Hi Kevin,
You were patient enough to write (privately) an excellent, extensive
definition of Darwinism. I appreciate the possibility of discussing it with
someone knowledgeable, without resorting ridicule, anger and name-calling. I
accept your intelligence and sincerity if you can accept mine. If you don't,
you shouldn't be talking to me.
You said:
>Thirdly, Darwin never really referred to variation being due to chance;
instead >he referred to it as "unsolicited".
Darwin could not know whether variation was "solicited" or "unsolicited". I
agree he could present a theory in which he proposed variation was
"unsolicited", and that would be Darwinism. However, I see no possibility of
proof, either way. Atheists firmly believe variation is unsolicited, as an
Agnostic, I don't believe the question can be answered, and theists believe
God took a hand in it.
Kevin:
>Natural selection was based
>on three assumptions: 1) nature has and continues to change, and so life
>on earth must also change to survive;
Bertvan:
Who says nature has to change to survive? Haven't some organisms remained
relatively unchanged?
Kevin:
>2) nature provides an unlimited
>supply of unsolicited, fortuitous, hereditary novelties;
Bertvan:
Again, we don't know for sure if nature provides any unsolicited, fortuitous,
hereditary novelties. They might all be "solicited and planned-and some
might not be hereditary.
Kevin:
>and 3) the
>fertility of nature leads to a struggle for existence. Based on these
>assumptions, Darwin concluded that, in the struggle for survival,
>individuals who possess favorable novelties would survive while those who
>did not would perish. He also concluded that, while each novelty in and of
>itself was negligible, the steady accumulation of these novelties from one
>generation to the next would produce changes which are far from negligible.
Bertvan:
"The steady accumulation of these novelties from one generation to the next",
is one part of the theory for which I don't see evidence. I acknowledge
other people's right to interpret the evidence differently than I do.
Kevin
> Darwin referred to his conclusion as "natural selection" and called such
>novelties "variation". He did believed that these novelties appeared and
>were acquired by random chance events (or as we say today, through
>contingent events), but Darwin did not refer to these novelties as "random
>novelties". Instead, his use of the term "unsolicited" indicates that he
>saw these novelties as appearing independently of the actions and/or
>desires of nature or the organism. (Whether Darwin believed that they were
>also independent of the action and/or desire of God is in my opinion
>uncertain.) In other words, I believe that to say that the novelties
>appeared without purpose or plan is to say that a purpose or plan is
>unnecessary, not that it does not exist.
Bertvan:
"Independently of the actions and/or desires of nature or the organism" is
again one of Darwin's assumptions. If we don't know how these novelties
happen to appear, that must remain part of Darwin's theory, not factual. I
acknowledge your right to believe purpose or plan is unnecessary. I claim we
can not state that with certainty. It is possible no coherent novelties
would ever appear without some plan or purpose.
If you grant all this, Darwinism, as Darwin expressed it, is a theory in
which some people might passionately believe, but one about which other
people should be entitled to express skepticism.
Bertvan