This is why the current theory of gradual evolution is referred to as
neo-Darwinism. Because Darwin knew nothing about genetics does not
necessarily detract from his theory or from how genetics provides a place
for natural selection to work. The history of science is rife with correct
models made for the wrong reasons or supported by incomplete
information--yet the earth still goes around the sun, and maybe there was a
little bit of truth in vitalism.
>Let's take another example. In the last century many evolutionists embraced
>vitalism, the notion that life has some innate tendency to originate and
>evolve. That notion still has vestiges in Gould, Kaufmann, and the
>self-organizationalists. Vitalism is a powerful evolutionary explanation.
>But life's designer, I say, acted to defeat all evolutionary
>interpretations, so the designer left out all the vitalistic forces that
>evolutionists were seeking.
Tell that to Augustine who envisioned that, in the beginning many of the
final forms of the creation existed, not actually, but potentially as "seed
principles" that were sufficient to, over time, give rise to all the final
forms that first existed in God's mind.
"...all these thins were created at the beginning, being
primordially woven into the texture of the world; but they await the
proper opportunity for their appearance."
*The Literal Meaning of Genesis*
Then there is St. Basil, who wrote in his *Homilies on the Hexaemeron*,
"God did not comand the earth immediatel to give forth seed and
fruit, but to produce germs, to grow green, and [then] to arrive at
maturity..."
There is a vitalistic component to Christian belief that human life is more
that the sum of the parts. The fact that chimps and humans differ by 1.6%
in their DNA sequence suggests that it takes more that biochemistry to make
a human who shares the image of God, while a chimp does not.
>How did evolutionists react? They choose a different evolutionary
>mechanism, the notion that *random* change (rather than vitalistic, directed
>change) was the source of evolutionary novelty. Thus Loren's hypothesis #II
>was born.
>
>Evolutionists needed something to override the randomness of hypothesis #II
>and create biological designs, so Darwin added hypothesis #III, the notion
>of selection.
In an earlier debate with Walter I pointed out that natural selection takes
away the idea of complete randomness in evolution, and he, as usual,
criticised the point as being a tired argument, but it sounds here as if he
agrees with me. Flexibility of argument is a powerful tool for the rhetorician.
>The notion of common descent came from three observations:
> 1) The systematic unity of life (life was design to look
> like the product of one designer).
> 2) The absence of transposition patterns (a plausible
> evolutionary mechanism that evolutionists embrace).
> 3) The absence of atavistic patterns.
>
>These three ANTI-evolutionary patterns gave life a substantial nested-ness,
>and evolutionists merely adapted their theory to fit that by SELECTING
>common descent from their smorgasbord of mechanisms.
>
>The designer left out gradual intergradations of life forms, and also
>designed life to NOT have ancestors and lineages. It took a while for
>evolutionists to admit those patterns are true. Then evolutionists crafted
>punctuated equilibria in an attempt to explain-away the absences.
So what? This Phil Johnson-type critique, that it is dishonest to change
your hypothesis if the data do not fit, is NOT good science. It is
perfectly fair to modify hypotheses and the fact that Elldrige (sp?) and
Gould did thi is also fair. Science is self-correcting and the validity of
their of punctuated equilibrium model will or will not stand the test of
time. The Darwinian model of evolution supplanted inferior models and, if
warranted, another version will supplant neo-Darwinism.
>Evolutionists saw von Baer's laws of embryology, and tried to interpret
>these as the result of evolution -- and voila' the notion of recapitulation
>was born, from thin air, based only on *pattern*, with not a scrap of
>experimental evidence to back it up.
Why can't models be based on simple observations? Certainly, once made, the
model needs to be tested, but that is in fact what is going on.
>Let me sum up this parade. Evolutionists continually adapt their
>smorgasbord theory to fit the available data.
This means that science is working as it should. As new information becomes
available and accepted, models change. This is how Darwinism replaced
earlier models, and if warranted, this is how Darwinsim will be replaced.
>Let me pose you a challenge. A thought experiment. You are the designer.
>You are to design life for survival, and to look like the product of one
>designer. Here comes the hard part:
> Can you design the system to resist all naturalistic (or
> evolutionary) explanations? What would that system be
> like? Can you describe it? Can evolutionists design a
> system of life they could not explain away?
No set of data can be explained by only one theory. You wish to have data
that do not follow this rule and your insistence on it is your philosophical
undoing in this debate.
>I say Life's designer did it ingeniously.
Now THIS will be hard to test!
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but the designer could have used
evolution to do it ingeniously. If you claim that those who embrace
evolution must be in a place to disprove it in order for it to be accepted
as a reasonable justification of belief, then you too must be held to the
same standard and be able to falsify that "Life's designer did it ingeniously."
The problem with much of the anti-evolution rhetoric is that the critics do
not require a similar rigor of justification to their beliefs as they would
have the evolutionists do. In fact, much of this discussion has been from a
positivistic philosophy--"if you can't see it happen then it is not true".
This is the basis for the claim that natural selection is not falsifiable.
The fact that a natural selection mechanism is not possible to test (for
macroevolution at least) says nothing about whether it is true or not. This
is a problem with Popper's criterion for falsification. There are many
reasons why something cannot be falsified but this doesn't automatically
mean that the something is not valid. For instance, at one time
heliocentrism could not be falsified, largely due to technological reasons.
Thus, falsifiability often represents a measure of technical feasibility
more than a philosophical problem.
Note an important corollary here--a model that is not readily falsifiable
often has counter models that are equally unfalsifiable (e.g., natural
selection and intelligent design).
Back to the Walter's positivism, the requirement for natural selection to be
immediately observable is similar to the positivism of Comte and his ilk who
disbelieve atomic theory because no one has ever seen an atom. Regardless
of the indirect observations that are predicted based on the atomic model,
they say that the justification for belief is insufficient. So too does
Walter say that since we cannot observe natural selection, the indirect
observations that we may be able to percieve based on the model are invalid.
This is a poor philosophy of science.
cheers
Steve
__________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53792
"Universities are full of knowledge; the freshmen bring a little in, the
seniors take none away...the knowledge accumulates." Mark Twain
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