evolution is real and if there is this constant I
don't know but it's it's it's visible like you can measure it in certain animals you can measure
adaptation yeah but there's no evidence that EV in fact I think we've kind of given up on
the idea Evolution Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson confidently told podcaster Joe Rogan. Evolution
has been debunked. Darwinian evolution by natural selection has been debunked. This is getting
really bad. We have a couple of clips from this completely off the wall interview that Tucker
Carlson did with Joe Rogan. We'll look at another one of them tomorrow. But today the topic is
evolution. Let's listen to this. And there's so much stuff to go through here. I don't want to
just play the whole clip and then give you all, you know, a wall of text. Let's go through
piece by piece. All of the things Tucker says that are really just totally untrue.
Speaker 7: Cares about you. You're important to the people. But if when you think if we don't.
Speaker 6: Think people are important, then what do we think is important?
I guess that's what I'm saying. Speaker 7: Not necessarily that we
don't think people are important, but if evolution is real and if there is this
constant, I don't know. But it's visible, like you can measure it in certain animals.
Speaker 6: You can measure adaptation. Yeah. But there's no evidence that. In fact, I think
we've kind of given up on the idea of evolution, the theory of evolution as articulated
by Darwin. It's like kind of not true. Speaker 1: Okay. He says that Darwinian evolution
is not true. Darwinian evolution has not been shown to be untrue. It's gotten more precise
over time as we get new scientific evidence. Our knowledge of genetics has better defined
how traits are inherited and selected. Modern evolutionary biology includes a whole bunch
of different evidence, which we'll get to, but Darwinian evolution has not been debunked.
Speaker 7: In what sense? Speaker 6: Well, in the most basic
sense, the idea that, you know, all life emerged from a single cell organism
and over time and there would be a fossil record of that. And there's not there's.
Speaker 7: Not a fossil record of, transitionary species like species that
are adapting to its environment, tons of. Speaker 6: Recorded adaptation. And you see it
in your own life. I mean, I have a lot of dogs. I see adaptation in dogs, you know, through
the shore, through littered litter. But no, there's no evidence at all that none zero that,
you know, people, you know, evolved seamlessly from a single cell. Amoeba. No. There's not.
Speaker 1: Now, the word seamlessly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. So let's talk
about a little. And everything he's saying here is wrong. I mean, just everything is wrong.
Modern evolutionary biology includes a whole bunch of different types of evidence. We have fossil
records for a bunch of areas. We have genetic studies. All of it either confirms or extends
Darwin's original ideas. And the concept of, Darwinian evolution by natural selection is,
completely accepted in the scientific community. Now he talks about, oh, there's we don't really
have transitional species. We have adaptation. And this is a classic from these folks. They love
to say that we have no evidence of transitional species, meaning intermediate forms between every
single set of species. And usually when someone like Tucker says this, people who don't think
this stuff through. So, yeah, you know, we really don't like where is the halfway mark between the
amoeba and the tadpole, or where is the halfway mark between the monkey and Homo sapiens? But
this is the wrong this is not the argument that science says exists. Transitional fossils have
characteristics that bridge distinct groups. So, for example, you've got, I hope I pronounced
this correctly, Archaeopteryx, which shows traits from reptiles and birds, and in a sense
it is transitory or transitional between older reptiles and birds with a common ancestor. The
fossil record has a bunch of examples of this. So like fish to tetrapod or whale mammal do not
every transitional species has been discovered. Not every single link has been made. There may
not be a record of every single transition, but all of the evidence we have supports the broader
evolutionary transitions that Darwinian evolution, claims. And then Tucker gets to we have no proof
at all. We have no seamless proof that goes from a single celled organism to Homo sapiens. It is true
that the fossil record from the early. Earliest single celled organisms is challenging because
of the massive time scales and how fragile microscopic life is. But when you look at how
universal DNA and RNA are in all living organisms, you get evidence of that common origin. And the
molecular biology of even the simplest organisms shows shared genetic code, shared fundamental
processes, and all of it points to a single common ancestor Tucker is focusing on. He doesn't believe
we have all the evidence you could hypothetically have, but all the evidence we have points in
the same direction, and there is no evidence that has dispositive. This positively disproven
any of this stuff. Let's listen to a little more. Speaker 6: It's not there's no chain in the
fossil record of that at all. And that's why you don't actually hear people. You hear them
make reference to evolution because the theory of adaptation is clearly obviously true. Okay,
but Darwin's theories. Totally unfair. That's why it's still a theory almost 200 years later.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now that's just this is the when they don't understand the definition of
theory in a scientific context, that's when you know, it's really off the rails. Because
there are two meanings to theory. There is what we mean by science, what we mean in science by a
theory, which is this is the accepted consensus, best explanation based on all of the data and
the evaluation of multiple hypotheses. That's what we mean by theory. Now, if you show
up to your local bar and you say to the guy who sidles up next to you, hey, I've got
a theory about what the fed is really up to, you want to hear it? That's a colloquial
use of the term theory. And of course, Tucker is falling for like the lowest, lowest
low on this theory just means it's an idea. Now, in science, it means something else.
Speaker 6: No, no, we've not found that at all. And I can't even guess. I mean, I have
my own theories on it, but they're not proven. Speaker 1: And of course, his theories are
just hypotheses. It's not that his theories are tantamount to the theory of evolution,
but that's what he wants the viewers to think. Speaker 7: What are your theories?
Speaker 6: God created people you know distinctly, and animals. I mean, I think
that's like, I think what every person on earth thought until the mid 19th century, actually.
Speaker 7: Right. But that's not a new idea. Speaker 1: Isn't it so funny that people used to
think other things until we got more information? Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they they didn't have computers. They didn't have a general
understanding that we have today of the process. Speaker 1: So anyway, you guys get it. Total
nonsense. You know, the chain of evolution is not sequential. We're talking about a branching
tree with common ancestors. And I don't know, you would think that someone like Tucker. I
mean, he's not stupid, but he also seems to be claiming to believe things that are quite
dumb. You would think that he would know a lot of these things. So I don't know if he's just
playing a character I genuinely don't know.
