On Mon, 21 Jun 1999 20:53:31 -0500 (CDT), Susan B wrote:
[...]
SJ>The fact is that in the fossil record, improvements did not occur in a
>>Darwinian, stepwise fashion, but each new feature usually appeared suddently,
>>fully formed, while the rest of the organism stayed the same.
SB>is this news to anyone? To you? Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) warned Darwin not
>to adhere too closely to Charles Lyell's ideas about strict gradualism.
And Darwin rightly ignored Huxley's saltationism because then, as now, there
is no viable naturalistic mechanism for saltational change. Indeed, arguably
Huxley was not really a true Darwinian:
"Since completing her doctorate on T.H. Huxley with historian Robert
Richards at the University of Chicago, scholar Sherrie Lyons has been
mapping out in fine detail the geography of Huxley's deep uncertainty
about many of the tenets of Darwinism. As an anatomist interested in what
he called the "architectural and engineering part of the business" of natural
history, Huxley perceived the animal world as being divided into
fundamental types, and thus, Lyons writes, "Huxley found that his own
work confirmed the lack of transitional forms between major groups"
(1995, 471). Yet Huxley was also a materialist who wished to explain the
origins of organisms by naturalistic descent. "If he were to accept a theory
of transmutation," Lyons observes, "he had somehow to reconcile the two
ideas: interrelatedness vs. the absence of transitional forms." Huxley found
his answer in the possiblity of "saltational" evolution. "Saltation allowed
Huxley to explain the gaps in the fossil record, accept evolution, and, most
importantly, maintain a belief in the concept of type" (1995, 492). Huxley
was unpersuaded by Darwin's arguments explaining away the missing
fossils. In a wry metaphor cited by Lyons, Huxley compared the evidence a
scientific theory must provide to the title-deeds for an estate:
`If a landed proprietor is asked to produce the title-deeds of his estate, and
is obliged to reply that some of them were destroyed in a fire a century
ago, and that some were carried off by a dishonest attorney; and that the
rest are in a safe somewhere, but that he really cannot lay his hands upon
them; he cannot I think, feel pleasantly secure, though all his allegations
may be correct and his ownership indisputable.'
Huxley later moderated his saltationist views as fossil discoveries appeared
to confirm Darwin's gradualistic arguments, although he never warmed to
natural selection. But saltation, Lyons argues, provided him with the means
to accept evolution in the face of missing evidence. Saltation was, for
Huxley, a deduction from naturalism--"a logical development," he said, "of
Uniformitarianism" and provided, at least for a time, the only alternative to
creation."
(Nelson P. "T.H. Huxley's Ambivalence," Literature Survey: Origins & Design
Vol. 18, No. 1, Winter 1997, p16.
http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od181/ls181.htm)
SB>Gould writes in 1977 "Evolution...
Note the usual switch, when pressure is applied to the Darwinian mechanisms.
I said "Darwinian, stepwise fashion" but Susan switches to the vaguer
term "evolution"! Then later, when the coast is clear, she will switch back
to Darwinism (note in a separate post today she defends natural selection
accumulating information in true-blue Darwinian style). Johnson comments
on this verbal shell game:
"If critics are sophisticated enough to see that population variations
have nothing to do with major transformations, Darwinists can disavow
the argument from microevolution and point to relationship as the
"fact of evolution." Or they can turn to biogeography, and point out
that species on offshore islands closely resemble those on the nearby
mainland. Because "evolution" means so many different things, almost
any example will do. The trick is always to prove one of the modest
meanings of the term, and treat it as proof of the complete
metaphysical system.
Manipulation of the terminology also allows natural selection to
appear and disappear on command. When unfriendly critics are absent,
Darwinists can just assume the creative power of natural selection
and employ it to explain whatever change or lack of change has been
observed. When critics appear and demand empirical confirmation,
Darwinists can avoid the test by responding
that scientists are discovering alternative mechanisms, particularly
at the molecular level, which relegate selection to a less important
role. The fact of evolution therefore remains unquestioned, even if
there is a certain amount of healthy debate about the theory. Once
the critics have been distracted, the Blind Watchmaker can reenter by
the back door. Darwinists will explain that no biologist doubts the
importance of Darwinian selection, because nothing else was available
to shape the adaptive features of the phenotypes.
(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, pp153-154)
With such flexibility, anything and its opposite can be explained
effortlessly!
SB>...Huxley believed, could proceede so rapidly
>that the slow and fitful process of sedimentation rarely caught it in the
>act." (Gould, Panda's Thumb, p. 180)
What "Huxley believed" is irrelevant. He never AFAIK contributed anything
of substance to Darwinist evolutionary theory. IMHO Huxley JUST used Darwin
as a vehicle to advance himself and his naturalist agenda.
