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The following are quotes added to my Unclassified Quotes database in August 2006. The date format is dd/mm/yy. See copyright conditions at end.
[Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec]
1/08/2006
"The assertion that natural Selection was not true, or rather would not work came from several sources. It
came most cogently from one Fleeming, Jenkin, professor of engineering at Edinburgh University. In 1867
Jenkin pointed out that if all hereditary differences blended on crossing, as Darwin assumed, then any
variation that arose would diminish in importance in each succeeding generation and no new variation could
persist long enough to be selected by the process that Darwin proposed. ... Accordingly in succeeding
editions of the Origin of Species, he shifted his ground. He began to suggest that direct adaptation of the
organism to its environment brought changes in heredity, and that this direct action played a part, along
with natural selection, in the transformation of species. This shift of ground was noticed by Darwin's critics.
Darwin responded by calling their attention to something they had overlooked. In the first edition of the
Origin of Species he had mentioned twice that the effects of the `external conditions of life'-both the direct
effects of climate and food (and such indirect effects as the use and disuse of organs-were perhaps in some
extremely small degree inherited. Change was partly directed before it took place as well as partly selected
after it took place. In other words, Darwin had prepared a line of retreat against the possibility that natural
selection might be found untenable. He now prudently took this line. As time went on Darwin relied more
and more on a double or mixed theory of evolution: selection plus direction." (Darlington, C.D., "The Origin
of Darwinism," Scientific American, Vol. 201, May 1959, pp.60-66, p.60)
1/08/2006
"Darwin's finches are a classic example of species diversification by natural selection. Their impressive
variation in beak morphology is associated with the exploitation of a variety of ecological niches, but its
developmental basis is unknown. We performed a comparative analysis of expression patterns of various
growth factors in species comprising the genus Geospiza. We found that expression of Bmp4 in the
mesenchyme of the upper beaks strongly correlated with deep and broad beak morphology. When
misexpressed in chicken embryos, Bmp4 caused morphological transformations paralleling the beak
morphology of the large ground finch G. magnirostris." (Abzhanov, A., Protas, M., Grant, B.R., Grant, P.R.
& Tabin, C.J., "Bmp4 and Morphological Variation of Beaks in Darwin's Finches," Science, Vol. 305, 3
September 2004, pp. 1462-1465)
1/08/2006
"For the past 25 years, a cadre of evodevotees has been struggling to unify the fields of evolution and
development. A recent paper published in the journal Science by Abzahnov et al (2004) reports on the
role of the growth factor Bmp4 during the evolution in the beak morphology of Darwin's finches on the
Galápagos Islands. These data show that evolutionary changes to the developmental program of large-
versus small-beaked species of Darwin's finch arise from shifts in the heterochronic - timing of ontogenetic
events - and heterotopic - spatial expression of ontogenetic events - expression of Bmp4.Stephen J
Gould (1977) popularized the term heterochrony, which now serves as a mantra chanted at evodevo journal
clubs around the globe. If Gould were alive today, he would undoubtedly be raving about the latest
evodevo findings on Bmp4. ... Intriguingly, Abzahnov et al (2004) show that heterochronic
manipulations of Bmp4 expression during chick development can reproduce the comparative patterns
observed among Darwin's finches ... Such heterochronic shifts yield a chick embryo that develops into the
large-beaked morphology characteristic of the aptly named Geospiza magnirostris, which likewise expresses
Bmp4 earlier in mesenchymal cells than any of the other members of the ground finch genus. .... Such
heterochronic and heterotopic expression of Bmp4 provide a parsimonious way to achieve both the
svelte-beaked form of the most ancestral of the ground finch (Geospiza) group of Darwin's finches, G.
