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The following are quotes added to my Unclassified Quotes database in July 2006. The date format is dd/mm/yy. See copyright conditions at end.
[Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec]
2/07/2006
"Not everyone, however, was so easily misled. In 1872 the eleventh edition of Lyell's Principles of
Geology, a book which was one of the foundations of the new evolutionary theory, included a statement
'in justice to Lamarck'; that is to say in correction of Darwin. Similarly Haeckel's History of Creation in
1868 included the comment: 'The theory of development (i.e. evolution) ... is now generally (though not
altogether rightly) regarded as exclusively Mr Darwin's theory.' Further: 'We must distinguish clearly
(though this is not usually done) between ... the theory of descent (Lamarck) and Darwin's theory of natural
selection.' In other words we must distinguish, as Darwin usually failed to do, between the historical
question of what has happened and the experimental question of how or why it has happened. It was in the
light of these criticisms, according to Butler, that Darwin changed his style. 'My theory' appears forty-five
times in his first edition of the Origin of Species. In successive editions 'my' is gradually deleted. By the
sixth edition of 1872 it becomes 'the theory' in forty-four of the forty-five cases. This reconstruction of a
proposition must be unique in the history of literature. It is certain that it is uniquely important. For in the
same moment it reveals Darwin's character and it obscures for ever his mind and his meaning. There was still
nothing to show which of the two questions 'the theory' was referring to. This confusion, we may suppose,
was not only what Darwin wanted. Nobody noticed it, before Butler, and nobody cared. It was (and this is
the strangest circumstance in the story) a confusion which his friends and his enemies were obviously
agreed in wanting. How could this be so? Darwin's scientific friends wished to imagine that only Mr
Darwin's new illumination had convinced them of the absurdity of the creation theory which, like their
opponents, they had so long and so fondly held. And Darwin's enemies were glad enough to believe that
Mr Darwin was unique and original in his own absurd and dangerous opinions. And neither side (including
Darwin himself) knew what to do about the technical problem of heredity and variation which had to be dealt
with in asking how evolution had occurred. Thus in public the problem of whether evolution had occurred
(which should not have been Darwin's problem) gradually pushed into the background the problem of how
it had occurred (which should have been Darwin's problem). And Darwinism came to mean evolution not
natural selection." (Darlington, C.D., "Darwin's Place in History," Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1959, pp.35-36)
2/07/2006
"At the beginning of the century, Galton's eugenics was well received. Most geneticists looked favorably
on the theory, among them some of the biggest names: Morgan, Fischer, Haldane, Muller, and others.
Several even sketched out scenarios that aimed to improve the common gene pool. Eugenics societies were
created in England and the United States. In the United States, programs were begun to sterilize several
thousand people described as "mental defectives" over a period of about twenty years. All these scientists
who had promoted eugenics, who had developed it into a theory and proposed ways to use it were no
doubt sincere. They believed in the soundness of their science. They wanted to use it in the service of
humankind. They didn't count on Hitler. It is hard to believe that the racist ideology of the Nazis wasn't fed
by ideas about eugenics that dated from the beginning of the century, as Daniel Kevles's book argues
convincingly. [Kevles, D.J., "In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity,"
University of California Press: Berkeley, 1986] Among the theory's influential proponents was the American
geneticist Charles B. Davenport, who founded Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to study human evolution.
Irresistibly drawn by eugenics, Davenport wanted to protect the white population in the United States from
what he considered genetic pollution by blacks, Poles, and Italians. He was president of the International
Federation of Eugenic Organizations. In that capacity, he asked his friend Eugen Fischer, professor of
anthropology at the University of Berlin and the best human geneticist in Germany, to preside over the
Research Committee on Racial Cross-breeding. Fischer was also one of the authors of the manual on
Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene from which Hitler, in prison, had nourished his racism. Elected rector
of the University of Berlin, Fischer expressed satisfaction at the intervention of political power in the life of
the country exemplified in a biological population policy aimed at eliminating inferior beings. During the
same period, Konrad Lorenz compared the elimination of individuals who are asocial by reason of their
deficient constitutions with the elimination of a malignant tumor, an operation that seemed to him easier and
less risky in the first case than in the second. From Fischer we get to his student and successor, the
professor Count Otmar von Verschuer, specialist in internal medicine. And from him to his assistant, the
notorious Dr. Joseph Mengele, SS captain and physician of Auschwitz under the authority of Verschuer.
The German geneticist Benno Muller-Hill [Muller-Hill, B., "Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific
Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others, Germany 1933-1945," Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1988] has
described how Verschuer and Mengele worked with the best scientists of Germany. Their so-called research
was conducted within the official scientific institutions. It benefited from program grants awarded by
specialized organizations. The research was described in regular progress reports. Everything was done
according to the usual scientific procedures. From Galton to Mengele, there was no discontinuity, no break.
There is an imperceptible progression from a well-intentioned scientist, theorizing in his laboratory, to the
criminal injecting formalin into the hearts of Jewish twins or gypsies so he could remove their multicolored
eyes, or inoculating children with typhoid so he could compare reactions in mono- or dizygotic twins."
(Jacob, F., "Of Flies, Mice, and Men," [1997], Weiss, G., transl., Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA,
1998, pp.118-119)
3/07/2006
"On the other hand, Glen [Glen, W., "The Road to Jaramillo: Critical Years of the Revolution in Earth
Science," Stanford University Press: Stanford CA, 1982] continued, the impact theory-even if we never
succeed in establishing this mechanism as a general theory, and even if such catastrophes remain confined
to explanations of particular events-directly fractured Lyellian uniformity, therefore penetrating far deeper in
its iconoclasm than the admittedly more comprehensive theory of plate tectonics could ever bore. In any
case, and in the terms and concerns of this book, the validation of a truly catastrophic triggering mechanism
for at least some events of mass extinction dramatically fractured the support that Darwin needed from the
kind of geological stage necessarily set for playing out his preferred game of life. The vital extrapolationist
premise of the third leg on the tripod of essential Darwinian logic must fail if global paroxysm can undo,
redirect, or even substantially impact a pattern of life's history that, in a fully Darwinian scheme of
explanation, must scale up in full continuity from the microevolutionary realities of competition in
observable ecological time. ... mass extinctions are more frequent, more rapid, more intense, and more
different in their effects than paleontologists had suspected, and that Lyellian geology and Darwinian
biology could permit." (Gould, S.J., "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory," Belknap: Cambridge MA, 2002,
Fifth Printing, pp.1312-1313. Emphasis original)
"Gould went on to summarize the massive book's [Gould, S.J., "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory,"
Belknap: Cambridge MA, 2002] thesis in a couple of short sentences. `Is the pure form of Darwinian
logic adequate to account for everything? My argument is that it is not,' he said. One of the ways
Gould departs from strict Darwinism is through his theory of `punctuated equilibrium,' the notion that
organisms evolve in sudden jumps followed by long periods when little or no change takes place. This
idea contradicts orthodox Darwinism, which posits slow, uniform change over long periods of time,
brought about exclusively through the mechanism of natural selection. Gould also diverges from
Darwin in his notion that natural selection can work on the level of species, not just individuals.
Darwin, he explained, insisted that natural selection only affected individual organisms because he was
trying to overthrow the theological argument of intelligent design, the idea that the intricate adaptation
of life forms to their environment implied the existence of a Creator. Darwin's model of how natural
selection worked, Gould said, was influenced by the theories of Adam Smith, the 18th century
economist who introduced the metaphor of the `Invisible Hand,' the mechanism that brings about
equilibrium in the economy through the unregulated struggles of individuals to maximize their gains. In
a similar fashion, individual organisms, engaging in the struggle for existence, live longer and
reproduce more successfully when they possess characteristics that help them to better exploit the
environment. Thus, organisms with these successful characteristics tend to predominate in the
population. According to Gould, however, species can be regarded as individuals under certain
circumstances, because, like individuals, they are born, persist over time, give birth to progeny
(subspecies), and die (become extinct)." (Gewertz, K., "Gould reads from latest opus: New book
evolved steadily over two decades," Harvard University Gazette, April 04, 2002)
3/07/2006
"In another article written in 1866 to criticize a brave new world that often forgot, and more frequently
disparaged, the discoveries of previous generations, von Baer made a rueful comment that deserves
enshrinement as one of the great aphorisms in the history of science. Invoking Agassiz, his younger friend
and boon companion in rejecting the new theory of mechanistic evolution, von Baer wrote: Agassiz says
that when a new doctrine is presented, it must go through three stages. First, people say that it isn't true,
then that it is against religion, and in the third stage, that it has long been known. (Author's translation)"
(Gould, S.J., "Abscheulich! (Atrocious!)," Natural History, Vol. 109, No. 2, March 2000, pp.42-49)
3/07/2006
"In 1868 Agassiz, age 61 and physically broken by an arduous expedition to Brazil, felt old, feeble, and
bypassed, especially in the light of his continued opposition to evolution (his own graduate students had
all `rebelled' and embraced the new Darwinian model). He particularly disliked Haeckel for his crass
materialism, his scientifically irrelevant and vicious swipes at religion, and his haughty dismissal of earlier
work (which he often shamelessly `borrowed' without attribution). And yet, in reading through Agassiz's
extensive marginalia, I sensed something noble about the quality of his opposition, however ill-founded in
the light of later knowledge." (Gould, S.J., Abscheulich! (Atrocious!)," Natural History, Vol. 109, No. 2,
March 2000, pp.42-49)
3/07/2006
"To be sure, Agassiz waxes bitter at Haeckel's excesses, as in his final note appended to the closing flourish
of Haeckel's book, including the author's gratuitous attack on conventional religion as `the dark beliefs and
secrets of a priestly class.' Agassiz writes sardonically: `Gegeben im Jahre I der neuen Weltordnung (given
in year one of the new world order). E. Haeckel.' But Agassiz generally sticks to the high road, despite ample
provocation, by marshaling the facts of his greatest disciplinary expertise (in geology, paleontology, and
zoology) to refute Haeckel's frequent exaggerations and rhetorical inconsistencies. Agassiz may have been
exhausted and discouraged, but he could still put up one whale of a fight, even if only in private. Agassiz
proceeded in generally measured prose until he came to page 240, where he encountered Haeckel's falsified
drawings of vertebrate embryology--a subject of extensive personal research and writing on Agassiz's part
(see page 45). He immediately recognized what Haeckel had done, and he exploded in fully justified rage.
Above the nearly identical pictures of dog and human embryos, Agassiz wrote: `Woher copiert?
Gekunstelte Ahnlichkeit mit Ungenauigkeit verbunden, z.b. Coloboma, Nabel, etc.' (Where were these copied
from? [They include] artistically crafted similarities mixed with inaccuracies, for example, the eye slit,
umbilicus, etc.) At least these two drawings displayed some minor differences. But when Agassiz came to
page 248, he noticed that Haeckel had simply copied the same exact figure three times (see page 46) in
supposedly illustrating a still earlier embryonic stage of a dog (left), a chicken (middle) and a tortoise (right).
He wrote above this figure: `Woher sind diese Figuren entnommen? Es gibt sowas in der ganzen Litteratur
nicht. Diese Identitat ist nicht wahr.' (Where were these figures taken from? Nothing like this exists in the
entire literature. This identity is not true.) Finally, on the next page, (see page 49) he writes his angriest note
next to Haeckel's textual affirmation of this threefold identity. Haeckel stated: `If you take the young
embryos of a dog, a chicken, and a tortoise, you cannot discover a single difference among them.' And
Agassiz sarcastically replied, `Naturlich--da diese Figuren nicht nach der Natur gezeichnet, sondern eine
von der andern copiert ist! Abscheulich.' (Naturally--because these figures were not drawn from nature, but
rather copied one from the other! Atrocious.)" (Gould, S.J., "Abscheulich! (Atrocious!)," Natural History,
Vol. 109, No. 2, March 2000, pp.42-49)
3/07/2006
"The viewpoint I will take is that consciousness, both perceptive and self-awareness, has arisen in the
course of the ascent of life from the primaeval brine because it confers spectacular survival advantage. The
ability to make the present congruent with the past, and to imagine future scenarios, carries vast dividends
in the struggle for survival. Notions can be tested in the mind, not in nature, and the animal reduces the
chances of being killed. Consciousness has been honed on the anvil of natural selection-an essentially
Darwinian viewpoint, and one not involving any external intervention or other-worldly influences." (Denton,
D.A., "The Pinnacle of Life: Consciousness and Self-Awareness in Humans and Animals," Allen & Unwin:
St. Leonards NSW, Australia, 1993, pp.xi-xii)
3/07/2006
"During the voyage of the Beagle I had been deeply impressed by discovering in the Pampean formation
great fossil animals covered with armour like that on the existing armadillos ; secondly, by the manner in
which closely allied animals replace one another in proceeding southwards over the Continent; and thirdly,
by the South American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos archipelago, and more
especially by the manner in which they differ slightly on each island of the group; none of these islands
appearing to be very ancient in a geological sense." (Darwin, C.R., in Barlow, N., ed., "The Autobiography
of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: With Original Omissions Restored," [1958], W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY,
1969, reprint, p.118)
3/07/2006
"In discussing the truth of evolution, we should make a distinction, as Darwin explicitly did, between the
simple fact of evolution - defined as the genealogical connection among all earthly organisms, based on
their descent from a common ancestor, and the history of any lineage as a process of descent with
modification - and theories (like Darwinian natural selection) that have been proposed to explain the
causes of evolutionary change." (Gould S.J., "Introduction," in Zimmer C., "Evolution: The Triumph of an
Idea," HarperCollins: New York NY, 2001, p.x. Emphasis in original)
3/07/2006
"Today, with fresh denunciations issuing almost weekly from scientific societies and newspaper editorial
boardrooms alike, it might seem a trifle premature to declare victory. Yet, although the cultural dynamic is
still playing itself out, a decade after the publication of Darwin's Black Box the scientific argument for
design is stronger than ever. Despite the enormous progress of biochemistry in the intervening years,
despite hundreds of probing commentaries in periodicals as diverse as The New York Times, Nature,
Christianity Today, Philosophy of Science, and Chronicle of Higher Education, despite implacable
opposition from some scientists at the highest levels, the book's argument for design stands. Other than
updating the list of my children in the Acknowledgements (append Dominic, Helen, and Gerard), there is
very little of the original text I would change if I wrote it today." (Behe, M.J., "Darwin's Black Box: The
Biochemical Challenge to Evolution," [1996], Free Press: New York NY, 10th Anniversary Edition, 2006,
p.255)
3/07/2006
"For modern science, ten years is an eon. As an analogy, think of how the Internet has developed. In the
mid 1990s e-mail was clumsy and the Web was a shadow of what it has become. In the same time interval, by
some measures biochemistry has advanced as much as the Internet. A little over a decade ago the very first
genome sequence of a free living organism-a tiny bacterium named Haemophilus influenzae-had just been
published. ... Now hundreds of genomes have been sequenced ... Progress in elucidating genomes has been
matched by progress in understanding how the machinery of life works. ... The mechanisms cells use to
construct the cilia and flagella described in Chapter 4 were almost totally obscure when this book was first
written. Today they're known to be stunningly sophisticated molecular systems themselves, like automated
factories that make outboard motors. In short, as science advances relentlessly, the molecular foundation of
life is not getting any less complex than it seemed a decade ago; it is getting exponentially more complex. As
it does, the case for the intelligent design of life becomes exponentially stronger." (Behe, M.J., "Darwin's
Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution," [1996], Free Press: New York NY, 10th Anniversary
Edition, 2006, pp.256)
4/07/2006
"The future prospects for design are excellent, because they rest not on any person's or group's
preferences, but on the data. The rise of the intelligent design hypothesis is not due to anything I or any
other individual has written or said, but to the great advance of science in understanding life. In Darwin's
day, the cell was thought to be so simple that first-rate scientists such as Thomas Huxley and Ernst Haeckel
could seriously think that it might arise spontaneously from sea mud, which would be quite congenial to
Darwinism. Even just fifty years ago it was a lot easier to believe that Darwinian evolution might explain the
foundation of life, because so much less was known. But as science quickly advanced and the astonishing
complexity of the cell became clear, the idea of intelligent design has become more and more compelling. The
conclusion of intelligent design is strengthened by each new example of elegant, complex molecular
machinery or system that science discovers at the foundation of life. In 1996 that elegance already could be
clearly seen, and in the past ten years it has greatly increased. There is no reason to expect it to level off any
time soon." (Behe, M.J., "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution," [1996], Free Press:
New York NY, 10th Anniversary Edition, 2006, p.270)
4/07/2006
"FOR THE CELEBRITY scientists who relied on their science to promote their often astonishing views of
life, there was an elephant in the living room. It was right there in front of them for all to see. It was
menacing, allpowerful, able to pounce at any moment and trample on the carefully constructed nihilism of
the scientificphilosophers. `If I were a creationist,' wrote John Horgan of Scientific American, `I would cease
attacking the theory of evolution ... and focus instead on the origin of life.' [Horgan, J., "The End of
Science," [1996], Little, Brown & Co: London, 1997, reprint, p.138] Life's origins, how it all came into being,
was central to both religion and science. Religion took it on faith that God created life, while science took it
on faith that life came into being through a purely materialistic process in which inorganic molecules
somehow evolved into life. Often scientists would ignore or trivialize the enigma of life's origins, claiming
that answer would be `simple' once it was found. Many, however, tried to hide the fact that science couldn't
figure out life's beginnings; they couldn't just wave the white flag and admit like fumbling fools on the
witness stand that the answer was beyond the grasp of science. ... Scientists had a reason to be defensive.
Anyone who looked at them closely could see that when it came to the metaphysics of existence, they were
sinking fast in the quicksand. In laboratories all over the country, they had tried again and again to solve the
mystery of life, to discover a process that turns non-life into life. The distance between the two is not a
simple step like water to ice; it is a distance beyond human comprehension. `Between a living cell and the
most highly ordered non-biological system, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to
conceive,' [Denton, M.J., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett Books: London, 1985, pp.249-250]
Australian biochemist Michael Denton wrote in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, a seminal work, highly
criticized, that in the 1990s would inspire a group of other scientists to reexamine the premises of Darwinism.
Even bacteria, among the most simple forms of life, wrote Denton, `are exceedingly complex objects.'
[Denton, 1985, p.250] `The simplest bacterium is so damn complicated from the point of view of a chemist
that it is almost impossible to imagine how it happened,' said Harold P Klein, chairman of a committee formed
by the National Academy of Sciences to investigate origin-of-life research [Horgan J., "In The Beginning...,"
Scientific American, Vol. 264, No. 2, February 1991, pp.100-109, p.104]. ... To British astronomer Fred
Hoyle, the origin of life was about as probable as a tornado creating a 747 as it whirled through a junkyard-in
other words, so unlikely as to be impossible. [Hoyle, F., "The Intelligent Universe," Michael Joseph:
London, 1983, pp.18-19] But the ultra-reductionists had an answer in the ready, the same answer they gave
to every other troublesome issue raised by evolution: given enough time, they argued, `anything is
possible:' But that was it. The sum and substance of their science was itself based on religious faith.And so
the answer proved so elusive, the scientific guesses so unsatisfactory, that the great pillars of atheism
began to collapse. One wonders exactly what Richard Dawkins must have thought when a compatriot and
one-time Oxford colleague made his public turnabout, cracking the very foundations of atheism. In 2004,
philosopher Antony Flew-one of the world's most committed atheists-captured the international limelight
with an astonishing announcement: that because not in spite of science, he was no longer an atheist. In his
video `Has Science Discovered God?' Flew said that the investigation of DNA `has shown, by the almost
unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have
been involved' [Ostling, R.N., "Atheist Philosopher, 81, Now Believes in God," LiveScience, 10 December
2004] Quite a betrayal from a man who for more than fifty years had taught at universities around the world
and in lectures, books, and articles that atheism was the only explanation for life." (Winnick, P.R., "A Jealous
God: Science's Crusade Against Religion," Nelson Current: Nashville TN, 2005, pp.168-170, 172. Emphasis
original)
4/07/2006
"Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on earth today, bacterial cells, are
exceedingly complex objects. Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12gms,
each is in effect a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed
pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more
complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world."
(Denton, M.J., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett Books: London, 1985, p.250)
4/07/2006
"Molecular biology has also shown that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all
living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals. In all organisms the roles of DNA, mRNA and protein are
identical. The meaning of the genetic code is also virtually identical in all cells . The size, structure and
component design of the protein synthetic machinery is practically the same in all cells. In terms of their
basic biochemical design, therefore no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with
respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all
the incredibly diverse cells on earth. For those who hoped that molecular biology might bridge the gulf
between chemistry and biochemistry, the revelation was profoundly disappointing." (Denton, M.J.,
"Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett Books: London, 1985, p.250)
4/07/2006
"Recent studies of extremely old sedimentary rocks in Australia make it very probable that single-celled
organisms, perhaps similar to blue green algae were already present on the Earth about 3-6 billion
(thousand million) years ago. We know that the Earth accreted from lifeless dust and gases about 6
billion years ago. It seems, therefore, that life must have appeared on the Earth at some time during the
first billion or so years of its history. Theories that living organisms originated elsewhere in the
Universe and were transported to the Earth in one way or another have been put forward from time to
time. These theories cannot at present be tested, so they have had little influence on most thin king
about the origins of life. In this discussion I will follow a conservative course and suppose that life
evolved de novo on the primitive Earth. It seems unlikely that we will find fossils or other geological
relics of pre-life or the very earliest forms of life. Our ideas about the origins of life, therefore, are largely
based on inference from our knowledge of contemporary biochemistry, on one hand, and on laboratory
reconstructions of the supposed chemistry of the primitive Earth, prebiotic chemistry, on the other. "
(Orgel, L.E., "Darwinism at the very beginning of life," New Scientist, Vol. 94, 15 April 1982, pp.149-
151, p.149)
4/07/2006
"Recent work on the origins of life begins with the speculations of a Russian scientist, Aleksandr
Oparin, who believed that the early atmosphere of the Earth unlike its present atmosphere, was
strongly-reducing. He thought that the main components of the atmosphere were methane ammonia
and water, and that a pool of organic materials a prebiotic soup, was formed from them by the action of
ultraviolet light from the Sun, electrical storms, volcanoes, and so on. Oparin believed that life evolved
in the prebiotic soup through a series of chemical reactions of increasing complexity. The
demonstration that a prebiotic soup could have formed in much the way that Oparin suggested is the
major achievement of origins of life studies. How life could have evolved from such a soup is the main
question that remains to be answered. " (Orgel, L.E., "Darwinism at the very beginning of life," New
Scientist, Vol. 94, 15 April 1982, pp.149-151, p.149)
4/07/2006
"We do not yet understand in detail how the prebiotic soup on the primitive Earth was formed-there are
many possibilities. Some compounds may have been present in the dust from which the Earth accreted,
while others could have reached the Earth in meteorites and yet others formed in the Earth's primitive
atmosphere by the action of lightning. While the details remain a matter of speculation, the general
principle that important biochemicals are readily formed abiotically is well established. Amino acids and
nucleotide bases are the major components of our genetic system in part because they were abundant
components of the prebiotic soup. Prebiotic soup is easy to obtain. We must next explain how a
prebiotic soup of organic molecules, including amino acids and the organic, constituents of nucleotides
evolved into a self-replicating organism. While some suggestive evidence has been obtained, I must
admit that attempts to reconstruct the evolutionary process are extremely tentative." (Orgel, L.E.,
"Darwinism at the very beginning of life," New Scientist, Vol. 94, 15 April 1982, pp.149-151, p.150)
4/07/2006
"Amino acids have been polymerased to give short, almost random, polypeptides in a number of ways.
Sugars, nucleoside bases and phosphate can be combined to form the biologically important
nucleotides under prebiotic conditions. In addition, random polymerisation of nucleotides to give short
oligomers has been achieved experimentally. Thus relatively crude prebiotic syntheses of short random
polymers resembling proteins and nucleic acids are already known. The major difficulties, intellectual
and experimental, concern the biological organisation How did molecular replication begin? How did
the genetic code evolve? Were the first replicating systems surrounded by a membrane? If so, what
was it made of?" (Orgel, L.E., "Darwinism at the very beginning of life," New Scientist, Vol. 94, 15
April 1982, pp.149-151, p.150)
4/07/2006
"The ultimate objective of experiments of this kind is to develop a simple system, not dependent on
biological enzymes, in which a polynucleotide of arbitrary sequence will facilitate the efficient synthesis
of its complementary sequence. This would represent a major step towards understanding how nucleic-
acid replication could have evolved, and we have made substantial progress in this direction.
