Augray wrote in "Re: Nobel Prize Winner Endorses Intelligent Design":

On 5 Dec 2006 08:27:03 -0800, "david ford" <dford3@gl.umbc.edu> wrote
in <dford3-1165336023.382728.113790@73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com> :

Augray wrote:

On 4 Dec 2006 19:08:11 -0800, "david ford" <dford3@gl.umbc.edu> wrote
in <dford3-1165288091.841014.15760@16g2000cwy.googlegroups.com> :

Augray wrote:

On 4 Dec 2006 06:12:31 -0800, "david ford" <dford3@gl.umbc.edu> wrote
in <dford3-1165241551.568452.45600@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com> :

[snip]

Essay on Problems with Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.10A.B3.10005310900310.17702-100000%40jabba.gl.umbc.edu

A completely useless essay, because it confuses Gradualism with
Natural Selection.

Do you think _Origin of Species_ "confuses Gradualism with
Natural Selection"?
Do you think Darwin confused "Gradualism with Natural Selection"?

No to both.

Do you disagree with any of the Gould below?

No.

Do you agree with the Gould below?

Not necessarily.

How would the Gould remarks below have to be rephrased (if at all) for
you to be comfortable saying that you agree with the revision of Gould?

Gould's 1980 "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?"
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406040941.7de39c48%40posting.google.com
Yet Darwin, conflating gradualism with natural
selection as he did so often, wrongly proclaimed that any such
discontinuity, even for organs (much less taxa) would destroy
his theory:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed,
which could not possibly have been formed by numerous,
successive, slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely break down^36 (p. 189).

Do you disagree with any of the Darwin below?

Meaning of [Darwin] "slight"?

Small.

What do you base that on?

I decline to answer.

Do you disagree with any of this Darwin from the 6th edition of
_Origin_?:

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-06.html
I have attempted to show in my work on the
variation of domestic animals, it is not necessary to
suppose that the modifications were all
simultaneous, if they were extremely slight and
gradual.
==
It is, of course, open to any one to deny that the eye
in either case could have been developed through
the natural selection of successive slight variations;
==
Why should not Nature take a sudden leap from
structure to structure? On the theory of natural
selection, we can clearly understand why she
should not; for natural selection acts only by taking
advantage of slight successive variations; she can
never take a great and sudden leap, but must
advance by the short and sure, though slow steps.
==
In the first place, we are much too ignorant in regard
to the whole economy of any one organic being to
say what slight modifications would be of
importance or not. In a former chapter I have given
instances of very trifling characters, such as the
down on fruit and the colour of its flesh, the colour

of the skin and hair of quadrupeds, which, from
being correlated with constitutional differences, or
from determining the attacks of insects, might
assuredly be acted on by natural selection. The tail
of the giraffe looks like an artificially constructed fly-
flapper; and it seems at first incredible that this
could have been adapted for its present purpose by
successive slight modifications, each better and
better fitted
==
We are profoundly ignorant of the cause of each
slight variation or individual difference; and we are
immediately made conscious of this by reflecting on
the differences between the breeds of our
domesticated animals in different countries
==
Natural selection tends only to make each organic
being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than the
other inhabitants of the same country with which it
comes into competition.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
[Darwin]"should not Nature take a.... On the theory of natural
selection, we can clearly understand why she should...."

[Hitler, and Darwin]"Nature... she," in
Darwin in the 6th edition of _Origin_ on [Darwin]"survival of the
fittest" and the [Darwin]"struggle for life"
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1132161340.121874.63970%40g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

Do you disagree with any of the Darwin below?

Gould's 1980 "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?"
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406040941.7de39c48%40posting.google.com
Yet Darwin, conflating gradualism with natural
selection as he did so often, wrongly proclaimed that any such
discontinuity, even for organs (much less taxa) would destroy
his theory:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed,
which could not possibly have been formed by numerous,
successive, slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely break down^36 (p. 189).

Below, I've *ed lines having language of particular interest to me. Do
you disagree with any of this Darwin?:

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-06.html
It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye
with a telescope. We know that this instrument has
been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the
highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that
the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous
process. But may not this inference be
presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that
the Creator works by intellectual powers like those

of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical
instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick
layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with
fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath,
* and then suppose every part of this layer to be
* continually changing slowly in density, so as to
* separate into layers of different densities and
thicknesses, placed at different distances from each
* other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly
* changing in form. Further we must suppose that
* there is a power, represented by natural selection or
* the survival of the fittest, always intently watching
* each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and

carefully preserving each which, under varied
circumstances, in any way or degree, tends to
produce a distincter image. We must suppose each
new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the
million; each to be preserved until a better is
produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed.
* In living bodies, variation will cause the slight
* alteration, generation will multiply them almost
infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with
unerring skill each improvement. Let this process

go on for millions of years; and during each year on
millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we
not believe that a living optical instrument might
thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the
* works of the Creator are to those of man?

MODES Of TRANSITION.

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ
existed, which could not possibly have been formed
* by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my
theory would absolutely break down. But I can find
out no such case. No doubt many organs exist of
which we do not know the transitional grades, more
especially if we look to much-isolated species,

around which, according to the theory, there has
been much extinction. Or again, if we take an organ
common to all the members of a class, for in this
latter case the organ must have been originally
formed at a remote period, since which all the many
members of the class have been developed; and in
* order to discover the early transitional grades
* through which the organ has passed, we should
* have to look to very ancient ancestral forms, long
* since become extinct.

We should be extremely cautious in concluding that
* an organ could not have been formed by transitional
* gradations of some kind. Numerous cases could be
given among the lower animals of the same organ
performing at the same time wholly distinct

functions; thus in the larva of the dragon-fly and in
the fish Cobites the alimentary canal respires,
digests, and excretes. In the Hydra, the animal may
be turned inside out, and the exterior surface will
then digest and the stomach respire. In such cases
* natural selection might specialise, if any advantage
were thus gained, the whole or part of an organ,
which had previously performed two functions, for

* one function alone, and thus by insensible steps
* greatly change its nature. Many plants are known
which regularly produce at the same time differently
constructed flowers; and if such plants were to
produce one kind alone, a great change would be
effected with comparative suddenness in the
character of the species. It is, however, probable
that the two sorts of flowers borne by the same
* plant were originally differentiated by finely
* graduated steps, which may still be followed in
some few cases.