difficilis, as well as the robust-beaked form of G. magnirostris. Abzahnov et al (2004) further confirmed
that the changes in beak morphology among Darwin's finches were not associated with two of the
regulators of Bmp4, sonic hedgehog (Shh) and fibroblast growth factor 8 (Fgf8). The junction
where expression of these two regulatory genes meet on the developing cranium has been shown to drive
the out-pocketing of cells that eventually develops into beak and to also induce expression of Bmp4
(Abzahnov and Tabin, 2004). Even though Shh and Fgf8 interact to control the proper location of
Bmp4 expression on the cranium and thus beak morphology, variation in Shh and Fgf8 were not
correlated with differences between large- and small-beaked species of Darwin's finches. The authors did
find that a mesenchymal injection of a viral construct with the gene Noggin, which antagonizes Bmp4
signaling, dramatically reduced the size of the upper beak of the chick. This result does not rule out potential
epistatic interactions of other regulatory genes, but it does narrow the search to those that specifically
affect Bmp4 gene expression. These findings elucidate the developmental origin of an adaptive radiation
that serves as the textbook example of evolution. ... The achievement of an evodevo synthesis in a classic
example of evolution like Darwin's finches is dramatic. It quickens the blood and warms the hearts of
evodevotees, myself included. The insights on development and evolution associated with Bmp4 are
tantalizingly. They bring us closer to smashing the conceptual iron curtain that has been erected in recent
years between the fields of evolution and molecular developmental biology..... Even though natural
selection on Darwin's finches is still intense (Grant and Grant, 2002), most of the evolved changes in the
regulation of Bmp4 have occurred in the remote past when each member of the ground finch genus first
evolved, and thus are inaccessible to us in the present day. One more step that remains to be demonstrated
is the role of natural selection in specifically shaping Bmp4 or its gene regulators. Perhaps, the answer to
this question lies in the elucidation of Bmp4 expression in a species that simultaneously exhibits both
small-, large-, and mega-beaked forms such as the African seedcracker, Pyrenestes ostrinus (Smith,
1993,1997). In African seedcrackers, the small-, large- and mega-billed forms arise from a simple Mendelian
factor (Smith, 1993), and the implication is that such Mendelian variation should be due to Bmp4
expression. Whether such within-species polymorphism contributed to the morphological radiation of
Darwin's finches in the remote past remains unclear. However, such intraspecies polymorphisms will become
very useful in our search for the link between proximate causes of development and ultimate causes of
natural selection. Thus, elucidating the heterochrony and heterotopy involved in intraspecies
polymorphisms should be the next step, since the action of natural selection in shaping beak shape and
perhaps the modifiers and regulators of Bmp4 is ongoing (Smith, 1993). The findings on Darwin's finches
are likely to be general for vertebrates. Selection on Bmp4 has been demonstrated in African cichlids
(Terai et al, 2002; Albertson et al, 2003), another spectacular adaptive radiation of vertebrates."
(Sinervo, B., "Evodevo: Darwin's finch beaks, Bmp4, and the developmental origins of novelty,"
Heredity, Vol. 94, 10 November 2004, pp.141-142)
2/08/2006
"These findings elucidate the developmental origin of an adaptive radiation that serves as the textbook
example of evolution. More importantly, it brings us one step closer to understanding how
morphological diversity can be achieved with a minimum amount of informational change. The fact that
the same growth factor, when applied to mesenchyme versus ectoderm, can achieve completely
opposite morphologies provides us with a partial answer to the paradox of the genome. How can the
complex morphology of a human require only the coordinated expression of 30 000 genes? The
combination of heterochronic and heterotopic changes in the regulation of single genes provides an
infinite set of topological shifts to evolve a limitless set of morphological diversity." (Sinervo, B.,
Evodevo: Darwin's finch beaks, Bmp4, and the developmental origins of novelty," Heredity, Vol. 94,
10 November 2004, pp.141-142)
2/08/2006
"The Origin of Species is still freely abused and often misrepresented, just as it was when Darwin was
alive. In his final edition, here reprinted, he entered a mild protest-a luxury he rarely indulged in-against a
misrepresentation to which his theory was persistently subjected. `But as my conclusions have lately been
much misrepresented,' he wrote, `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.'" (Keith, A., "Introduction," to Darwin
C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M.
Dent & Sons: London, 1928, reprint, p.xv. Emphasis original)
2/08/2006
"The power of error to persist is more enduring than Darwin thought; the misrepresentation of which he
complained is being made now more blatantly than ever before. It is being proclaimed from the housetops
that The Origin of Species contained only one new idea, and that this idea, the conception of natural
selection, is false. Natural selection, some of his modern critics declare, is powerless to produce new forms
of either plant or animal: Darwin never said it could. In this book the reader will find him giving warning after
warning that by itself selection can do nothing. To effect an evolutionary change two sets of factors, he
declared, must be at work together-those which bring about variations or modifications in animal or in plant
and those which favour and select the individuals which vary or become modified in a certain direction.