Theoretical studies show that no great increase in biological complexity could occur until the nucleic-
acid replication system became coupled to the synthesis of polypeptides. The original coupling may, of
course, have been far less precise than that which underlies the modern genetic code, but some
primitive form of coding seems to be needed for the evolution of early life." (Orgel, L.E., "Darwinism at
the very beginning of life," New Scientist, Vol. 94, 15 April 1982, pp.149-151, pp.150-151)
4/07/2006
"Complex biological systems could not survive unless they had a method of holding together their
constituent macromolecules. Nowadays, the cell membrane performs, this function, so it is not
surprising that a close analogue of the cell membrane has often been considered to be a necessary
early feature in the development of cellular life. This view is not without its-difficulties. Modern cell
membranes include channels and pumps which specifically control the influx and efflux of nutrients,
waste products, metal ions and so on. These specialised channels involve highly specific proteins,
molecules that could not have been present at the very beginning of the evolution of life. An
impermeable membrane, without specific channels, would have been a disadvantage rather than an
advantage early in the history of life, because it would have kept the useful components of the pre-
biotic medium outside and beyond the reach of the `cell's' machinery. It seems likely, therefore, that the
macromolecular constituents of the earliest forms of biological organisation stayed together by some
sort of self-aggregation, perhaps stuck to mineral surfaces, in a form that permitted ready access to
nutrients in the `external environment.' The development of a continuous membrane probably occurred
relatively late, after complex-metabolic pathways had evolved. Once a self-sufficient system of nucleic
acids and proteins enclosed in an impermeable membrane had evolved, we enter the realm of
evolutionary theory and all that that entails." (Orgel, L.E., "Darwinism at the very beginning of life,"
New Scientist, Vol. 94, 15 April 1982, pp.149-151, p.151)
4/07/2006
"There is a deep personal drive behind the search for human origins. True, paleoanthropology can be as
technical in its approach as many another scientific discipline: from statistical analysis to the arcane data of
molecular biology, the pursuit of human origins is intellectually demanding and rigorous. But it is more than
that. Because the target of the search is ourselves, the enterprise takes on a dimension absent from other
sciences. It is in a sense extrascientific, more philosophical and metaphysical, and it addresses questions
that arise from our need to understand the nature of humanity and our place in the world. Each time I give a
public lecture, I am reminded of this need to know about ourselves. The audiences that come to hear me are,
I often feel, seeking a kind of reassurance. I talk about fossils and anthropological theories, and the people
ask me whether monkeys can know the meaning of sin and what will happen next. Once, about ten years
ago, an elderly lady, clearly concerned, wanted me to tell her whether it was true, as she had heard, that
`humans are only a historical accident.' I could tell her about Earth history and the fossil record. I could
discuss chance and evolution. And I could describe alternative worlds, without humans, perfectly plausible
worlds. But it was clear that she really wanted to be told that no, humans are not a biological accident;
Homo sapiens was bound to happen. Her humanness, her urge to make sense of her world, seemed to
demand that it be so. Paleoanthropology, therefore, has a mixture of scientific and extrascientific elements.
Most of the time, of course, we professionals are concerned with the bones themselves: how anatomical
constellations in one cranium may relate to similar constellations in another, the two perhaps being
separated by a million years of evolutionary history. It is an absorbing occupation, one that tests our
abilities to recognize genetic links in the most meager of physical evidence. The philosophical element is
always present, but usually as an unspoken rhythm to our work." (Leakey, R.E. & Lewin, R., "Origins
Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human," [1992], Abacus: London, 1993, reprint, p.xvi)
4/07/2006
"Personification Man projects himself into nature: animism is found everywhere in the world. Primitive
peoples almost universally attribute human characteristics to natural phenomena. Storms are conceived of
as angry gods, perhaps gods that can be propitiated. This leads to ceremonies which give the feeling of
dealing with a recalcitrant nature. At the same time, since nature is made over in man's image, man is able to
feel the security of kinship. Nature becomes humanized, she can be dealt with, understood. Events on Earth
cease to be pitiless and inexorable; they respond to the will of gods, who also exhibit all the passions from
anger to love. So one may make his way through life's dangers by staying on the right side of the gods,
propitiating them when they seem displeased, playing one god against another, seeking their help against
enemies (who need no personifying) or against illness which is usually conceived as possession by spirits
or devils. By animism man escapes his aloneness in an indifferent world. Allegedly civilized people differ
from primitive men in projecting themselves into nature chiefly in the degree to which they believe in their
personifications. Children people the dark with terrors, and they build castles in the clouds. Still, the child
who sees a dreadful thing in the ink-blot is not much different from the adult who sees a menace in the
forces of nature (the "pathetic fallacy") or endless conspiracy in the hearts of men ("paranoia"). There are
less dramatic forms of projection. If we interpret the activities of ants, say, in terms of concepts derived from
human society, we are misapplying the concepts in a fanciful way. The nature-lover who praises the
"industry" of the ants, or complains of the "cruelty" of weasels, the "matriarchy" in a beehive or the
"neglect of maternal obligations" of the cuckoo, is either playful or foolish. Strictly, "animism" refers to the
primitive belief that rocks, trees, etc., have independent life and soul, but the term currently applies to a more
general projection of soul into nature: like man, the world and its parts live, feel, strive. Striving, motivation,
purpose, desire are human traits. It is risky to attribute them to other creatures, however much they may at
times seem to behave like people." (Fearnside, W.W. & Holther, W.B., "Fallacy: The Counterfeit of
Argument," Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1959, Eleventh Printing, pp.115-116. Emphasis original)
4/07/2006
"The process at work in hypostatization is similar to personification. To personify is to ascribe to things
or animals properties that only human beings possess. It is to speak of things or creatures that are not
persons as if they were persons. For example, we personify if we complain of the `cruelty of weasels'
because weasels being innocent creatures, cannot be considered either kind or cruel. To be cruel is to intend
and plan some harm, knowing that it will cause pain, whereas weasels are not capable, as far as we I know, of
entertaining such designs. They simply are as they are and do as they do. The same applies to expressions
such as `the cruel sea.' Understood literally, this personification is simply false. To hypostatize is to speak of
abstract entities in terms that are similarly appropriate only for persons. It is thus that we may say, `The
state can do no wrong,' or `Science makes progress,' or `Nature decrees what is right.' Since no one of the
three-the state, science, or nature-is capable of thought or intention, it is absurd to suppose that such
abstractions are capable of the activities attributed to them in the statements above. Only persons, not the
state, can be said to do right or wrong, only scientists can make progress, and nature has no voice with
which to utter decrees. To be sure, we do not usually lose sight of reality in most instances when we resort
to hypostatization. ... As an indication of the dangers inherent in hypostatization, consider this argument: ...
Nature produces improvements in a race by eliminating the unfit and preventing them from polluting the
gene pool of the fit. Therefore it is only right for us to eliminate these unfit people. Nature is especially
favored as a subject for hypostatization, perhaps because it is such a complicated abstraction that we have
difficulty speaking of it at all without concretizing it. In argument a above, nature is endowed with an ability
to know what is an `improvement' and what is not, what is `fit' and what is `unfit,' although it is unrealistic to
impute to nature any humanlike intelligence or intention." (Engel, S.M., "With Good Reason: An
Introduction to Informal Fallacies," St. Martin's Press: New York NY, Fourth Edition, 1990, pp.89-90.
Emphasis original)
5/07/2006
"In another article written in 1866 to criticize a brave new world that often forgot, and more frequently
disparaged, the discoveries of previous generations, von Baer made a rueful comment that deserves
enshrinement as one of the great aphorisms in the history of science. Invoking Agassiz, his younger friend
and boon companion in rejecting the new theory of mechanistic evolution, von Baer wrote:`Agassiz says
that when a new doctrine is presented, it must go through three stages. First, people say that it isn't true,
then that it is against religion, and in the third stage, that it has long been known.' (Author's translation)"
(Gould, S.J., "Abscheulich! - Atrocious! - the precursor to the theory of natural selection," Natural
History, Vol. 109, No. 2, March 2000, pp.42-49)
5/07/2006
"In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for
amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence
which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once
struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and
unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I
had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for
some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing
a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844
into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and still possess." (Darwin, C.R., in Barlow N., ed., "The
Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: With Original Omissions Restored," [1958], W.W. Norton &
Co: New York, 1969, reprint, p.120)@
5/07/2006
"But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance ; and it is astonishing to me, except on the
principle of Columbus and his egg, how I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the
tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become modified.
That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed
under genera, genera under families, families under suborders, and so forth; and I can remember the very
spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long after I
had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing
forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature." (Darwin
C.R., in Barlow N., ed., "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: With Original Omissions
Restored," [1958], W.W. Norton & Co: New York, 1969, reprint, pp.120-121)
5/07/2006
"Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale
three or four times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed in my Origin of Species; yet it was
only an abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I got through about half the work on this scale.
But my plans were overthrown, for early in the summer of 1858 Mr Wallace,' who was then in the Malay
archipelago, sent me an essay On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type;
and this essay contained exactly the same theory as mine. Mr Wallace expressed the wish that if I thought
well of his essay, I should send it to Lyell for perusal." (Darwin, C.R., in Barlow N., ed., "The Autobiography
of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: With Original Omissions Restored," [1958], W.W. Norton & Co: New York,
1969, reprint, p.121)
5/07/2006
"The circumstances under which I consented at the request of Lyell and Hooker to allow of an extract from
my MS., together with a letter to Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, to be published at the same time with
Wallace's Essay, are given in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1858, p.45. I was at
first very unwilling to consent, as I thought Mr Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I did
not then know how generous and noble was his disposition. The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa
Gray had neither been intended for publication, and were badly written. Mr Wallace's essay, on the other
hand, was admirably expressed and quite clear." (Darwin, C.R., in Barlow N., ed., "The Autobiography of
Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: With Original Omissions Restored," [1958], W.W. Norton & Co: New York, 1969,
reprint, pp.121-122)
6/07/2006
"AFTER the Origin of Species was published in 1859, Darwin wrote to the Reverend Baden Powell, `If I
have taken anything from you, I assure you it has been unconsciously.' [Darwin, C.R., in de Beer, G.R., ed.,
"Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol.
14, No.1, June 1959, p.53] This was in response to a letter in which Powell had reproved Darwin for not
referring to one of his works. ... Darwin's own excuse of the `unconscious' has been increasingly used in
recent years by defenders of the great biologist in considering the problem of Darwin's meager attention to
his predecessors. If Darwin `unconsciously' borrowed material without acknowledgment, some scholars
imply that no blame can be attributed to him. Rather, they frown upon those historians of science who
persist in probing beneath the insights of genius in order to seek the sources of their inspiration. Yet we
must still ask, was the one man who should know where he got the idea of his famous theory unconscious
of where he got it? Or did he consciously draw a veil over one predecessor in particular, rationalizing,
perhaps, as he is known to have done on one occasion, when he implied that the man who successfully
convinces the public of a new idea deserves all the credit which may accrue to him. [Darwin, C.R., in Barlow,
N., ed., "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin," Norton: New York, 1958, p.125]." (Eiseley, L.C., "Darwin,
Coleridge, and the Theory of Unconscious Creation," in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X," E.P. Dutton:
New York NY, 1979, pp.81-82. Emphasis original)
6/07/2006
"The theory of the `unconscious' has been emphasized by Darwinian defenders particularly following the
publication in 1959, in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, of my article exploring the
possible role played by Edward Blyth in the formulation of the theory of natural selection. [Eiseley, L.C.,
"Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the Theory of Natural Selection,", Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society Vol. 103, No. 1, February 1959, pp.94-114] The publication of Darwin's Notebooks on
Transmutation of Species [de Beer, G., ed., "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species," Bulletin of
the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, Vol. 2, Nos. 2-5, 1960], in 1960, showed clearly that
Darwin was aware of Blyth's writings on natural selection. In the second notebook [Ibid., Second Notebook,
Part II, Vol. 2, No. 3, p. 106] never intended for publication, reference is made to the article of 1837 in which
Blyth writes, after having earlier described the conservative effects of natural selection: `May not, then, a
large proportion of what are considered species have descended from a common parentage?' [Blyth, E., "On
the Psychological Distinctions Between Man and All Other Animals," The Magazine of Natural History,
Vol. 10, 1837, pp.131-141] Several who are unwilling to credit Blyth with influencing Darwin refuse to quote
this line of 1837-the very year that Darwin conceived of the role of natural selection in evolution. Sir Gavin
de Beer, who edited the notebooks, footnotes Blyth's article as mentioned by Darwin in the second
notebook, but fails to point out its obvious import. In a brief discussion of Blyth in the introduction to the
first notebook he at first remarks that Darwin probably owed nothing to Blyth so far as the construction of
his theory is concerned. [de Beer, Introduction to First Notebook, Part I, Vol. 2, No. 2, p.36] He confesses,
however, in the same paragraph; that `there is nothing improbable in his [Darwin's] having copied some from
Blyth.' He then cautiously concedes that `Darwin (and others) may have been wrong in thinking that he
owed him [Blyth] or them nothing on this score.' Four years later, in 1964, in his biography of Darwin, de
Beer again retreated from a direct confrontation of the full nature of Blyth's speculations when he says that
although Blyth `had been playing with the very tools that Darwin so successfully used, it is difficult to see
that Darwin was indebted to him, for his conclusions were the exact negation of what Darwin was trying to
prove.' [de Beer, G., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection," New York, 1964, p.102] Concerning
this statement it is of interest to note that George Wald, writing on `Innovation in Biology,' in the Scientific
American, remarks that 'all great ideas come in pairs, the one the negation of the other, and both containing
elements of truth.' [Wald, G., "Innovation in Biology," Scientific American, Vol. 199, No. 3, September
1958, p.100] Edward Blyth, as we have seen, in a moment of insight glimpsed momentarily both faces of
natural selection. It was enough to give an astute mind like Darwin's the clue that he was seeking." (Eiseley,
L.C., "Darwin, Coleridge, and the Theory of Unconscious Creation," in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X,"
E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, pp.82-84)
6/07/2006
"In the case of Charles Darwin, although he at no time mentioned Edward Blyth's ideas on natural selection,
[He was able, however, to refer to everything else about Blyth's work in detail] interior evidence such as I
produced in 1959, and which also appears in Darwin's Second Notebook on Transmutation of Species,
shows that he was fully aware of the papers which contained these ideas. Dr. Gerald Henderson of Brooklyn
College has kindly allowed me to utilize additional evidence from his own recent unpublished investigations
at the Cambridge University Library. Darwin's personal volume of The Magazine of Natural History of
1837 reveals annotations on Blyth's paper in Darwin's own hand. Moreover, a set of Darwin's page
reminders which include Blyth's paper has been pinned to the inside of the back page. I will not encroach
further upon Dr. Henderson's researches except to reiterate that Darwin knew and studied the 1837 paper he
was never to mention in print." (Eiseley, L.C., "Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the Theory of Natural
Selection," in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X," E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, pp.88, 248 n.26)
6/07/2006
"The widespread popularity of the `unconscious' theory concerning Charles Darwin can readily be explained
by the fact that a cult of hero worship has developed about the great biologist, such as frequently happens
to a prominent innovator in any field . Darlington, the British geneticist, has commented ironically: `Among
scientists there is a natural feeling that one of the greatest of our figures should not be dissected, at least by
one of us.' [Darlington, C.D., "Darwin's Place in History" Oxford, 1959, p.57] In the face of evidence that
Darwin made unacknowledged use of material from Blyth, the theory of the unconscious is the easiest, most
polite way of evading the exploration of a delicate subject. Numerous naturalists who would never treat
contemporaries so gently under similar circumstances are eager to make a `sleep-walker' of a scientist whose
letters and notes are models of persistent conscious inquiry upon a great range of subject matter." (Eiseley,
L.C., "Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the Theory of Natural Selection," in "Darwin and the Mysterious
Mr. X," E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, pp.89-90)
6/07/2006
"The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, referring to Darwin's statement in his autobiography that
he `never happened to come across a single one [naturalist] who seemed to doubt about the
permanence of species,' and Darwin's belief that he owed no debt to his predecessors, said: `These are
extraordinary statements. They cannot be literally true, yet Darwin cannot be consciously lying, and he
may therefore be judged unconsciously misleading, naive, forgetful, or all three.' [Simpson, G.G.,
"Charles Darwin in search of himself." Review of "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin," by Nora
Barlow, ed., Collins: London, 1958. Scientific American, Vol. 199, No. 2, August 1958, pp.117-122,
p.122] Nora Barlow has also used the `unconscious' theory to explain her grandfather's denial that the
subject of evolution was in the air. Doubtless Darwin's isolation at Down kept him from being aware of
opinions from workers in other fields than his own, said Lady Barlow, `so that he unconsciously
overlooked indications that belief in the permanence of species was waning.' [Barlow, N., "On Charles
Darwin and his Grandfather Dr. Erasmus Darwin," in Barlow, N., ed., "The Autobiography of Charles
Darwin," Norton: New York, 1958, p.153] Nevertheless some of the very journals he consulted
contained references to the evolutionary hypothesis." (Eiseley, L.C., "Darwin, Coleridge, and the
Theory of Unconscious Creation," in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X," E.P. Dutton: New York NY,
1979, pp.90-91)
6/07/2006
"As opposed to the theory of the unconscious, it strikes one that Darwin was, in general, a keenly alert,
conscious thinker, and he was so characterized by his associate, Thomas Huxley. [Huxley, T.H., in
Huxley, L., ed., "Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley," New York, 1902, Vol. 2, p.42] It is strange
that in Darwin's The Descent of Man and Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication
all factual material drawn from Blyth was carefully listed but the two papers of Blyth concerning natural
selection should be quietly ignored. It is difficult to accept this as mere coincidence. In Variation a
footnote refers to the same volume of The Magazine of Natural History of 1835 in which Blyth's first
paper on natural selection appeared. [Variation, Vol. 1, pp.335-336 n.8] Also a footnote in Variation
contains the somewhat cryptic and unenlightening statement, `Mr. Blyth has freely communicated to
me his stores of knowledge on this and all other related subjects.' [Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 164 n.1] There is no
possibility of doubt that Darwin used and studied The Magazine of Natural History in which Blyth's
papers appeared." (Eiseley, L.C., "Darwin, Coleridge, and the Theory of Unconscious Creation," in
"Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X," E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, pp.90-91)
6/07/2006
"Another odd circumstance has recently been brought to light by Gavin de Beer, even though he has
refrained from any comment as to its potential significance. I refer to the recent disclosure that a
number of pages are missing from Darwin's First Notebook on Transmutation of Species. The great
importance of the first notebook in tracing Darwin's early thought has been stressed by de Beer. [de
Beer, ed., introduction to First Notebook, Part I, "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species,"
Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1960, p.26] Yet fifty
pages are missing from this notebook, in which Darwin wrote on the first page: `All useful pages cut
out. Dec. 7/1856/. (and again looked through April 21, 1873).' [Ibid, p.41] Nothing was said about
destroying the notes. As his son, Francis Darwin, pointed out in reminiscences of his father, Charles
Darwin `felt the value of his notes, and had a horror of their destruction by fire. I remember, when some
alarm of fire had happened, his begging me to be especially careful, adding very earnestly, that the rest
of his life would be miserable if his notes and books were to be destroyed.' [Darwin, F., ed., "Life and
Letters of Charles Darwin," London, 1888, Vol. 1, p.129] De Beer, who reported in 1960 on these missing
pages, said they had been searched for unsuccessfully in the Cambridge University Library, at Down
House and the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the British Museum of Natural History. `The nature
of their contents can only be surmised after a close study of the two hundred and thirty pages that
remain,' de Beer remarked, `and an estimate can be made of what is missing from the information and the
argument.' [Ibid., p.26] Although there are some pages missing from the other notebooks, it is those
from the first notebook that would seem to have the most bearing upon the origin of Darwin's theory,
since it was begun in July 1837, before the date when he said he received his inspiration from Malthus.
To reiterate my own words, I believe it significant that "Darwin opened his first notebook on the
`species question' in 1837. In January of that year Edward Blyth ventured the beginning of a second
paper in which there is comment upon the principle of natural selection.' ["Charles Darwin, Edward
Blyth, and the Theory of Natural Selection," this volume, p.53] This comment, as we have seen, goes
considerably beyond Blyth's first statement of 1835. It introduces, if briefly, the possibility of organic
change. The name and work of Edward Blyth are not noted in the existing portion of the first notebook,
although they do appear in the second." (Eiseley, L.C., "Darwin, Coleridge, and the Theory of
Unconscious Creation," in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X," E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, pp.90-
91)
6/07/2006
"`The idea of natural selection, so far as can be seen from the extant portions of the notebooks, seems to
have occurred to Darwin as a combination of the effects on him of the facts of variation, adaptation, and
extinction,' observed de Beer. [de Beer, Introduction to Third Notebook, Part III, `Darwin's Notebooks on
Transmutation of Species,' Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, Vol. 1, No.
4, 1960, p.126] Actually the missing fifty pages could have contained a great deal of information extending to
Blyth's own views on these subjects. De Beer has avoided the suggestion that this fragmentary document
may have contained more detailed references to Blyth's works. Since these pages compose the first part of
the diary, their disappearance, taken with other evidence, cannot fail to hint of a genuinely `missing link' in
the story of natural selection." (Eiseley, L.C., "Darwin, Coleridge, and the Theory of Unconscious Creation,"
in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X," E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, pp.91-92)
6/07/2006
"One statement of Darwin's, to which I have previously referred, is curiously revelatory to the student of
character. In regard to an incidental matter of priority upon another biological matter, he wrote in his
autobiography: `It is clear that I failed to impress my readers; and he who succeeds in doing so deserves, in
my opinion, all the credit.' [Darwin, C.R., in Barlow N., ed., `The Autobiography of Charles Darwin,' Norton:
New York, 1958, p.125] There is a strange indifference to historical priority here. Was Charles Darwin
engaged in psychologically justifying a philosophy which permitted him to dismiss forerunners from whom
he had drawn inspiration - men like his friend, `poor Blyth,' who `failed to impress' and therefore deserved no
recognition from the world? [Darwin, C.R., in Darwin, F., ed., "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," London,
1888, Vol. 2, p.109] One is forced to reflect upon this possibility, which has even been seized upon and
brought forward by later writers as a justification of Darwin's attitude toward his predecessors. There will
always be an ineluctable mystery concerning the origin of the theory of natural selection, just as there will
always be a shadowy web surrounding the real Charles Darwin, a web unseen but as real as the black cape
in which we see him enveloped in a photograph taken of him on the verandah at Down at the age of
seventy-two. One of Darwin's most ardent supporters, George Gaylord Simpson, states with perceptive
acuteness: `The mystery persists. The man is not really explained, his inner adventures are not fully revealed
in his own autobiography, in the family biography by Francis Darwin, or in the many other biographical
sketches and books. There will always be something hidden, as there is in every life....' [Simpson, G.G.,
"Charles Darwin in search of himself." Review of "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin," by Nora Barlow,
ed., Collins: London, 1958. Scientific American, Vol. 199, No. 2, August 1958, pp.117-122, p.119]" (Eiseley,
L.C., "Darwin, Coleridge, and the Theory of Unconscious Creation," in "Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X,"
E.P. Dutton: New York NY, 1979, pp.92-93)
7/07/2006
"I said that cladistic taxonomy has the advantage over librarians' types of taxonomy that there is one
unique, true hierarchical nesting pattern in nature, waiting to be discovered. All that we have to do is
develop methods of discovering it. Unfortunately there are practical difficulties. The most interesting
bugbear of the taxonomist is evolutionary convergence. ... we saw how, over and over again, animals have
been found to resemble unrelated animals in other parts of the world, because they have similar ways of life.
New World army ants resemble Old World driver ants. Uncanny resemblances have evolved between the
quite unrelated electric fish of Africa and South America; and between true wolves and the marsupial `wolf'
Thylacinus of Tasmania. In all these cases I simply asserted without justification that these resemblances
were convergent: that they had evolved independently in unrelated animals. But how do we know that they
are unrelated? If taxonomists use resemblances to measure closeness of cousinship, why weren't
taxonomists fooled by the uncannily close resemblances that seem to unite these pairs of animals? Or, to
twist the question round into a more worrying form, when taxonomists tell us that two animals really are
closely related- say rabbits and hares - how do we know that the taxonomists haven't been fooled by
massive convergence? This question really is worrying, because the history of taxonomy is replete with
cases where later taxonomists have declared their predecessors wrong for precisely this reason. ... Who is to
say that future generations of taxonomists won't change their minds yet again? What confidence can we
vest in taxonomy, if convergent evolution is such a powerful faker of deceptive resemblances?" (Dawkins,
R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991 reprint, p.269)
7/07/2006
"MY DEAR LYELL,-Some year or so ago you recommended me to read a paper by Wallace in the `Annals,'
[Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 1855]. which had interested you, and, as I was writing to him, I
knew this would please him much, so I told him. He has to-day sent me the enclosed, and asked me to
forward it to you. It seems to me well worth reading. Your words have come true with a vengeance-that I
should be forestalled. You said this, when I explained to you here very briefly my views of ` Natural
Selection' depending on the struggle for existence. I never saw a more striking coincidence ; if Wallace had
my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now
stand as heads of my chapters. Please return me the MS., which he does not say he wishes me to publish,
but I shall of course, at once write and offer to send to any journal. So all my originality, whatever it may
amount to, will be smashed, though my book, if it will ever have any value, will not be deteriorated; as all the
labour consists in the application of the theory. I hope you will approve of Wallace's sketch, that I may tell
him what you say." (Darwin, C.R., Letter to C. Lyell, 18th June 1858, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and
Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. I., 1959, reprint, pp.472-473)
7/07/2006
"MY DEAR LYELL,-I am very sorry to trouble you, busy as you are, in so merely a personal an affair; but if
you will give me your deliberate opinion, you will do me as great a service as ever man did, for I have entire
confidence in your judgment and honour. ... There is nothing in Wallace's sketch which is not written out
much fuller in my sketch, copied out in 1844, and read by Hooker some dozen years ago. About a year ago I
sent a short sketch, of which I have a copy, of my views (owing to correspondence on several points) to
Asa Gray, so that I could most truly say and prove that I take nothing from Wallace. I should be extremely
glad now to publish a sketch of my general views in about a dozen pages or so; but I cannot persuade
myself that I can do so honourably. Wallace says nothing about publication, and I enclose his letter. But as
I had not intended to publish any sketch, can I do so honourably, because Wallace has sent me an outline
of his doctrine? I would far rather burn my whole book, than that he or any other man should think that I had
behaved in a paltry spirit. Do you not think his having sent me this sketch ties my hands? ... If I could
honourably publish, I would state that I was induced now to publish a sketch (and I should be very glad to
be permitted to say, to follow your advice long ago given) from Wallace having sent me an outline of my
general conclusions. We differ only, [in] that I was led to my views from what artificial selection has done
for domestic animals. I would send Wallace a copy of my letter to Asa Gray, to show him that I had not
stolen his doctrine. But I cannot tell whether to publish now would not be base and paltry. This was my first
impression, and I should have certainly acted on it had it not been for your letter. This is a trumpery affair to
trouble you with, but you cannot tell how much obliged I should be for your advice. By the way, would you
object to send this and your answer to Hooker to be forwarded to me, for then I shall have the opinion of my
two best and kindest friends. This letter is miserably written, and I write it now, that I may for a time banish
the whole subject; and I am worn out with musing ... My good dear friend forgive me. This is a trumpery
letter, influenced by trumpery feelings ... I will never trouble you or Hooker on the subject again." (Darwin,
C.R., Letter to C. Lyell, 25th June 1858, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898],
Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. I., 1959, reprint, pp.474-475)
7/07/2006
"MY DEAR LYELL,-Forgive me for adding a P.S. to make the case as strong as possible against myself.
