Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"

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Topic:	Religions > Atheism
User:	"david ford"
Date:	23 May 2004 09:55:17 PM
Object:	Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"

Macbeth, Norman. June 1967. "The Question: Darwinism
Revisited" _The Yale Review_ 56(4): 616-631. Yale University
Press published _The Yale Review_ quarterly. The entire article:
THE number of serious books now printed or reprinted as
paperbacks is astonishing. Despite the bustling modern tempo,
these books are going to make us studious and scholarly. They
have already had that effect on me, leading me step by step and
book by book into a long reexamination of Darwinism, a subject
on which I thought the last word had been said when I was in
college thirty-five years ago.
My first and most important sources were four paperbacks by
eminent biologists: Sir Julian Huxley, _Evolution in Action_
(Mentor, 1957); John Maynard Smith, _The Theory of
Evolution_ (Penguin, 1958); Garrett Hardin, _Nature and Man's
Fate_ (Mentor, 1961); and Loren Eiseley, _Darwin's Century_
(Doubleday Anchor, 1961).
Eiseley is excellent on historical perspective. I am grateful to
him for showing that there are really two aspects of evolution:
one large and relatively easy, the other smaller and much more
difficult.
The first aspect arose with the youthful sciences of geology and
paleontology, as the strata and the fossils were uncovered and
classified. This work showed that many plants and animals
appeared for the first time in the strata that lay higher and were
therefore presumed to be younger, while others appeared only in
the lower strata. It was not difficult to infer from these
observations that there had been changes in the course of time,
numerous species having been added or eliminated since the
beginning. This inference is the large and easy aspect of
evolution. Eiseley shows that it was reasonably well known by
1825, if not by 1800.
The second aspect is the modus operandi, the how and why.
Assuming that there has been change, progress, or evolution,
how did it actually come about? Answers began to be ventured
almost as soon as the problem was defined. Erasmus Darwin,
grandfather of Charles, had written extensively on the subject
before his death in 1802. Jean Baptiste Lamarck, who died in
1829, had also propounded his much-derided suggestion that
change comes about through acquired habits being passed on to
younger generations. Charles Darwin, when he came forward
with _The Origin of Species_ in 1859, was addressing himself
to this latter aspect. Natural selection was his answer to how
and why.
Natural selection provoked some dramatic attacks that touched
the imagination of the public. The most famous were the debate
at Oxford in 1860 between T. H. Huxley and Bishop Samuel
Wilberforce, and the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925 where
Clarence Darrow made a monkey out of William Jennings
Bryan. The impression of most laymen is that these episodes
demonstrated once and for all the folly of the fundamentalists
and the invulnerability of Darwinism. My recent studies,
however, indicate that only the first of these points is correct.
The attacks were directed only at the large and easy aspect of
evolution. Wilberforce and Bryan knew nothing about the
details of how and why; they simply rejected everything on the
ground that whatever conflicted with a literal reading of Genesis
had to be wrong. This made them easy marks. They could be
refuted by merely pointing to the rocks. Their ill-judged tactics
were a boon to the defenders, who would not have come off so
well had the firing been concentrated on the small and difficult
aspect.
A surprising trait of the four paperbacks is that not one of them
gives a neat short statement of the classical Darwinian how and
why as the founder himself conceived it. Therefore, since we
must have such a statement if we are to examine the theory, I
venture the following: Classical Darwinism asserts that the
progression from early species to later species, as observed in
the rocks, is a process of actual physical descent governed by
natural selection through such agencies as the struggle for
existence, the survival of the fittest, sexual selection, and
adaptation to circumstances, all of which are conceived as
working in insensible cumulative stages through vast periods of
relatively undisturbed time. This assertion is supported by data
drawn from comparative anatomy, embryology, and the
experience of breeders.
I have submitted this formulation to several biologists and am
sure that it is reasonably fair and accurate. It is, of course,
familiar doctrine to everyone who has attended an American
university and, if my samplings of opinion are reliable, it is
regarded as gospel by almost every such person. I was surprised
to discover that the major doubters are the professional
biologists.
The concept of natural selection, which is the heart of the
theory, attracted an immense amount of discussion and
speculation, out of which emerged certain corollaries to the
theory. For the sake of completeness I will recite two of these.
First, in the evolution of any structure or function, every
intermediate stage must be of advantage to the species (Hardin,
71). Second, natural selection tends only to make each being as
perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of
the same country; it will not produce absolute perfection
(Eiseley, 310).
Now let us go over the theory phrase by phrase.
Comparative anatomy shows now, as in 1859, that there are
structural resemblances between different animals. If we look at
the vast group known as the vertebrates, we find a single general
plan running through the multitudinous species, genera,
families, orders, and classes. This produces an almost
irresistible temptation to regard them all as related, although
obviously resemblance does not necessarily entail kinship by
blood.
Since the different groups, if related, must have common
ancestors, a colossal amount of effort has been devoted to
genealogical research. This research has been very
disappointing. Hardin laments the difficulty in one conspicuous
case: "There was a time when the existing fossils of the horses
seemed to indicate a straight-line evolution from small to large,
from dog-like to horse-like, from animals with simple grinding
teeth to animals with the complicated cusps of the modern
horse. It looked straight-line-- like the links of a chain. But not
for long. As more fossils were uncovered, the chain splayed out
into the usual phylogenetic net, and it was all too apparent that
evolution had not been in a straight line at all, but that (to
consider size only) horses had now grown taller, now shorter
with the passage of time."
This is the usual result. A blank turns up where the common
ancestor should be. The hiatus is even more glaring when the
groups are larger, as when we look for connections between
families rather than between species. The first fossils are
already differentiated, and the number of missing links is about
what most of us find when we look for twelfth cousins.
This difficulty in tracing genealogies accounts for a striking
difference between the texts in my day and now. We were
presented with trees to show descent from common ancestors.
Now trees are no longer used. Not one of the four paperbacks
shows a tree, although Hardin prints a couple of tangled thickets
to show how hopeless the task is.
Embryology was of great interest to Darwin, although his
younger contemporary Ernst Haeckel went far beyond him in
this field. It was Haeckel who formulated the famous
Biogenetic Law according to which the embryo recapitulates the
development of the species. Smith (264) remarks gently that
"Unfortunately the facts do not support Haeckel." Huxley
(17-19) agrees that Haeckel was too exuberant and that one
should assert only that many useful clues may be gleaned from
embryology. Hardin barely mentions the subject. Thus it seems
clear that embryology has not furnished the rich confirmation
that was hoped for.
The experience of breeders was perhaps the subject closest to
Darwin's heart. He bred pigeons and hobnobbed with
pigeon-fanciers. He spent a great deal of time in talking to
breeders of all sorts and recording their observations in his
notebooks. He was familiar with the great improvements that
had been made in many plants and domestic animals. Change
was occurring under his eyes. What could be more encouraging
to a man who was brooding on the idea of evolution?
But there was a difficulty. The observed changes were small.
The breeders could improve a sheep's wool or create a larger
rose, but they never even tried to make big changes, such as
adding wings to a horse.
I am going to use the words "micro" and "macro" to describe
small changes and large. Most small changes concern varieties,
such as toy poodles or giant roses, but those who take a narrow
view of species may say that such changes affect species or
even genera. There is no exact line between these
classifications, and there is no exact line between small and
large; but any sensible person can see that there is a difference
between small and large, especially if we aid him with crass
examples such as the contrast between breeding black horses
and breeding winged horses.
The changes that Darwin observed in the breeding pens were all
micro. They occurred beyond any doubt, but they were not
sufficient for his purposes because he was faced with macro
gaps between his units, which were the types that started out
with distinct forms even in the earliest fossils. Comparative
anatomy and embryology showed resemblances between the
units, but they also showed gulfs going back to the misty
beginnings. Looking only at large domestic quadrupeds, it was
