After warning an audience against buying into Darwinian evolution too easily, I overheard someone in the audience say, “Well, I guess we could just scrap all progress and throw out evolution. (The sarcasm was obviously meant for me to overhear.) She didn’t realize how opposite the truth really is.
Take for instance the current case of the dune sagebrush lizard, or sand dune lizard (sceloporus arenicolus), proposed for the endangered species list by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. If it becomes classified as endangered, then its habitat becomes “protected,” and economic progress stops.
Don’t get me wrong. I love lizards, and enjoyed catching and keeping his cousin the eastern fence swift (sceloporus undulates) when I was a kid growing up in Alabama. They are found all over the southeast, and are very similar, as is the Western fence swift (Sceloporus occidentalis ), found from Texas to California, and the sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus graciosus), found everywhere between Texas and Idaho.
And that’s my point: One word you will find in all the above citations except the Fish & Wildlife report is “common.” We are holding up progress for a lizard that has abundant replacements.
Some scientists make a living by identifying “species,” even naming them after themselves on occasion, without ever drawing up a clear definition of what a “species” really is. They leave us with the mistaken impression that every species is unique, took millions of years to “evolve” (another poorly defined word), and is irreplaceable. In fact each of these lizards only differ by concentrations of certain options (alleles) in the same genomic structure. It’s like pigmentation differences in humans, and we are not different species for it.
It seems strange to me that scientists are all about clarification until it comes to these two terms, species and evolution. If the clarification there would be faced and dealt with, we could then get some real progress in other areas. Why not do it? Because once those terms became clear, then Darwinian evolution itself might become an endangered species.