Why should so many critics continue to misunderstand the essentials of Darwin's theory of evolution? Men
do not wilfully persist in misrepresentation; there must be some explanation of their error. The truth is that
Darwin himself was at fault; the full title he gave to his book was The Origin of Species by Means of
Natural Selection . Plainly such a title was a misnomer, this book was and is much more than such a title
implies; it was much more than a mere demonstration of the action of natural selection, it was the first
complete demonstration that the law of evolution holds true for every form of living thing. It was this book
which first convinced the world of thoughtful men and women that the law of evolution is true." (Keith, A.,
"Introduction," to Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872,
Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1928, reprint, pp.xv-xvi. Emphasis original)
2/08/2006
"Long before Darwin's time men had proclaimed the doctrine of evolution, but they failed to convince their
fellows of its truth, both because their evidence was insufficient and because they had to leave so much
that was unexplained. Darwin, on the other hand, brought forward such an immense array of facts in this
book and set them in such a logical sequence that his argument proved irresistible. He never resorted to any
kind of special pleading, but permitted facts to speak for themselves. However longingly his readers clung
to age-long beliefs, Darwin compelled them to face facts and draw conclusions, often at enmity with their
predilections. We all desire to be intellectually honest, and sooner or later truth wins. It was this book which
won a victory for evolution, so far as that victory has now been won. When it appeared in the nineteenth
century the Why and the How of evolution were immaterial issues. What had to be done then was to
convince men that evolution represented a mode of thinking worthy of acceptation and in that The Origin
of Species succeeded beyond all expectation. Nor has it finished its appointed mission. No book has yet
appeared that can replace it; The Origin of Species is still the book which contains the most complete
demonstration that the law of evolution is true." (Keith, A., "Introduction," to Darwin C.R., "The Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London,
1928, reprint, p.xvi)
2/08/2006
"This, then, is Darwin's essential service to the world-not that he discovered the law of Natural Selection-
but that he succeeded in effecting a complete revolution in the outlook of mankind on all living things. He
wrought this revolution through this book. Darwin himself formed a true estimate of what the nature of this
revolution was. In the last paragraph of his Introduction, printed here on page 20, readers will find a
statement of what he claimed to have done. `Although much remains obscure,' he writes, `and will long
remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of
which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists until recently entertained, and which I formerly
entertained-namely, that each species has been independently created-is erroneous. I am firmly convinced
that species aye not immutable.' From this statement we see that Darwin's aim was to replace a belief in
special creation by a belief in evolution and in this he did succeed, as every modern biologist will readily
admit." (Keith, A., "Introduction," to Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,"
Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1928, reprint, pp.xvi-xvii. Emphasis
original)
2/08/2006
"No one was in a better position to measure what Darwin succeeded in doing than his magnanimous
contemporary and ally Alfred Russel Wallace. Writing to Professor Newton of Cambridge in 1887, five years
after Darwin's death, he penned the following passage: `I had the idea of working it out [the theory of
natural selection], so far as I was able, when I returned home, not at all expecting that Darwin had so long
anticipated me. I can truly say now, as I said many years ago, that I am glad it was so, for I have not the love
of work, experiment and detail that was so preeminent in Darwin and without which anything I could have
written would never have convinced the world.' Darwin succeeded in convincing the world not only by
his superabundance of proof but by the transparently honest way in which he presented his case. No one
can read The Origin of Species without feeling that Darwin had the interests of only one party at heart-his
client, Truth." (Keith, A., "Introduction," to Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1928, reprint, p.xvii.
