Neither Darwin nor Huxley knew anything about genes. However, I think that
Huxley probably realized that it was possible for evolution to sometimes
occur rapidly and sometimes more slowly.
> 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.
Since Darwin's book was not a religious text, scientists immediately began
to discuss and pick it apart. That's what they do. They would apply his
ideas to the real world and see if they stood up under the weight of
evidence. They did. You really shouldn't get too excited about the fact that
scientists *don't* take what each other says on "faith." Evidence is the
acid test. Darwin was not 100% correct, but science has collected a vast
amount of evidence since Origin was published and most of it supported his
theory.
>
>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"!
:-) gosh, I'm trickier than I thought!
>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:
Actually evolution works both ways in different contexts. "Rapid" evolution
is only rapid by geological standards. By *human* timescales it's glacially
slow. So a species could be rapidly evolving--so rapidly that it won't even
show in the geological record and be so slow and gradual that *we* can't
detect it.
Stephen quoting Johnson, I think:
>"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.
it's a big world out there. Evolution is a very big subject. Not only is
there natural selection, but drift. Not only is evolution gradual and
stately but *also* fast and episodic. There may even be evolutionary
mechanisms in addition to drift and selection that we haven't discovered yet.
Johnson, cont.:
>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.
evilutionists are a slippery bunch! It just can't *be* that Johnson doesn't
understand what's going on in evolutionary biology.
>>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.
ah, that explains it. However, I thought you quoted the "Nature" article as
a refutation of Darwinism. I thought that anything hostile to Darwinism was
forbidden to be published in respected journals. In fact I thought *you*
said that antiDarwinist evidence could not get published. And yet there it is.
>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)
how wonderfully convenient! Creationists (of whatever stripe, and Johnson in
particular) *do* erect a strawman version of evolution in order to shoot it
down. So what do you do if that's true? The creationist version of evolution
is so silly a child would not believe it. Why would thousands of scientists
from all over the world, from many different religions (in addition to no
religion at all) continue to "believe in" evolution if it really were as
silly as portrayed by (mostly American) creationists?
And if evolution truly is a hoax, why is it dangerous to take antibiotics
without a knowledge of how evolution works? The *real* evolution?
>>>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).
Darwin was mostly right. However, he is wrong in some of the details. So
what? He *isn't* Holy Writ.
>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
it's because they both are Darwinists. :-) and they will continue to argue
the details. So what?
>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":
"does not require gradual change" in no way means "gradual change never
happens." Obviously gradual change sometimes happens.
>"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)
ah! I don't generally care for Dawkins (he may be a great zoologist, but
he's a lousy philosopher) but thank you! You've proved my point!
Susan
--------
Life is short, but it is also very wide.
http://www.telepath.com/susanb