Wallace might say, ` You did not intend publishing an abstract of your views till you received my
communication. Is it fair to take advantage of my having freely, though unasked, communicated to you my
ideas, and thus prevent me forestalling you?' The advantage which I should take being that I am induced
to publish from privately knowing that Wallace is in the field. It seems hard on me that I should be thus
compelled to lose my priority of many years' standing, but I cannot feel at all sure that this alters the justice
of the case. First impressions are generally right, and I at first thought it would be dishonourable in me now
to publish. ... P. S.-I have always thought you would make a first-rate Lord Chancellor; and I now appeal to
you as a Lord Chancellor." (Darwin, C.R., Letter to C. Lyell, 26th June 1858, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and
Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. I., 1959, reprint, p.475)
7/07/2006
"In our view, the evidence in this book is strong. However, there is still much resistance to this type of
argumentation. There are many reasons for the resistance. But it can be explained, at least in part, by the
dominance of naturalism both within science and outside science in academic culture generally, as well as
by the religious function that evolutionary naturalism plays for many people. Darwin, it has been said, made
the world safe for atheists. In our view that world is not as safe as atheists may think. In fact, many
scientists have said, in various contexts, that evolutionary theory is in a period of crisis. To show this, we
have included an appendix by John Ankerberg and John Weldon. They have compiled a list of statements,
taken in context, to show that a number of scientists, sometimes in unguarded moments and usually without
the intent of abandoning evolutionary theory, have frankly expressed their own intellectual doubts about
various aspects of evolutionary naturalism." (Moreland, J.P.*, "Introduction," in Moreland, J.P., ed., "The
Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL,
1994, p.36)
7/07/2006
"I think it could be argued that much of the acceptance of Darwinism (which was the major contributor to
the abandonment of theistic science) was sociological, philosophical and spiritual (it made the world safe for
atheists, as Richard Dawkins has said), much like what Searle has shown to be the case in the current
acceptance of materialist research programs in the mind-body problem." (Moreland, J.P., "Theistic Science &
Methodological Naturalism," in Moreland, J.P.*, ed., "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an
Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1994, p.62)
8/07/2006
"In many cultures, the origin of the universe is traditionally explained through tales of the creation or
separation of the solid Earth, the waters and the sky. The stories commonly feature a belief that there is
some device or being that acts as an intermediary between Heaven and Earth. For example, they depict real
or mythical people and animals in celestial constellations. In the modern era, most people regard these tales
only as colourful traditions, part of cultural history rather than of science. Some, however, have survived -
such as the Christian creationist belief that the universe was created in a few days about 6,000 years ago.
The flaw with all early accounts of the origin of the universe is that they devote the bulk of their attention to
the formation of the Earth and its living creatures while, in the last few hundred years, it has become
apparent that the Earth is a minute object in a massive universe, of interest only because we live there. It
does not make even a footnote to a footnote in modern cosmology." (Ince, M., "How did the universe
begin?", in Swain, H., ed., "Big Questions in Science?," Jonathan Cape: London, p.12)
8/07/2006
"The term `ad hoc' is also used to characterize a hypothesis that accounts only for the particular fact or facts
it was invented to explain and has no other explanatory power, that is, no other testable consequences. No
scientific hypothesis is ad hoc in this second sense of the term, although every hypothesis is ad
hoc in the first sense explained. A hypothesis that is ad hoc in the second sense is unscientific; since it
is not testable, it has no place in the structure of science. The second sense of `ad hoc' fits in perfectly with
the derogatory emotive meaning of the term. " (Copi, I.M., Introduction to Logic," [1953], Macmillan: New
York NY, Seventh edition, 1986, p.509)
8/07/2006
"A hypothesis threatened by recalcitrant data can often be saved by postulating entities or properties that
account for the data. Such a move is legitimate if there's an independent means of verifying their existence. If
there is no such means, the hypothesis is ad hoc. Ad hoc literally means `for this case only.' But it's
not simply that a hypothesis is designed to account for a particular phenomenon that makes it ad hoc (if
that were the case, all hypotheses would be ad hoc). What makes a hypothesis ad hoc is that it can't
be verified independently of the phenomenon it's supposed to explain. ... When a scientific theory starts
relying on ad hoc hypotheses to be saved from adverse data, it becomes unreasonable to maintain belief
in that theory." (Schick, T. & Vaughn, L., "How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New
Age," Mayfield: Mountain View CA, California, Second edition, 1995, pp.157,159)
8/07/2006
"The moral of this story is that for a hypothesis to increase our knowledge, there must be some way to test
it, for if there isn't, we have no way of telling whether or not the hypothesis is true. ... Since science is a
search for knowledge, it's interested only in those hypotheses that can be tested-if a hypothesis can't be
tested, there is no way to determine whether it's true or false. Hypotheses, however, can't be tested in
isolation, for, as we've seen, hypotheses have observable consequences only in the context of a
background theory. So to be testable, a hypothesis, in conjunction with a background theory, must predict
something more than the background theory alone. If a hypothesis doesn't go beyond the background
theory, it doesn't expand our knowledge, and hence is scientifically uninteresting. ... Scientific hypotheses
can be distinguished from nonscientific ones, then, by the following principle: A hypothesis is scientific
only if it is testable, that is, only if it predicts something other than what it was introduced to explain."
(Schick, T. & Vaughn, L., "How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age," Mayfield:
Mountain View CA, California, Second edition, 1995, pp.160-161)
9/07/2006
"Over the centuries Galileo's condemnation by-the Catholic church has loomed large in controversies
between science and religion. His trial has been held up as the prime example of Christianity's hostility to
free inquiry and to scientific progress. For example, one biography of Galileo concludes with this
assessment: `Galileo does stand as a classic example of the evils of a totalitarian regime. He was persecuted
and prosecuted by men who ... were afraid of the power of independent thought. Galileo queried the
Scriptures, he made his own interpretation, and so cut right across the religious authority of the Church....
All they could see was a man who could disrupt their system, and they took the one course they could: they
stifled the dissension at its source.' [Ronan, C.A., "Galileo," G.P. Putnam's Sons: New York, 1974, p.253] But
was the conflict so clear-cut? Whose system did Galileo set out to disrupt, the religious authority of Rome
or the scientific authority of Aristotle? How did an academic conflict originating within the university
become a theological issue for the church? And what forces of power politics-ambition, envy, prejudice,
rancor, special interests - propelled the conflict to its disturbing conclusion? ... Galileo's trial of 1633 was not
the simple conflict between science and religion so commonly pictured. It was a complex power struggle of
personal and professional pride, envy and ambition, affected by pressures of bureaucratic politics. The
deliberations seemed to take on a life of their own, moving toward an inevitable conclusion with elements of
a Greek tragedy. ... one should be wary of accepting the traditional interpretation of the trial, exemplified by
Colin Ronan's conclusion: "Galileo does stand as a classic example of the evils of a totalitarian regime.... [He]
cut right across the religious authority of the Church.... It was essentially Galileo's danger to an authoritarian
outlook that caused his downfall ." [Ronan, C.A., "Galileo," G. P. Putnam's Sons: New York, 1974, p.253] ...
Ronan's conclusion is a curious mixture of truth and error. He is close to the truth when he calls Galileo the
victim of an authoritarian outlook. The problem is that he points the guilty finger in the wrong direction. To
call the Catholic Church in the Italy of that time (a collection of independent states) a totalitarian regime is an
anachronism. The Pope hardly had the power of a modern dictator. For example, if Galileo had stayed in the
Republic of Venice, which had recently expelled the Jesuits for political intrigue, he would have been safe.
The real authoritarianism that engineered Galileo's downfall was that of the Aristotelian scientific outlook in
the universities. Only after Galileo had attacked that establishment for decades did his enemies turn their
controversy into a theological issue. Even then it was the natural philosophers who worked behind the
scenes with pliable church authorities to foment Galileo's trial, and finally to rob him of the reasonable
solution worked out by the Inquisition. ... A more accurate assessment is given by Santillana: `In reality it
was a confused free-for-all in which prejudice, inveterate rancor, and all sorts of special and corporate
interests were prime movers.... It has been known for a long time that a major part of the church intellectuals
were on the side of Galileo, while the clearest opposition to him came from secular ideas.... The tragedy was
the result of a plot of which the hierarchies themselves turned out to be the victims no less than Galileo-an
intrigue engineered by a group of obscure and disparate characters in strange collusion. [de Santillana, G.,
"The Crime of Galileo," University of Chicago Press: Chicago IL, 1955, pp.xii-xiii]" (Hummel, C.E., "The
Galileo Connection: Resolving Conflicts between Science & the Bible," Intervarsity Press: Downers Grove
IL, 1986, pp.13, 116, 122-123)
10/07/2006
"The greatest current controversy in phylogeny will perhaps be settled by invoking parallelophyly; it
concerns the origin of birds. There is no argument over the conclusion that birds derived from the
archosaurian lineage of the diapsid reptiles. But when this happened is the argument. As far back as the
1860s, T H. Huxley called attention to the remarkable similarity of the avian skeleton to that of certain reptiles
and concluded that the birds had descended from dinosaurs. Later, other authors postulated a much earlier
origin, but recently the dinosaur origin has been proclaimed by the cladists with such vigor that at present it
seems to be the most widely accepted explanation of the origin of birds. Indeed, the similarity of the pelvis
and legs between birds and certain bipedal dinosaurs is astonishingly close ... However, the arguments of
their opponents are also very persuasive. The fossil chronology seems to be in conflict with the dinosaur
theory The particular bipedal dinosaurs that are most birdlike occurred in the later Cretaceous, some 70-100
million years ago, while Archaeopteryx, the oldest known fossil bird, lived 145 million years ago.
Archaeopteryx has so many advanced avian characters that the origin of birds must be placed
considerably earlier than the late Jurassic, perhaps in the Triassic, but no birdlike dinosaurs are known from
that period. Furthermore, the digits in the dinosaurian hand are 2, 3, 4 while in the avian hand they are l, 2, 3.
Also, the anterior extremities of the birdlike dinosaurs are very much reduced and in no way preadapted to
become wings. It is quite inconceivable how they could have possibly shifted to flight. These are only a few
of the numerous facts in conflict with a Cretaceous origin of birds from a dinosaurian ancestry. The
argument will probably not be fully settled until more Triassic fossils are found." (Mayr, E.W., "What
Evolution Is," Basic Books: New York NY, 2001, pp.227-227. Emphasis original)
10/07/2006
"ARE THERE LAWS OF EVOLUTION? This is a question that physicists and philosophers like to ask. To
answer it, one first needs to decide what one means by the word `law.' The kind of laws characteristic of the
physical sciences, which can be stated in mathematical terms and have no exceptions, are sometimes also
encountered in functional biology. Mathematical generalizations can often be applied to biological
phenomena, like the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium relating to the distribution of alleles in populations. By
contrast, all so-called evolutionary laws are contingent generalizations, and thus not equivalent to the laws
of physics. Evolutionary `laws,' such as Dollo's Law of the irreversibility of evolution or Cope's Law of an
evolutionary increase in body size, are empirical generalizations, with numerous exceptions, and are quite
fundamentally different from the universal laws of physics. Empirical generalizations are useful for ordering
observations and in the search for causal factors. Rensch (1947) made a particularly helpful contribution to
this subject in pointing out that evolutionary `laws' are greatly restricted in time and place and therefore do
not satisfy the traditional definitions of scientific laws." (Mayr, E.W., "What Evolution Is," Basic Books:
New York NY, 2001, pp.227-228. Emphasis original)
10/07/2006
"For years there has been a rather heated controversy over whether chance (contingency) or necessity
(adaptation) is the dominant factor in evolution. Enthusiastic Darwinians tended to ascribe every aspect of a
living organism to adaptation. They argued that in every generation there is a drastic culling of each
population, sparing on the average only two of the hundreds, thousands, or in some cases even millions of
offspring of each set of parents. Only the most perfectly adapted individuals, they would claim, could pass
through this ruthless process of elimination. Those who uphold adaptation as the dominant force in
evolution have indeed a strong argument. Unfortunately, some of the strict adaptationists forgot that
natural selection is a two-step process. To be sure, selection for adaptedness is paramount at the second
step, but this is preceded by a first step-the production of the variation that provides the material for the
selection process, and here stochastic processes (chance, contingency) are dominant. And it is this
randomness of variation that is responsible for the enormous, often quite bizarre diversity of the living
world." (Mayr E.W., "What Evolution Is," Basic Books: New York NY, 2001, p.228. Emphasis original)
10/07/2006
"The illustration of the swimbladder in fishes is a good one, because it shows us clearly the highly
important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely flotation, may be converted into
one for a wholly different purpose, namely respiration. ... All physiologists admit that the swimbladder is
homologous, or `ideally similar,' in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals:
hence there seems to me to be no great difficulty in believing that natural selection has actually converted a
swimbladder into a lung, or organ used exclusively for respiration. I can, indeed, hardly doubt that all
vertebrate animals having true lungs have descended by ordinary generation from an ancient prototype, of
which we know nothing, furnished with a floating apparatus or swimbladder." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,"
1859, First Edition, Penguin: London, 1985, reprint, pp.220-221)
10/07/2006
"The illustration of the swimbladder in fishes is a good one, because it shows us clearly the highly
important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely, flotation, may be converted into
one for a widely different purpose, namely, respiration. ... All physiologists admit that the swim bladder is
homologous, or `ideally similar' in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals:
hence there is no reason to doubt that the swim bladder has actually been converted into lungs, or an organ
used exclusively for respiration. According to this view it may be inferred that all vertebrate animals with
true lungs are descended by ordinary generation from an ancient and unknown prototype, which was
furnished with a floating apparatus or swimbladder." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of
Natural Selection," 1872, Sixth Edition, 1994, Senate: London, pp.147-148)
10/07/2006
"To show that any two species of organism are related in an evolutionary sense, to show for example that
one species A, is ancestral to B, ie A -> B or that both species have descended from a common ancestral
source, ie A <- ->B, it is necessary to satisfy one of the following conditions. Either one, to find a 'perfect'
sequence of fully functional intermediate forms I1, I2, I3 leading unambiguously from one species to
another, ie A-> I1 -> I2> I3 -> B, or two, to reconstruct hypothetically in great detail the exact sequence of
events which led from A to B or from a common ancestor to A and B, including thoroughly convincing
reconstructions of intermediate forms and a rigorous and detailed explanation of how and why each stage in
the transformation came about." (Denton M.J., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett Books: London,
1985, pp.55-56)
11/07/2006
"BIOLOGISTS adduce as strong evidence in support of the evolution doctrine the existence in organisms of
structures which they usually describe as rudimentary. If these were in reality rudimentary, that is to say, in
a nascent condition, in the course of being developed, their presence would indeed afford strong support to
the theory. Unfortunately for the doctrine, not one of these structures is rudimentary. Some of them are
vestigial, that is to say, organs in a state of degeneration. If the evolution doctrine was merely that many
types have degenerated since they were created or originated, then the presence of vestigial organs would
afford strong support to it. What the doctrine demands is not vestigial, but nascent organs, and the latter
appear to be non-existent. Such a state of affairs seems to strike at the root of the evolution doctrine. Better
evidence of the assertion that for the last fifty years biological textbooks bring to light only that which is
favourable to evolution and pass over unnoticed all that is unfavourable could scarcely be adduced than
the fact that these volumes contain many references to vestigial organs, but none to nascent organs.
Darwin, however, was not guilty of this omission. He invariably endeavoured to forestall criticism. He tried
hard to find some examples of nascent organs. He suggested that the wing of the penguin might be a
nascent organ of flight; to-day no zoologist accepts this suggestion. Darwin was of opinion that the
mammary glands of the duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus) may be considered `in comparison with
the udders of a cow, as in a nascent condition.' [Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural
Selection," 1872, Sixth edition, Senate: London, 1994, pp.398-399)] As we shall notice ... later research has
proved this view to be incorrect. Darwin's third attempt to cite a nascent organ reads as follows (Origin of
Species, 6th ed., p. 399): 'The ovigerous frena of certain cirripedes which have ceased to give attachment to
the ova and are feebly developed are nascent branchiae.' Even if Darwin's surmise be correct, this would be
the case of a change in the function of an existing organ rather than the origin of an entirely new structure."
(Dewar, D., "Difficulties of the Evolution Theory," Edward Arnold & Co: London, 1931, p.25)
11/07/2006
"I cannot call to mind any other structure that has been cited as a nascent organ. It may here be mentioned
that the mammae of male mammals cannot be nascent mammary glands, as they occur in so many orders;
moreover, there is no evidence that they are better developed to-day in any species than they were three or
four thousand years ago. Thus, although the anatomy of thousands of species of animals has been carefully
studied, it is impossible to adduce a single structure in any species which is indubitably or even probably in
a nascent condition. Darwin saw that the absence of nascent organs was fatal to the theory of evolution as
held by him, and, having failed in the attempt to discover any, he made the best of a bad business by
disposing of it in the following summary manner (loc. cit., p. 398): `It is often difficult to distinguish
between rudimentary and nascent organs; for we can judge only by analogy whether a part is capable of
further development, in which case alone it deserves to be called nascent. Organs in this condition will
always be somewhat rare; for the beings thus provided will commonly have been supplanted by their
successors with the same organ in a more perfect state, and consequently will have become long ago
extinct.' [Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," 1872, Sixth edition, Senate:
London, 1994, p.398] The flaw in this argument is obvious: if evolution be now taking place, the animals that
are about to supplant their rivals owing to the acquisition of new and useful organs should to-day exhibit
these latter in a nascent condition. ... The absence of nascent organs, then, indicates that evolution, as
distinguished from degeneration or mere differentiation, is not taking place in any living animal of which the
anatomy is known. This is quite in accordance with the fact that the breeders have not succeeded in
producing a new family. Although nascent organs do not seem to occur in organisms, vestigial structures
are numerous. Vestigial structures are those in a state of atrophy, apparently useless and often poorly
developed although well developed in other animals to which they are useful. These facts, difficult to
reconcile with the theory of evolution, are fully in accord with that of creation; because, if each type be an
independent creation, we should expect it to be endowed with all necessary organs at the time of its
creation. Even as the individual grows old, so does the type. In each case various organs tend to degenerate
with the advent of old age. Moreover, in the case of the type, changed conditions may render superfluous
certain structures that were necessary during the youth of the type." (Dewar D., "Difficulties of the
Evolution Theory," Edward Arnold & Co: London, 1931, pp.25-27. Emphasis original)
11/07/2006
"Useful organs, however little they may be developed, unless we have reason to suppose that they were
formerly more highly developed, ought not to be considered as rudimentary. They may be in a nascent
condition, and in progress towards further development. Rudimentary organs, on the other hand, are either
quite useless, such as teeth which never cut through the gums, or almost useless, such as the wings of an
ostrich, which serve merely as sails. As organs in this condition would formerly, when still less developed,
have been of even less use than at present, they cannot formerly have been produced through variation and
natural selection, which acts solely by the preservation of useful modifications. They have been partially
retained by the power of inheritance, and relate to a former state of things. It is, however, often difficult to
distinguish between rudimentary and nascent organs; for we can judge only by analogy whether a part is
capable of further development, in which case alone it deserves to be called nascent. Organs in this
condition will always be somewhat rare; for beings thus provided will commonly have been supplanted by
their successors with the same organ in a more perfect state, and consequently will have become long ago
extinct. The wing of the penguin is of high service, acting as a fin; it may, therefore, represent the nascent
state of the wing; not that I believe this to be the case; it is more probably a reduced organ, modified for a
new function; the wing of the Apteryx [Kiwi], on the other hand, is quite useless, and is truly rudimentary.
Owen considers the simple filamentary limbs of the Lepidosiren [lungfish]as the `beginnings of organs
which attain full functional development in higher vertebrates'; but, according to the view lately advocated
by Dr. Günther, they are probably remnants, consisting of the persistent axis of a fin, with the lateral rays or
branches aborted. The mammary glans of the Ornithorhynchus [pltypus] may be considered, in
comparison with the udders of a cow, as in a nascent condition. The ovigerous frena of certain cirripedes,
which have ceased to give attachment to the ova and are feebly developed, are nascent branchiĉ." (Darwin,
C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," 1872, Sixth edition, Senate: London, 1994,
pp.398-399)
11/07/2006
"In short, Walcott viewed the Burgess arthropods as members of five major lineages, already stable and well
established at this early Cambrian date. But if life had already become so well differentiated along essentially
modern lines, the five lineages must have existed at the inception of the Cambrian explosion as recorded by
fossil evidence-for evolution is stately and gradual, not a domain of sudden jumps and mad eruptions of
diversity. And if the five lineages existed as well-differentiated groups right at the beginning of the
Cambrian, then their common ancestor must be sought far back in the Precambrian. The Cambrian explosion
must therefore be an artifact of an imperfect fossil record; the late Precambrian seas, in Darwin's words, must
have `swarmed with living creatures' (1859, p. 307). Walcott thought that he had discovered why we have no
evidence for this necessary Precambrian richness. In other words, he thought that he had solved the riddle
of the Cambrian explosion in orthodox Darwinian terms. ... We must remember that the Cambrian explosion
was no ordinary riddle, and its potential solution therefore no minor plum, but something more akin to the
Holy Grail. Darwin, as already noted, had publicly fretted that `the case at present must remain inexplicable;
and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained' (1859, p. 308). Two different
kinds of explanations for the absence of Precambrian ancestors have been debated for more than a century:
the artifact theory (they did exist, but the fossil record hasn't preserved them), and the fast-transition theory
(they really didn't exist, at least as complex invertebrates easily linked to their descendants, and the
evolution of modern anatomical plans occurred with a rapidity that threatens our usual ideas about the
stately pace of evolutionary change). ... We can now understand why Walcott was virtually compelled to
propose the Burgess shoehorn. He interpreted his new fauna in the light of thirty previous years spent
(largely in frustration) trying to prove the artifact theory, as an ultimate tribute to Darwin from a Cambrian
geologist. He could not grant Burgess organisms the uniqueness that seems so evident to us today because
a raft of new phyla would have threatened his most cherished belief. If evolution could produce ten new
Cambrian phyla and then wipe them out just as quickly, then what about the surviving Cambrian groups?
Why should they have had a long and honorable Precambrian pedigree? Why should they not have
originated just before the Cambrian, as the fossil record, read literally, seems to indicate, and as the fast-
transition theory proposes? This argument, of course, is a death knell for the artifact theory." (Gould, S.J.,
"Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History," [1989], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint,
pp.270-273)
11/07/2006
"Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer were founding members of the `X Club', a group of nine `scientific naturalists'
who spearheaded the drive to replace the cultural dominance of conventional religion with their scientific
(materialistic) world-view. The use of science as an ideological weapon is even more evident in the attempts
of this group to `secularize' society than it was in the work of the Radicals, the Paleyites, and the Idealists.
From a propagandist's point of view, this made confrontation with men like Owen inevitable, for Owen's
idealism was a mainstay of the natural theology used during the 1860's to support the Establishment
(Desmond, 1982). Huxley wished to read a different message from the book of Nature. In support of this
goal, the `Young Guard' used the trappings of religion to sacralize their `science'. Three centuries of
cooperation between science and religion was forgotten and their history was rewritten as a `warfare'.
Hymns to nature were sung at popular lectures before the giving of `lay sermons' by a member of Galton's
`Scientific Priesthood'. Museums were built to resemble cathedrals, and following frantic string-pulling by
Lubbock (another X club member), Charles Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey. The new church was
established. The success of this `scientific naturalism' as a religious movement can be judged by are general
acceptance of the pronouncements of the `true believers' of the `church scientific' who still exist and
evangelize among us." (Wilcox D.L., "Created in Eternity, Unfolded in Time", Eastern College: St. Davids
PA, 1990, Unpublished Manuscript, Chapter 2, p12)
11/07/2006
"In London, Thomas Huxley's 'X' Club, [Bibby, C., "Scientist Extraordinary", Pergamon, 1972, pp. 58, 135] an
influential group of nine men who were notified of meetings by the delivery of an algebraic formula and who
always dined immediately before meetings of the Royal Society, may have suppressed Mendel's work. The
Club mustered a Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Treasurer and three successive Presidents of the Royal
Society, six Presidents of the British Association and several officers of the Geological, Linnaean and
Ethnological Societies. It is certain that the 'gay and conspiratorial' 'X' Club, which was strongly evolutionist
in character, not only influenced the appointments made for senior positions in the newly formed
universities of the Victorian era but also, until its demise in the 1890s, practically controlled the business of
the Royal Society. It never elected a tenth member: Busk, Frankland, Hirst, Hooker, Huxley, Lubbock,
Herbert Spencer, Spottiswoode and Tyndall were its men. Is it possible they saw the implications of
Mendel's paper and refused to confront them?" (Pitman M., "Adam and Evolution," Rider & Co: London,
1984, p.64)
12/07/2006
"Gould was a modern master of the scientific essay, the inheritor of a tradition shaped by the likes of T. H.
