Dubious News from the World of Evolution

“Birth of New Species Witnessed by Scientists” trumpets the headline. But then, as you read down you discover:

No exact rule exists for deciding when a group of animals constitutes a separate species. That question “is rarely if ever asked,” as speciation isn’t something that scientists have been fortunate enough to watch at the precise moment of divergence, except in bacteria and other simple creatures. But after at least three generations of reproductive isolation, the Grants felt comfortable in designating the new lineage as an incipient species.

Good to know that hard science rests on the comfort levels of somebody named Grant.

Look. I don’t have a big problem with evolutionary theory. My problem is with the way a) atheist materialist try to use it as a fig leaf for atheistic materialism and b) with the way pop sci reportage tends to do stuff like the above: namely, with wooly stories simultaneously announcing “We’ve seen a new species evolve!” and “Of, course, we don’t really know what we mean when we say a new species has evolved.”

It irritates me because we are constantly being told that any failure by any human being to accept all aspects of evolutionary teaching is an indication that such a person is either wicked, stupid, or both. Nobody talks this way about quantum physics or electrical engineering, but (such is the purchase atheistic materialist philosophy has on our chattering classes), failure to grasp or buy evolution chatter has somehow become a moral index by which the health of the Republic is measured. I think this tells us much more about the way in which evolution is tied to the religious outlook of our Chattering Classes than it tells us about the average grocer or barber who has other things to worry about than the theory of evolution. Nobody sees shame heaped on people for not understanding gravity or the notion of the curvature of space. But remark that you are somewhat dubious that you can simultaneously announce the new species while not being sure what constitutes a new species and you are denounced as an obscurantist who resists the assured results of Science!