easy to see that horses, cows, sheep, and goats all had a
backbone, four limbs, a brain, a heart, a skull, and a
reproductive system, and that these members were similar in
many ways; but no one could assert that these animals were
identical. They looked like cousins, but there was neither a
neatly graduated series of living links between them nor a
converging fossil genealogy behind them. Darwin had to find
processes by which the gaps could be bridged.
Darwin was a timid man in many ways, but he acted boldly in
this situation. He took the observed micro changes, which in
themselves were nothing like enough to fill the gaps, and he
extrapolated them. He said, in brief, that in twenty years of
breeding we often achieve substantial changes; therefore, if we
continue the work for a hundred million years, we can close all
the gaps. He did this quite consciously, since Eiseley points out
that as early as 1844 he had written: "That a limit to variation
does exist in nature is assumed by most authors, though I am
unable to discover a single fact on which this belief is
grounded." A skeptic might add that he also could not discover
a single fact on which an opposite belief could be grounded.
Extrapolation is a dangerous procedure. If you have a broad
base of sound observations, you can extend it a little at the ends
without too much risk; but if the base is short or insecure,
extension can lead to grotesque errors. Thus if you observe the
growth of a baby during its first months, extrapolation into the
future will show that the child will be eight feet tall when five
years old. Every statistician will recommend great caution in
extrapolation. Darwin, however, plunged in with no misgivings.
Some of our modern biologists extrapolate as lightheartedly as
ever Darwin did. Thus Sir Julian Huxley says: "With the length
of time available, little adjustments can easily be made to add up
to miraculous adaptations; and the slight shifts of gene
frequency between one generation and the next can be
multiplied to produce radical improvements and totally new
kinds of creatures." Professor John Tyler Bonner of Princeton is
equally bold. In _The Ideas of Biology_ (Harper, 1962) he
makes his views very clear: "There is no reason to believe that
these large changes are not the result of the very same
mechanics as the small changes. . . . One involves a small
step over a few years; the other involves many many thousands
of steps over millions of years."
Despite this easy confidence, it seems likely that extrapolation is
not justified in this situation. The first difficulty is that no one
has ever observed a macro change, whether in the breeding pens
or in the fossils. This sounds like a drastic assertion, but all the
paperbacks seem to concede it. Nevertheless, it worried me so
much that, in order to verify it, I consulted _Evolution Above
the Species Level_ by Bernhard Rensch (Columbia, 1960). I
found Professor Rensch arguing at length that macro changes
(which he prefers to call transspecific evolution) should not be
regarded as impossible, but he never pretended to have any
actual examples.
The next difficulty is another aspect of the same vacuum. If we
join Darwin in assuming that macro changes _must_ have taken
place by small steps, so that the gaps were at one time filled,
then what has happened to all the intermediate forms? Hardin,
when asked if he can show all the links in the chain, replies:
"No, of course not; the geological record is imperfect and will
always remain so, since it is highly improbable that short-lived
intermediate species will be fossilized." This is the standard
answer, but there is something face-saving about it. The simple
phrase "short-lived intermediate species" is already
troublesome. How does Hardin know they were short-lived
when he has never seen them? Can any species really be
short-lived when Huxley says that large changes occur over tens
of millions of years, while really major ones take a hundred
million or so?
The heart of the problem is whether living things do indeed vary
to an unlimited extent or, to state it differently, whether the
observed micro changes cumulate into macro changes. The
general feeling of untutored men is against this. The species
look stable. We have all heard of disappointed breeders who
carried their work to a certain point only to see the animals or
plants revert to where they had started. Darwin himself knew in
1844 that most authors assumed there were limits to variation.
He also knew that among pigeons the crossing of highly bred
varieties was apt to produce a reversion to "the ancient
rock-pigeon."
But it is not only untutored men and early authors who are
skeptical. Eiseley reports the discovery by the Danish scientist
W. L. Johannsen that "the variations upon which Darwin and
Wallace had placed their emphasis cannot be selectively pushed
beyond a certain point . . . such variability does not contain
the secret of _indefinite departure."_ Sir Julian Huxley remarks
that, in a pure eyeless strain of fruit-flies, after eight or ten
generations the eyes had reverted almost to normal. But the
clearest testimony comes from Eiseley himself: "It would
appear that careful domestic breeding, whatever it may do to
improve the quality of race horses and cabbages, is not actually
in itself the road to the endless biological deviation which is
evolution. There is great irony in this situation, for more than
almost any other single factor, domestic breeding had been used
as an argument for the reality of evolution."
I was also impressed by the story of a defector. The late
German geneticist, Richard B. Goldschmidt, must have been a
highly tutored man, since Hardin calls him "important" and
Smith devotes several pages to him. After observing mutations
in fruit-flies for many years, Goldschmidt fell into despair. The
changes, he lamented, were so hopelessly micro that if a
thousand mutations were combined in one specimen, there
would still be no new species. This led him to propose the
hypothesis of the "hopeful monster," whereby a huge change
might have occurred all at once and been preserved by a
fortunate environment. His colleagues rejected this proposal
with good reason, but they seem to escape Goldschmidt's
despair only by an act of faith.
These pieces of evidence led me to suspect, with proper
diffidence, that extrapolation was unjustified, that micro
changes did not simply aggregate into macro, that macro
changes could not be shown to occur, and that one of Darwin's
main props had collapsed. While wrestling with this suspicion,
I encountered _Animal Species and Evolution_ by Ernst Mayr
(Harvard University Press, 1963). This book gave me great
comfort.
Professor Mayr notes that animal forms have a certain
persistence or inertia, in that they resist sudden or drastic
changes, and he gives this persistence the name of "genetic
homeostasis." He also provides a splendid example of what I
had been groping for-- the corollary tendency of plants and
animals to balk at being bred too far in any direction. This
comes out in his description of some work in 1948 with the
famous fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster. Here is the gist of his
remarks.
Two experiments were run, one for decrease and one for
increase in the number of bristles, which averaged 36 in the
starting stock. Selection for decrease was able, after thirty
generations, to lower this average to 25 bristles, but then the line
became sterile and died out. A mass low line (maintained
without selection) was started with 32 bristles and remained
nearly stable for ninety-five generations. All attempts to derive
from this line others with lower bristle numbers failed because
the lines died out before selection had made much progress. In
the high line, progress was at first rapid and steady. In twenty
generations the average rose from 36 to 56. At this stage
sterility became severe and a mass culture (without selection)
was started. Average bristle number fell sharply and was down
to 39 in five generations.
Professor Mayr regards these results as entirely normal. He
believes that there is just so much variability in a fruit-fly, and
that if it is pressed hard in one direction it will be distorted in
another. His language is plain: "Obviously any drastic
improvement under selection must seriously deplete the store of
genetic variability. . . . The most frequent correlated response
of one-sided selection is a drop in general fitness. This plagues
virtually every breeding experiment."
Genetic homeostasis makes even micro changes look difficult
and seems to be a fatal obstacle to macro evolution. Professor
Mayr himself continues to believe that macro evolution must
take place through natural selection acting on small changes, but
he cites no observed cases, he confesses that he is relying on
extrapolation, and he blurts out, in the middle of his tentative
suggestions about a modus operandi, "much of this is obviously
speculation." Thus he seems to be an unwilling but decisive
witness against macro evolution.
Progression from early species to later species is the whole
theme of evolution, hence it is startling to find that some
biologists have only contempt for the very concept of species.
These men assert that all living forms are in flux; that we see
them as species only because we do not take the long historical
view; and that all the traits used to define species have been and
are changing. Smith says this politely, and at once
acknowledges the need for species names as convenient labels.
Hardin, however, sneers at "stamp-collector taxonomists who
clutter up the literature with unenlightening discussions of the
species problem, as it is dignified."
When the word "dog" covers the Great Dane, the Chihuahua, the
greyhound, and the dachshund, it must be admitted that