Huxley, J. B. S. Haldane, and Martin Gardner. True to form, the essays in "I Have Landed" delight in the
unlikely intersection of science with you-name-it - the Alamo, the Red Sox, Nabokov, the mourners at Marx's
funeral. In one piece, Gould brings together Darwin's reluctance to utter the word `evolution' and the
reopening of the Hayden Planetarium, in 2000, to launch a marvellously lucid explanation of the difference
between biological and stellar evolution. "When astronomers talk about the evolution of a star, they clearly
do not invoke a ... theory like Darwin's," he writes. `Stars do not change through time because mama and
papa stars generate broods of varying daughter stars.'" (Orr, H.A., " The Descent of Gould: How a
paleontologist sought to revolutionize evolution," The New Yorker, September 30, 2002)
12/07/2006
"The biggest of Gould's theories - and the one on which his scientific legacy will surely ride - is known as
`punctuated equilibrium.' Gould introduced punctuated equilibrium with Niles Eldredge, of the American
Museum of Natural History, in 1972. Their starting point was simple: trust the fossils. The fossil record, they
said, shows something surprising. Species look unchanged for vast stretches of time and then - suddenly -
they morph. Certain species of African snail, for instance, look the same for millions of years and then
abruptly change shell shape. The question was why. The traditional answer among evolutionary biologists
was that species change gradually, by natural selection, and if the fossil record says different, so much the
worse for the fossil record. This attitude isn't quite as cavalier as it sounds. Evolutionary biologists have
always believed that the fossil record is abysmally bad. (Imagine trying to reconstruct Western history from
two snapshots, one of Pontius Pilate and the other of Evel Knievel.) Moreover, biologists can see gradual
adaptive change happening around them. (Think of antibiotic resistance.) So, the argument went, we're
better off extrapolating from what we can see clearly now than trusting a fragmentary record of what
allegedly happened then." (Orr, H.A., " The Descent of Gould: How a paleontologist sought to
revolutionize evolution," The New Yorker, September 30, 2002)
12/07/2006
"Gould and Eldredge believed otherwise. They said that the pattern of long stasis punctuated by sudden
change is real. It doesn't reflect gaps in the data; it is the data. They also said - and here we move from the
pattern to the theory side of punctuated equilibrium - that this pattern can be explained by two ideas. The
first idea is that creatures are robust beings that resist the pressures of changing environments. This
conservatism, they argued, reflects the complexities of development, the intricate process by which an
organism goes from a single cell to a strapping adult: development is so tightly coördinated that it can't be
easily tinkered with without breaking down entirely. The result is no evolutionary change. This idea of
`developmental constraints' was the most heterodox aspect of punctuated equilibrium. Darwin, after all, held
that animals and plants are nearly infinitely pliant, adapting to the subtlest shift in the environment; Gould
and Eldredge held that organisms are stiff and unyielding." (Orr, H.A., " The Descent of Gould: How a
paleontologist sought to revolutionize evolution," The New Yorker, September 30, 2002)
12/07/2006
"The second idea is that sudden change in the fossil record happens at the very moment that a species
splits into two species. According to conventional theory, `ordinary' evolutionary change and species-
splitting have little to do with each other. If we consider two lizard populations - one on one side of a river
and one on the other - traditional theory says that either population could start to change, say, tail length at
any time. If we could leap forward and look at these populations a million years hence, we might find that
although they began with identical tail lengths they now have tails of markedly different lengths. This
wouldn't mean, however, that these lizards now belong to separate species. They would belong to separate
species only if the two populations could no longer mate with each other and produce fertile offspring; only,
that is, if they could no longer share genes. The genetic changes underlying this process of `speciation' are
thought to accumulate slowly and gradually between geographically separated populations. But the
essential point is that, under this traditional view, speciation and change in ordinary features like tail length
are not necessarily simultaneous. This is the view that Gould and Eldredge rejected. Echoing arguments
made by the naturalist Ernst Mayr, they claimed that speciation involves `genetic revolutions,' episodes of
extensive genetic change that shake up much of an organism's genome. Going even further, Gould and
Eldredge argued that only speciation - only passage through a genetic revolution - is sufficiently violent to
break the binds of developmental constraints. The result is that all evolutionary change is restricted to rare
moments of species-splitting. Lizards can't just go changing tail length; they can do so only when splitting
into different species. So much for Darwinism." (Orr, H.A., " The Descent of Gould: How a
paleontologist sought to revolutionize evolution," The New Yorker, September 30, 2002)
12/07/2006
"Punctuated equilibrium ignited enormous controversy. The scientific literature erupted into attack and
counterattack; conferences melted down. Even by the indelicate standards of science, the debate got ugly.
Punctuated equilibrium was branded "evolution by jerks," and Gould was, as he says, "reviled in many
quarters." The ferocity of the proceedings had several causes. One was that a great deal was at stake.
Punctuated equilibrium struck at the foundations of evolution, and scientists do not, as a rule, like being
told that their theoretical edifice teeters on a wobbly base. Then there was the matter of Gould's style. Gould
was, by his own admission, the "most arrogant of literati," and his outsized confidence seemed to provoke
an escalation in his (and everyone else's) rhetoric. In 1980, he brashly pronounced the modern theory of
Darwinism "effectively dead," and predicted the emergence of "a new and general theory of evolution."
Last, the theory of punctuated equilibrium was at odds with the evidence, unsalvageably so. There was
simply no reason to think that speciation is a tumultuous event during which evolutionary change is
especially likely to take place. Worse, mountains of data contradicted the claim that organisms are bound by
developmental constraints, unable to change unless they speciate. The best of this evidence is no farther
away than the corn on your plate or the Chihuahua on your sofa. If man can shape these things from their
wild ancestors by artificial selection - and without speciation - talk of strong constraints is in a bad way."
(Orr, H.A., " The Descent of Gould: How a paleontologist sought to revolutionize evolution," The New
Yorker, September 30, 2002)
12/07/2006
"Gould ultimately conceded all this, though at an agonizing pace that spanned decades. (In this respect, if in
no other, he was a gradualist.) In `The Structure of Evolutionary Theory,' he admits that `we made mistakes,'
and that prominent among these were the claims about both constraint (idea one) and speciation (idea two).
The theory part of punctuated equilibrium was thereby gutted. But what of the pattern part? If a punctuated
pattern characterizes the fossil record - and Gould insists that it does, and spends a good deal of `The
Structure' trying to show that new species often appear abruptly in the fossil record alongside ancestral
ones - what explains it? Gould concludes that the best guess was one made by the evolutionist Douglas
Futuyma in the eighties. Futuyma's idea starts with the fact that different populations of a species often
adapt to local features of their environments. Mice in the north, for instance, might evolve to be bigger than
those in the south because big bodies lose proportionally less heat. But such local differences are usually
too short-lived to show up in the fossil record. That's because populations are apt to come back into contact
with each other, and when they do they begin to mate and so swap genes. As a result, any differences
among the populations tend to get blended away: close encounters between northern and southern mice
yield mid-sized mice. There's only one way to prevent this washing-out: populations must not only adapt
but speciate. For separate species, by definition, can't swap genes and so won't lose their distinctive
looks by genetic blending when they come into contact. This, then, might explain why, in the fossil record,
change and speciation seem to go hand in hand. It's not that change is rare and happens only when species
split; it's that change is common, but only if species split do the resulting differences last long enough to
have a shot at showing up as fossils. Futuyma's idea, though, had one embarrassing blemish: it's pure
Darwinism. Gould and his allies thus found themselves in a peculiar position: the red-hot revolutionaries
suddenly seemed staid traditionalists. This was not, of course, lost on evolutionists, many of whom were
still steaming over the Darwinism-is-dead business. By the nineties, most evolutionary biologists had simply
stopped paying attention to punctuated equilibrium. At best, the theory looked like a moving target, veering
now at breakneck speed toward Darwinism. At worst, its chief advocate seemed muddled, a mixture of
radical rhetoric and malleable ideas. Punctuated equilibrium was down, if not out." (Orr, H.A., " The Descent
of Gould: How a paleontologist sought to revolutionize evolution," The New Yorker, September 30, 2002)
12/07/2006
"The worry is that all this misses what Gould was really up to. Over the years, I've come to an admittedly
speculative view of Gould's modus operandi as a scientist. It starts from the idea that there were two figures
looking over his shoulders as he wrote. One was Charles Darwin, but the other was Thomas Kuhn. Gould
was steeped in Kuhn's 1962 book `The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' and his vision of alternating
bouts of workaday `normal' science and revolutionary paradigm shifts. In `The Structure of Evolutionary
Theory,' Gould fondly reminisces about his first reading of Kuhn as an impressionable first-year graduate
student. Kuhn deeply affected Gould's science. One might even argue that punctuated equilibrium is little
more than Kuhn's view of the history of ideas transferred wholesale to the history of life, an idea that is
reinforced by the fact that Gould and Eldredge began their 1972 paper with talk of paradigms and Kuhn.
Even the title of Gould's magnum opus seems a riff on `The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.' In fact,
Kuhn seems to have transformed not only Gould's image of science but his image of the scientist. The
revolutionary scientist, Gould seemed to conclude, is one who knows that big progress follows big jolts.
Just as old and hopelessly constrained species can do nothing interesting unless they get periodically
shaken, so old and hopelessly conservative paradigms can't give way to new science unless they receive a
good swift kick now and then. These assaults are characterized by a great deal of noise, confusion, and hurt
feelings. But, more than anything, they're characterized by a protagonist who's willing to stick his neck out
farther than others dare - one who's willing to be wrong. Major progress, Gould seemed to believe, demands
major risk. And, even if you get things wrong, science may ultimately gain. People ask questions and make
discoveries that would otherwise have gone unasked and undiscovered. (Gould quotes the economist
Vilfredo Pareto with approval here: "Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own
corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.") Gould might well then represent something new
in the historical strata of science: the first self-consciously revolutionary scientist - the first scientist who
set out to create a revolution at least in part because he felt that the field just needed one. If something
like this characterizes Gould's approach, it complicates any attempt to assess his legacy. Gould's attacks on
adaptationism may have been extreme, but fanciful Just So stories are now, thankfully, rarer. Key parts of
punctuated equilibrium were wrong, but paleontological data are, largely due to Gould, richer than ever.
Species selection may not make sudden sense of the fossil record, but a reinvigorated paleontology sits at
evolutionary biology's high table. In the end, Gould's career may force us to separate two questions that are
usually conflated: was he right, and was he good for science? It may not, after all, be a law of nature that the
two have the same answer." (Orr, H.A., " The Descent of Gould: How a paleontologist sought to revolutionize
evolution," The New Yorker, September 30, 2002)
12/07/2006
"We read on the front page that the dollar has reached a new low against the Japanese yen; turning to the
business section, we see that the stock market has gone down. The explanation we are offered might go like
this: a more expensive yen will make Japanese imports costlier, fueling domestic inflation and tempting the
Federal Reserve Board to raise interest rates, stifling the American economy. But one can search the back
issues of the paper and find cases in which a dollar falling to a historic low against the yen has been
accompanied by a rise in the market. The rationale? More expensive Japanese imports give American
companies a competitive edge, and a cheaper dollar draws tourists from the Orient. With the slightest effort
we can construct a logical story. In 1993 when, after reaching twenty-year lows, home mortgage rates first
began creeping up, the change was blamed on a number of factors, including rising world gold prices (a
signal of inflation fears) and, again, the dollar falling precipitously against the yen. Several weeks later,
interest rates temporarily turned around again and went even lower than before, but the dollar kept on falling
and gold kept on rising When IBM announces layoffs and its stock goes down, the rationale is obvious.
But just as often, such events will cause a stock to rise. Why? Because, we are told, the market had already
`discounted' the bad news and investors were encouraged that the company had become serious about cost
cutting. There are so many variables to tweak, so much slack in the network of concepts, that you can easily
find a neat explanation for anything that happens. There have always been those who argue that Darwinists
are also guilty of arguing in circles, that the theory of evolution is based on a tautology: survival of the
fittest, with the fittest defined as those which survive. Gould suggests that when scientists find themselves
spinning Darwinian tales, they should pause and look for solid evidence that the variants they are calling
survivors are truly fitter than those that perished. Often they may find that which creatures perished and
which survived had less to do with fitness than with the random swing of the grim reaper. The structuralists
go much further than Gould, arguing that the circular nature of so much Darwinian reasoning is a symptom
of the weakness of the theory's explanatory power. " (Johnson, G., "Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the
Search for Order," [1995], Penguin: London, 1997, reprint, pp.266-267)
12/07/2006
"The last element in the sociobiological argument is to reconstruct a plausible story for the origin of human
social traits by natural selection. The general outline is to suppose that in the evolutionary past of the
species there existed some genetic variation for a particular trait, but that the genotypes determining a
particular form of behavior somehow left more offspring. As a consequence, these genotypes increased in
the species and eventually came to characterize it. As an example, it is supposed that at some time in the
evolutionary past some males were more genetically individualistic and less prone to accept indoctrination
into group values than other males. Such nonindoctrinable males would be excluded by the group, would
lose their protection in bad times, not get to share in group resources, and perhaps even be killed by their
fellows. As a result; the nonindoctrinable genotypes would survive less well and leave fewer offspring, so
that genetically controlled indoctrinability would become characteristic of the species. Similarly imaginative
stories have been told for ethics, religion, male domination, aggression, artistic ability, etc. All one need do
is predicate a genetically determined contrast in the past and then use some imagination, in a Darwinian
version of Kipling's Just So Stories. The only trouble with Kipling was that he believed in the inheritance
of acquired characteristics." (Lewontin, R.C., Rose, S. & Kamin, L.J., "Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology,
and Human Nature," Penguin: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1984, p.258)
13/07/2006
"In one sense it could be said that Malthus's images were turning full circle, for Darwin applied political
economy to biology, and now these biological ideas were being reintegrated back into political economy,
seemingly providing a `natural' account of the way human populations and social economies were thought
to work. Malthus's principles were biologised and then reabsorbed into economic thought. In another sense,
the social and the biological were scarcely separable. Malthus's remarks did not so much travel back and
forth as exist already embedded in the same cultural context. Either way, Malthus's doctrines looked like
incontrovertible laws of nature to a nation steeped in ' competitive economic activity, buoyed up with
Samuel Smiles's anthems of self-help, adaptation, struggle, and survival, and as a political body fully
engaged in territorial and commercial expansion. `It is remarkable how Darwin rediscovers among beasts and
plants the society of England, with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets,
inventions, and the Malthusian struggle for existence,' remarked Karl Marx in a letter to Engels in 1862.
[Marx to Engels, 18 June 1862, in Marx, K., "Letters 1860-64," Vol. 41, in "Collected Works," 46 Vols.,
Lawrence & Wishart: London, 1985, p.381] Marx read the Origin of Species soon after publication, noting
`the clumsy English style.' He understood the Origin's threat to traditional Victorian standards more
clearly than most. `Although developed in the crude English fashion, this is the book which in the field of
natural history, provides the basis for our views,' he continued to Engels. He repeated much the same
comment to Ferdinand Lassalle. `Darwin's work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a
basis in natural science for the historical class struggle.' [Marx 1985, pp.234, 246] Marx laughed at the British
fear of apes. `Since Darwin demonstrated that we are all descended from the apes there is scarcely any
shock whatever that could shake our ancestral pride.' [Marx 1985, p.543]" (Browne, E.J., "Charles Darwin:
The Power of Place: Volume II of a Biography," [2002], Pimlico: London, 2003, reprint, pp.187-188)
14/07/2006
"First, there is the familiar, and I have to say rather irritating, confusion of natural selection with
'randomness'. Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random. Second, it just isn't
true that 'each by itself is useless'. It isn't true that the whole perfect work must have been achieved
simultaneously. It isn't true that each part is essential for the success of the whole. A simple, rudimentary,
half-cocked eye/ear/ echolocation system/cuckoo parasitism system, etc., is better than none at all. Without
an eye you are totally blind. With half an eye you may at least be able to detect the general direction of a
predator's movement, even if you can't focus a clear image. And this may make all the difference between life
and death." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.41. Emphasis
original)
14/07/2006
"But I was starting to tell the story of how lenses might have evolved in the first place, from a vitreous mass
that filled the whole eye. The principle of how it might have happened, and the speed with which it might
have been accomplished, has been beautifully demonstrated in a computer model by a pair of Swedish
biologists called Dan Nilsson and Susanne Pelger. I shall lead up to explaining their elegant computer model
in a slightly oblique way. Instead of going straight to what they actually did, I shall return to our
progression from Biomorph to NetSpinner computer models and ask how one could ideally set about making
a similar computer model of the evolution of an eye. I shall then explain that this is essentially equivalent to
what NiIsson and Pelger did, although they didn't put it in quite the same way." (Dawkins, R., "Climbing
Mount Improbable," Penguin: London, 1996, pp.148-149)
14/07/2006
"In the case of eyes, Nilsson and Pelger began by acknowledging that there are three main types of tissue in
a typical `camera' eye. There is an outer casing to the camera, usually opaque to light. There is a layer of
light-sensitive `photocells'. And there is some kind of transparent material, which may serve as a protective
window or which may fill the cavity inside the cup - if, indeed, there is a cup, for we are not taking anything
for granted in our simulation. Nilsson and Pelger's starting point - the foot of the mountain - is a flat layer of
photocells ... sitting on a flat backing screen ... and topped by a flat layer of transparent tissue ... They
assumed that mutation works by causing a small percentage change in the size of something, for example a
small percentage decrease in the thickness of the transparent layer, or a small percentage increase in the
refractive index of a local region of the transparent layer. Their question really is, where can you get to on
the mountain if you start from a given base camp and go steadily upwards? Going upwards means mutating,
one small step at a time, and only accepting mutations that improve optical performance. So, where do we
get to? Pleasingly, through a smooth upward pathway, starting from no proper eye at all, we reach a familiar
fish eye, complete with lens. The lens is not uniform like an ordinary man-made lens. It is a graded index lens
... Its continuously varying refractive index is represented in the diagram by varying shades of grey. The
lens has `condensed' out of the vitreous mass by gradual, point by point changes in the refractive index.
There is no sleight of hand here. Nilsson and Pelger didn't pre-program their simulated vitreous mass with a
primordial lens just waiting to burst forth. They simply allowed the refractive index of each small bit of
transparent material to vary under genetic control. Every smidgen of transparent material was free to vary its
refractive index in any direction at random. An infinite number of patterns of varying refractive index could
have emerged within the vitreous mass. What made the lens come out 'lens-shaped' was unbroken upward
mobility, the equivalent of selectively breeding from the best seeing eye in each generation. Nilsson and
Pelger's purpose was not only to show that there is a smooth trajectory of improvement from a flat non-eye
to a good fish eye. They were also able to use their model to estimate the time it would take to evolve an eye
from nothing. The total number of steps that their model took was 1,829 if each step achieved a i per cent
change in the magnitude of something. But there is nothing magic about t per cent. The same total quantity
of change would have taken 363,992 steps of 0.005 per cent." (Dawkins, R., "Climbing Mount Improbable,"
Penguin: London, 1996, pp.150-151)
14/07/2006
"MY DEAR GRAY ... I hope you have received long ago the third edition of the ` Origin.' ... I sent a copy to
Sir J. Herschel, and in his new edition of his `Physical Geography' he has a note on the `Origin of Species,'
and agrees, to a certain limited extent, but puts in a caution on design-much like yours. ... I have been led to
think more on this subject of late, and grieve to say that I come to differ more from you. It is not that
designed variation makes, as it seems to me, my deity `Natural Selection' superfluous, but rather from
studying, lately, domestic variation, and seeing what an enormous field of undesigned variability there is
ready for natural selection to appropriate for any purpose useful to each creature." (Darwin, C.R., Letter to
Asa Gray, June 5, 1861, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books:
New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, pp.165-166. Emphasis original) @
14/07/2006
"What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel
works of nature! ... You say most truly about multiple creations and my notions. If any one case could be
proved, I should be smashed; but as I am writing my book, I try to take as much pains as possible to give
the strongest cases opposed to me, and often such conjectures as occur to me. ... A correct reference would
be enough for me, though it is wrong even to quote without looking oneself. ... But it is quite likely that you
may object on the ground that you might be publishing before me (I hope to publish in a year at furthest) ...
From Lyell's letters, he is coming round at a railway pace on the mutability of species, and authorises me to
put some sentences on this head in my preface." (Darwin, C.R., Letter to J.D. Hooker, July 13th, 1856, in
Darwin, F. & Seward, A.C. eds, More letters of Charles Darwin," John Murray: London, 1903, Vol. 1,
pp.94-95)
15/07/2006
"There is an incident in the history of biology that is well worth recounting here. It illustrates the sort of
controversy that may attend the acceptance of a new and far-reaching theory. It also shows how biologists
learned to use and understand the importance of controlled experiments. This incident was a controversy
which lasted for about two hundred years. During that extended time, biology as we know it today was
being born, and was fighting for its very existence. ... All sorts of the lower animals were considered to be
created continuously, on the spot, from nonliving stuff-a spontaneous generation of life. Belief in
spontaneous generation of living things was widely held, and became imbedded in the written records of
ancient cultures. ... Francesco Redi was a biologist who lived and worked in Florence during the
seventeenth century. He ... undertook to test the hypothesis that the blowflies produced in decaying flesh
were the offspring of blowflies which laid eggs on the flesh. ... Redi's conclusions and the clarity of his
experimental results shook the faith of many naturalists in the concept of spontaneous generation. ... By
mid-eighteenth century it was fairly well established that living organisms come only from pre-existing
organisms, at least in the case of worms, insects, and other visible forms of life. The principle that life comes
only from pre-existing life is now known as the principle of biogenesis. ... But the advocates of
spontaneous generation were not yet defeated. They retreated from instance to instance as the concept of
biogenesis was advanced by adequate experimental methods. ... The history of science has shown, again
and again, that as adherents of a general concept have to retreat to a position of pleading special cases,
defeat is imminent. Thus it was with spontaneous generation. ... Louis Pasteur administered the coup de
grace in 1862 when he was able to show that poor experimental technique was responsible for all of the
evidence supporting the doctrine of spontaneous generation. The great controversy was over after two
hundred years (1668 to 1862). The age-old idea that living things can be created spontaneously from
nonliving substances lay dying in the dust. Biogenesis had carried the day." (Beck, S.D, "The Simplicity of
Science," [1959], The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, pp.41, 43-47. Emphasis original)
15/07/2006
"But the concept of spontaneous generation lingers on. Many people of today believe that a horse hair will
turn into a snake if it is put into water. Such people are a century behind in their education and thinking.
Fortunately, none of them are biologists. Biogenesis-the principle that all life comes only from pre-existing
life-is a cornerstone in modern biology. On it rests our principal concepts in genetics, comparative anatomy,
evolution, and taxonomy. So far has scientific opinion swung toward biogenesis, that to speak seriously of
spontaneous generation is to commit biological heresy. Heresy notwithstanding, we must postulate that
somewhere and at some time an organism appeared where there was no organism previously. However we
may define the word organism, the ghost of spontaneous generation still walks. At the level of our present
knowledge, we know that spontaneous generation, as the term was conceived and used, is without factual
foundation." (Beck, S.D, "The Simplicity of Science," [1959], The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, p.47)
15/07/2006
"Another point of interest is that scientific advances are products of the times. A new theory can become
established only when general advances in knowledge and technical know-how make it possible to test it
adequately. The world of science has to be ready for a new concept before a revolutionary theory can
appear and survive. The germ theory of disease could not have had any meaning before the invention of the
microscope and the acceptance of biogenesis. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection would have
had little significance had not the idea of evolution been already firmly established in biology. Indeed, the
theory probably would not have come into existence at all." (Beck, S.D, "The Simplicity of Science," [1959],
The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, pp.47-48)
15/07/2006
"The principle of biogenesis has been found to hold good for every organism tested, and we have no
reason for suspecting that it might not be equally valid for every species and individual which exists on
earth. As a matter of fact, biogenesis is so universally accepted that biologists no longer find it a worth-
while subject for research. And that brings us to another assumption that is characteristic of science-the
assumption that nature is unified. Without this simple faith in the existence of only one set of natural
laws, a single plan for the universe, science as we know it could not exist. The fundamental belief in a unified
nature is a very useful assumption. Although I know nothing directly of the nutritional requirements of a
gaudy parrot living deep in the jungles of the upper Amazon valley, I would be willing to wager my last
dollar that it requires the same vitamins as does the chicken that laid my breakfast egg. To be sure, we know
that different kinds of plants and animals differ in their anatomy, behaviour, and physiology. But as we learn
more and more about them, we find more and more evidence of a thread of unity that is fundamental and
runs through all the forms of life. ... The influence of the scientist's belief that all of nature is unified goes far
beyond these few examples, however. This assumption gives us the extremely important freedom to apply
the knowledge of one branch of science to the problems encountered in another. We assume that what we
know of physics and chemistry has applications in biology. ... When we speak of the processes by which
plants use sunlight to manufacture sugar, starch, cellulose, and a myriad of other substances, we are relying
on the knowledge of biochemistry. If a chemist takes a plant apart and makes it manufacture sugar in a test
tube, we assume that the same chemical reactions were going on in the plant before he ground it up. We
assume that not only were those same chemical reactions going on in that particular plant, but also that the
same chemical processes are going on in several million other plants, as well. We look on the universe as
one big entity, organized and maintained by one set of rules. With this faith, it is considered that what is
known in any one branch of natural science is important and influential in all of natural science. The ultimate
goal in science is to fit everything, every phenomenon into one over-all concept. The arrogance of the goal
notwithstanding, it is the basis for believing that separate events may be closely related in principle. It is on
this basis that scientific knowledge can be systematized and organized. The assumption is that if we knew
all there is to be known about either an atom or a living cell, we would know all there is to know of the
universe." (Beck, S.D, "The Simplicity of Science," [1959], The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, pp.49-50.