Emphasis original)
2/08/2006
"Darwin succeeded in convincing scientific men that the law of evolution is true of all living things and yet
the manner in which evolution takes place-the machinery of evolution, described in this book-may be totally
wrong. If this were really so, The Origin of Species would be altogether out of date. Some critics have
insinuated as much.-But was Darwin wrong in his conception of the mode of evolution? Let us look into
this. Suppose, for a moment, that an omniscient biologist, greatly daring, were to re-edit this classic--would
he find much that needs alteration? Scarcely a single fact would have to be withdrawn; so accurate was
Darwin in making his own observations and so careful was he in the selection of his authorities, that the
modern reader may accept all his statements of fact without question. But what of his `mode' or method of
evolution? The machinery involved-is it out of date? My deliberate opinion is that the machinery of
evolution described in this book is not out of date and never will be. Darwin perceived that two factors are
concerned in evolution-one is `productive,' the other is `selective.' The productive factor gives rise to the
materials of evolution-the points or characters wherein one individual differs from another-whether that
individual be a plant or a human being. Such differences Darwin names `variations.' How are such variations
produced? In every chapter of this book the reader will find Darwin declaring that he does not know; the
only point of which he felt certain was that individual differences do not arise by chance."
(Keith, A., "Introduction," to Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," Sixth
Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1928, reprint, p.xvii)
2/08/2006
"Though he has often been regarded as an obscure writer, Darwin usually expresses himself clearly
enough. He was not interested in philosophical considerations or in the exact definition of the terms he
used. In the final chapter of the first edition of Origin, where he recapitulates his arguments the word
evolution is not even mentioned; yet the proposition he is defending can easily be defined. This is, that
all the organisms that exist or have existed have developed from a few extremely simple forms or from
one alone, by a process of descent with modification. The mechanism of these transformations though
infinitely complex in its detailed working, is very simple in principle. For reasons not fully understood
organisms tend to vary slightly in their various characteristics These variations must be called random
in the sense that they have no predestined relation to the well-being of the organism. Nevertheless
since they occur continually in many directions an individual in which a particular variation has
occurred will have a slight advantage over its competitors in a particular environment. The advantage
will be transmitted to its progeny in which, owing to variation, it will be manifested in different degrees,
and thus there will occur through successive generations, a progressive adaptation to the environment
from which the inadequately equipped competitors will disappear either through extinction or by
adaptation to a different environment. We must, says Darwin, admit the truth of the following
propositions: 'that gradations in the perfection of any organ or instinct, which we may consider, either
do now exist or could have existed, each good of its kind-that all organs and instincts are, in ever so
slight a degree, variable-and, lastly, that there is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of
each profitable deviation of structure or instinct.' These truths being admitted, the theory of descent
with modification through natural selection, must be accepted. This explanation has universal value. It
enables us to understand that every mental power and capacity has been a gradual but necessary
acquirement and thus the origin and history of man become scientifically comprehensible. And as the
past has been, so will the future. We may look with some confidence, says Darwin, ' to a secure future
of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each
being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.' The view that
natural selection, leading to the survival of the fittest, in populations of individuals of varying
characteristics and competing among themselves, has produced in the course of geological time
gradual transformations leading from a simple primitive organism to the highest forms of life, without
the intervention of any directive agency or force, is thus the essence of the Darwinian position.
Purposeless and undirected evolution, says J.S. Huxley, eventually produced, in man, a being capable
of purpose and of directing evolutionary change. This, it appears to me, remains the view of the most
representative modern Darwinians. It is true that Darwin himself admitted a Lamarckian element, the
effects of use and disuse, and Sir Arthur Keith defended him against those who accused him of relying
exclusively on natural selection. But this, in the modern view, would be a virtue of Darwin's theory
since the inheritance of acquired characters is now generally denied by biologists." (Thompson, W.R.,
"Introduction," in Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition,
1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1967, reprint, pp.viii-ix)
2/08/2006
"I have tried to include in a necessarily brief summary the most important points in Darwin's argument and
have not designedly attempted to weaken the presentation. If Darwin convinced the world that species had
originated through evolution by natural selection, it was, I think, on the basis of the arguments I have
mentioned. But in a matter of this kind a great deal depends on the manner in which arguments are
presented. Darwin considered that the doctrine of the Origin of living forms by descent with
modification, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory unless the causes at work were correctly
identified, so his theory of modification by natural selection was, for him, of absolutely major importance.