"species" is a very elastic concept. It must also be admitted that
it is difficult to draw firm lines between varieties, semi-species,
subspecies, sibling species, species, and genera. But is it
reasonable to assert that all is in flux and classification is
useless?
Sir Julian Huxley kindly supplies strong evidence to the
contrary. He quotes with approval the testimony of his
grandfather, T. H. Huxley, who had perceived as early as 1870
what Mayr now calls genetic homeostasis: "The significance of
persistent types, and the small amount of change which has
taken place even in those forms which can be said to have been
modified, becomes greater and greater the longer I occupy
myself with the biology of the past." Sir Julian then lists a
number of "living fossils" that have not changed at all in fifty to
four hundred million years-- the duckbill platypus, the little
seashell called Lingula, the oyster, the opossum, the ginkgo tree,
the Australian lungfish, and the recently discovered fish known
as Latimeria.
Professor Mayr supplements this evidence with arguments from
principle. Species is, for him, the keystone of evolution. The
belief that one species can readily turn into another is "folklore."
He warns that every biologist who does not take species
seriously will fall into confusion.
Thus we have two trends of thought: stability (with due
allowance for elasticity) and flux. Stability is derived from
actual observation, while flux is derived from extrapolation and
speculation. I find it strange that scientists should disregard
observation, but there can be no doubt that many do so.
The struggle for existence was a great war-cry among the early
Darwinists. In their enthusiasm they went to preposterous
lengths. T. H. Huxley asserted that all the molecules within
each organism were competing with each other. August
Weismann suggested that the particles of germ plasm were in
conflict with each other, so that the ancestors who had
contributed them were struggling with each other as to which
should be recreated. Wilhelm Roux developed the theory that
organs were struggling with each other for nourishment, kidneys
against lungs, heart against brain.
In Russia, where the scientists always laid more stress on mutual
aid than on competition, struggle was rejected even before the
Bolshevik Revolution. Nowadays it is no longer fashionable in
the West. The modern emphasis is on symbiosis and ecology.
Our biologists recoil in horror from Tennyson's famous line
about "Nature red in tooth and claw." Hardin still lauds
competition on patriotic grounds, but Smith pays scant attention
to competition and struggle. Huxley degrades it to a harmless
truism, saying: "The struggle for existence merely signifies that
a portion of each generation is bound to die before it can
reproduce itself." There is no war-cry here.
Survival of the fittest, perhaps the most famous of Darwin's
catchwords, has been almost entirely discarded. Smith and
Eiseley hardly mention it, while Hardin and Huxley are brief
and full of qualifications.
This is partly because of the same social change that has caused
the struggle for existence to be toned down in our friendly
world. But largely it comes from the embarrassing recognition
that the phrase embodies circular reasoning. When critics asked
how fitness was determined, the answer was that survival was
the acid test. This meant that the animals survived because they
were the fittest and were the fittest because they survived. The
net effect of this twin statement is that some animals survived
and some did not, a fact that was well known to Darwin's
grandfather. My authors seem to have found no way to break
out of the circle.
Sexual selection has faded badly with time. This line of
thought, very dear to Darwin, held that the strongest walrus won
all the females and that the hen birds all clustered around the
***** who was the best dancer or had the most gorgeous
plumage. Competition for the females was said to lead to more
muscle, better dancing, and brighter plumage, ad infinitum.
Sir Julian Huxley takes pleasure in describing the plumage of
the male Argus pheasant and asserts that this plumage is very
helpful with the hens. On the other hand, Hardin barely
mentions sexual selection, and Smith dismisses it with this curt
remark: "Darwin's ideas on sexual selection have received little
attention from later biologists. In no case has it been
demonstrated that such selection occurs in a wild population."
This discouragement stems from closer observation of the hens.
Instead of attentively judging the dancers, the hens were often
found to be picking up food or gazing into the distance. The
situation was even worse with the gorgeous plumage, because
careful study often revealed that the hens were color-blind and
could not perceive the glories of the peacock. Thus the beauty
contest was only an anthropomorphic delusion of the biologists.
Even if the speculations had had some solid foundation, there is
no reason to think that sexual selection would have led to new
species. We have seen, in connection with genetic homeostasis,
that the efforts of the breeders seem to touch on certain natural
limits and to fall short of creating new species, thus making it
very dangerous to say ad infinitum. I cannot believe that the
hens could do more than the breeders.
Quiet spans of time, the longer the better, were always essential
to Darwin. Eiseley has a very interesting account of Darwin's
chagrin when Lord Kelvin, the great physicist, began to reduce
the age of the earth to a paltry thirty million years or less.
Darwin referred to Lord Kelvin as an "odious specter" and said:
"I am greatly troubled at the short duration of the world
according to Lord Kelvin, for I require for my theoretical views
a very long period."
The physicists have retreated from Lord Kelvin's position and
are again willing to grant enormous stretches of time. But, no
bigger than a man's hand, a new danger looms on the horizon--
that these stretches of time, far from being quiet and peaceful,
were filled with convulsions and catastrophes. This would not
necessarily be fatal to Darwinism or to the geological concepts
on which it is based, but it would demand an immense amount
of fresh study and interpretation. Perhaps for this reason neither
the geologists nor the biologists would, until very recently,
entertain any discussion of catastrophes.
The leading work on catastrophes, so far as I am informed, is
_Earth in Upheaval_ by Immanuel Velikovsky (Doubleday,
1955). This author has for many years been persona non grata
to most scientists; in fact, he has stirred them to such rage that I
would not dare to mention him had not certain other scientists
recently undertaken to rehabilitate him. The _American
Behavioral Scientist_ for Septemtember [sic] of 1963 rehearses
the attacks on Velikovsky and censures the conduct of many
eminent men of science in this regard. It will be a long time
before Velikovsky is recognized as an authority in the usual
sense, but in _Earth in Upheaval_ he marshals sober facts
collected by reputable men and lets them tell their own tale of
catastrophe. They do this with overpowering effect.
Adaptation, agent of the delicate equilibrium between organism
and environment, is one of the major studies of biologists.
Careful observation in the field finds adaptation everywhere.
As Huxley says: "There are species which feed entirely on
flesh, on wood, on excrement, on nectar, on feathers, on the
contents of each others' intestines, on one particular kind of fruit
or leaf. And each and every species is adapted, often in the
most astonishing fashion, to its environment or its way of life.
Think of the duck's webbed feet, the camel's stomach, or the
luminous organs of deep-sea fish. There is no need to multiply
examples; every animal and plant is from one aspect an
organized bundle of adaptations-- of structure, physiology, and
behavior; and the organization of the whole bundle is itself an
adaptation."
This descriptive work is admirable, but it is not at first
concerned with evolution. As Smith points out, scientists turn
to evolution for answers only when they have succumbed to the
temptation to explain how and why adaptation has come about.
In the early days, answers were handed out generously by
Darwin and his followers. There was hardly any riddle that they
would not try to explain. To some extent this generosity still
prevails, since we find Sir Julian Huxley furnishing solutions
with sublime confidence: "Flowers develop distinctive colors to
attract bees; wasps develop their black and yellow stripes to
warn enemies of their stings; the partridge develops camouflage
to escape detection by the hawk; the peacock develops brilliant
plumage to stimulate his mate."
Such explanations were accepted uncritically for a long time,
but they are not so common nowadays. The writers, especially
Smith, warn that caution must be exercised. They perceive that
many of the answers, like the samples from Huxley, are too
utilitarian, sounding more like the first thoughts of a freshman
than the mysteries of Mother Nature. They reveal a bad
conscience by insisting that the answers must come from
observation rather than invention.
There are two situations in which, with all the caution in the
world, the evolutionists are unable to furnish satisfactory
answers. The first is where, by human standards, natural
selection has bungled, as in developing the enormous antlers of
the Irish elk and the ponderous tusks of the mammoth. These
organs had no apparent value and are often thought to have
contributed to the extinction of their bearers; but the fact that
they were ever developed at all leads to the suspicion that
natural selection was napping.
The second situation is where the arrangements are so complex
and marvelous as to go beyond human comprehension. Here is