Emphasis original)
15/07/2006
"Some theories are accepted much more readily and with much less supporting evidence. Theories for which
science is ready are quickly accepted. A good example is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural
selection. The idea of evolution was not new in Darwin's time. Since the time of Aristotle, numerous
naturalists had thought it likely that living things had undergone some kind of gradual and systematic
change. ... By the early part of the nineteenth century, biology had developed to the point where it was
ready to accept and use a theory of evolution. What was needed, however, was an acceptable idea on how
such an evolution could have occurred. ... Earlier we saw that biogenesis was accepted only after a very
impressive mass of experimental evidence was brought out to support it. Darwin's natural selection theory of
evolution was accepted much more quickly and with practically no experimental evidence. In fact, as first
presented, it was more of a hypothesis than a real theory. Though no experiments had been run, the
hypothesis was consistent with an amazing array of simple observations. Biology was fully ready for the
concept of natural selection by the time it actually appeared. ... It is now thought that natural selection is by
no means the only important mechanism involved in evolution, however. The picture is far more complex
than anything envisioned by Charles Darwin. Setting forth theories without experimental evidence is a
dangerous practice." (Beck, S.D, "The Simplicity of Science," [1959], The Scientific Book Club: London,
pp.51-52, 56-57)
15/07/2006
"A person-scientist or non-scientist-may become so impressed with the magnificence of science and so
imbued with the power of the scientific method, that lie may attempt to make science a way of life. This tends
to make a religion of science, a philosophy which has been called scientism or scientific humanism.
Scientism asserts that Christianity and other formal religions have failed, and that the only true knowledge is
scientific knowledge. The only pathway to understanding is through the laboratory. Any conviction not
backed by verification via the scientific method is untenable. All other forms of knowledge are held to be
mere by-products of the human brain, patterns of thinking and superstition, as it were. Purpose, beauty,
aspiration, immortality, have no reality; they are not to be found except through wishful thinking. It is a great
and fundamental mistake to assert that any one body of knowledge constitutes the only true knowledge. To
so limit the validity of human thought and experience is a narrow-minded approach to understanding. It can
lead only to a cramped and desperate view. Science does not provide a philosophy, a religion, or a way of
life. The attitude that science is the only avenue to truth cannot be consistently maintained, for it is to try to
live in a universe of measurements. It is to ascribe reality to only the measurement, while denying that that
which was measured can, in any other sense, be known. This sort of reasoning has led some to describe a
ray of light as a ray of knowledge. We are confident that science is a measure of what goes on in the world,
but we have no reason to believe that this measurable reality is the only knowable reality. As was pointed
out in the discussion of vitalism and mechanism and of the problem of purpose, science is not a "nothing
but" approach to nature. It does not show that knowledge is necessarily nothing but measurements. It does
not prove that religion is nothing but wishful thinking. Science does not lead inevitably to scientism.
Scientism is a philosophical system which does lip service to science in an effort to camouflage its dogma."
(Beck, S.D, "The Simplicity of Science," [1959], The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, p.194. Emphasis
original)
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"If, as scientism proposes, religious knowledge should be discarded in favour of scientific interpretation, a
number of serious problems arise. One of these problems has to do with ethical standards. On what basis
could we build a standard of desirable human behaviour? A number of suggestions have been made. None
of them are in any sense scientific, however, because science has nothing to say on the subject of ethics.
Science deals with things and events as they actually occur; that is, science is concerned with `what is,' and
not with `what ought to be.' Efforts to find an ethical standard in scientific knowledge, biology in particular,
have been quite unsuccessful. The difficulty is that it is necessary to decide beforehand what kind of an
ethical standard is to be considered appropriate for effective human conduct. Only then can biological
parallels be found. Comparing a society to a living organism, with the action of each part being directed
toward the maintenance and welfare of the whole body, is an appealing biological analogy. A standard of
behaviour which treats each individual as a single cell in the body of a super-organism, and demands that he
act always in the interest of the social organism, would probably lead only to the blind slavery of the
beehive. No room for individual freedom would be found, and the system would lead to homogeneous,
standardized populations. It has also been suggested, quite seriously, that human behaviour and the shape
of human society should be determined by man's responsibility to biological evolution. This idea is based
on a particular interpretation of biology, according to which only genes have any real importance. The
organism is merely a gene carrier synthesized by the genes themselves. Evolution is the result of natural
selection for more efficient gene carriers. The human race is responsible for seeing that this process is
continued, so that better and higher types of human beings may be evolved. This philosophy is in no way
scientific; it is not a necessary-or even very plausible-consequence of biological knowledge. Under such a
plan, there would undoubtedly be considerable difficulty in deciding just what constitutes the most
desirable direction for human evolution to take. It could, at best, lead only to the type of meaningless
society described by Aldous Huxley in his satirical science fiction story Brave New World." (Beck, S.D,
"The Simplicity of Science," [1959], The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, pp.195-196)
15/07/2006
"n contrast to these `scientifically based' suggestions, the code of ethics which is part of the Judaeo-
Christian tradition provides opportunity for a maximum of freedom, personal responsibility, and spiritual
growth. It has frequently been suggested that the Christian ethics be retained, while the rest of the religion
should be discarded as myth. Clearly, this is not possible, for the ethics depend on the religion for their
meaning and authority. Without the religion as the basis, the ethics would tend to shift with the
expediencies of the times. There is a need for ideals in the life of an individual and in the life and growth of a
society. In science, too, ideal concepts are needed as the basis of natural laws. These ideals are quite
unattainable, and yet they are powerful guiding principles. They provide the standards by which scientific
progress is measured. ... Because our science is not perfect, and because we cannot work in isolation from
the universe, these ideals cannot be fully realized. No scientist would suggest, however, that we abandon
them. Without such guiding ideals, science would become willy-nilly and progress would shortly cease. In
the realm of spiritual growth and awareness, religion provides a guiding universal ideal. Because humans are
not perfect beings, these ideals are essentially unattainable. Christianity teaches that only a perfect person,
Christ, could live a perfect life, but as long as this ideal is held before us and our lives are directed toward it
in faith and sincerity, the ideal can be approached. To many people, this is sheer myth and mysticism. In this
world of practicalities-satellites and wars and depressions-there seems little room or reason for such ideals.
They may be quite willing to accept on faith the idea of scientific ideals which cannot be realized, and yet
unwilling to subscribe to comparable spiritual ideals. To discard the spiritual ideal, but retain the ethics
which arise from it, seems no more practical than to discard idealized scientific laws but retain the knowledge
which is consequent from them." (Beck, S.D, "The Simplicity of Science," [1959], The Scientific Book Club:
London, 1960, pp.196-197. Emphasis original)
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"Evolution. Keeping close track of the meanings of the word `evolution' is one of the most difficult tasks
facing the believer who wants to practice discernment in today's world. Many popularizers of naturalism-as-
science build their arguments on equivocation on this word, and thus many believers come to suspect that
every use of the word is loaded with naturalistic implications. The basic meaning of the word is change over
time. This basic meaning is simply a descriptive claim, and makes no comment on how that change may have
taken place, nor on how extensive those changes might be. For example, in linguistics it is possible to speak
of the `evolution of the Germanic dialects,' and in so doing to imply nothing about mechanism. When
cosmologists speak of the `evolution of the cosmos' they need not be saying anything other than that the
cosmos is changing over time: if they are making a metaphysical claim, they are cloaking their meaning with
the term. This basic meaning may be employed in biology, to the effect that the creatures we see today are
related to those whose remains we dig up in the fossils; and that the differences have to do with genetic
changes that the descendants have inherited. For example, we can find authors who write of dingoes as
having evolved from domestic dogs brought to Australia by the aborigines. We also find authors
(sometimes the same ones!) who write of domestic dogs as having evolved from wolves. These two
examples show that when we use the word in this way we make no claim as to the mechanics of the
processes involved: in the case of the dingo, the process is a `natural' one, while in the case of our existing
domestic dogs the process is one of selective breeding (i.e. `interference' with `nature'). If this were the only
meaning of `evolution' in biology there would not be the kind of controversy that we find today. Christians
who are supernaturalistic creationists would, to be sure, disagree among themselves over just how much
genetic relatedness the various species have with each other: e.g. do dogs and coyotes share a common
ancestor? What of dogs and foxes? Dogs and cats? However, they would all reject the claim that natural
processes alone are adequate for explaining what we see. The reigning beliefs about evolution in our culture
generally make a strong metaphysical claim of a naturalistic sort, and this introduces another meaning of the
word. For example, the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT), in its official 1997 statement on
teaching evolution, gives us this definition: `The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an
unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural
selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.' Any special or supernatural activity
of God is excluded by this definition, and indeed, by their definition of `science' (which, ironically,
contradicts their claim that `evolutionary theory, indeed all of science, is necessarily silent on religion and
neither refutes nor supports the existence of a deity or deities'). The non-theistic adherent of this view will
probably prefer the earlier version of this NABT statement, which called evolution an `unsupervised,
impersonal, unpredictable and natural process.'" ("Report of the Creation Study Committee," Presbyterian
Church in America: Atlanta GA, 2000. Emphasis original)
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"Facts are the world's data; theories are explanations proposed to interpret and coordinate facts. The fact of
evolution is as well established as anything in science (as secure as the revolution of the earth about the
sun), though absolute certainty has no place in our lexicon. Theories, or statements about the causes of
documented evolutionary change, are now in a period of intense debate-a good mark of science in its
healthiest state. Facts don't disappear while scientists debate theories. As I wrote in an early issue of this
magazine (May 1981), "Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend
themselves in mid-air pending the outcome." (Gould, S.J., "Darwinism Defined: The Difference Between Fact
and Theory," Discover, January 1987, pp.64-70, p.64)
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"Since facts and theories are so different, it isn't surprising that these two components of science have had
separate histories ever since Darwin. Between 1859 (the year of publication for the Origin of Species) and
1882 (the year of Darwin's death), nearly all thinking people came to accept the fact of evolution. ... His
theory of natural selection has experienced a much different, and checkered, history. It attracted some
notable followers during his lifetime (Wallace in England, Weismann in Germany), but never enjoyed
majority support. It became an orthodoxy among English-speaking evolutionists (but never, to this day, in
France or Germany) during the 1930s, and received little cogent criticism until the 1970s. The past fifteen
years have witnessed a revival of intense and, this time, highly fruitful debate as scientists discover and
consider the implications of phenomena that expand the potential causes of evolution well beyond the
unitary focus of strict Darwinism (the struggle for reproductive success among organisms within
populations). Darwinian selection will not be overthrown; it will remain a central focus of more inclusive
evolutionary theories. But new findings and interpretations at all levels, from molecular change in genes to
patterns of overall diversity in geological time, have greatly expanded the scope of important causes-from
random, selectively neutral change at the genetic level, to punctuated equilibria and catastrophic mass
extinction in geological time." (Gould, S.J., "Darwinism Defined: The Difference Between Fact and Theory,"
Discover, January 1987, pp.64-70, p.64)
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"Nevertheless, in June, 1861, Mr. Darwin writes again to Dr. Gray: `I have been led to think more on this
subject of late, and grieve to say that I come to differ more from you. It is not that designed variation makes,
as it seems to me, my deity of 'Natural Selection' superfluous, but rather from studying, lately, domestic
variation, and seeing what an enormous field of undesigned variability there is ready for natural selection to
appropriate for any purpose useful to each creature.' [Darwin, C.R., in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters
of Charles Darwin," John Murray: London, 1888, Vol. II. p.373]. And a month later he writes to Miss Julia
Wedgwood: `Owing to several correspondents I have been led lately to think, or rather to try to think over
some of the chief points discussed by you. But the result has been with me a maze something like thinking
on the origin of evil, to which you allude. The mind refuses to look at this universe, being what it is, without
having been designed; yet, where one would most expect design, viz. in the structure of a sentient being,
the more I think on the subject, the less I can see proof of design. Asa Gray and some others look at each
variation, or at least at each beneficial variation (which A. Gray would compare with the rain-drops which do
not fall on the sea, but on to the land to fertilize it) as having been providentially designed. Yet when I ask
him whether he looks at each variation of the rock-pigeon, by which man has made by accumulation a pouter
or fantail pigeon, as providentially designed for man's amusement, he does not know what to answer; and if
he, or anyone, admits [that] these variations are accidental, as far as purpose is concerned (of course not
accidental as to their cause or origin), then I can see no reason why he should rank the accumulated
variations by which the beautifully adapted woodpecker has been formed, as providentially designed. For it
would be easy to imagine the large crop of the pouter, or tail of the fantail, as of some use to birds, in a state
of nature, having peculiar habits of life. These are the considerations which perplex me about design; but
whether you will care to hear them, I know not.' [Ibid., pp.313-314] The most careless reader of this letter
cannot fail renewedly to feel that while what was on trial before Mr. Darwin's thought was not the argument
`from design' so much as general providence, yet he falls here again into the confusion of confining his view
of God's possible purpose in directing any course of events to the most proximate result, as if it were the
indications of design in a given organism which he was investigating. If, however, it is the existence of a
general and all-comprehending plan in God's mind, for the working out of which He directs and governs all
things, that we are inquiring into, the ever recurring argument from the pouter and fantail pigeons is
irrelevant, proceeding as it does on the unexpressed premise that God's direction of their variations can be
vindicated only if these variations can be shown to be beneficial to the pigeons themselves and that in a
state of nature. It is apparently an unthought thought with Mr. Darwin that the abundance of variations
capable of misdirection on man's part for his pleasure or profit, while of absolutely no use to the bird in a
state of nature, and liable to abuse for the bird and for man in the artificial state of domestication, may yet be
a link in a great chain which in all its links is preordained for good ends whether morally, mentally, or even
physically, whether in this world or in the next. This narrowness of view, which confined his outlook to the
immediate proximate result, played so into the hands of his confusion of thought about the word `design' as
from the outset fatally to handicap his progress to a reasoned conclusion." (Warfield, B.B., "Charles
Darwin's Religious Life: A Sketch in Spiritual Biography," in "Studies in Theology," [1932], Banner of Truth:
Edinburgh, 1988, reprint, pp.562-563)
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"The history of his yielding up Christianity, because, as he said, `it is not supported by evidence' [National
Reformer, October 29th, 1882] - that is, because its appropriate evidence, being historical, is of a kind which
lay outside of his knowledge or powers of estimation - was therefore paralleled by his gradual yielding up of
his reasoned belief in God, because all the evidences of His activities are not capable of being looked at in
the process of a dissection under the simple microscope. We have seen him at last reaching a position in
which no evidence which he could even imagine would suffice to prove the historical truth of Christianity to
him. He was fast drifting into a similar position about design. He writes to Dr. Gray, apparently in September,
1861: `Your question what would convince me of Design is a poser. If I saw an angel come down to teach us
good, and I was convinced from others seeing him that I was not mad, I should believe in design. If I could
be convinced thoroughly that life and mind was in an unknown way a function of other imponderable force,
I should be convinced. If man was made of brass or iron and no way connected with any other organism
which had ever lived, I should perhaps be convinced. But this is childish writing.' [Darwin, C.R., in Darwin,
F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," John Murray: London, 1888, Vol. II. p.377] And so indeed it
is, and in a sense in which Mr. Darwin scarcely intended. But such words teach us very clearly where the
real difficulty lay in his own mind. Life and mind with him were functions of matter; and he could not see that
any other concause in bringing new births into the world, could be witnessed to by the nature of the results,
than the natural forces employed in the natural process of reproduction. He believed firmly that
indiscriminate variation, reacted upon through natural laws by the struggle for existence, was the sufficient
account of every discrimination in organic nature-was the vera causa of all forms which life took; and
believing this, he could see no need of God's additional activity to produce the very same effects, and could
allow no evidence of its working. `I have lately,' he continues in the letter to Dr. Gray just quoted, `been
corresponding with Lyell, who, I think, adopts your idea of the stream of variation having been led or
designed. I have asked him (and he says he will hereafter reflect and answer me) whether he believes that
the shape of my nose was designed. If he does I have nothing more to say. If not, seeing what Fanciers
have done by selecting individual differences in the nasal bones of pigeons, I must think that it is illogical to
suppose that the variations, which natural selection preserves for the good of any being, have been
designed. But I know that I am in the same sort of muddle (as I have said before) as all the world seems to be
in with respect to free will, yet with everything supposed to have been foreseen or pre-ordained.' [Ibid.,
p.378] And again, a few months later, still laboring under the same confusion, he writes to the same
correspondent: `If anything is designed, certainly man must be: one's "inner consciousness" (though a false
guide) tells one so; yet I cannot admit that men's rudimentary mammae ... were designed. If I was to say I
believed this, I should believe it in the same incredible manner as the orthodox believe the Trinity in Unity.
You say that you are in a haze; I am in thick mud; ... yet I cannot keep out of the question.' [Ibid, p.382] One
wonders whether Mr. Darwin, in examining a door-knocker carved in the shape of a face, would say that he
believed the handle was `designed,' but could not admit that the carved face was `designed.' Nevertheless,
an incised outline on a bit of old bone, though without obvious use, or a careless chip on the edge of a flint,
though without possible use, would at once be judged by him to be `designed' - that is, to be evidence, if
not of obvious contrivance, yet certainly of intentional activity. Why he could not make a similar distinction
in natural products remains a standing matter of surprise." (Warfield, B.B., "Charles Darwin's Religious Life:
A Sketch in Spiritual Biography," in "Studies in Theology," [1932], Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 1988,
reprint, pp.563-565)
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"Nor was the setting aside of teleology merely the discrediting of one theistic proof in order to clear the way
for others. The strong acid of Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of man ate into the very heart of the other
proofs as surely, though not by the same channel, as it had eaten into the fabric of the argument from
design. We have already seen him speaking of the demand of the mind for a sufficient cause for the universe
and its contents as possessing great weight with him; and he realized the argumentative value of the human
conviction, arising from the feelings of dependence and responsibility, that there is One above us on whom
we depend and to whom we are responsible. But both these arguments were, in his judgment, directly
affected by his view of the origin of man's mental and moral nature, as a development, by means of the
interworking of natural laws alone, from the germ of intelligence found in brutes. We have seen how
uncompromisingly he denied to Lyell the need or propriety of postulating any additional powers or any
directing energy for the production of man's mental and moral nature. In the same spirit he writes
complainingly to Mr. Wallace in 1869: `I can see no necessity for calling in an additional and proximate
cause in regard to man.' [Darwin, C.R., in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," John
Murray: London, 1888, Vol. III. p.116] This being so, he felt that he could scarcely trust man's intuitions or
convictions. And thus he was able at the end of his life (1881) to acknowledge his `inward conviction ... that
the Universe is not the result of chance,' and at once to add: `But then with me the horrid doubt always
arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals,
are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are
any convictions in such a mind?' [Ibid., I, p.316] It is illustrative of Mr. Darwin's strange confusion of
thought on metaphysical subjects that he does not appear to perceive that this doubt, if valid at all, ought to
affect not only the religious convictions of men, but all their convictions; and that it, therefore, undermines
the very theory of man's origin, because of which it arises within him. There is not a whit more reason to
believe that the processes of physical research and the logical laws by means of which inferences are drawn
and inductions attained are trustworthy, than that these higher convictions, based on the same mental laws,
are trustworthy; and the origin of man's mind from a brutish source, if fatal to trust in one mental process, is
fatal to trust in all the others, throwing us, as the result of such a plea, into sheer intellectual suicide."
(Warfield, B.B., "Charles Darwin's Religious Life: A Sketch in Spiritual Biography," in "Studies in
Theology," [1932], Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 1988, reprint, pp.568-569)
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"Let us now briefly consider the steps by which domestic races have been produced, either from one or from
several allied species. Some effect may be attributed to the direct and definite action of the external
conditions of life, and some to habit; but he would be a bold man who would account by such agencies for
the differences between a dray- and race-horse, a greyhound and bloodhound, a carrier and tumbler pigeon.
One of the most remarkable features in our domesticated races is that we see in them adaptation, not indeed
to the animal's or plant's own good, but to man's use or fancy. ... when we compare the dray horse and race
horse, the dromedary and camel, the various breeds of sheep fitted either for cultivated land or mountain
pasture, with the wool of one breed good for one purpose, and that of another breed for another purpose;
when we compare the many breeds of dogs, each good for man in different ways ... we must, I think, look
further than to mere variability. We cannot suppose that all the breeds were suddenly produced as perfect
and as useful as we now see them; indeed, in many cases, we know that this has not been their history. The
key is man's power of accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; man adds them up in
certain directions useful to him. In this sense he may be said to have made for himself useful breeds. ... Can
the principle of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply under nature? I think
we shall see that it can act most efficiently." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural
Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994, pp.22, 62)
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"Eyes don't fossilize, so we don't know how long our type of eye took to evolve its present complexity and
perfection from nothing, but the time available is several hundred million years. Think, by way of
comparison, of the change that man has wrought in a much shorter time by genetic selection of dogs. In a
few hundreds, or at most thousands, of years we have gone from wolf to Pekinese, Bulldog, Chihuahua and
Saint Bernard. Ah, but they are still dogs aren't they? They haven't turned into a different 'kind' of animal?
Yes, if it comforts you to play with words like that, you can call them all dogs. But just think about the time
involved. Let's represent the total time it took to evolve all these breeds of dog from a wolf, by one ordinary
walking pace. Then, on the same scale, how far would you have to walk, in order to get back to Lucy and her
kind, the earliest human fossils that unequivocally walked upright? The answer is about 2 miles. And how
far would you have to walk, in order to get back to the start of evolution on Earth? The answer is that you
would have to slog it out all the way from London to Baghdad. Think of the total quantity of change
involved in going from wolf to Chihuahua, and then multiply it up by the number of walking paces between
London and Baghdad. This will give some intuitive idea of the amount of change that we can expect in real
natural evolution." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," W.W Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, p.40.
Emphasis original)
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"`How came he, then?' I reiterated. `The door is locked, the window is inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?'
The grate is much too small,' he answered. `I had already considered that possibility.' `How then?' I persisted.
`You will not apply my precept,' he said, shaking his head. `How often have I said to you that when you have
eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not
come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the
room, as there is no concealment possible. Whence, then, did he come?' `He came through the hole in the roof,' I
cried. `Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the kindness to hold the lamp for me, we shall
now extend our researches to the room above, - the secret room in which the treasure was found.'" (Doyle, A.C.,
"The Sign of Four," Penguin: London, 2001, pp.42-43. Emphasis original)
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"We may even go further, and maintain that there are certain purely physical characteristics of the human
race which are not explicable on the theory of variation and survival of the fittest. The brain, the organs of
speech, the hand, and the external form of man, offer some special difficulties in this respect, to which we
will briefly direct attention." (Wallace, A.R., "Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of
Species," Quarterly Review, Vol. 126, April 1869, pp.359-394, p.391)
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"In the brain of the lowest savages, and, as far as we yet know, of the pre-historic races, we have an organ
so little inferior in size and complexity to that of the highest types (such as the average European), that we
must believe it capable, under a similar process of gradual development during the space of two or three
thousand years, of producing equal average results. But the mental requirements of the lowest savages,
such as the Australians or the Andaman islanders, are very little above those of many animals. The higher
moral faculties and those of pure intellect and refined emotion are useless to them, are rarely if ever
manifested, and have no relation to their wants, desires, or well-being. How, then, was an organ developed
so far beyond the needs of its possessor? Natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a
brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one but very little inferior to that of
the average members of our learned societies." (Wallace, A.R., "Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates
and the Origin of Species," Quarterly Review, Vol. 126, April 1869, pp.359-394, pp.391-392)
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"Again, what a wonderful organ is the hand of man; of what marvels of delicacy is it capable, and how
greatly it assists in his education and mental development! The whole circle of the arts and sciences are
ultimately dependent on our possession of this organ, without which we could hardly have become truly
human. This hand is equally perfect in the lowest savage, but he has no need for so fine an instrument, and
can no more fully utilise it than he could use without instruction a complete set of joiner's tools." (Wallace,
A.R., "Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of Species," Quarterly Review, Vol. 126,
April 1869, pp.359-394, p.392)
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"We have further to ask - How did man acquire his erect posture, his delicate yet expressive features, the
marvellous beauty and symmetry of his whole external form;--a form which stands alone, in many respects
more distinct from that of all the higher animals than they are from each other? Those who have lived much
among savages know that even the lowest races of mankind, if healthy and well fed, exhibit the human form
in its complete symmetry and perfection. They all have the soft smooth skin absolutely free from any hairy
covering on the dorsal line, where all other mammalia from the Marsupials up to the Anthropoid apes have it
most densely and strongly developed. What use can we conceive to have been derived from this exquisite
beauty and symmetry and this smooth bare skin, both so very widely removed from his nearest allies? And
if these modifications were of no physical use to him--or if, as appears almost certain in the case of the
naked skin, they were at first a positive disadvantage--we know that they could not have been produced by
natural selection. Yet we can well understand that both these characters were essential to the proper
development of the perfect human being. The supreme beauty of our form and countenance has probably
been the source of all our ĉsthetic ideas and emotions, which could hardly have arisen had we retained the
shape and features of an erect gorilla; and our naked skin, necessitating the use of clothing, has at once
stimulated our intellect, and by developing the feeling of personal modesty may have profoundly affected
our moral nature." (Wallace, A.R., "Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of Species,"
Quarterly Review, Vol. 126, April 1869, pp.359-394, pp.392-393)
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"The same line of argument may be used in connexion with the structural and mental organs of human
speech, since that faculty can hardly have been physically useful to the lowest class of savages; and if not,
the delicate arrangements of nerves and muscles for its production could not have been developed and co-
ordinated by natural selection. This view is supported by the fact that, among the lowest savages with the
least copious vocabularies, the capacity of uttering a variety of distinct articulate sounds, and of applying
to them an almost infinite amount of modulation and inflection, is not in any way inferior to that of the
higher races. An instrument has been developed in advance of the needs of its possessor." (Wallace, A.R.,
"Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of Species," Quarterly Review, Vol. 126,
April 1869, pp.359-394, p.393)
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"This subject is a vast one, and would require volumes for its proper elucidation, but enough, we think, has
now been said, to indicate the possibility of a new stand-point for those who cannot accept the theory of
evolution as expressing the whole truth in regard to the origin of man. While admitting to the full extent the
agency of the same great laws of organic development in the origin of the human race as in the origin of all
organized beings, there yet seems to be evidence of a Power which has guided the action of those laws in
definite directions and for special ends. And so far from this view being out of harmony with the teachings
of science, it has a striking analogy with what is now taking place in the world, and is thus strictly
uniformitarian in character. Man himself guides and modifies nature for special ends. The laws of evolution
alone would perhaps never have produced a grain so well adapted to his uses as wheat; such fruits as the
seedless banana, and the bread-fruit; such animals as the Guernsey milch-cow, or the London dray-horse.