Since he had at the time the Origin was published no body of experimental evidence to support his
theory, he fell back on speculative arguments. The argumentation used by evolutionists, said de
Quatrefages, makes the discussion of their ideas extremely difficult. Personal convictions, simple
possibilities, are presented as if they were proofs, or at least valid arguments in favour of the theory. As an
example de Quatrefages cited Darwin's explanation of the manner in which the titmouse might become
transformed into the nutcracker, by the accumulation of small changes in structure and instinct owing to the
effect of natural selection; and then proceeded to show that it is just as easy to transform the nutcracker
into the titmouse. The demonstration can be modified without difficulty to fit any conceivable case. It is
without scientific value, since it cannot be verified; but since the imagination has free rein, it is easy to
convey the impression that a concrete example of real transmutation has been given. This is the more
appealing because of the extreme fundamental simplicity of the Darwinian explanation. The reader may be
completely ignorant of biological processes yet he feels that he really understands and in a sense dominates
the machinery by which the marvellous variety of living forms has been produced. This was certainly a
major reason for the success of the Origin. Another is the elusive character of the Darwinian argument.
Every characteristic of organisms is maintained in existence because it has survival value. But this value
relates to the struggle for existence. Therefore we are not obliged to commit ourselves in regard to the
meaning of differences between individuals or species since the possessor of a particular modification may
be, in the race for life, moving up or falling behind. On the other hand, we can commit ourselves if we like,
since it is impossible to disprove our statement. The plausibility of the argument eliminates the need for
proof and its very nature gives it a kind of immunity to disproof. Darwin did not show in the Origin
that species had Originated by natural selection; he merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and
assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince
others." (Thompson, W.R.*, "Introduction," in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1967, reprint, p.xi)
2/08/2006
"No one who views mankind with unprejudiced eyes can say that Darwin's law of selection is out of date.
There is competition and struggle throughout the whole of Nature's realm. Nor do I think it can ever pass
out of date in any form of human society unless man deliberately resolves to give up the struggle of life. As
to what will happen in such a case the law of evolution leaves us in no doubt. The species which gives up
the struggle becomes extinct. The revolution in outlook, effected by this book, was not confined to men who
study the history of animals and of plants. Its conquest gradually spread until every department of
knowledge was affected. No matter what a man's line of study might be-the stars, the earth, the elements,
industry, economics, civilisation, theology or man himself-the inquirer soon began to realise that he must
take the law of evolution as his guide. It was Darwin, through this book, who changed the outlook of all
gatherers of knowledge and made them realise that behind the field of their immediate inquiry lay an
immense evolutionary or historical background which had to be explored before further progress was
possible. Nay, it was Darwin who made men see that evolution is now everywhere at work--in all things
material, moral and spiritual, and will continue in operation, so far as the human mind can anticipate, to the
very end of time." (Keith, A., "Introduction," to Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 1928, reprint, pp.xviii-xix)
2/08/2006
"A few months ago I had the daring to place Darwin in that small select group of great Englishmen which
holds Shakespeare. My judgment was denounced as madly biased by men accustomed to adjudicate on
literary reputations. When, however, we see how profoundly Darwin has altered and is altering the outlook
of mankind, lifting from it, more than any man has ever done, the pall of superstition, my estimate of his
greatness and of his universality will be seen to be nearer the truth than is now acknowledged. I know very
well that Darwin's doctrine so far has reached only the intellectual stratum of mankind and has not yet
percolated into the minds of the greater mass of humanity. Sooner or later Darwin's outlook will become
universal, for men of all grades do desire to know the truth. Darwin's mission is not finished; this book has
still many years to live and many converts to make." (Keith, A., "Introduction," to Darwin C.R., "The Origin
of Species by Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons:
London, 1928, reprint, p.xix)
3/08/2006
"Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The
ancient masters of religion were equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin-a fact
as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at
any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun
in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new
theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.
Some followers of the Reverend R.J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine
sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they
can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-
point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a
cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence
of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and Man, as all Christians do.