an example. Certain sea slugs have appendages called papillae
growing from their backs. In these papillae are groups of
sting-cells, usually of a long whiplike shape. In their
undischarged condition, the stings are folded up so that the least
touch will cause the coiled nettle-lash to fly out and sting any
foreign body within reach. Since similar stings have been found
in Coelenterates (little animals on which the sea slugs feed), it
was supposed for a long time that the slugs were related to the
Coelenterates. Recent research, however, has shown that there
is no relationship and that the slugs have simply stolen the stings
from the Coelenterates. They eat the Coelenterates, but
somehow they keep from exploding the stings. They get the
stings into their stomachs, then work them into narrow channels
that have cilia or hairs in them. By means of the cilia they
sweep the stings up the channels into pouches out on the
papillae, and there the stings are all neatly arranged, _right way
up and still unexploded_, in such a way that they can be
discharged against an attacker.
I stumbled on this example while reading in quite a different
field. Inquiring among biologists, I discovered that there are
numerous cases of this kind, but that they seldom appear in the
standard literature. They are interesting, highly relevant, and
well known, but they are the special stock-in-trade of the small
but hardy band of anti-Darwinists. These heretics delight in
flaunting such cases in the face of the evolutionists and
demanding explanations on the usual step-by-step utilitarian
lines. Since only a madman would pretend to know how such
things came about, the usual response is silence. Not one of the
four paperbacks mentions a case of this type.
The corollaries of Darwin's theory remain to be examined.
Unfortunately, they are in no condition to lend it any support.
The first corollary was that, in the evolution of any structure or
function, every intermediate step must be advantageous to the
species. The reason for this is that natural selection was
conceived by Darwin as a mindless process, as the impersonal
operation of purely natural forces. If it is mindless, it cannot
plan ahead; it cannot make sacrifices now to attain a distant
goal, because it has no goals and no mind with which to
conceive goals. Therefore every change must be justified by its
own immediate advantages, not as leading to some desirable
end.
This corollary has found its nemesis in the human eye. Hardin
puts the problem neatly: "How then are we to account for the
evolution of such a complicated organ as the eye? . . . If even
the slightest thing is wrong-- if the retina is missing, or the lens
opaque, or the dimensions in error-- the eye fails to form a
recognizable image and is consequently useless. Since it must
be either perfect, or perfectly useless, how could it have been
evolved by small, successive, Darwinian steps? The objection
is a formidable one, but it no longer looks unanswerable."
Hardin then essays an answer, but it is so weak that the reader
might take it for a parody. Hardin must have realized that it was
inadequate, for he returned to the problem later in his book,
saying: "_That damned eye_-- the human eye . . . which
Darwin freely conceded to constitute a severe strain on his
theory of evolution. Is so simple a principle as natural selection
equal to explaining so complex a structure as the
image-producing eye? Can the step-by-step process of
Darwinian evolution carry adaptation so far? Competent
opinion has wavered on this point." Having thus marched up to
the problem a second time, Hardin marched away from it with
no answer at all. I read on for a number of pages expecting to
see the waverings of competent opinion, but nothing appeared.
I slowly realized that Hardin had changed the subject.
The second corollary was that natural selection tends only to
make each being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the
other inhabitants of the same country; it will not produce
absolute perfection. This is Darwin's own formulation as set
forth in the first edition of _The Origin of Species_. Eiseley
reports that in 1869, after only ten years, it was brushed aside by
no less a person than Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer
of Darwin's theory. Perceiving that the gap between the brain of
the ape and that of the lowest savage was too big, Wallace
wrote, perhaps with a touch of malice: "Natural selection could
only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to
that of the ape, whereas he actually possesses one but very little
inferior to that of the average member of our learned societies."
Darwin realized that this was dangerous. He wrote to Wallace,
"I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and
my child." If I read Eiseley correctly, Wallace never found an
answer to this difficulty and remained a skeptical Darwinist
until his death in 1913. Nor does Eiseley assert that any answer
is now available.
So much for the corollaries. Let me now add the strange fact
that, in his last years, Darwin himself veered away from
classical Darwinism. When a Scottish engineer named
Fleeming Jenkin confronted him with objections that he could
not answer, Darwin quietly altered the sixth edition of _The
Origin of Species_ in such a way as to show that he was
reverting to the despised doctrines of Lamarck. Hardin
describes this tersely: "Jenkin had put his finger on a critically
weak point in Darwinian theory-- its dependence on a mistaken
theory of heredity. The unanswerableness of the criticisms led
Darwin to make one of the strangest about-faces in the progress
of science. Darwin, a long-time anti-Lamarckian, became an
unwilling and unavowed convert."
We have reviewed the single components of Darwin's theory
and have found them sadly impaired. If we now ask about the
theory as a whole, the answer is the same. Classical Darwinism
is no longer valid.
Despite the apostasy of the two co-discoverers of the theory,
Professor Bonner would disagree. He says: "In the hundred
years since the publication of _Origin of Species_, our opinion
of Darwin was never so high as it is now." But Bonner seems to
be nearly alone in this opinion.
The Russians long ago rejected Darwinism. Respect for the
theory must be low in Germany, for Ludwig von Bertalanffy in
_Modern Theories of Development_ (Harper, 1962) takes only
two pages to dismiss natural selection as a hopelessly unsound
idea. Some of our ablest laymen, such as G. B. Shaw and
Jacques Barzun, take the same view. These negative voices
would not be fully persuasive if our scientists backed up
Professor Bonner, but Mayr says that Darwin was "hopelessly
confused," and it is my impression that Huxley, Hardin, Eiseley,
and Smith would all vote against Darwin if allowed a secret
ballot. As neo-Darwinians, they put their faith in genetics,
which Darwin never heard of. Because of loyalty, custom,
courtesy, or convention they still speak reverently of Darwin in
public, but in private they could hardly deny that his evidence
and arguments are full of flaws. Thus Darwin has been heavily
discounted by the insiders.
Bear in mind, however, that the large and easy aspect of
evolution-- the fact that change has taken place and species have
appeared and disappeared-- remains untouched even if
Darwinism is discarded. Darwin was trying to solve the small
and difficult aspect, the how and why, the modus operandi,
hence his failure will not return us to fundamentalism.
The biologists seem to feel no obligation to inform the public
that Darwinism is dead. I will not condemn their reticence as
immoral, but it has such unfortunate results that I wonder
whether it is good tactics. The casual student may be only
mildly annoyed when his eyes are opened, but a man like G. B.
Shaw is stirred to wrath. He was neither mild nor casual; he
vituperated the neo-Darwinians as "this rabble of dolts,
blackguards, impostors, quacks, liars, and, worst of all,
credulous conscientious fools." This sort of thing is bad for the
image of the profession.
If the biologists do not supply their own criticism and
iconoclasm, someone else will do it for them, and usually in a
way they do not like. This is already occurring; witness
Anthony Standen's paperback _Science Is a Sacred Cow_
(Dutton, 1950). Its ten raucous pages on Darwinism must have
destroyed a good deal of confidence in the intelligence and
integrity of the fraternity.
It is my conviction, after examining the literature, that
intelligence and integrity are still present in the fraternity.
Among themselves the biologists speak candidly and express
their misgivings freely. Only when they popularize do they
become pompous and pontifical. Perhaps they are reluctant to
confess error. Perhaps they fear that the fundamentalists will
gloat over their discomfiture. These are human failings, but just
the sort that scientists must put aside. I urge them to take the
public into their confidence by a full disclosure. They are not
expected to be infallible and need not fear disgrace.
=============================================
For Further Reading
"The first aspect arose with the youthful sciences of geology
and paleontology, as the strata and the fossils were uncovered
and classified. This work showed that many plants and animals
appeared for the first time in the strata that lay higher and were
therefore presumed to be younger, while others appeared only in
the lower strata. It was not difficult to infer from these
observations that there had been changes in the course of time,
numerous species having been added or eliminated since the
beginning. This inference is the large and easy aspect of
evolution. Eiseley shows that it was reasonably well known by
1825, if not by 1800."
views of Cuvier, d'Orbigny, and Agassiz (all creationists)
