Evolution Explains Everything and Nothing

Scientists and reporters treat
evolution like an all-purpose demon,
a placeholder for ignorance

 

How much knowledge is gained by appealing to evolution as a cause of a phenomenon? It’s similar to the old Flip Wilson line, “The devil made me do it!” Like the demon of alcohol, the demon of hard luck or the demon-possessed dog that ate my homework, the demon of Darwin serves as a convenient non-explanation for a lazy scientist or reporter unable to handle the complexities of nature.

Plants breathe with millions of tiny mouths. We used lasers to understand how this skill evolved  (The Conversation, 24 March 2025). Has Tim Brodribb, a Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Tasmania, ever heard of the fallacy of begging the question? Does he realize he is reasoning in a circle?

Our results suggest that stomatal behaviour has changed substantially through the process of evolution, highlighting critical changes in functionality that are preserved in the different major land plant groups that currently inhabit the Earth.

Translation: Things changed because they evolved, and things evolved because they changed. Stomata evolved because the plants changed, and plants evolved because their stomata changed. Plants evolved, therefore their stomata evolved. Stomata changed because the plants changed.

This absent-minded professor has not proved anything except his own naivete. The details of his science project do not justify his conclusion. He might as well have taken the tools in his own garage, observed their differences with sophisticated instruments, and written an article about how they evolved from a common ancestor. What if they were intelligently designed?

Professor Brodribb has looked into microscopes at one of the wonders of nature, the stomata of plants. These tiny gates permit the exchange of gases, adjusting automatically to day/night cycles and environmental cues they read from sensors in the leaves. The guard cells around the openings adjust their turgor pressure to open and close according to the needs of the plants. It’s a marvelously sophisticated system that is exquisitely functional to a high degree of precision.

Opening the stomata at the wrong time can waste valuable water and risk a catastrophic drying-out of the plant’s vascular system. Almost all land plants control their stomata very precisely in response to light and humidity to optimise growth while minimising the damage risk.

Why didn’t Tim expect that different plants would have different stomata according to their needs? Do all cars have the same wheel size? Do his fellow Darwinians know what they are talking about when they assume stomata evolved?

How plants evolved this extraordinary balancing act has been the subject of considerable debate among scientists. In a new paper published in PNAS we used lasers to find out how the earliest stomata may have operated.

He says ‘they evolved.’ They just evolved. The demon of Darwin is his explanation for stomata. Evolution explains everything. It explains nothing.

Evolution: features that help finding a mate may lead to smaller brains  (The Conversation, 25 March 2025). Benjamin Padilla-Morales from the University of Bath needs to clean up his explanatory act. Like the previous Prof, he invokes the Demon of Darwin (aka the Blind Selector) to tell his just-so story about brains— in this case, how evolution might grow big brains but sexual selection might shrink them into smaller brains. Stuff happens.

As you watch him use the e-word 20 times in his short article, notice how he invokes evolution as a cause instead of an effect. It’s a force that shapes things in nature. Can he measure this force? Can he announce the units to eight significant figures, like physicists do? Does it require 6.8921871 kilodarwins of force to evolve a big brain? Of course not. It’s a false force. Evolutionary force is a farce. May the farce not bewitch you.

Let’s let Ben dig his own hole to bury his logic in.

A longstanding question in evolutionary biology is how sexual selection influences how entire genomes develop. Sexual selection is where individuals with certain traits have higher reproductive success, leading to the spread of those traits throughout a species.

A study by me and my colleagues at the Milner Centre for Evolution has uncovered a significant link between the difference in body size between males and females – known as sexual size dimorphism (SSD) – and genetic changes in mammals. These findings provide new insights into how sexual selection shapes the structure and function of the genome.

Sexual selection is a powerful evolutionary force that influences reproductive traits. It typically acts through mate choice (intersexual selection) and competition among individuals of the same sex (intrasexual selection). Over time, these constant pressures shape genome architecture, driving rapid evolution in genes associated with reproductive success.

Does Ben not realize that the sexually dimorphic individuals are members of the same species? Where is the evolution? They have the same genomes. There is no origin of species. For a refresher, remember that equating fitness with reproductive success is a tautology—a perverse form of circular reasoning (see “Fitness for Dummies,” 19 June 2014); see also “Homology for Dummies,” 5 May 2004; see cartoon at bottom).

Padilla-Morales goes on to commit several customary Darwinian fallacies: (1) evolution is fast except when it is slow; (2) evolution is The Force (“Sexual selection does not act in isolation. It interacts with other evolutionary forces, such as natural selection and ecological pressures, to shape diversity”); (3) evolution is complicated (“This interplay between sexual selection and other evolutionary pressures highlights the complexity of genome evolution“); and (4) futureware will solve everything (“These findings will open exciting new avenues for research, helping to answer fundamental questions about how evolution shapes biodiversity at the genetic level”). Oh, but you thought that’s what evolutionists had already answered.

No wonder Ben likes appealing to the Demon of Darwinism. It bestows gifts, like Job Security for Storytellers (25 June 2014). Great gig if you can get it. Loafing encouraged (17 Oct 2017), and no consequences for failure (16 Nov 2023).

How big brains and flexible skulls led to the evolution of modern birds (University of Chicago, 17 March 2025). Which came first, the flexible skull, or the big brain, or the bird? If you think science has an answer, you don’t yet “get” the convoluted nature of Darwinian theory. The answer doesn’t matter as long as you can say, “It evolved.” That’s the passphrase that gets you through peer review and lets you into academia, where your D-Merit Badge gives you carte blanche access to the Darwin Lounge.

Reporter Matt Wood is proud of his D-Merit Badge. Now he can use logical fallacies in comfort and safety. Birds evolved because they evolved. Hummingbirds may not look like the nasty Velociraptors in Jurassic Park, but they evolved from them.

Yet birds differ from their reptile ancestors in many important ways. A turning point in their evolution was the development of larger brains, which in turn led to changes in the size and shape of their skulls.

“Development” is a synonym for evolution in this sentence. Translation: Evolution reached a turning point with the evolution of larger brains, which in turn led to evolution of skull shape. Everything just evolved; that’s the cause, the effect, and the explanation.

Which came first, the skull shape or the big brain, or the development? Or the evolution? It doesn’t matter. They evolved. That’s all you need to say to feel welcome in the Darwin Party lounge, where you can hang out in comfort instead of in that musty lab where pre-Darwin scientists were expected to do actual work. Sit on the comfy couch and speculate. If something works, it must have evolved.

Evolution is also the bestower of benefits.

“Having a wiggly head like this really gives them a lot of evolutionary benefits,” Wilken said…

“We see this cascade of changes that happened along the dinosaur to bird transition,” Holliday said. “A large part of it hinges upon when birds evolved a relatively large brain. Just like in humans, bigger brains drive a lot of changes in the skull.”

So did bigger brains drive evolution, or did evolution drive bigger brains? Stop being so logical. Don’t worry. They both evolved. Get another shot of Darwine and make yourself comfortable.

If these goof-offs are getting government funding for their useless speculations, we need to sic the DOGE on them. Release Apollos, the wonder-dog (16 July 2014 commentary).