In a message dated 6/30/2000 12:11:21 PM, wendee@greendzn.com writes:
<< Now I teach college biology I and generally consider that I have a
good understanding of evolutionary theory. And I don't see that
scientists' current understanding of Darwinian evolution (i.e. the
synthetic theory or neo-Darwinian theory) "claims" that (1) it is
undirected (2) it progressed randomly (3) it progresses from simple to
complex. >>
Wendee:
There are prominent evolutionists who say that evolution is undirected. Here
are some:
Perhaps the most prominent synthetic evolutionary theorist was George Gaylord
Simpson, who as you know, was a mid-century world class paleontologist. He
wrote, "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that
did not have him in mind...He happens to repre sent the high est form of
organization of matter and energy that has ever ap peared” " (The Meaning of
Evolution. 1950, p. 344). In a later edition he changed "materialistic" to
"naturalistic".
In another place he wrote, “Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this
for himself” (p. 310).
Francisco Ayala, past president of American Association for the Advancement
of Science asserted that Darwin’s “mechanism, natural se lection, excluded
God as the explanation accounting for the obvious design of or ganisms”
(Darwin’s revolution. In Campbell, J. H. and Schopf, J. W., Eds. Creative
Evolution. 1995, p. 5).
Dawkins (1987) expanded and popularized the idea of purposelessness: "Natural
selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin
dis cov ered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and
ap parently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind.…Natural
selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does
not plan conse quences, has no purpose in view” (The Blind Watchmaker" pp. 5,
21).
That Darwinism is goal-less is asserted in a modern college biology text book
by Purves, et al.. These authors state: "Accepting this paradigm (Darwinism,
DH) means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view
that the living world is constantly evolving, but with out any 'goals.' The
idea that evolutionary change is not directed toward a final goal or state
has been more difficult for some people to accept than the process of
evolution itself" (Life: The Science of Biology, 4th ed. 1995, p. 14..).
Simpson’s assertion that evolution has no purpose; “man must supply that for
himself,” is the essen tial message of evolution for education, according to
Futuyama (Science on Trial: The Case of Evolution, 1983, p. 13). “Some
shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no
purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms” ( Evolutionary
Biology. 2nd Ed. 1986, p. 3). In an open letter.
The National Association of Biology Teachers an organization of science
teachers, endorses, among other statements, this one on evolution: "The
diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unpredictable and
natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is
affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing
environments."
In an open letter to Richard Storey, to the President of the NABT, Massimo
Pigliucci defined evolution this way "The diversity of life on earth is the
outcome of evolution,: a natural process of temporal descent with genetic
modification that is _non-directional_, except for human intervention, and is
explicable by principles of physical and biological science, and historical
contingencies (emphasis mine.) (March 22, 1998)
He explained the word "non-directional" "First it implies that evolution is
not going anywhere in particular, on which most evolutionists would
agree....Second, and most importantly, it takes care of old (wrong) theories
of "internal" forces directing evolution toward increasing complexity or of
the whole idea of a "ladder of being". In other words, don't look at
evolution as a process aimed at producing humans, because there is no
evidence that it is."
As recently as September 1999 Ernst Mayr "one of the towering figures in the
history of evolutionary biology" gave a lecture in Stockholm on receiving the
Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. It was published in
the July 2000 issue of _Scientific American_. One of his main points was
that "Darwin's theory of natural selection made _any_ invocation of teleology
unnecessary" (p. 82. Emphasis added).
In my opinion purposelessness is deeply embedded in evolutionary theory. I
doubt if you would find any mainline evolutionists who would deny this.
Best regards,
Bob
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