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.980819011221.8126B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
Raup's letter to _Science_
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990626223450.19598328B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
"A surprising trait of the four paperbacks is that not one of them
gives a neat short statement of the classical Darwinian how and
why as the founder himself conceived it. Therefore, since we
must have such a statement if we are to examine the theory, I
venture the following"
Saunders & Ho in:
1982 Saunders & Ho and Gould on neo-Darwinian vagueness;
1925 Osborn; 1940 Haldane on materialism; 1996 and 1995
Dawkins and 1960 J. Huxley on slow rate and gradual nature of
Darwinian NS; abstract of and extracts from 1977 G&E
_Paleobiology_ paper
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0312182040.1e80e3b8%40posting.google.com
"a colossal amount of effort has been devoted to genealogical
research. This research has been very disappointing. Hardin
laments the difficulty in one conspicuous case: 'There was a
time when the existing fossils of the horses seemed to indicate a
straight-line evolution from small to large, from dog-like to
horse-like, from animals with simple grinding teeth to animals
with the complicated cusps of the modern horse. It looked
straight-line-- like the links of a chain. But not for long. As
more fossils were uncovered, the chain splayed out into the
usual phylogenetic net, and it was all too apparent that evolution
had not been in a straight line at all, but that (to consider size
only) horses had now grown taller, now shorter with the passage
of time.'"
the fraud known as the fossil horse series
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.980816003836.28616B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
"This difficulty in tracing genealogies accounts for a striking
difference between the texts in my day and now. We were
presented with trees to show descent from common ancestors.
Now trees are no longer used. Not one of the four paperbacks
shows a tree, although Hardin prints a couple of tangled thickets
to show how hopeless the task is."
Macbeth on phylogeny trees
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990126225603.790598A-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
1977 G&E on diagrams and the uninitiated
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.91.960722001816.872M%40umbc8.umbc.edu
1980 Gould on the tips and nodes of trees
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.95.970901005523.14415B-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
"If we join Darwin in assuming that macro changes _must_ have
taken place by small steps, so that the gaps were at one time
filled, then what has happened to all the intermediate forms?
Hardin, when asked if he can show all the links in the chain,
replies: 'No, of course not; the geological record is imperfect
and will always remain so....'"
neo-Darwinists' _ad hoc_ "record's imperfect" excuse:
Saunders & Ho, Hitching
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.10A.B3.9911070756040.20708-100000%40jabba.gl.umbc.edu
"Extrapolation is a dangerous procedure. If you have a broad
base of sound observations, you can extend it a little at the ends
without too much risk; but if the base is short or insecure,
extension can lead to grotesque errors. Thus if you observe the
growth of a baby during its first months, extrapolation into the
future will show that the child will be eight feet tall when five
years old. Every statistician will recommend great caution in
extrapolation. Darwin, however, plunged in with no
misgivings."
Macbeth on Faulty Extrapolation in Darwin's Theory of Natural
Selection
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.44L.01.0308240006280.21425-100000%40linux2.gl.umbc.edu
fallacy of false extrapolation
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.44L.01.0309100834320.2240460-100000%40irix2.gl.umbc.edu
better conception of faulty extrapolation
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.44L.01.0309142357280.7954-100000%40linux3.gl.umbc.edu
"The heart of the problem is whether living things do indeed
vary to an unlimited extent or, to state it differently, whether the
observed micro changes cumulate into macro changes."
Goldschmidt and macro- vs. microevolution
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401311639.3dc8e050%40posting.google.com
"But the clearest testimony comes from Eiseley himself: 'It
would appear that careful domestic breeding, whatever it may
do to....'"
1958 Eiseley on "careful domestic breeding"; 1863 Darwin:
"the belief in Natural Selection must at present be grounded
entirely on general considerations"
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0405130534.8eee3f1%40posting.google.com
"He [Mayr] also provides a splendid example of what I had been
groping for-- the corollary tendency of plants and animals to
balk at being bred too far in any direction. This comes out in
his description of some work in 1948 with the famous fruit-fly
Drosophila melanogaster."
1970 Mayr on organisms' observed resistance to change
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.44L.01.0309181335410.2863259-100000%40irix2.gl.umbc.edu
1980 Rensberger, 1980 Alberch
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=8bepfm%24h45%241%40nnrp1.deja.com
fruit flies, 1978 Hampton Carson, 1978 Koestler
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=8dbdpj%24p14%241%40nnrp1.deja.com
"Thus we have two trends of thought: stability [in 'species']
(with due allowance for elasticity) and flux. Stability is derived
from actual observation, while flux is derived from
extrapolation and speculation. I find it strange that scientists
should disregard observation, but there can be no doubt that
many do so."
the word "species"
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0402022042.2584c45e%40posting.google.com
belief in spontaneous generation, blindwatchmaking, and mental
spoon-bending is scientific
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401291120.41a6d843%40posting.google.com
"This led him [Goldschmidt] to propose the hypothesis of the
'hopeful monster,' whereby a huge change might have occurred
all at once and been preserved by a fortunate environment."
1950 Schindewolf
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401251902.7a2fa1d2%40posting.google.com
"I stumbled on this example [of Coelenterates and stings] while
reading in quite a different field. Inquiring among biologists, I
discovered that there are numerous cases of this kind, but that
they seldom appear in the standard literature. They are
interesting, highly relevant, and well known, but they are the
special stock-in-trade of the small but hardy band of
anti-Darwinists. These heretics delight in flaunting such cases
in the face of the evolutionists and demanding explanations on
the usual step-by-step utilitarian lines. Since only a madman
would pretend to know how such things came about, the usual
response is silence."
Dewar (a creationist) and Koestler on eggs, need for
accumulation & integration of beneficial mutations
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.21L.01.0011192246500.983-100000%40linux1.gl.umbc.edu
1982 Gould on Frazetta's snakes and Long's rodents
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401311711.7a718a17%40posting.google.com
"Darwinism. Respect for the theory must be low in Germany,
for Ludwig von Bertalanffy"
von Bertalanffy
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.9912252146070.602910-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
more von Bertalanffy
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.9912252143380.602910-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
"Some of our ablest laymen, such as G. B. Shaw"
For some Shaw, see
1983 Jeremy Rifkin, 1939 Luther Burbank, 2002 Judith Hooper,
Darwin Autobiography: I feel "compelled to look to a First
Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to
that of man," 1921 George Bernard Shaw
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0404070956.1db2b888%40posting.google.com
"If the biologists do not supply their own criticism and
iconoclasm, someone else will do it for them, and usually in a
way they do not like."
"control-f"/ find for "Popper" in
Trade Secrets, Theory of Natural Selection Bibliography
(Articles), Advice to Creationists
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96.980705224221.22241A-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
"The biologists seem to feel no obligation to inform the public
that Darwinism is dead. I will not condemn their reticence as
immoral, but it has such unfortunate results that I wonder
whether it is good tactics. The casual student may be only
mildly annoyed when his eyes are opened, but"
"control-f"/ find for "sharp" in the above URL
"Standen's paperback _Science Is a Sacred Cow_ (Dutton,
1950). Its ten raucous pages on Darwinism must have destroyed
a good deal of confidence in the intelligence and integrity of the
fraternity."
1950 Anthony Standen on the T0E
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0403061926.298a316f%40posting.google.com
"It is my conviction, after examining the literature, that
intelligence and integrity are still present in the fraternity.
Among themselves the biologists speak candidly and express
their misgivings freely. Only when they popularize do they
become pompous and pontifical. Perhaps they are reluctant to
confess error. Perhaps they fear that the fundamentalists will
gloat over their discomfiture. These are human failings, but just
the sort that scientists must put aside. I urge them to take the
public into their confidence by a full disclosure. They are not
expected to be infallible and need not fear disgrace."
.

