it's
true.

But evolution is not true or false it's simply just a model to describe how
life evolves, the best model we have.

------
redeemedfadi
I'm curious if there are any HN readers that don't believe that evolution is
the best explanation for the current state of life on this planet (other than
me). Any IDers (intelligent design) out there?

