On 24 Jul 95 12:10:47 EDT you wrote:
>Glenn taps:
GM>I think gradual change is incapable of explaining the major
morphological
>transitions. (but a simple change in material flow in the leg of a chick
>embryo turns his legs into lizard legs) Thus punc-eq + the recent
>discoveries in developmental biology are required for those transitions.>>
>
JB>Yes, PE is truer to the data than the blind watchmaker thesis, but
what it
>gives up is the ability to explain adaptive complexity:
>
JB>"If adaptive complexity is to be explained at all, it must be by a
model like
>that provided by Dawkins. Gould can discard that model only at the cost of
>leaving adaptive complexity unexplained. Probably that is why Gould is evasive
>about whether he is rejecting the Dawkins model or merely supplanting it with
>other kinds of evolution.
Yes. These are the horns of the Darwinian dilemma. Dawkins has the
mechanism without evidence and Gould has the evidence without the
mechanism.
JB>"Perhaps the best example of the incompatibility of empirical and
blind
>watchmaker evolution is the Cambrian explosion, which is memorably pictured in
>Gould's book Wonderful Life. Nearly all the animal 'phyla' (basic body plans)
>appear suddenly and without apparent ancestors in the rocks of the Cambrian
>era, dated around 540 million years ago. These animals are all complex
>multicellular organisms, with highly complex adaptations like the famous
>trilobite eyes. Where did these complex features come from? Before the
>Cambrian era, with few exceptions, we have evidence of nothing but simple,
>unicellular life.
>
>"If one assumes that a process of gradual, blind watchmaker evoluiton produced
>the Cambrian phyla, then one has to assume also that a universe of
>transitional species that once lived on the earth vanished mysteriously from
>the fossil record. Gould, a paleontologist who refuses to treat the fossil
>record so cavalierly, can only delcare that the transitionals (or at least
>most of them) never existed and that something called a 'fast-transition'
>filled the gap.
Of course God is an expert in "fast-transitions"! :-)
JB>"Gould is faithful to the observable evidence, where a blind
watchmaker
>theorist is not, but the price he has to pay is that he has only an empty term
>to account for the complexity."
>
>[Johnson, Reason in the Balance, pp 87-88]
Once again Phil (C.S. Lewis) Johnson hits the nail squarely on the
head!
JB>Gould, by the way, is refusing to debate PJ. In the works, though,
is a >debate with Niles Eldredge.
Interesting that Gould won't debate PJ. As the Creation-Scientists
showed,
evolution does not stand up very well in debates. Since I am an
information
starved antipodean, I would appreciate being kept up to date on the
reaction
to Phil's book, via the Reflector.
God bless.
Stephen
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