On Sun, 04 May 1997 19:40:48 -0400, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Apr 1997 11:40:34 -0700, Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
>AC>Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and
>going around the sun.... Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the
>Facts of Life"
>SJ>This is just another example of Darwinist confusion..by flexible
>use of the all-purpose, swiss-army knife word "Evolution". The main
>problem with the above is that it is not necessarily "evolution"!
>An Old Earth Creationist could believe: "That all present life
>descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time",
>yet without believing in "Evolution":
PM>Only because the OEC has found it necessary to redefine the word
>evolution to mean something more. Perhaps the self delusion lies in
>the need for a denial of the existance of a scientific fact by
>redefining its meaning.
It is hard to get evolutionists to actually "define the word
evolution" in the first place. But this is how this "OEC" defines
"the word "evolution'", using six elements drawn from a wide range of
"evolutionist" statements:
"1. All living things past and present; 2. have descended with
modification from a common ancestor; 3. (which in turn arose
spontaneously from non-living chemicals), 4. by purely naturalistic
processes; 5. of genetic variation and 6. natural selection
mechanisms".
That these elements are essential to "evolution" is seen by the
removal of any one of them, which changes the theory. I have no
problem with 1 and 2, nor with 5 and 6. My main objection is to 3.
and 4. As to 3. I would claim that life did not arise spontaneously
from non-living chemicals, but required the intervention of an
Intelligent Designer. Also, as to 4. I would claim that the
intervention of an Intelligent Designer was also required to bring
about at least the major changes.
The intervention of an Intelligent Designer at key points in the
otherwise natural processes means that this is no longer "evolution"
but a form of creation, as Dawkins points out:
"Instead of a single, once and for all creation in the Garden of
Eden, many Victorians thought that the deity had intervened
repeatedly, at crucial points in evolution...Such people rightly
perceived that such instant 'evolution', if it occurred, would imply
supernatural intervention...just a watered-down form of
creationism...Darwin perceived this too. He wrote in a letter to Sir
Charles Lyell, the leading geologist of his day: `If I were
convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural
selection, I would reject it as rubbish...I would give nothing for
the theory of Natural selection, if it requires miraculous additions
at any one stage of descent.' (Darwin F., ed., "The Life and Letters
of Charles Darwin", 1888, ii:210). This is no petty matter. In
Darwin's view, the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural
selection was that it provided a non-miraculous account of the
existence of complex adaptations...For Darwin, any evolution that had
to be helped over the jumps by God was not evolution at all" (Dawkins
R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991, pp248-249)
PM>Evolution does not require or deny the existance of a creator, it
>merely describes the observed facts in a scientific manner. Whether
>a god created the first organism of life and evolution took over or
>whether it was chance and thermodynamics is irrelevant for evolution
>as a fact and theory.
The point is that, as Dawkins rightly points if a "creator"
intervened in the process, then it is "not evolution at all" but
a "form of creationism".
>SJ>Denton points out that common ancestry is "equally compatible with
>almost any philosophy of nature", including "creationist".
PM>In a philosophical sense perhaps, in a scientific sense surely
>not.
Only "surely not" if "creationist" is apriori ruled out as
"scientific".
>SJ>Wilcox points out that common descent was already widely accepted in
>the scientific world *before* Darwin:
PM>Indeed. Evolution as a fact was already known before Darwin.
No. "common descent" was already "already known before Darwin" but
some who held it were creationists. In fact the word "evolution" was
not in general use and Darwin did not even use it in his original
Origin of Species:
"To begin with a paradox: Darwin, Lamarck, and Haeckel -the greatest
nineteenth-century evolutionists of England, France, and Germany,
respectively-did not use the word evolution in the original editions
of their great works. Darwin spoke of "descent with modification,"
Lamarck of "transformisme." Haeckel preferred "Transmutations-
Theorie" or "Descendenz-Theorie." " (Gould S.J., "Ever Since Darwin",
Penguin: London, 1977, p34)
PM>...and Darwin merely provided the mechanisms to explain the facts
>in a scientific manner.
Agreed, but Darwin did much more than that. He went far beyond the
actual scientific data to rule out apriori God intervening in the
process (see above quote by Dawkins). In this he was motivated by
his extreme philosophical materialism as Gould points out:
"These so-called M and N notebooks were written in 1838 and 1839,
while Darwin was compiling the transmutation notebooks that formed
the basis for his sketches of 1842 and 1844. They contain his
thoughts on philosophy, esthetics, psychology, and anthropology...
They include many statements showing that he espoused but feared to
expose something he perceived as far more heretical than evolution
itself: philosophical materialism-the postulate that matter is the
stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena
are its by-products....The notebooks prove that Darwin was interested
in philosophy and aware of its implications. He knew that the
primary feature distinguishing his theory from all other evolutionary
doctrines was its uncompromising philosophical materialism. Other
evolutionists spoke of vital forces, directed history, organic
striving, and the essential irreducibilty of mind-a panoply of
concepts that traditional Christianity could accept in compromise,
for they permitted a Christian God to work by evolution instead of
creation....In the notebooks Darwin resolutely applied his
materialistic theory of evolution to all phenomena of life, including
what he termed "the citadel itself" - the human mind. And if mind
has no real existence beyond the brain, can God be anything more than
an illusion invented by an illusion? In one of his transmutation
notebooks, he wrote: Love of the deity effect of organization, oh
you materialist!..." (Gould S.J., "Ever Since Darwin", 1977,
pp23-25)
On Mon, 5 May 1997 12:43:53 +0200 (MES), Oliver Beck wrote:
OB>After you are both thus convinced that common descent was widely held by
>most scientists before Darwin, could you give me the exact references?
>I ever thought it was Darwin who brought the scientific community to drop
>the belief the constancy of species or a little higher category.
Read the beginning of the Origin of Species (6th edition):
"Historical Sketch" where Darwin lists those who believed in "common
descent" before him:
"Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that
species were immutable productions, and had been separately
created...Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that
species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are
the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms. Passing
over allusions to the subject in the classical writers, the first
author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was
Buffon...Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject
excited much attention. This justly celebrated naturalist first
published his views in 1801...In these works he upholds the doctrine
that all species, including man, are descended from other
species" (Darwin C., "The Origin of Species", 6th Edition, 1872,
Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1967 reprint, pp7-8)
Indeed, Darwin's own grandfather Erasmus Darwin anticipated his
grandson by sixty years, as Darwin admits obliquely:
"...It is curious how largely my grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin,
anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinion of Lamarck in
his Zoonomia (vol. i., pp. 500-10), published in 1794"
Burrows, in his introduction to the first edition of the Origin
points out that "The theory of evolution in biology was already an
old,...one" and that "Darwin, in later editions of The Origin, listed
over thirty predecessors", including his own grandfather:
"The theory of evolution in biology was already an old, even a
discredited one. Darwin, in later editions of The Origin, listed over
thirty predecessors and was still accused of lack of generosity. Greek
thinkers had held the view that life had developed gradually out of a
primeval slime. Diderot, Buffon and Maupertuis in the eighteenth
century had held evolutionary views, as had Darwin's own
grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, whose evolutionary ideas were
expressed partly in verse:
First, forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass.
These, as successive generations bloom
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume.
(Burrow J.W., "Editor's Introduction", to Darwin C.R., "The Origin
of Species", First Edition, 1859, Penguin: London, 1985 reprint, p27)
Regards.
Steve
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