On Mon, 22 May 1995 12:55:34 -0400 (EDT) you wrote:
BH>The chief one I've noticed is a trendency to insist that the theory
>of evolution demands _improvement_ generation after generation.
SJ> Maybe not "generation after generation", but slow and steady
> continuum of "improvement" just the same:
>
> "To 'tame' chance means to break down the very improbable into less
> improbable small components arranged in series. No matter how
> improbable it is that an X could have arisen from a Y in a single
> step, it is always possible to conceive of a series of infinitesimally
> graded intermediates between them. However improbable a large-scale
> change may be, smaller changes are less improbable. And provided we
> postulate a sufficiently large series of sufficiently finely graded
> intermediates, we shall be able to derive anything from anything
> else"*
> (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991, Penguin, p317).
>
> *Even whales from bears (provided they swim around with their mouths
> open for a long enough time! <g>
>
JA>are you saying that "change" is synonomous with "improvement?" If
whales
>do share common ancestors with other mammals, the theory does not require
>that whales are an "improvement" over their ancestors.
SJ>I was only stating what Darwinists believe (until very recently at
least). In fact I still think this is what they do believe in
their heart of hearts. This is why Gould has to scold his fellow
Darwinists:
"In this wise and crucial sense, the Darwinian revolution remains
woefully incomplete because, even though thinking humanity accepts the
fact of evolution, most of us are still unwilling to abandon the
comforting view that evolution means (or at least embodies a central
principle of) progress defined to render the appearance of something
like human consciousness either virtually inevitable or at least
predictable. The pedestal is not smashed until we abandon progress or
complexification as a central principle and come to entertain the
strong possibility that H. sapiens is but a tiny, late-arising twig on
life's enormously arborescent bush-a small bud that would almost
surely not appear a second time if we could replant the bush from seed
and let it grow again." (Gould S.J., "The Evolution of Life on the
Earth", Scientific American, October 1994, p69).
Stephen