Yet these so closely resemble the unaided productions of nature, that we may well imagine a being who had
mastered the laws of development of organic forms through past ages, refusing to believe that any new
power had been concerned in their production, and scornfully rejecting the theory that in these few cases a
distinct intelligence had directed the action of the laws of variation, multiplication, and survival, for his own
purposes. We know, however, that this has been done; and we must therefore admit the possibility, that in
the development of the human race, a Higher Intelligence has guided the same laws for nobler ends."
(Wallace, A.R., "Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of Species," Quarterly Review,
Vol. 126, April 1869, pp.359-394, pp.393-394)
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"Such, we believe, is the direction in which we shall find the true reconciliation of Science with Theology on
this most momentous problem. Let us fearlessly admit that the mind of man (itself the living proof of a
supreme mind) is able to trace, and to a considerable extent has traced, the laws by means of which the
organic no less than the inorganic world has been developed. But let us not shut our eyes to the evidence
that an Overruling Intelligence has watched over the action of those laws, so directing variations and so
determining their accumulation, as finally to produce an organization sufficiently perfect to admit of, and
even to aid in, the indefinite advancement of our mental and moral nature." (Wallace, A.R., "Sir Charles
Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of Species," Quarterly Review, Vol. 126, April 1869,
pp.359-394, p.394)
17/07/2006
"In March 1869 Darwin wrote to Mr. Wallace: `I shall be intensely curious to read the Quarterly. I hope you
have not murdered too completely your own and my child.' The reference is to Mr. Wallace's review, in the April
number of the Quarterly, of Lyell's Principles of Geology (tenth edition), and of the sixth edition of the
Elements of Geology. Mr. Wallace points out that here for the first time Sir C. Lyell gave up his opposition to
evolution; and this leads Mr. Wallace to give a short account of the views set forth in the Origin of Species. In
this article Mr. Wallace makes a definite statement as to his views on the evolution of man, which were opposed
to those of Mr. Darwin. He upholds the view that the brain of man, as well as the organs of speech, the hand and
the external form, could not have been evolved by Natural Selection (the child he is supposed to murder). At
page 391 he writes: `In the brain of the lowest savages, and, as far as we know, of the prehistoric races, we have
an organ...little inferior in size and complexity to that of the highest types...But the mental requirements of the
lowest savages, such as the Australians or the Andaman Islanders, are very little above those of many
animals...How, then, was an organ developed so far beyond the needs of its possessor? Natural Selection could
only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one
but very little inferior to that of the average members of our learned societies.' This passage is marked in Mr.
Darwin's copy with a triply underlined `No,' and with a shower of notes of exclamation. It was probably the first
occasion on which he realised the extent of this great and striking divergence in opinion between himself and his
colleague. He had, however, some indication of it in Wallace's paper on Man, Anthropological Review, 1864.
(See Letter 406). He wrote to Lyell, May 4th, 1869, `I was dreadfully disappointed about Man; it seems to me
incredibly strange.' And to Mr. Wallace, April 14th, 1869, `If you had not told me, I should have thought that
[your remarks on Man] had been added by some one else. As you expected, I differ grievously from you, and I
am very sorry for it." (Darwin, F. & Seward, A.C., eds, "More Letters of Charles Darwin," John Murray: London,
1903, Vol. II, pp.39-40. ).
17/07/2006
"Phenotypic plasticity ... The ability of an organism with a given genotype to change its phenotype in
response to changes in the environment is called phenotypic plasticity. Such plasticity in some cases
expresses as several highly morphologically distinct results; in other cases, a continuous norm of reaction
describes the functional interrelationship of a range of environments to a range of phenotypes. Organisms
of fixed genotype may differ in the amount of phenotypic plasticity they display when exposed to the same
environmental change. Hence phenotypic plasticity can evolve and be adaptive if fitness is increased by
changing phenotype. Immobile organisms such as plants have well developed phenotypic plasicity giving a
clue to the adaptive significance of phenotypic plasticity. A highly illustrative example of phenotypic
plasticity is found in the social insects, colonies of which depend on the division of their members into
distinct castes, such as workers and guards. Individuals in separate castes differ dramatically from one
another, both physically and behaviorally. However, the differences are not genetic; they arise during
development and depend on the manner of treatment of the eggs by the queen and the workers, who
manipulate such factors as embryonic diet and incubation temperature. The genome of each individual
contains all the instructions needed to develop into any one of several 'morphs', but only the genes that
form part of one developmental program are activated. " ("Phenotypic plasticity," Wikipedia, 26 May 2006).
18/07/2006
"I think the universe is a message written in code, a cosmic code, and the scientists job is to decipher that
code. This idea, that the universe is a message, is very old. It goes back to Greece, but its modern version
was started by the English empiricist Francis Bacon, who wrote that there are two revelations. The first is
given to us in scripture and tradition, and it guided our thinking for centuries. The second revelation is
given by the universe, and that book we are just beginning to read. The sentences within this book are the
physical laws - those postulated and confirmed invariances of our experience. If there are those who claim a
conversion experience through reading scripture, I would point out that the book of nature also has its
converts. They may be less evangelical than religious converts, but they share a deep conviction that an
order of the universe exists and can be known." (Pagels, H.R., "The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the
Language of Nature," [1982], Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK, 1984, p.315)
18/07/2006
"Stove's demolition of certain aspects of Darwinian theory, in Darwinian Fairytales and related essays, is
equally thorough and convincing. Stove is unusual among anti-Darwinians. He is not a creationist; indeed,
he is careful to point out that he is `of no religion.' Moreover, he admires Darwin greatly as a thinker, placing
him at the top of his personal pantheon, along with Shakespeare, Purcell, Newton, and Hume. Stove
furthermore believes that it is `overwhelmingly probable' that our species evolved from some other and that
`natural selection is probably the cause which is principally responsible for the coming into existence of new
species from old ones.' Indeed, he believes that `the Darwinian explanation of evolution is a very good one
as far as it goes, and it has turned out to go an extremely long way. Its explanatory power, even In 1859, was
visibly very great, but it has turned out to be far greater than anyone then could have realized. And then, in
the 1930s, the Darwinian theory received further accessions of explanatory strength through its confluence
or synthesis with the new knowledge of genetics. And this `new synthesis,' or `neo-Darwinism,' has been
itself growing rapidly in explanatory power ever since.'" (Stove D.C., in Kimball R., ed., "Against the Idols of
the Age," [1999], Transaction Publishers: New Brunswick NJ, Second Printing, 2000, p.xxviii)
18/07/2006
"In the 1950s the evolutionary geneticist, J.B.S. Haldane, calculated the maximum rate of genetic change due
to differential survival. He reluctantly concluded there is a serious problem here, now known as Haldane's
Dilemma. [Haldane, J.B.S., "The Cost of Natural Selection," Journal of Genetics, Vol. 55, pp.511- 524] His
calculations show that many species of higher vertebrate could not plausibly evolve in the available time. ...
Differential survival is required for selective gene substitution, and this causes genetic death. There is no
way around it. Some individuals must live, and others must die without heirs. The substitution of a gene
incurs some number of deaths. We divide this by the number of survivors who reproductively 'pay' for the
genetic deaths, and the ratio is called the cost of substitution. ... Haldane found the cost of gene
substitution is reduced if the replacement is slower, over more generations. Thus, the cost is lower if the
selection coefficients are smaller. He found the cost is minimized and becomes nearly constant for all
selection coefficients less than ten percent (s < 0.1), which is said to cover most evolution. The selection
coefficients need not remain constant during gene substitution, but may vary. As long as s is less than
0.1 then the cost is kept constant and at a minimum. ... Haldane estimated that over a variety of
circumstances the substitution of a gene incurs an average cost of thirty (Cs = 30). ... Haldane then
surveyed the capacity of higher vertebrate species to pay the various costs. He estimated that averaged
over the long term these species have a reproductive excess of one tenth (Ps = 0.1). This means the typical
higher vertebrate can reproduce an additional one tenth its population size each generation and devote this
excess specifically (and with perfect efficiency) to paying the cost of substitution. In summary, the cost of
substitution Cs is 30 and it is paid off in installments (Ps) of 0.1 each generation. At that rate it takes (Cs +
Ps) 300 generations to pay the cost of substituting one gene. Haldane's conclusion was clear: over the long
term, the average rate of gene substitution is no better than one gene every 300 generations. This does not
mean these substitutions occur sequentially, one by one. Several genes can undergo substitution
simultaneously at various speeds. If you average all these speeds, then the total rate can be one per 300
generations. Over the long term, a faster rate than this is not plausible- the species cannot plausibly pay the
cost." (ReMine, W.J., "The Biotic Message: Evolution Versus Message Theory," St. Paul Science: Saint
Paul MN, 1993, pp.208, 215-216)
18/07/2006
"The rate of evolution is easily defined. It is simply the amount of change in a trait divided by the time the
change took. ...Rates of evolution could also be used to test the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Natural selection takes time. For a mutant to increase in frequency from its initial rare state to become the
normal gene in the whole population may take a few thousand generations. The exact amount of time can be
calculated from equations first derived by J.B.S. Haldane in 1924; it depends on the gene's initial frequency
and its selective advantage. A mutant that produces on average 1 per cent more offspring than its
alternative allele, for instance, would take 4,266 generations to increase in frequency from 0.1 per cent to 99.9
per cent of the population. If the selective advantage of a particular change in a particular trait were known,
Haldane's equation would predict how fast it should evolve under natural selection. The prediction could in
principle be tested. In practice, no strong test of this kind has ever been possible. The evidence is not good
enough. Our knowledge of genetics and selective advantages is too weak, let alone the quality of fossil
evidence. The selective advantages of most evolutionary changes are probably not much more than a few
per cent (and probably much less). We can predict that evolution should never go faster than such a
selective advantage would allow. In fact the rates of evolution observed in the fossil record are well below
that limit. This provides a test of Darwinism, for evolution could possibly go faster than Darwinism allows,
and if it did we should need another theory: the fact that the rates are not too fast is evidence for the
Darwinian theory. But the test is imprecise; the range of facts allowed by the theory is very wide. (Ridley,
M., "The Problems of Evolution," Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 1985, pp.121-122)
18/07/2006
"Leaping Lizards? All of this makes one sympathetic with Nicholas Wade of The New York Times, who
recently wrote an article entitled `Leapin' Evolution Is Found in Lizards.' This was a report on an experiment in
which lizards of the species Anolis sagrei from an island in the Bahamas were released onto an island lacking
lizards and with a different vegetation pattern (Losos, Warheit and Schoener 1997) [Losos, J.B., Warheit, K.I. &
Schoener, T.W.. Adaptive differentiation following experimental island colonization in Anolis lizards.
Nature, Vol. 387, 1997, pp.70-73]. After 10 years, the limb proportions of the experimental population had
shifted significantly in the direction predicted on the basis of the new host ecology. Whether the results
document a case of evolution depends, of course, on definitions. Certainly it is a form of change over time, and
such demonstrations are a necessary requirement for documenting a case of Darwinian evolution caught in
flagrante delicto. But it is not sufficient to the case. All evolution is change, but not all change is evolution.
Rates of change can be measured, as they were in this experiment; to call them `rates of evolution' as do Losos,
Warheit and Schoener begs the most interesting question. I would argue that in order to constitute evidence of
true evolution a phenomenon must meet three simple criteria: It must be shown to be genetically based, it must be
irreversible, and it should result in reproductive isolation of populations. In other words, the smoking gun of
evolution is speciation, not local adaptation and differentiation of populations. ... This exciting new study, rather
like the superb observational work of Peter and Rosemary Grant on Galapagos finches and a number of other
recent studies, at last gives some thorough quantification in a field in which it has been notably lacking. Whether
or not they provide the long-sought smoking gun of evolution, the experiments of Losos, Warheit and Schoener
have the potential to explore the mechanism(s) underlying the processes of adaptation. Darwin's use of `natural
selection' is normally considered to mean the sorting of genetic-based variation within a particular environmental
context. The authors of the paper do not use the term. Nor do they consider the short-term directional change
observed in these lizards to be evidence for founder effect or genetic drift. Instead, the authors of this exciting
Anolis study present it as a possible demonstration of the potential `macroevolutionary significance' of
`phenotypic plasticity.' They argue for the `adaptive importance of nongenetic environmental effects on
morphological size and shape of animals.' By this they appear to mean that if Anolis can adapt rapidly to new
environments without the introduction of new genetic variation, perhaps the mode of rapid evolution required for
punctuated equilibrium is a possibility. This less-than-traditional interpretation owes more to the ideas of
Waddington (for example, genetic assimilation) or Schmalhausen than to the classical population genetics of
Dobzhansky. The million-dollar question is: What mechanisms lie between the short-term, low-scale and wholly
reversible results so far obtained and the origin of a new species? What conditions and mechanisms are required
to feed back from a given level of phenotypic plasticity to a new genetic or phenotypic constitution? Stay
tuned." (Thomson, K.S., "Natural Selection and Evolution's Smoking Gun," American Scientist, Vol. 85, No. 6,
November-December 1997, pp.516-518, p.518)
19/07/2006
"Darwin himself spent from January to June 1837 in writing his Journal of Researches, which, however,
did not appear until 1839 because FitzRoy's volumes on the oceanographical work of the voyage were not
ready until then. Darwin's book, one of the finest works of travel ever written, was not thought worthy of
publication by Dr Holland. Fortunately wiser counsel prevailed. The book is almost entirely descriptive and
does not betray the turmoil that was going on in Darwin's mind, except in one place where, with the help of
hindsight, the modern reader can detect a delicate formulation of the problem. When dealing with the
differences between the flora and fauna on the eastern and western sides of the Andes, Darwin wrote,
`unless we suppose the same species to have been created in two different countries, we ought not to
expect any closer similarity between the organic beings on opposite sides of the Andes, than on shores
separated by a broad strait of the sea,' to which he added a footnote, `The whole reasoning, of course, is
founded on the assumption of the immutability of species. Otherwise the changes might be considered as
superinduced by different circumstances in the two regions during a length of time.' Here was his first veiled
but public admission of the possibility that species might be mutable." (de Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin:
Evolution by Natural Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, pp.84-85)
19/07/2006
"The private diary or journal that Darwin kept contains an important entry in 1837: `In July opened first note
book on "Transmutation of Species"-had been greatly struck from about Month of previous March on
character of S. American fossils-and species on Galapagos Archipelago. These facts origin (especially latter)
of all my views.' The First Notebook shows how much thought he had already put into the problem by July
1837." (de Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, p.86)
19/07/2006
"Darwin's next step was to show that variation must be heritable to be significant for his purpose, and it has
been shown by Sydney Smith that he took this step, from the critical marginal notes that he entered in his
copy of Lyell's Principles of Geology, fifth edition (1837). Opposite Lyell's statement that `peculiarities of
form, structure, and instinct, are transmissible to the offspring,' Darwin added the comment, `with no
tendency to go back'." (de Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection," Nelson: London,
1963, p.87)
19/07/2006
Having satisfied himself that variation could be heritable, Darwin next showed that it must be unlimited in
extent. This also is known from his comments in the margins of Lyell's Principles of Geology. Opposite
Lyell's assertion of `indefinite divergence [from the common type], either in the way of improvement or
deterioration being prevented,' which was Malthus's view, Darwin commented, `if this were true adios
theory,' which shows not only that he had recognized the fact that no limit could be ascribed to the
possibilities of variation, but also that he had a theory." (de Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural
Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, p.88)
19/07/2006
"Armed with these ingredients, by July 1857 Darwin was in a position to build what he called `my theory'. Its
foundation was, `We know world subject to cycle of change, temperature and all circumstances ...
Absolute knowledge that species die and others replace them-Two hypotheses: fresh creations is mere
assumption, it explains nothing further; points gained if any facts are connected.' As will shortly be seen,
transmutation of species explains many connected facts. He therefore adopted the hypothesis that
transmutation of species has occurred and proceeded to test it in the light of his observations in South
America and the Galapagos Islands. `As we thus believe species vary,' he wrote, `in changing climate we
ought to find representative species: this we do in South America.' These representative species are similar
because they were descended from a common ancestor, and they are different because they have varied and
become adapted to different local conditions. This was why the petise was built on the same plan as the
rhea, and the other South American animals adhered to the South American type. With regard to the
succession of types, he continued, descent of species by variation from other species `explains why modern
animals same type as extinct... . according to my view, in South America parent of all armadilloes might be
brother to Megatherium, uncle now dead.' They are of the same type because they had a common
ancestor from which one line of descendants has become extinct while the other still lives. On the
resemblance of inhabitants of oceanic islands to those of the nearest continental mainland he notes, `If
species 1 may be derived from form 2 etc.,' then (remembering Lyell's arguments of transportal ) `island near
continents might have some species same as nearest land, which were late arrivals, others old ones (of
which none of same kind had in interval arrived) might have grown altered. Hence the type would be of the
continent, though species all different. Two cases as at Galapagos and Juan Fernandez.' This was why the
Galapagos birds were South American in type and the Cape Verde Island birds African. Finally, on the
differences between the inhabitants of islands of the same archipelago, `According to this view, animals on
separate islands ought to become different if kept long enough apart, with slightly different circumstances.
Now Galapagos tortoises, mocking-birds, Falkland fox, Chiloe fox, English and Irish hare.' `My theory' had
successfully answered the questions that confronted him during his travels, and he soon found that it
answered a great many more. Descent with modification from a common ancestor meant that `Organized
beings represent a tree, irregularly branched-hence genera-As many terminal buds dying, as new ones
generated.' A few lines later on, with obvious reference to his work on coral reefs which are dead below a
certain depth, Darwin corrected himself saying, `The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life,
base of branches dead so that passages cannot be seen.' As some of the `terminal buds' die, gaps are left
between them, and therefore `my theory agrees with unequal distances between species, some fine and
some wide which is strange if Creator had so created them.'" (de Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by
Natural Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, pp.90-91. Emphasis original)
19/07/2006
"A more dangerous attack on natural selection was made by Lord Kelvin, who proclaimed that the physical
data on the rate of cooling of the earth proved that its age was much less than had previously been
supposed, and probably not less than 20 or more than 40 million years. This was a subject to which Darwin
had paid particular attention as a geologist. If Kelvin was right, it meant that so little time was available for
the pageant of evolution to have taken place that it could not have been achieved by natural selection of
fortuitous variations. Instead, design and direction would have to be invoked, which was exactly what
Darwin had always fought against. He attached little weight to the physicists' estimates of the age of the
earth because they differed so widely: `I feel a conviction that the world will be found rather older than
Thomson [Kelvin] makes it.' Darwin's uncanny dumb sagacity was well founded, for the discovery of radio-
activity has made nonsense of Kelvin's arguments and has lengthened the estimated age of the earth to over
4,000 million years, sufficient to allow evolution by natural selection of fortuitous variations to have done its
work. There is therefore no reason to repudiate natural selection and to invoke design and direction on the
score of the age of the earth." (de Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection," Nelson:
London, 1963, pp.174-175)
19/07/2006
"Even more dangerous, though in fact no better founded, was the argument put forward in 1867 by Fleeming
Jenkin, who showed that the chances of favourable single variations (mutations) becoming incorporated in a
population were infinitesimally small because of the infrequency with which two similar variants were likely
to meet and because, under the prevailing notion of blending inheritance, such variations would be
swamped and annihilated by interbreeding with the rest of the population. This was damaging to the theory
that natural selection worked by accumulation of fortuitous, favourable, single variations, and it increased
the difficulty of accounting for a sufficient supply of variation for natural selection to work on. Darwin
defended his position by leaning more heavily on the production of variation as the result of the effects,
then supposedly inherited, of use and disuse and of the action of the environment in evoking acquired
characters, and by admitting that natural selection, although the chief cause, might not be the only cause of
evolution. With the knowledge then at his disposal there was nothing else that he could do. These
modifications constitute the chief difference between the sixth and earlier editions of the Origin." (de
Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, pp.175-176)
19/07/2006
"Meanwhile, as part of the study of how the Origin was received, it may be observed that it was not only
from the attacks of his opponents that Darwin needed protection, for some of his supporters persuaded him
to make changes in the later editions of the Origin which were not improvements on the first edition. In
that edition Darwin had referred to an observation made by Samuel Hearne that the black bear swims for
hours `with widely open mouth, thus catching, almost like a whale, insects in the water.' Darwin went on, `I
can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their
structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.'
This argument was treated with such misrepresentation and abuse by Darwin's opponents who made it
mean that he thought a bear could be turned into a whale, and it proved so unpalatable to some of his
friends that Darwin struck it out in subsequent editions; but he always regretted that he had jettisoned his
bear and continued to protest that his argument was sound, as indeed it, and Hearne's observation, are." (de
Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, p.176)
19/07/2006
"Another instance in which Darwin's own better judgment was subsequently overridden by unsound views
of his over-enthusiastic supporters is to be seen in his discussion of the light that embryology throws on
evolution. In the Essay of 1844 (p. 129) he had shown that transmutation of species explains why embryonic
stages of different but related animals may be very similar, because they are descended from a common
ancestor and have inherited from him these embryonic similarities that are evidence of affinity,. while the
different adult forms have diverged. In the Origin, Darwin considered the question whether the embryonic
stages of descendants resembled the adult stages of their ancestors, and, in the fourth edition published in
1866, concluded judiciously that the embryo may be `a picture, more or less obscured, of the progenitor,
either in its adult or larval state.' He also saw that in some cases embryonic or larval stages represent no
ancestral condition whatever: `the various larval and pupal stages of insects have thus been acquired
through adaptation, and not through inheritance from some ancient form.' He even saw that modified larval
forms might be the starting-point for the evolution of new classes of animals, `and the first larval stage
certainly would not represent the former condition of any adult or ancient form.' These views are fully in line
with modern conclusions that lineages can evolve, not from the adult but from the youthful stages of their
ancestors, a mode of evolution known as paedomorphosis. In his work Für Darwin published in 1864, Fritz
Müller claimed that the characteristic larva of Crustacea, called the nauplius, represented the adult ancestor
of Crustacea. It is now realized that this view must be mistaken, because the adult ancestors of Crustacea
and of their relatives, millipedes and worms, must have had bodies containing large numbers of segments, as
shown by trilobites, fossils 600 million years old; whereas the nauplius larva had only three segments in its
little body, and its form is an adaptation to secure wide distribution in the sea before the development of the
adult forms that live on the sea bottom with limited powers of locomotion. The nauplius larva is evidence of
affinity between the different kinds of Crustacea that possess it, but provides no information on what the
adult ancestor of Crustacea was like. Unfortunately Darwin accepted Muller's argument and incorporated it
in the later editions of the Origin. In 1866 Ernst Haeckel, in his enthusiastic search for ancestral forms with
which to populate the evolutionary frees that he drew up, elaborated the relation between embryos and
ancestors into the theory of recapitulation (p. 173), which claimed that the succession of embryonic stages
in the development of a descendant directly represented the succession of adult ancestors in the
evolutionary history of that descendant. This view, now known to be contrary to the evidence and
discarded, is reflected in the later editions of the Origin." (de Beer, G.R., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by
Natural Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, pp.177-178)
19/07/2006
"Yet another example of misplaced zeal on the part of Darwin's friends was Herbert Spencer's expression
`survival of the fittest' which Wallace urged Darwin to adopt as an improvement on the term `natural
selection', because he had had difficulty in making persons understand that natural selection did not imply a
personal selector, which artificial selection did. To Huxley's regret Darwin accepted this `unlucky
substitution' in later editions of the Origin. In fact, survival of the fittest is not a substitute for natural
selection, but a gloss on the struggle for existence such as is to be found in the works of many authors
including Erasmus Darwin and, even, Lucretius. It conveys nothing of the meaning of how adaptations arise
and become more effective or how evolution is brought about. Indeed, the `fittest' can survive without any
evolution taking place at all. At best, it is little more than tautological if fitness is a condition for survival; at
worst, the use of the superlative implies more than is intended. It lays too much stress on survival when
what is really meant is the favouring of those parents that are most proliferous. Instead of adopting the
survival of the fittest as an alternative to natural selection, Darwin would have been better advised to return
to the description that he gave of natural selection in his Notebook when he showed (p. 99) that it exerted
pressure and was `a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying to force every kind of structure into the
gaps in the oeconomy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones.'" (de Beer, G.R.,
"Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection," Nelson: London, 1963, p.178)
19/07/2006
"Clearly, our conception of the world and our place in it is, at the beginning of the 21st century, drastically
different from the zeitgeist at the beginning of the 19th century. ... Many biological ideas proposed during
the past 150 years stood in stark conflict with what everybody assumed to be true. The acceptance of these
ideas required an ideological revolution. And no biologist has been responsible for more-and for more
drastic-modifications of the average person's worldview than Charles Darwin. Darwin's accomplishments
were so many and so diverse that it is useful to distinguish three fields to which he made major
contributions: evolutionary biology; the philosophy of science; and the modern zeitgeist. ... I will be
focusing on this last domain ... A Secular View of Life ... The discovery of natural selection, by Darwin
and Alfred Russel Wallace, must itself be counted as an extraordinary philosophical advance. ... The truly
outstanding achievement of the principle of natural selection is that it makes unnecessary the invocation of
`final causes'-that is, any teleological forces leading to a particular end. In fact, nothing is predetermined. ...