User: "Eros"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	25 May 2004 12:31:46 AM

(david ford) wrote in message news:<b1c67abe.0405231903.3eb81283@posting.google.com>...

Macbeth, Norman. June 1967. "The Question: Darwinism
Revisited" _The Yale Review_ 56(4): 616-631. Yale University
Press published _The Yale Review_ quarterly.

[snip decades old commentary]
Why do you insist on posting "news" that is nearly forty years old?
Don't you have anything later than that in your quote-mine archive?
In any case, how does any of what you posted impact on the scientific
evidence in support of the Theory of Evolution? Better still, what is
the creationist alternative scientific theory... what predictions does
it make, and how can those predictions be tested?
EROS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I
am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the
Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in
college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against
creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a
creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate.
Here I must stand."
-- Kurt Wise.
.

User: "Earle Jones"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	27 May 2004 03:04:13 PM

In article <ab0de77f.0405242140.441cbbf6@posting.google.com>,

(Eros) wrote:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
"Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I
am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the
Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in
college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against
creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a
creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate.
Here I must stand."
-- Kurt Wise.

*
To that quote, I would add the words of St. Ignatius:
"We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears
to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so
decides."
--St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the
Jesuits -- the Society of Jesus
earle
*
--
__
__/\_\
/\_\/_/
\/_/\_\ earle
\/_/ jones
.

User: "stew dean"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	04 Jun 2004 03:39:54 AM

(david ford) wrote in message news:<b1c67abe.0405231903.3eb81283@posting.google.com>...

Another cut and paste job. Two major things here that means this
should not be taken seriously - the date, this article is older than I
am, and secondly the 'I am a creationist' marker, namely the user of
the word 'Darwinism'.
David, if you have a view please express it as pasting out of date
creationist articles isnt going to support your view.
Stew Dean
.

User: "david ford"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	02 Jun 2004 10:54:55 PM

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<5sgrb05ilh0uusjht4lh4ej7b8fl8e39q8@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406012000.e318714@posting.google.com>:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<gi4hb0t7rh9pham9naud8putv8rvtm9c24@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(MurphyInOhio) wrote in
<20040524003230.07672.00001974@mb-m07.wmconnect.com>:

MacBeth thought so clearly and wrote so cogently he inspired so many to
question the dogma's of evolutionism. Phillip Johnson credits MacBeth with
awakening in him a need to question the claims of evolutionism.

Phillip Johnson is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for science or scientific evidence.

Dawkins is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for the fossil record evidence.

In turn, PEJohnson has written some incisive and thought provoking essays (and
some which were too wordy and which didn't keep a good focus, as well). I don't
know if Tom Bethell has had much to say or was inspired by MacBeth, but he also
writes with considerable punch and the evidence of a very keen intellect.

If you think that Johnson has written well in this area, it shows your
lack of understanding of science rather than any skill on his part in
writing about science. His rhetoric is first rate, unfortunately the
facts are not with him, so he has to resort to falsehoods to support his
claims.

Dawkins's rhetoric is first rate, but unfortunately for his faith the
facts are not with him.

Your claim is false. Evolution has nothing to do with faith. You've had
that explained to you, but you've ignored it.

I don't know what is meant by [DJ]"evolution."
Dawkins's rhetoric/ [Bateson]"forensic skill" employed in support of
the theory of natural selection is first rate, but unfortunately for
Dawkins's faith in the purported highly-creative powers of
neo-Darwinian natural selection, the facts are not with him.
[1913 Bateson]"The transformation of masses of population by
imperceptible steps guided by selection, is, as most of us now see, so
inapplicable to the facts, whether of variation or of specificity,
that we can only marvel both at the want of penetration displayed by
the advocates of such a proposition, and at the forensic skill by
which it was made to appear acceptable even for a time."

I am reminded of a Bateson observation, which Dawkins quotes part of
in his _A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and
Love_ (2003), 263pp., 80. I strongly suspect that an ellipsis is
needed at the end of Dawkins's presentation of the Bateson quotation,
and strongly suspect that the source Dawkins cites for the Bateson is
not where Dawkins's Bateson came from.

