Though the controversy between evolution and creation science is not always on my front burner, I do see articles on the topic from time to time that interest me. Such was the case of the interview with “self-described ‘evolutionist’” Lynn Margulis in the April 2011 issue of DISCOVER. Though an accomplished scientist who has contributed to an understanding of evolution, she doesn’t believe neo-Darwinism has the ability to explain evolution fully.
Margulis says, “Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create.” She says if you look at the studies of Gregor Mendel and his rule of heredity, you see stasis not change. “There is no gradualism in the fossil record.” Field studies show variations within a species and then suddenly a new species. Margulis thinks the critics of evolutionary theory offer valid criticisms of the theory, but she finds no scientific support for ideas of intelligent design.
Her alternative is the theory of “symbiogenesis” in which genetic changes enter into a species through their biological relationships with other species or even bacteria. She says most evolutionary biologists ignore the relationships between species, between “bacteria, protoctists, fungi, animals and plants.” She thinks neo-Darwinism is just too narrowly focused – even as it studies a genome it fails to take into account how species interrelate with each other and also with all other environmental factors.
Margulis shows that a scientist can hold unconventional and even unpopular views and yet still respect the scientific enterprise and be respected by it. She acknowledge in the interview that some scientists are not governed by a search for truth, but by what research will win them more grant money. She doesn’t resolve the divide between evolution and creationism, but she thinks critically about the problems both present and offers a scientific alternative.
Fraternized 
The big problem with natural selection is that one would expect a rather smooth transition from one life form to another. If an organism is adapting to geologic changes, I see no reason to expect life to change at a different rate from those changes. Yet we see fits and starts and spurts of new organisms, some indeed quite short lived and ridiculous, in the fossil record. They seem to be almost “experimental” periods, like the pre-Cambrian explosion and the plethora of hominids that existed at one time. Somewhere, I just get a sense that a very important variable is being excluded from our calculations. Natural selection is a perfectly good theory, by far the best we have, but it is quite incomplete. And I say with no sense of irony whatever:
Glory to Thee for what Thou hast revealed to us in Thy mercy
Glory to Thee for what Thou hast hidden from us in Thy wisdom
What we don’t know is what I always think about when we sing that akathist.
No, what she proved is that a scientist can hold unpopular views as long as God isn’t involved.
Yes, but that to me in science is a given. Science is always concerned with the observable, testable empirical portion of the universe. God is not part of what interests science. Science is by definition studying that part of the empirical universe which we can observe and which seems to operate by certain predictable rules which makes technology possible.
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