The Darwinian Zeitgeist A 21st-century person looks at the world quite differently than a citizen of the
Victorian era did. This shift had multiple sources, particularly the incredible advances in technology. But
what is not at all appreciated is the great extent to which this shift in thinking indeed resulted from Darwin's
ideas. Remember that in 1850 virtually all leading scientists and philosophers were Christian men. The world
they inhabited had been created by God, and as the natural theologians claimed, He had instituted wise laws
that brought about the perfect adaptation of all organisms to one another and to their environment. At the
same time, the architects of the scientific revolution had constructed a worldview based on physicalism (a
reduction to spatiotemporal things or events or their properties), teleology, determinism and other basic
principles. Such was the thinking of Western man prior to the 1859 publication of on the Origin of
Species. The basic principles proposed by Darwin would stand in total conflict with these prevailing ideas.
First, Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations. The theory of evolution by natural
selection explains the adaptedness and diversity of the world solely materialistically. It no longer requires
God as creator or designer ... Darwin pointed out that creation, as described in the Bible and the origin
accounts of other cultures, was contradicted by almost any aspect of the natural world. Every aspect of the
`wonderful design' so admired by the natural theologians could be explained by natural selection. ...
Eliminating God from science made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena; it gave
rise to positivism; it produced a powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution, the effects of which have
lasted to this day." (Mayr, E.W., "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought," Scientific American, Vol. 283,
No. 1, July 2000, pp.67-71, pp.67-69. Emphasis original). @
19/07/2006
"This surety is called the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of
already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence. ... The implications of the
findings reach far beyond politics. A jury assessing evidence against a defendant, a CEO evaluating
information about a company or a scientist weighing data in favor of a theory will undergo the same
cognitive process. What can we do about it? In science we have built-in self-correcting machinery. Strict
double-blind controls are required in experiments, in which neither the subjects nor the experimenters know
the experimental conditions during the data-collection phase. Results are vetted at professional conferences
and in peer-reviewed journals. Research must be replicated in other laboratories unaffiliated with the original
researcher. Disconfirmatory evidence, as well as contradictory interpretations of the data, must be included
in the paper. Colleagues are rewarded for being skeptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence. We need similar controls for the confirmation bias in the arenas of law, business and politics.
Judges and lawyers should call one another on the practice of mining data selectively to bolster an
argument and warn juries about the confirmation bias. CEOs should assess critically the enthusiastic
recommendations of their VPs and demand to see contradictory evidence and alternative evaluations of the
same plan. Politicians need a stronger peer-review system that goes beyond the churlish opprobrium of the
campaign trail, and I would love to see a political debate in which the candidates were required to make the
opposite case. Skepticism is the antidote for the confirmation bias." (Shermer, M., "The Political Brain,"
Scientific American, July 2006)
20/07/2006
"Character Displacement When newly developed species come into contact again, competition can cause
them to become more phenotypically different from one another. This process, called character
displacement, is again exemplified by Darwin's finches. There are three species of ground finches, G.
fuliginosa, G. fortis, and G. magnirostris, with bills adapted to feeding on small-, medium-, and large-
sized seeds, respectively .... When all three species occur on the same island, they do not mate with each
other and their bill sizes (beak depth) are quite distinctive. However, when G. fortis and G. fuliginosa
are on separate islands, their bills tend to be the same intermediate size because there is no selection
pressure to have larger or smaller beak size, perhaps because of lack of competition from other species."
(Mader. S.S., "Biology," [1985], Wm. C. Brown Co: Dubuque IA, Third Edition, 1990, p.325)
20/07/2006
"One of the best examples of character displacement involves the small and medium ground finches
(Geospiza fuliginosa and Geospiza fortis) of the Galapagos studied by David Lack (1947). ... How many
other clear-cut examples of morphological character displacement are known? Their answer is, surprisingly
few. " (Brewer R., "The Science of Ecology," [1988], Saunders College Publishing: Ft. Worth TX, Second
Edition, 1994, p.290).
20/07/2006
"As examples of the origin of species by natural selection, however, Darwin's finches leave a lot to be
desired though this hasn't stopped some people from using them as examples anyway. But the only way
they can do this is by exaggerating the evidence. ... Thanks to years of careful research by the Grants and
their colleagues, we know quite a lot about natural selection and breeding patterns in Darwin's finches. And
the available evidence is clear. First, selection oscillates with climatic fluctuations, and does not exhibit long-
term evolutionary change. Second, the superior fitness of hybrids means that several species of Galapagos
finches might be in the process of merging rather than diverging. The Grants' excellent field work provided
us with a good demonstration of natural selection in the wild-far better than Kettlewell's peppered moths. If
the Grants had stopped there, their work might stand as an example of science at its best. Yet they have tried
to make more of their work than the evidence warrants. In articles published in 1996 and 1998, the Grants
declared that the Darwinian theory of the origin of species `fits the facts of Darwin's Finch evolution on the
Galapagos Islands,' and that `the driving force' is natural selection [Grant, P.R. & Grant, B.R., "Speciation
and hybridization in island birds," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, Vol. 351,
1996, pp.765-772; Grant, P.R. & Grant, B.R., "Speciation and hybridization of birds on islands," pp. 142-162 in
Grant, P.R., ed., "Evolution on Islands," Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1998, p. 155]. This claim was
echoed by Mark Ridley in his 1996 college textbook, Evolution [Ridley, M., "Evolution," Blackwell
Science: Cambridge MA, Second Edition, 1996, pp.570-571]. Like the Grants, Ridley extrapolated the increase
in beak size after the 1977 drought to estimate the time it would take to produce a new species. This
`illustrates how we can extrapolate from natural selection operating within a species to explain the
diversification of the finches from a single common ancestor.' Ridley concluded: `Arguments of this kind are
common in the theory of evolution.' Indeed. But arguments of this kind exaggerate the truth. And this
exaggeration seems to characterize many claims for Darwin's theory. Evidence for change in peppered moths
is claimed as evidence for natural selection even though the selective agent has not been demonstrated.
And evidence for oscillating natural selection in finch beaks is claimed as evidence for the origin of finches
in the first place. Apparently, some Darwinists are prone to make inflated claims for rather meager evidence."
(Wells J., "Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?: Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is
Wrong," Regnery: Washington DC, 2000, pp.173-174)
20/07/2006
"Does the National Academy of Sciences endorse `arguments of this kind' that exaggerate the evidence? A
1999 booklet published by the National Academy describes Darwin's finches as `a particularly compelling
example' of the origin of species. The booklet goes on to explain how the Grants and their colleagues
showed `that a single year of drought on the islands can drive evolutionary changes in the finches,' and that
`if droughts occur about once every 10 years on the islands, a new species of finch might arise in only about
200 years.' [National Academy of Sciences, "Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of
Sciences," National Academy of Sciences Press:Washington, DC, Second Edition, 1999]. That's it. Rather
than confuse the reader by mentioning that selection was reversed after the drought, producing no long-
term evolutionary change, the booklet simply omits this awkward fact. Like a stock promoter who claims a
stock might double in value in twenty years because it increased 5 percent in 1998, but doesn't mention that
it decreased 5 percent in 1999, the booklet misleads the public by concealing a crucial part of the evidence.
This is not truth-seeking. It makes one wonder how much evidence there really is for Darwin's theory. As
Berkeley law professor and Darwin critic Phillip E. Johnson wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 1999:
`When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail,
you know they are in trouble [Johnson, P.E.*, "The Church of Darwin," The Wall Street Journal, August
16, 1999, pp. A14.]." (Wells J., "Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?: Why Much of What We Teach
About Evolution is Wrong," Regnery: Washington DC, 2000, pp.174-175)
21/07/2006
"Bear in mind that the ear has a double function: it is both an organ for detecting sound and one for
preserving balance by analysing the movements the body is undergoing. Basically, it analyses sound
frequencies by a tubular organ containing hairs ranging in size from large to small. Each hair resonates to a
different frequency, i.e. to a different pitch. In mammals this tube is rolled up into a spiral known as the
cochlea, from its resemblance to a snail. The cochlea of mammals contains also the organ of Corti ... At the
same time the ear analyses accelerations by means of three semicircular canals. Sensitive hairs detect the
motion of fluid within them as the body moves and the brain integrates the three sets of signals to arrive at
the vector. Finally, within a cavity known as the lagena, a small lump of stone or mineral concretion rests on
sensitive hairs and tells the brain which way is up. ... How was this complex set of structures evolved? To
find an answer to that question we must go back to the earliest bony fishes. They possessed, as do modern
fishes, a structure known as the lateral line, running from head to tail on either side. At the head end it fans
out into a system of canals in the skull. The lateral line is a canal enclosing cells armed with sensitive hairs
embedded in gelatine which detect the motion of the fluid in it and which in this way register vibrations in
the water or so it is claimed. ... Where it came from is totally mysterious, but where it went to is the ear. The
transformation took place in six or seven stages. As evolution proceeded, the canals in the head migrated
into the bony structure of the head and bent round to form semi-circular canals. The ciliated cells were now
enclosed in a capsule, still with their ends in gelatine. Other parts of the lateral line formed into closed sacs:
the sacculus, the utriculus and the lagena. In bony fishes, the utricle was and is the main detector of posture,
for one of these sacs became loaded with a mineral concentration or crystal which, resting on sensitive
hairs, indicated accelerations and decelerations and also which way was up. When we turn from fishes to
terrestrial animals we find the sacculus and utriculus have been carried over unchanged, but the lagena has
wound itself into a spiral. This first occurs in snakes, the process being completed in birds and mammals,
where the spiral becomes a helix: in a word the cochlea aforementioned. In mammals the sensitivity of the
cochlea is improved by a new structure, the organ of Corti, which renders the hairs so sensitive that they can
detect vibrations whose amplitude is no more than the diameter of a hydrogen atom. What was once merely
a pressure detector now provides for us the miracle of sound. ... Thus, in the course of evolution, there were
six major developments, two of which occurred in the fishes, two in the amphibia and two in mammals.
Such, at least, is the account given by people like Willem van Bergeijk, of Bell Telephone Laboratories who
is the acknowledged authority. ... here existing structures have been profoundly modified and even shifted
to another position in a progressive series of changes which certainly look more like the refinement of a
plan than the result of a series of happy accidents. But the insoluble problem is how and why did a balance
organ become an organ of hearing? As van Bergeijk pointedly asks: 'What prompts the fish to begin
developing a sensory apparatus that will respond to a stimulus about the very existence of which the fish
knows nothing?' ... But what kind of mutations could bring about the major changes I have described?
Could cause a tube to roll up into a helix? Could cause other tubes to form semi-circular canals accurately
set at right angles to each other. Could grade sensory hairs according to length? Could cause the convenient
deposit of a crystal in the one place it will register gravity? Even more amazingly, some fishes do not
trouble to secrete a crystal but incorporate a bit of sand or stone. What kind of mutation could achieve this -
when and only when a natural crystal is not formed? The purpose is fulfilled, the means are unimportant. It
just doesn't make sense." (Taylor, G.R., "The Great Evolution Mystery", Harper & Row: New York NY,
1983, pp.103-106)
21/07/2006
"I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species
have been modified, during a long course of descent. This has been effected chiefly through the natural
selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the
inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is in relation to adaptive
structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem
to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously. It appears that I formerly underrated the frequency and value
of these latter forms of variation, as leading to permanent modifications of structure independently of
natural selection. But as my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I
attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in
the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position - namely, at the
close of the Introduction - the following words: `I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but
not the exclusive means of modification.' This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady
misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure."
(Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate:
London, 1994, p.421)
21/07/2006
"Darwin did not insist that all evolution was by natural selection, nor do his successors. He wrote at the end
of the introduction to the first (1859) edition of The Origin of Species that `I am convinced that natural
selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification' and later complained of the `steady
misrepresentation' that had ignored this qualification [Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of
Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994, reprint, p.421]. On the other hand, Darwin
was vague about the importance of the alternatives, one of which was `variations which seem to us in our
ignorance to arise spontaneously.' [Darwin, 1872, p.421] Contemporary neo-Darwinists also practice a
tactically advantageous flexibility concerning the frequency and importance of non-selective evolution.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote that this imprecision `imposes a great frustration upon anyone who would
characterize the modern synthesis in order to criticize it,' [Gould. S.J., "Is a new and general theory of
evolution emerging?," Paleobiology, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 1980, p.120] and I am sure that every critic
shares the frustration. 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," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 1993, p.16)
21/07/2006
"I am not implying that there is anything inherently unreasonable in invoking pleiotropy, or kinship
selection, or developmental constraints to explain why apparent anomalies are not necessarily inconsistent
with Darwinism. If we assume that Darwinism is basically true then it is perfectly reasonable to adjust the
theory as necessary to make it conform to the observed facts. The problem is that the adjusting devices are
so flexible that in combination they make it difficult to conceive of a way to test the claims of Darwinism
empirically. Apparently maladaptive features can be attributed to pleiotropy, or to our inability to perceive
the advantage that may be there, or when all else fails simply to `chance.' Darwin wrote that `If it could be
proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another
species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.'
[Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate:
London, 1994, reprint, p.162] But this was the same Darwin who insisted that he had never claimed that
natural selection was the exclusive mechanism of evolution [Darwin, 1872, p.421]." (Johnson, P.E.*,
"Darwin on Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 1993, p.30)
21/07/2006
"It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory
of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this
is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has
often been used by the greatest natural philosophers. The undulatory theory of light has thus been arrived at;
and the belief in the revolution of the earth on its own axis was until lately supported by hardly any direct
evidence. It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence
or origin of life. Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravity? No one now objects to
following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction; notwithstanding that Leibnitz
formerly accused Newton of introducing `occult qualities and miracles into philosophy.'" (Darwin, C.R.,
"The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994,
reprint, p.421)
21/07/2006
"I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It
is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever
made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, `as subversive of
natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.' A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has
gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few
original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a
fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of
Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994, reprint, pp.421-422)
21/07/2006
"Mr. Watson has also objected that the continued action of natural selection, together with divergence of
character, would tend to make an indefinite number of specific forms. As far as mere inorganic conditions are
concerned, it seems probable that a sufficient number of species would soon become adapted to all
considerable diversities of heat, moisture, &c.; but I fully admit that the mutual relations of organic beings
are more important; and as the number of species in any country goes on increasing, the organic conditions
of life must become more and more complex. Consequently there seems at first sight no limit to the amount
of profitable diversification of structure, and therefore no limit to the number of species which might be
produced." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872,
Senate: London, 1994, reprint, p.101)
23/07/2006
"Of course, it is still possible to believe in both modern evolutionary biology and a purposive force, even
the Judeo-Christian God. One can suppose that God started the whole universe or works through the laws
of nature (or both). There is no contradiction between this or similar views of God and natural selection. But
this view of God is also worthless. Called Deism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and considered
equivalent to atheism then, it is no different now. A God or purposive force that merely starts the universe
or works through the laws of nature has nothing to do with human morals, answers no prayers, gives no life
everlasting, in fact does nothing whatsoever that is detectable. In other words, religion is compatible with
modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively
indistinguishable from atheism." (Provine, W.B., "Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation
and Evolution." Review of "Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution," by
Edward J. Larson, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Academe, Vol. 73, January-February 1987, pp.50-
52, pp.51-52)
23/07/2006
"My observation is that the great majority of modern evolutionary biologists now are atheists or something
very close to that. Yet prominent atheistic or agnostic scientists publicly deny that there is any conflict
between science and religion. Rather than simple intellectual dishonesty, this position is pragmatic. In the
United States, elected members of Congress all proclaim to be religious; many scientists believe that funding
for science might suffer if the atheistic implications of modern science were widely understood. Scientists
also collaborate with prestigious religious leaders to work for nuclear disarmament and other worthwhile
causes. The support of Pope John Paul II is not to be spurned lightly. And scientists work closely with
religious leaders to fight against the introduction of creationism into the classrooms of public schools.
Liberal religious leaders and theologians, who also proclaim the compatibility of religion and evolution,
achieve this unlikely position by two routes. First, they retreat from traditional interpretations of God's
presence in the world, some to the extent of becoming effective atheists. Second, they simply refuse to
understand modern evolutionary biology and continue to believe that evolution is a purposive process."
(Provine, W.B., "Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution." Review of "Trial
and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution," by Edward J. Larson, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985. Academe, Vol. 73, January-February 1987, pp.50-52, p.52)
23/07/2006
"We are now presented with the specter of atheistic evolutionists and liberal theologians, whose
understanding of the evolutionary process is demonstrable nonsense, joining together with the ACLU and
the highest courts in the land to lambast creationists, who are caught in an increasing bind. Evolutionary
biology, as taught in public schools, shows no evidence of a purposive force of any kind. This is deeply
disturbing to creationists. Yet in court, scientists proclaim that nothing in evolutionary biology is
incompatible with any reasonable religion, a view also supported by liberal theologians and religious leaders
of many persuasions. Not only are creationists unable to have their "creation science" taught in the
schools, they cannot even convince the court system that evolution is in any significant way antithetical to
religion; thus the courts are effectively branding their religious views as terribly misguided. No wonder
creationists (somewhere near half of the population!) are frustrated with the system and want equal time for
their own views, or at least to be spared bludgeoning with evolution." (Provine, W.B., "Trial and Error: The
American Controversy over Creation and Evolution." Review of "Trial and Error: The American Controversy
over Creation and Evolution," by Edward J. Larson, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Academe, Vol.
73, January-February 1987, pp.50-52, p.52)
24/07/2006
"We call these events accidental; we say that they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the
only possible source of modifications in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's
hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all
creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice
of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even
conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with
observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition-or the hope-that on this score our position
is likely ever to be revised." (Monod, J., "Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of
Modern Biology," [1971], Wainhouse, A., transl., Penguin: London, 1997, reprint, pp.112-113. Emphasis
original)
24/07/2006
"The term chance is also useful to describe games called `games of chance.' Card games, dice games, and
the like involve uncertain outcomes that are measured by probability quotients translated into odds. Games
of chance, however, are not without their element of skill. The skilled card player pays close attention to the
cards being played. (This is why card-counters are banned from certain gaming tables in Las Vegas.) The
more observant card player is able to reduce the ignorance factor involved and enhance his `chances' of
winning. Likewise the skilled dice player masters the odds and plays accordingly. The skilled bridge player
knows the odds of card splits that stand against him. In a particular move if he plays the percentages he may
lose. In the long run, however, by playing the percentages he will win more than he will lose. In other words,
his knowledge will make his guesses `luckier' in the long run. But in all this, chance, though a meaningful
term is not a causal factor in any of the above transactions. It has no more power to influence the roll of the
dice or the toss of a coin than it does the creation of a universe. When Janet says that chance is `invented
by our ignorance,' [Janet, P., "Final Causes," Scribner's: New York NY, Second Edition, 1891, p.19] he is
closer to the mark. Aristotle allowed for the formal significance of chance but not its material significance.
Jaki comments: '...when it comes to material causality, Aristotle allows no chance and quite logically. Chance
as a material cause would imply for him the rise of something out of no antecedent material cause, that is,
out of nothing.' [Jaki, S.L., "God and the Cosmologists", Regnery Gateway: Washington DC, 1989, p.142]"
(Sproul, R.C., "Not a Chance: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology", Baker: Grand
Rapids MI, 1994, pp.23-24)
24/07/2006
"Now we must return to our discussion of chance and randomness. Let me begin with a sentence of Jacques
Monod: `Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, [is] at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution.'
[Monod, J., "Chance and Necessity," Collins: London, 1972, p.110] Of course, Monod is erecting a
mythology; Chance for the ordinary reader (if not for Monod himself) is here half-way to becoming a blind
goddess living unfettered in a basement from where she issues her directives. She is, he goes on to imply,
the 'creator of absolute newness.' [Ibid., p.113] She has a 'realm', from the 'products' of which she supplies
`nourishment' for natural selection. [Ibid., p.114] She appears to run a 'vast lottery, in which natural selection
has blindly picked the rare winners from among numbers drawn at utter random'. [Ibid., p.131] It all sounds
rather like a Babylonian creation myth though with respectable scientific overtones." (Spanner D.C.,
"Biblical Creation and the Theory of Evolution," Paternoster: Exeter UK, 1987, p.91)
24/07/2006
"It is important at this stage to be clear about Darwin's view of variation, the raw material of evolution. ...
Darwin believed ... that the mechanism responsible for these genetic variations was entirely blind to the
adaptive needs and requirements of the organism. If a beneficial variation occurred which conferred upon
an organism some slight adaptive advantage or improvement this was entirely fortuitous. In other words the
changes were undirected and as likely to be detrimental or neutral to the organism's survival as beneficial.
The purely random nature of the mutational input or the direction of variation served to differentiate
Darwin's theory from all the other vitalistic evolutionary theories such as Lamarck's, for in all these pre-
Darwinian theories variations are not random but rather directed, adaptive and purposeful. Ultimately,
Darwin's theory implied that all evolution had come about by the interactions of two basic processes,
random mutation and natural selection, and it meant that the ends arrived at were entirely the result of a
succession of chance events. Evolution by natural selection is therefore, in essence, strictly analogous to
problem solving by trial and error, and it leads to the immense claim that all the design in the biosphere is
ultimately the fortuitous outcome of an entirely blind random process - a giant lottery. Thus Darwin was
proposing, as Jacques Monod had put it: `...that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all
creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice
of evolution ...' [Monod, J., "Chance and Necessity," Collins: London, 1972, p.110]. It was a revolutionary
claim. Where once design had been the result of God's creation, it was now put down to chance." (Denton,
M., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis", Burnett Books: London, 1985, p.43)
24/07/2006
"More and more people are noticing the ideological character of today's evolutionary rhetoric, but the
proselytizers of a Godless universe seem unable to stop, and this is hurting the professions involved. The
descent of science to ideology will in the long run discredit evolution and science in general far more
completely than any courtroom contests initiated by the creationists. Certainly the mechanists need and are
entitled to a cosmology as much as other people. Certainly they have the right to investigate theories
supporting that cosmology. But it is also certain that their students, colleagues, and the general public have
the right to expect that their missionary zeal does not outstrip their ability to acquit themselves of a
dispassionate appraisal of the facts. Otherwise, scientists risk destroying the very respect and support they
still command. Today's evangelical popularizers of evolution would do well to ponder the words of Thomas
Henry Huxley, grandfather of Sir Julian, who was himself among Darwin's earliest and most effective
champions. Speaking of men of science, he remarked, '... there is not a single belief that it is not a bounden
duty with them to hold with a light hand and to part with cheerfully, the moment it is really proved to be
contrary to any fact, great or small.' [Huxley, T.H., "The Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," in
"Darwiniana: Essays by Thomas H. Huxley," [1896], AMS Press: New York NY, 1970, reprint, pp.468-469] I
submit that many evolutionists no longer hold the theory 'with a light hand' and that many are now so
deeply committed that they can no longer distinguish their science from their religion." (Fix, W.R., "The
Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution," Macmillan: New York NY, 1984, pp.220-221. Emphasis original)
24/07/2006
"Men of science do not pledge themselves to creeds; they are bound by articles of no sort; there is not a
single belief that it is not a bounden duty with them to hold with a light hand and to part with cheerfully, the
moment it is really proved to be contrary to any fact, great or small. And if, in course of time I see good
reasons for such a proceeding, I shall have no hesitation in coming before you, and pointing out any
change in my opinion without finding the slightest occasion to blush for so doing. So I say that we accept
this view as we accept any other, so long as it will help us, and we feel bound to retain it only so long as it
will serve our great purpose-the improvement of Man's estate and the widening of his knowledge. The
moment this, or any other conception, ceases to be useful for these purposes, away with it to the four
winds; we care not what becomes of it!" (Huxley, T.H., "The Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature,"
in "Darwiniana: Essays by Thomas H. Huxley," [1896], AMS Press: New York NY, 1970, reprint,
pp.468-469)
24/07/2006
"As to biological order, if unaided natural selection really is capable of producing the ordered diversity we
see in the terrestrial biosphere today, I see no reason why a God who wanted such ordered diversity should
not have used this very elegant mechanism. If I doubt that God did this, it is only because I doubt that
unaided natural selection could do the job. I think that other mechanisms would be required and that he
therefore must have used them. But if unaided natural selection would work-well, why shouldn't God use
something that would work? It seems to be a widespread opinion that something about natural selection
unfits it for use as a divine instrument. I have never been able to see this. When I was an agnostic, I was a
Darwinian. When I became a Christian, a very old-fashioned, orthodox one, I was a Darwinian still. And
although I have experienced many intellectual difficulties with my faith, my belief in Darwinism never caused
me the least intellectual discomfort. My doubts about Darwinism began only when I discovered that the
`smoothness' of the fossil record that I had always believed in was not there." (Van Inwagen, P., "Doubts
About Darwinism," in Buell, J. & Hearn, V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?," Foundation
for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, pp.177-191, p.187)
24/07/2006
"Here is a famous quotation from Monod that will do as well as any. Speaking of the events that have been
identified as the sources of mutations, he says: `We call these events accidental; we say that they are
random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modifications in the genetic
text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structure, it necessarily follows that chance
alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but
blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology...is
today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. [Monod,
J., "Chance and Necessity," Vintage: New York, 1971, pp.112-113]. Monod goes on to make clear that he
understands chance in Aristotle's sense, as arising from the coincidence of independent lines of causation.