For an ellipsis-less 1913 Bateson quotation, see
Chris N. discusses my theory of NS essay; gradualism and
J. Huxley, Dawkins, Schindewolf, Mayr, Lovtrup, 1913 Bateson
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.10004021232370.15068389-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu

User: "David Jensen"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	02 Jun 2004 11:06:39 PM

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406021954.1ac22a0c@posting.google.com>:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<5sgrb05ilh0uusjht4lh4ej7b8fl8e39q8@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406012000.e318714@posting.google.com>:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<gi4hb0t7rh9pham9naud8putv8rvtm9c24@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(MurphyInOhio) wrote in
<20040524003230.07672.00001974@mb-m07.wmconnect.com>:

Phillip Johnson is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for science or scientific evidence.

Dawkins is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for the fossil record evidence.

Where?

Dawkins's rhetoric is first rate, but unfortunately for his faith the
facts are not with him.

Your claim is false. Evolution has nothing to do with faith. You've had
that explained to you, but you've ignored it.

I don't know what is meant by [DJ]"evolution."

Evolution is the change in populations over generations. This change is
caused by variation filtered through natural selection.

Dawkins's rhetoric/ [Bateson]"forensic skill" employed in support of
the theory of natural selection is first rate, but unfortunately for
Dawkins's faith in the purported highly-creative powers of
neo-Darwinian natural selection, the facts are not with him.

You seem to have missed the fact that selection is a filter of
variation.

[1913 Bateson]"The transformation of masses of population by
imperceptible steps guided by selection, is, as most of us now see, so
inapplicable to the facts, whether of variation or of specificity,
that we can only marvel both at the want of penetration displayed by
the advocates of such a proposition, and at the forensic skill by
which it was made to appear acceptable even for a time."

Why quote a book that is more than 90 years old? There is evidence today
that this quote from Bateson is wrong. Unlike wine, fine science does
not get better -- by itself -- with age. There is a mechanism that
causes ongoing increases in variation.

User: "david ford"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	03 Jun 2004 07:07:27 AM

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<sl8tb051hpcroivqnm5l2n33qoa3f50382@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406021954.1ac22a0c@posting.google.com>:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<5sgrb05ilh0uusjht4lh4ej7b8fl8e39q8@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406012000.e318714@posting.google.com>:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<gi4hb0t7rh9pham9naud8putv8rvtm9c24@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(MurphyInOhio) wrote in
<20040524003230.07672.00001974@mb-m07.wmconnect.com>:

Phillip Johnson is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for science or scientific evidence.

Dawkins is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for the fossil record evidence.

Where?

In support of [df]"Dawkins is a man with a political agenda," see the
pages 10-11, 161, and 219 of his _A Devil's Chaplain_ (2003).

In support of my claim that Dawkins [df]"has shown an almost complete
disregard for the fossil record evidence," anytime Dawkins prates on
and on about how evolution is gradual, and how evolution can attain
the heights of Mount Impossible in a gradual fashion (e.g., in _A
Devil's Chaplain_, 78-90), he disregards the fossil record evidence,
which reveals a pattern of abrupt appearance and stasis following
abrupt appearance.

Dawkins's rhetoric is first rate, but unfortunately for his faith the
facts are not with him.

Your claim is false. Evolution has nothing to do with faith. You've had
that explained to you, but you've ignored it.

I don't know what is meant by [DJ]"evolution."

Evolution is the change in populations over generations. This change is
caused by variation filtered through natural selection.

I accept that [DJ]"change in populations over generations" has
occurred, and has been observed to occur in the laboratory. Julian
Huxley in 1953 discussed several examples of populations changing:
Agree with Huxley's "no"?
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0405271915.6b9b6ce1%40posting.google.com
You mention [DJ]"natural selection." In your view, is [DJ]"variation
filtered through natural selection" a process that is the mindless
equivalent of a poet, painter, sculptor, and engineer?

You seem to have missed the fact that selection is a filter of
variation.

You seem to have missed the fact that known variation is not of a
nature as to plausibly be said to be raw material for the appearance
of novel biological structures having novel functions. This is an
ugly little fact that you seem to wish to avoid addressing. Which is
quite understandable.

Why quote a book that is more than 90 years old?

So that readers might compare Bateson's remark, part of which Dawkins
quoted in _A Devil's Chaplain_ (2003), 80, with the following comment
of mine:
Dawkins's rhetoric/ [Bateson]"forensic skill" employed in support of
the theory of natural selection is first rate.

There is evidence today
that this quote from Bateson is wrong.

You don't say. Like what?
In your view, was Bateson correct in 1913?

Unlike wine, fine science does
not get better -- by itself -- with age.

Bad science and faulty extrapolations-- the latter of which is clearly
evident in Darwin's and his successors' statements in support of the
theory of natural selection-- unfortunately sometimes does not
disappear with age.

There is a mechanism that
causes ongoing increases in variation.

User: "David Jensen"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	03 Jun 2004 07:19:42 AM

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406030407.2d11b687@posting.google.com>:
....

Where do you get that idea from? Could you provide a recent scientific
reference?

Why quote a book that is more than 90 years old?

There is evidence today
that this quote from Bateson is wrong.

You don't say. Like what?
In your view, was Bateson correct in 1913?

No, but he may have been able to make that comment without being
knowingly wrong at the time.

Unlike wine, fine science does
not get better -- by itself -- with age.

"Clearly evident"? Please support with actual evidence.
....
.

User: "John Harshman"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	03 Jun 2004 08:29:39 AM

david ford wrote:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<sl8tb051hpcroivqnm5l2n33qoa3f50382@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406021954.1ac22a0c@posting.google.com>:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<5sgrb05ilh0uusjht4lh4ej7b8fl8e39q8@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(david ford) wrote in
<b1c67abe.0406012000.e318714@posting.google.com>:

David Jensen <david@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message news:<gi4hb0t7rh9pham9naud8putv8rvtm9c24@4ax.com>...

In talk.origins,

(MurphyInOhio) wrote in
<20040524003230.07672.00001974@mb-m07.wmconnect.com>:

Phillip Johnson is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for science or scientific evidence.

Dawkins is a man with a political agenda who has shown an almost
complete disregard for the fossil record evidence.

Where?

Your confusion relates to the difference between human and
paleontological time scales. "Abrupt" on the time scale observable in
paleontology can be a period of hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps
even millions. The rates of transformation necessary to explain the
fossil record are much slower than those observed in real time, today.

Dawkins's rhetoric is first rate, but unfortunately for his faith the
facts are not with him.

Your claim is false. Evolution has nothing to do with faith. You've had
that explained to you, but you've ignored it.

I don't know what is meant by [DJ]"evolution."

Evolution is the change in populations over generations. This change is
caused by variation filtered through natural selection.

Why?

You mention [DJ]"natural selection." In your view, is [DJ]"variation
filtered through natural selection" a process that is the mindless
equivalent of a poet, painter, sculptor, and engineer?

This doesn't seem to be a meaningful question.

You seem to have missed the fact that selection is a filter of
variation.

How did this become a fact? It would seem to me that our knowledge of
molecular genetics has only enhanced our ability to say that the
variation we see within species is no different than the varation
between them. It's all just point mutations, insertions, deletions,
inversions, and transpositions.

Why quote a book that is more than 90 years old?

You are saying that having forensic skill is good evidence that the
writer is wrong?

There is evidence today
that this quote from Bateson is wrong.