And how does this relate to Berra's example of the Corvette as illustraing
the step-by-step minor changes accumulating over time into major chamges?
>SJ>This so-called "mosaic evolution" is yet another difficulty of Darwinism,
>>which expected that natural selection would be continually working on the
>>*whole* organism, as Darwin evisaged:
SB>It's astonishing that they dared to print such an obvious refutation
>evolution in "Nature"! :-) How *ever* did they get away with it?
What Susan has not yet realised is that it is *impossible* to refute
Darwinism. Darwinists don't even notice that there is a problem, because
for the committed Darwinist who has absorbed Darwinist ways of thinking
there *can* be no problem.
When a critic challenges the Darwinian stepwise mechanisms of random mutation
and natural selection, Darwinists usually issue a verbal barrage of insults
as a smokescreen and then retreat to the safe haven of "evolution" which
can mean something that can't be falsified like: "a change in gene frequencies
in a population" or even just "change over time." Then when the critic gives up,
the Darwinists switch back to Darwinian examples of stepwise random mutation
and natural selection!
No wonder Gould himself, wrote in exasperation:
"All these statements, as Robson and Richards also note, are subject to recognized
exceptions - and this imposes a great frustration upon anyone who would
characterize the modern synthesis in order to criticize it. All the synthesists
recognized exceptions and "ancillary processes,...Thus, a synthesist could always
deny a charge of rigidity by invoking these official exceptions, even though their
circumscription, both in frequency and effect, actually guaranteed the hegemony of
the two cardinal principles. This frustrating situation had been noted by critics of
an earlier Darwinian orthodoxy, by Romanes writing of Wallace, for example..."
(Gould S.J., "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?", Paleobiology,
vol. 6(1), January 1980, p120)
SB>Possibly because it *is* what is expected by those who study evolution. It
>is not expected by people who erect a false version of evolution and then
>try to shoot it down.
See above. Lurkers please note that I was actually comparing "a version of evolution"
out of a book on evolution with what actually another evolutionist reported
he found in the fossil record. But since "evolution" is a moving target, that
can mean whatever an evolutionist wants it to mean, there is no *true* "version
of evolution." So a critics challenge to evolution is *automatically* "a false
version of evolution"! Johnson writes commenting on Gould's quote above:
"Contemporary neo-Darwinists also practice a tactically advantageous flexibility
concerning the frequency and importance of non-selective evolution....Readers
should therefore beware of taking at face value claims by neo-Darwinist
authorities that some critic has misunderstood or mischaracterized their theory."
(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, p16)
>SJ>"It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly
>>scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those
>>that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good; silently and
>>insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the
>>improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic
>>conditions of life." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species," 6th Edition,
>>1928, reprint, p84)
SB>And since Darwin is not Holy Writ...
This is another shell game. Claim allegiance to Darwin (he is in a prominent place
in almost every Biology textbook) but when the going gets tough, disavow him as
"Darwin is dead" (Eugenie Scott), or "Darwin is not Holy Writ" (Susan B).
Yet what is noteworthy is that the opposing Dawkins and Gould camps argue
among each other they each try to claim they are the true followers of the
master! Indeed, Dawkins
SB>...he has since had his ideas about strict
>gradualism shown (with evidence, not just rhetoric) to be inaccurate.
The fact is that Susan in the other post mentioned is defending "strict gradualism"
(whether she realises it or not) if she wants to claim that it is natural
selection which has built up all the information in living systems.
SB>Gould also wrote:
>"We [Gould and Eldridge] believe that Huxley was right in his warning. The
>modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the
>operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the
>fossil record." (Gould, Panda's Thumb, p182)
This is a common misunderstanding. The fact is, as Dawkins rightly points out,
that Gould and Eldredge do not really deny "gradual change":
"As I have stressed, the theory of punctuated equilibrium, by Eldredge and Gould's
own account, is not a saltationist theory. The jumps that it postulates are not real,
singlegeneration jumps. They are spread out over large numbers of generations
over periods of, by Gould's own estimation, perhaps tens of thousands of years.
The theory of punctuated equilibrium is a gradualist theory, albeit it emphasizes
long periods of stasis intervening between relatively short bursts of gradualistic
evolution." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," 1991, p244)
Steve
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"I well remember how the synthetic theory beguiled me with its unifying power
when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960's. Since then I have been watching
it slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution. The molecular assault
came first, followed quickly by renewed attention to unorthodox theories of
speciation and by challenges at the level of macroevolution itself. I have been
reluctant to admit it-since beguiling is often forever-but if Mayr's characterization
of the synthetic theory is accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is
effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy." (Gould S.J., "Is a
new and general theory of evolution emerging?", Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January
1980, p120)
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