(Thus, it is due to chance that Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, as it would not be if they
had killed each other in a duel, In this sense, chance can exist even in a fully deterministic world.) He
identifies the source of this chance with imperfections in the fundamental mechanisms of molecular
invariance in living organisms. He mentions only the causes of mutations, but he might have mentioned
other sorts of events that are of evolutionary significance and can with equal plausibility be ascribed to
chance: the flood that happened to destroy a certain herd of ruminants, the raising by geological forces of a
land bridge that enabled representatives of certain species to move into a new environment, the intersection
of the trajectories of the earth and a certain comet, and so on. I don't quite see how it is that the hypothesis
that all such events are due to chance is the only conceivable hypothesis. But let us suppose that this
hypothesis is at any rate true. Does it follow that the general features of the biosphere are products of
chance? It does not. To suppose that they are would be to commit the so-called fallacy of composition. It
would be as if one reasoned that because a cow is entirely composed of quarks and electrons and quarks
and electrons are nonliving and invisible, a cow must therefore be nonliving and invisible.(Van Inwagen, P.,
"Doubts About Darwinism," in Buell, J. & Hearn, V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?," Foundation
for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, pp.177-191, pp.187-189. Emphasis original)
24/07/2006
"The second question raised by the interplay of chance and necessity is the metaphysical one of what this
might imply about our wider understanding of the world in which we live. Characteristically a variety of
answers is on offer. Monod felt that the role of chance subverted all claims to significance in the processes
of the world. He wrote: 'Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice
of evolution." [Monod, J., "Chance and Necessity," Collins: London, 1972, p.110] and he concludes his
book with intense Gallic rhetoric: `The ancient covenant is in pieces; man at last knows that he is alone in
the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged by chance. Neither his destiny nor his
duty have been written down. The kingdom above or the darkness below, it is for him to choose.' [Ibid,
p.167] Ah yes, but is there not something odd, or even marvellous, in the emergence of choosing beings
through the playing of a cosmic game of roulette? When I read Monod's book I was greatly excited by the
scientific picture it presented. Instead of seeing the role of chance as an indication of the purposelessness
and futility of the world, I was deeply moved by the thought of the astonishing fruitfulness that it revealed
inherent in the laws of atomic physics. Those basic laws are just Maxwell's equations (to express the forces
of electromagnetism controlling the larger-scale structure of matter) and the Schrodinger equation (to
express the quantum theory necessary for molecular dynamics). I could literally write them down on the
back of an envelope. Yet the fact that they can have such remarkable consequences as you and me speaks of
the amazing potentiality contained in their structure." (Polkinghorne, J.C., "One World: The Interaction of
Science and Theology," [1986], SPCK: London, 1987, reprint, pp.53-54)
24/07/2006
"Biologist and atheist Will Provine enjoys stoking up the creationism versus evolution controversy. He
begins by complimenting the creationists: `I. think creation scientists are very intellectually honest in their
beliefs. If evolution is true, then none of the things that deeply religious people want to be true are in fact
true. No God. No life after death. No free will. No ultimate meaning in life and no ultimate foundation for
ethics. All of these things are taken away, and I believe creationists have a keen appreciation of this fact. So
I sympathize with their general point of view. In other words, they say evolution cannot have occurred. I
understand the sentiment. I just believe they're wrong. If modern evolutionary biology is true, then the
traditional foundations for religion are gone.'" (Stannard, R., " Science and Wonders: Conversations About
Science and Belief," Faber & Faber: London, 1999, p.45. Emphasis original)
24/07/2006
"Transparency of the cornea, the window of the eye, is a prerequisite for vision. Angiogenesis into the
normally avascular cornea is incompatible with good vision and, therefore, the cornea is one of the few
tissues in the human body where avascularity is actively maintained. Here, we provide evidence for a
critical mechanism contributing to corneal avascularity. VEGF receptor, normally present on lymphatic and
proliferating blood vascular endothelium, is strongly constitutively expressed by corneal epithelium and is
mechanistically responsible for suppressing inflammatory corneal angiogenesis." (Cursiefen, C., et al.,
"Nonvascular VEGF receptor 3 expression by corneal epithelium maintains avascularity and vision,"
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, July 18, 2006)
25/07/2006
"There are no shortcuts to moral insight. Nature is not intrinsically anything that can offer comfort or solace
in human terms-if only because our species is such an insignificant latecomer in a world not constructed for
us. So much the better. The answers to moral dilemmas are not lying out there, waiting to be discovered.
They reside, like the kingdom of God, within us-the most difficult and inaccessible spot for any discovery
or consensus." (Gould, S.J., "Kropotkin was no Crackpot," in "Bully for Brontosaurus: Further Reflections
in Natural History," [1991], Penguin: London, 1992, p.339)
25/07/2006
"Lawyers face a still different problem that makes their enterprise even more divergent from science-and for
two major reasons. First, the law must reach a decision even when insufficient evidence exists for confident
judgment. ... Thus, in capital cases, the law must free a probably guilty man whose malfeasance cannot be
proved beyond a doubt (a moral principle that seems admirable to me but would not work well in science).
We operate with probabilities, the law must often traffic in absolutes. Second, there is no `natural law'
waiting to be discovered `out there' ... Legal systems are human inventions, based on a history of human
thought and practice. Consequently; the law gives decisive weight to the history of its of its own
development-hence the rule of precedent in deciding cases. Scientists work in an opposite way: we search
continually for new signals from nature to invalidate a history of past argument. (As a sometime historian of
science, I wish that scientists, like lawyers, would pay more attention to, and have more reverence for, their
pasts-but I understand why this is not likely to happen.)" (Gould, S.J., "Impeaching a Self-Appointed
Judge." Book Review of "Darwin on Trial." By Phillip E. Johnson, Regnery Gateway: Washington DC,
1991. Scientific American, Vol. 267, No.1, July 1992, pp.92-95, p.92)
26/07/2006
"Professor Pierre Grassé (who, for thirty years, held the chair for evolution at the Sorbonne without losing
his Gallic wit) commented: `Where is the gambler, however obsessed with his passion, who would be crazy
enough to bet on the roulette of random evolution? The creation, by grains of dust carried by the wind, of
Durer's Melancholia has a probability less infinitesimal than the construction of an eye through the
mishaps which might befall the DNA molecule - mishaps which have no connection whatsoever with the
future functions of the eye. Daydreaming is permissible, but science should not succumb to it.' [Grassé's
italics] [Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organism," (1973), Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.104
Emphasis original)" (Koestler, A., "Janus: A Summing Up," Picador: London, 1983, p.177)
26/07/2006
"Up to the middle of 1979 the earliest geological evidence for microbial life was dated at about 3,200 million
years ago. This evidence was found in sedimentary rocks from the Swaziland Supergroup in the Fig Tree
and Onverwacht formations. Clusters of microfossils in the form of bacillus-like rods and algae-like
spheroids were found. The sizes, shapes and inner structures of these clusters in the rocks, as seen for
instance in electron micrographs, point to their being prokaryotic organisms. Furthermore, the presence of
phytane shows them to have been photosynthetic prokaryotes. In 1980, several workers reported the
presence of bacterial fossils in the Archean rocks of Australia, dated at about 3,500 million years ago. If it
could have been shown that eukaryotic cells were then absent, the positive detection of prokaryotic cells so
early in the history of the Earth would accord with the view that eukaryotes have evolved from prokaryotes,
and this was the sense in which many biologists have interpreted the evidence. In 1979, however, H. D.
Pflug, H. Jaeschke-Boyer and E. L. Sattler reported structures in the Swartkoppie cherts, with an age of
about 3,400 million years, that were remarkably similar in shape, size and formation to modern yeast cells.
[Pflug, H.D., Jaeschke-Boyer, H. & Sattler, E. L., Microscopia Acta, Vol. 82, 1979, p.255] If these structures
were indeed fossilized yeast cells, the ancestry of eukaryotic cells has been pushed back very far in time,
since until this work the oldest suspected fossilized eukaryotes dated from about 1,400 million years ago.
Because of the potentially revolutionary significance of the Swartkoppie microstructures, the investigators
were careful not to claim them to be microfossils simply from their morphological similarity to yeast cells
alone. Taking at first a neutral position they named them Ramsaysphaera. In August 1979, Pflug and
Jaeschke-Boyer also reported yeast-like structures in a metamorphosed rock from the Isua region of West
Greenland, a region dated at about 3,800 million years ago, the world's oldest known rocks. Once again, the
investigators took an initially neutral position, naming these further occlusions Isuasphaera. To proceed
further with the work, it was necessary to determine whether or not organic materials of biological origin
were present within the Isuasphaera. Professor Pflug explained to us in private conversation that he was
unwilling to grind up the rocks containing the occlusions for chemical analysis, because however great the
precautions that were taken against contamination from present-day sources of biochemicals it would never
be possible to insist categorically that there had been no contamination. Therefore the Isuasphaera had
to be examined in situ, within the silica matrix of the surrounding rock. Sections of the rock could be cut
that would be consistent with this requirement (40 to 100 micrometres thick) and through which radiation
probes could penetrate. The characteristic absorption bands of organic residues could then be looked for,
provided the technical problem of focusing the probes within the Isuasphaera could be solved. In this,
Professor Pflug was given valuable assistance by the German optical companies, with the result that organic
residues were indeed found within the Isua microstructures. As things now stand, therefore, eukaryotes
appear to have been detected at an even earlier date than prokaryotes, although the difference between the
age of 3,800 million years for the Greenland rocks and 3,500 million years for those from Australia is not very
relevant. What is important is that eukaryotes seem to be just as old as prokaryotes, and that the Isua and
Swartkoppie microfossils are morphologically identical to modern yeasts." (Hoyle, F. & Wickramasinghe,
N.C., "Evolution from Space," [1981], Paladin: London, 1983, reprint, pp.76-78)
26/07/2006
"The Earth itself is about 4,500 million years old. The bulk of the material that went to form our planet
condensed from a hot gas expelled by the primitive Sun. The condensation process occurred at
temperatures approaching those of a blast furnace. Thus primitive Earth conditions, 4,500 million years ago,
were surely sterile to life. At the very beginning of its history, our planet must have presented a stark and
arid prospect, not unlike the appearance of the present-day Moon. Comets came to the rescue to change
this barren landscape, not only by supplying living cells, but by providing the Earth with water and other
volatile materials. This crucial endowment of life-supporting chemicals was made possible by the many
billions of comets which surround the solar system, and by the gravitational effects explained in chapter 4,
whereby comets are sometimes perturbed into orbits which bring them to the inner regions of the solar
system, thus making encounters with the Earth inevitable for a small fraction of them. Even today,
comparatively minor collisions of denuded cometary nuclei (the so-called Apollo objects) occur about every
200,000 years, while major collisions probably occur about once every 30 million years. The collisional
frequency of comets with the Earth must have been very much higher 4,500 million years ago than it is
today. Indeed, the surface of the primitive Earth must have been bombarded by missiles to a degree that
precluded any peaceful continued existence of life in the earliest times. The problem for those who believe
life to have arisen by spontaneous generation on the Earth is now seen to be acute. The origin appears to be
forced back beyond 3,800 million years ago, into an era of serious geological disturbance, which seems as if
it must have been generally inimical to life. Nor can one plausibly argue that the rain of cometary missiles
ceased well before 3,800 million years ago, because this is close to the oldest age which has been obtained
for any area of the lunar surface. The indication is that the Moon experienced severe bombardment until
about 3,800 million years ago, and if this was so for the Moon it must have been even more surely so for the
Earth. The Isua rocks appear therefore to date from about the earliest time when the Earth may be said to
have had a tolerably stable crust." (Hoyle, F. & Wickramasinghe, N.C., "Evolution from Space," [1981],
Paladin: London, 1983, reprint, pp.78-79)
26/07/2006
"(October 1st.) Albemarle Island is as it were the mainland of the Archipelago; it is about 75 miles long &
several broad; is composed of 6 or 7 great Volcanic Mounds from 2 to 3000 ft. high, joined by low land
formed of Lava & other Volcanic substances. Since leaving the last Island, owing to the small quantity of
water on board, only half allowance of water has been served out (i.e. ½ a Gallon for cooking & all
purposes). This under the line with a Vertical sun is a sad drawback to the few comforts which a Ship
possesses. From different accounts, we had hoped to have found water here. To our disappointment the
little pits in the Sandstone contained scarcely a Gallon & that not good. It was however sufficient to draw
together all the little birds in the country; Doves & Finches swarmed round its margin. I was reminded of
the manner in which I saw at Charles Isd a boy procuring dinner for his family. Sitting by the side of a Well,
with a long stick in his hand, as the doves came to drink he killed as many as he wanted & in half an hour
collected them together & carried them to the house. To the South of the Cove I found a most beautiful
Crater, elliptic in form, less than a mile in its longer axis & about 500 feet deep. Its bottom was occupied by a
lake, out of which a tiny Crater formed an Island. The day was overpoweringly hot; & the lake looked blue &
clear. I hurried down the cindery side, choked with dust, to my disgust on tasting the water found it Salt as
brine. This crater & some other neighbouring ones have only poured forth mud or Sandstone containing
fragments of Volcanic rocks; but from the mountain behind, great bare streams have flowed, sometimes from
the summit, or from small Craters on the side, expanding in their descent, have at the base formed plains of
Lava. The little of the country I have yet seen in this vicinity is more arid & sterile than in the other Islands.
We here have another large Reptile in great numbers; it is a great Lizard, from 10-15 lb. in weight & 2-4 feet in
length; is in structure closely allied to those "imps of darkness" which frequent the sea-shore. This one
inhabits burrows to which it hurries when frightened, with quick & clumsy gait. They have a ridge & spines
along the back; are colored an orange yellow, with the hinder part of back brick red. They are hideous
animals; but are considered good food: this day forty were collected." (Darwin, C.R., "Charles Darwin's Diary
of the Voyage of HMS Beagle," Barlow, N., ed., Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1933, p.338)
26/07/2006
"In my collections from these islands, Mr Gould considers that there are twenty-six different species of land
birds. ... A group of finches, of which Mr Gould considers there are thirteen species; and these he has
distributed into four new sub-genera. These birds are the most singular of any in the archipelago. They all
agree in many points; namely, in a peculiar structure of their bill, short tails, general form, and in their
plumage. The females are gray or brown, but the old cocks jet-black. All the species, excepting two, feed in
flocks on the ground, and have very similar habits. It is very remarkable that a nearly perfect gradation of
structure in this one group can be traced in the form of the beak, from one exceeding in dimensions that of
the largest gros-beak, to another differing but little from that of a warbler." (Darwin, C.R., "Voyage of the
Beagle: Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches," [1839], Browne, J. & Neve, M., eds, Penguin: London,
1989, pp.275-276. Emphasis original)
26/07/2006
"The remaining land-birds form a most singular group of finches, related to each other in the structure bf
their beaks, short tails, form of body, and plumage: there are thirteen species, which Mr. Gould has divided
into four sub-groups. All these species are peculiar to this archipelago; and so is the whole group, with the
exception of one species of the sub-group Cactornis, lately brought from Bow island, in the Low
Archipelago. Of Cactornis, the two species may be often seen climbing about the flowers of the great
cactus-trees; but all the other species of this group of finches, mingled together in flocks, feed on the dry
and sterile ground of the lower districts. The males of all, or certainly of the greater number, are jet black;
and the females (with perhaps one or two exceptions) are brown. The most curious fact is the perfect
gradation in the size of the beaks in the different species of Geospiza, from one as large as that of a hawfinch
to that of a chaffinch, and (if Mr. Gould is right in including his sub-group, Certhidea, in the main group),
even to that of a warbler. The largest beak in the genus Geospiza is shown in Fig. 1, and the smallest in Fig.
3; but instead of there being only one intermediate species, with a beak of the size shown in Fig. 2, there are
no less than six species with insensibly graduated beaks. The beak of the sub-group Certhidea, is shown in
Fig. 4. The beak of Cactornis is somewhat like that of a starling; and that of the fourth sub-group,
Camarhynchus, is slightly parrot-shaped. Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small,
intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this
archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends." (Darwin, C.R., "The Voyage of the
'Beagle'," [1845], Edito-Service: Geneva, n.d., reprint, pp.379-380)
27/07/2006
"Do we really understand the function of man's cerebral hypertrophy? The importance of this unique
character to civilized man is that it enables nearly everyone to learn at least a simple trade; it enables many
of us to enjoy good literature and play a fair hand of bridge; and it enables a few to become great scientists,
poets, or generals. The human mind has presumably been responsible for analogous benefits for as long as
man has had a culturally based society. Despite the arguments that have been advanced (e.g., Dobzhansky
and Montague, 1947; Singer, 1962), I cannot readily accept the idea that advanced mental capabilities have
ever been directly favored by selection. There is no reason for believing that a genius has ever been likely to
leave more children than a man of somewhat below average intelligence. It has been suggested that a tribe
that produces an occasional genius for its leadership is more likely to prevail in competition with tribes that
lack this intellectual resource. This may well be true in the sense that a group with highly intelligent leaders
is likely to gain political supremacy over less gifted groups, but political domination need not result in
genetic domination, as is indicated by the failure of many a ruling class to maintain its numbers. ... Here I will
merely note that the close similarity of modern races in their intellectual potentialities would argue against
the effectiveness of selection between modern groups as a way of improving man's mental qualities or even
of maintaining its present level. The absence of a conspicuous decline in human mentality within historical
time must mean that selection has somehow continued to promote the survival of the intelligent." (Williams,
G.C., "Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought," [1966],
Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1996, reprint, pp.14-15)
27/07/2006
"Lucretius stated the principle of natural selection in its crudest form when he wrote: ["And many lines of
organisms must have perished then, and been unable to propagate their kind. For whatever you see feeding
on the vital air, either craft, strength, or finally mobility has been protecting and preserving that race from its
earliest times."] This was a magnificent intellectual discovery when Lucretius made it two thousand years
ago. But it is only a small part of the whole story." (Haldane J.B.S., "The Causes of Evolution," [1990],
Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1993, Second Printing, pp.60-61)
27/07/2006
"So with an animal or plant. We are first struck by its obvious adaptations; its claws, teeth, spines,
protective colouring, and so on. Such features impress the morphologist who is bound to note them when
engaged in taxonomic work. But there remain a host of morphological characters which have no obvious
value to their possessor. Such are the innumerable slight variations of leaf shape which often distinguish
species of the same plant genus. ... But when we have pushed our analysis as far as possible, there is no
doubt that innumerable characters show no sign of possessing selective value, and, moreover, these are
exactly the characters which enable a taxonomist to distinguish one species from another. This has led many
able zoologists and botanists to give up Darwinism." (Haldane, J.B.S., "The Causes of Evolution," [1990],
Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1993, Second Printing, p.62)
27/07/2006
"Replication is not perfect. If it were, there would be no variation for selection to act on. But initially the
problem would have been too much mutation, and not too little. Most mutations reduce fitness. Selection is
therefore needed to maintain a meaningful message. The old game of Chinese whispers demonstrates that,
without selection, the result is chaos. How accurate must replication be? Imagine a message-for example, a
DNA molecule-that replicates to produce two copies of itself. The two copies replicate to produce four, and
so on. During replication, miscopying occurs, and the erroneous copies that result are eliminated by
selection. Only perfect copies survive. It is clear that, after each copying, at least one copy on average must
be perfect. Otherwise selection cannot maintain the integrity of the message. This places an upper limit on
the permissible mutation rate per base copied, or, equivalently, an upper limit on the length of the message,
for a given mutation rate. If the genome size, or the mutation rate per symbol, rises above this critical upper
limit, the result is an accumulation of mutated messages. This is what Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster
have called the `error threshold'. It is easy to see roughly where this upper limit lies. The requirement is that
at least one perfect copy, on average, must be made at each replication. If there are n symbols, this means,
approximately, that the probability of an error when replicating a symbol must be not greater than 1/n. In
other words, if the genome contains 1000 bases, the mutation rate per base, per replication, must be not
greater than 1/1000. The error rate in experiments ... is in the range 1/1000 to 1/10 000. This would permit a
genome between 1000 and 10 000 bases. But this involves replication by an enzyme; if there is no enzyme,
the error rate is much higher. ... The error rate depends on the medium, the temperature, and so on, but very
roughly the wrong base pairs ... once in 20 times. This implies that, before there were specific enzymes, the
maximum size of the genome was about 20 bases. At first sight, this is a serious difficulty, and so it was long
regarded. It presented a kind of catch-22 of the origin of life. Without a specific enzyme, the genome size is
limited to about 20 bases; but with a mere 20 bases one cannot code for an enzyme, let alone the translating
machinery needed to convert the base sequence into a specific protein.(Maynard Smith J. & Szathmáry E.,
"The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language," Oxford University Press: New York
NY, 1999, pp.34-36)
28/07/2006
"How did genetic information increase? ... The simplest process is the duplication of a piece of DNA,
which can vary in length from a single gene to a whole set of chromosomes. Such accidental events are not
all that infrequent. In itself, a duplication does not add to the total quantity of information present: two
copies of a message are not more informative than one. All it does is to produce additional DNA that can
later be programmed by selection. It is worth noting, however, that the procedure is rather different from the
way in which one might add memory to a computer. In the latter case, the additional memory would initially
be blank (unless one added an already programmed chip). In evolution, the new DNA already carries a
message, albeit a redundant one. New information requires that this message be altered step by step. We
know that the duplication of genes has been important. A classic example concerns haemoglobin, the
protein that carries oxygen in the blood. It is a compound of four subunits, of two kinds, each kind
programmed by a different gene. The two genes arose by duplication, followed by minor divergence. A
further round of duplication and divergence produced the different haemoglobin in the fetus of mammals.
Gene duplication is common, but does not always lead to an increase in information: more often, one of the
two copies degenerates, because natural selection does not maintain two copies if one will do. Our
chromosomes are full of such fossil genes, so-called pseudogenes. It is only occasionally that the duplicate
copy acquires a new function. The important point is that duplication, whether of single genes or whole
genomes, does not in itself produce significant novelty. It merely provides additional DNA that is not
needed, and so can be programmed to perform new functions. It does not cause increased complexity, but it
does provide the raw material for such an increase to occur later." (Maynard Smith J. & Szathmáry E., "The
Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language," Oxford University Press: New York NY,
1999, pp.26-27. Emphasis original)
30/07/2006
"But the main reason for believing in an ensemble of universes is that it could explain why the laws
governing our Universe appear to be so finely tuned for our existence. In the 1950s, for instance, Fred Hoyle
discovered that the step-by-step build-up of heavy elements inside stars depends on a series of spectacular
coincidences. Only if the nuclei of beryllium-8, carbon-12 and oxygen-16 exist in particular energy states can
hydrogen be built up into the elements of life such as calcium, magnesium and iron. This fine-tuning has two
possible explanations. Either the Universe was designed specifically for us by a creator or there is a
multitude of universes--a `multiverse'. Only in those universes in which the properties of beryllium-8,
carbon-12 and oxygen-16 are right for life would any life arise to notice any fine-tuning." (Chown, M.,
"Anything Goes," New Scientist, 6 June 1998, Vol. 158, pp.26-30)
30/07/2006
"Many other examples of fine-tuning have been found. For instance, if the strong nuclear force, which glues
nuclei together, were only about 1 per cent stronger, two protons would stick to make a "di-proton". In our
Universe, protons are welded in the Sun via the weak nuclear force, which first converts one of the protons
to a neutron, and is extremely slow. It takes about 10 billion years for two protons to combine, ensuring that
the Sun burns its fuel slowly over the billions of years needed for life to evolve. If the di-proton were stable,
the strong force would snap protons together so fast that the Sun would burn its fuel in less than a second
and explode. If the strong force had always been stronger, all hydrogen nuclei would have been processed
into di-protons in the big bang and there would be no hydrogen for stars to burn." (Chown, M., "Anything
Goes," New Scientist, 6 June 1998, Vol. 158, pp.26-30, p.28)
30/07/2006
"The weak nuclear force also appears to be finely balanced to permit our existence. During the catastrophic
collapse of a star, the matter in its dense core is transformed into neutrons and a vast number of neutrinos.
The neutrinos fly outwards and in the process blow away the star's "envelope", triggering a supernova. Yet
neutrinos interact with matter in the envelope only via the weak force. If the weak interaction were slightly
stronger, the neutrinos would be trapped in the heart of the star and the explosion would stall. If it were
slightly weaker, they would escape from the star without interacting with matter. Either way, the heavy
elements forged in massive stars which are essential for life would not be catapulted into space to be
incorporated into new stars and planets." (Chown, M., "Anything Goes," New Scientist, 6 June 1998, Vol.
158, pp.26-30, p.28)
30/07/2006
"There are yet more examples. For instance, Tegmark and Martin Rees of the Institute of Astronomy in
Cambridge, have found that stars and galaxies could not have arisen if the initial clumpiness of the matter
emerging from the big bang had been slightly different (This Week, 29 November 1997, p 11). And Tegmark
has found that only with three dimensions of space and one of time is physics both predictable enough and
complex enough for the evolution of life, while yielding stable structures such as atoms and planets (This
Week, 13 September 1997, p 11). "Wherever physicists look, they see examples of fine-tuning," says Rees."
(Chown, M., "Anything Goes," New Scientist, 6 June 1998, Vol. 158, pp.26-30, pp.28-29)
* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed not to be evolutionists. However, lack of an
asterisk does not necessarily mean that an author is an evolutionist.
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Created: 30 March, 2006. Updated: 16 July, 2008.