You don't say. Like what?
In your view, was Bateson correct in 1913?

I doubt it. I don't know how he came to his opinions, but I can't
offhand think of the evidence available in 1913 that would lead to them.
Or perhaps it was merely the primitive state of our knowledge then, and
Bateson was just expressing pessimism that we would ever know more. If
so, presumably he would be happier with the state of knowledge today.

Unlike wine, fine science does
not get better -- by itself -- with age.

Perhaps, but we do know much more now than Bateson ever did, and we have
failed to find any mechanism that prevents natural selection from
allowing populations to depart indefinitely from their ancestral
conditions. And we have found it impossible to point to any clear
dividing ling between intraspecific and interspecific variation. Since
the relative lack of transitions in the fossil record is at exactly this
level -- between closely similar species -- there would seem to be a
disconnect between your use of the fossil record and the actual nature
of the apparent gaps.

There is a mechanism that
causes ongoing increases in variation.

User: "Bennett Standeven"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	08 Jun 2004 06:37:45 PM

Macbeth, Glammis. June 1167. "The Question: Regicide
Revisited" _The Edinburgh Review_ 56(4): 616-631. Edinburgh University
Press published _The Edinburgh Review_ quarterly. The entire article:

THE number of serious books now written or rewritten as
illuminated manuscripts is astonishing. Despite the bustling
modern tempo, these books are going to make us studious and
scholarly. They have already had that effect on me, leading
me step by step and book by book into a long reexamination of
regicide, a subject on which I thought the last word had been
said when I was in college thirty-five years ago.

My first and most important sources were four paperbacks by
eminent assassins: Sir Julian Haggins, _Regicide in Action_
(Mentor, 1157); John MacNard, _The Theory of
Assassination_ (Penguin, 1158); Garrett Hardin, _The Throne and Man's
Fate_ (Mentor, 1161); and Loren Eiseley, _Cassius's Century_
(Doubleday Anchor, 1161).

Eiseley is excellent on historical perspective. I am grateful to
him for showing that there are really two aspects of assassination:
one large and relatively easy, the other smaller and much more
difficult.

The first aspect arose with the youthful sciences of weaponmaking and
metallurgy, as the bronze and iron were uncovered and made into daggers.
This work allowed for the first time that the higher personages could be
slain by persons not possessed of immense strength, even if they belong
to the lower strata of society. It was not difficult to apply these
techniques, in the course of time, to eliminate monarchs and other heads
of state. This process is the large and easy aspect of
assassination. Eiseley shows that it was reasonably well known by
1825 BC, if not by 1900.

The second aspect is the modus operandi, the how and why.
Assuming that there has been an assassination, or a regicide,
how did it actually come about? Answers began to be ventured
almost as soon as the problem was defined. Erasmus, grandfather
of Cassius, had written extensively on the subject before
his death in 102 BC. Johannus Baptistus Illomarus, who died in
129 AD, had also propounded his much-derided suggestion that
change comes about through political power being passed on to
younger generations. Cassius, when he came forward in 44 BC,
was addressing himself to this latter aspect. The death of Caesar
was his answer to how and why.

This action provoked some dramatic attacks that touched
the imagination of the public. The most famous were the debate
at the Forum between Brutus and Marcus Antonius, and the war in 43
where Octavian made a corpse out of Cassius. The impression of
most laymen is that these episodes demonstrated once and for all
the folly of getting caught committing assassinations,
and the vulnerability of the Emperor. My recent studies,
however, indicate that only the first of these points is correct.

The attacks were directed only at the large and easy aspect of
assassination. Octavian and Marcus Antonius knew nothing about the
details of how and why; they simply rejected everything on the
ground that anyone who killed Caesar had to be put to death.
This made them easy marks. They could be refuted by merely being
assailed with rocks. Their ill-judged tactics were a boon to the
defenders, who would not have come off so well had the firing been
concentrated on the small and difficult aspect.

A surprising trait of the four paperbacks is that not one of them
gives a neat short statement of the classical Cassian how and
why as the founder himself conceived it. Therefore, since we
must have such a statement if we are to examine the theory, I
venture the following: Cassical Tyrannicide asserts that the
dictator may be slain if he does not act to the benefit of Rome,
in a process of actual physical government by
the dictator through such agencies as he may choose.

[...]
.

User: "MarkA"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	24 May 2004 06:10:39 AM

On Mon, 24 May 2004 02:55:17 +0000, david ford wrote:

Macbeth, Norman. June 1967. "The Question: Darwinism Revisited" _The
Yale Review_ 56(4): 616-631. Yale University Press published _The Yale
Review_ quarterly. The entire article:

<snip>

It is my conviction, after examining the literature, that intelligence and
integrity are still present in the fraternity. Among themselves the
biologists speak candidly and express their misgivings freely. Only when
they popularize do they become pompous and pontifical. Perhaps they are
reluctant to confess error. Perhaps they fear that the fundamentalists
will gloat over their discomfiture. These are human failings, but just
the sort that scientists must put aside. I urge them to take the public
into their confidence by a full disclosure. They are not expected to be
infallible and need not fear disgrace.

So when a complex scientific theory is being presented to the general
public, it has to be "dumbed down", and a lot of details glossed over.
Profound.
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
.

User: "Patrick James"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	23 May 2004 10:27:57 PM

On Sun, 23 May 2004 21:55:17 -0500, david ford wrote
(in article <b1c67abe.0405231903.3eb81283@posting.google.com>):
ep, but Ford damn well resurrected it.
--
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
.

User: "Patrick James"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	24 May 2004 05:59:50 AM

On Sun, 23 May 2004 22:27:57 -0500, Patrick James wrote
(in article <c8rqj702jhh@news4.newsguy.com>):

On Sun, 23 May 2004 21:55:17 -0500, david ford wrote
(in article <b1c67abe.0405231903.3eb81283@posting.google.com>):

ep, but Ford damn well resurrected it.

Out, damned spot! This was _supposed_ to have read:
"
leep, but Ford damn well resurrected it."
I must have been even more bored by 40-year-old quote-mining than I'd
thought.
And, m'man David, no, that bit of quote-mining is _not_ a dagger set before
us, its handle to your hand. Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, and you cannot
see the forest for the trees.
--
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
.

User: "Hank"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	24 May 2004 12:55:12 PM

david ford wrote:

<snip>
What was the point of pasting that whole diatribe in here?
--
Assimilate a pitiful little species like you? I think not! - Q of Borg
.

User: "dudalb"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	24 May 2004 08:36:21 PM

I hope the upcoming Kennath Branagh film of "Macbeth" is better then this
pile of pasted *****. It proves nothing except that
A: Complex Scienctific theories have got to be simplified when presenting
them to a mainstream audience
and
B. Darwin continutes to be the lighting rod for crackpots. What does Macbeth
want, for Darwin's body to be removed from Westminster Abbey and reburied
somewhere else a la Oliver Cromwell???
.

User: "John Harshman"
Title: Re: Macbeth calls for "a full disclosure"	24 May 2004 06:15:01 AM

david ford wrote:
Well, no he didn't. He cut and pasted. Why not just come to the point?
What was your point? My major take-home message from the Macbeth article
was that evolutionary biology has advanced so much since 1969 that there
seems no point in discussing what Macbeth could or could not tell from
his reading.
[snip]
.

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