The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat. In this remarkable
situation it is plainly not now possible (with any hope of a universal appeal) to start, as our fathers did, with
the fact of sin. This very fact which was to them (and is to me) as plain as a pikestaff, is the very fact that
has been specially diluted or denied." (Chesterton, G.K., "Orthodoxy," [1908], Fontana: London, 1961,
reprint, p.15)
3/08/2006
"The expanded insanity defense was endorsed by the leading experts and enacted in the federal system and
many states. (In California, judges left the old insanity rule unchanged but introduced the new philosophy
directly into the law of murder by saying that a defendant lacked `malice aforethought' if he couldn't control
his conduct.) The new rules lasted just until they succeeded in generating outcomes the public recognized
as crazy, including the insanity acquittal of John Hinckley--who shot President Reagan and his press
secretary in hopes of attracting the notice of the movie star Jodie Foster. Of course, Hinckley's motivation
really was loony, but he also knew the wrongfulness of what he was doing and chose to do it. Public
opinion promptly forced a change back to the old rules, with additional measures designed to ensure that
defendants acquitted for insanity would be confined just as securely as if they had been convicted. John
Hinckley is still behind bars and going nowhere. What is particularly fascinating about the traditional
insanity doctrine, called the M'Naghten Rule by lawyers, is that it is based straightforwardly on
assumptions derived from biblical theism. Humans are seen as endowed with an innate understanding of the
difference between moral right and wrong--meaning an absolute moral standard that is independent of legal
rules. The law holds us responsible if we choose wrong instead of right, just as God does--and science does
not. Criminal defendants are excused for insanity only if this innate capacity for moral understanding is so
damaged that they are comparable to small children, who do not grasp what killing means even if they pick
up a loaded pistol, point it at a playmate, and pull the trigger. (A California six-year-old was recently found
incapable of committing attempted murder after he beat a baby almost to death. No one protested the
decision.) Insanity in this restricted sense saves a killer from the death penalty, but it does not lead to
freedom, because an adult who does not know right from wrong belongs in custody. Whatever scientific
naturalists may say, criminal law has found it necessary to assume that humans are moral agents created in
the image of God, with a divine gift of freedom and a knowledge of God's moral order written on our hearts.
Even James Q. Wilson, who doesn't believe the premise, likes the conclusions that follow from that premise.
When you are dealing with human beings, naturalism is a bust--especially as a methodology." (Johnson
P.E., "Those Madcap Menendez Boys," Books & Culture Magazine, Nov/Dec 1997, Vol. 3, No. 6, p.12)
3/08/2006
"Once it is decided that we must wager; once it is decided that there are only two options, theism and atheism,
not three, theism, atheism, and agnosticism; then the rest of the argument is simple. Atheism is a terrible bet. It
gives you no chance of winning the red prize. Pascal states the argument this way: You have two things to lose:
the true and the good; and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness;
and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness. Since you must necessarily choose, your
reason is no more affronted by choosing one rather than the other. That is one point cleared up. But your
happiness? Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the
two cases: if you win, you win everything: if you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he
does exist. If God does not exist, it does not matter how you wager, for there is nothing to win after death and
nothing to lose after death. But if God does exist, your only chance of winning eternal happiness is to believe,
and your only chance of losing it is to refuse to believe. As Pascal says, `I should be much more afraid of being
mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of being mistaken in believing it to be true.' If you
believe too much, you neither win nor lose eternal happiness. But if you believe too little, you risk losing
everything." (Kreeft, P., "The Argument from Pascal's Wager." From Kreeft, P., "Fundamentals of the Faith:
3/08/2006
"It is therefore of immediate concern to both biologist and layman that Darwinism is under attack. The
theory of life that undermined nineteenthcentury religion has virtually become a religion itself and in its turn
is being threatened by fresh ideas. The attacks are certainly not limited to those of the creationists and
religious fundamentalists who deny Darwinism for political and moral reasons. The main thrust of the
criticism comes from within science itself. The doubts about Darwinism represent a potential revolt from
within rather than a siege from without. What is even more surprising is that these doubts are arising
simultaneously from several independent branches of science. With a growth in the appreciation of the
philosophy of science-largely due to the influence of the philosopher Karl Popper-has come a doubt about
whether Darwinism is, strictly speaking, scientific. Is the theory actually testable-as good theories must be?
Is the idea of natural selection based on a tautology, a simple restatement of some initial assumptions? From
within biology the doubts have come from scientists in half a dozen separate fields. Many palaeontologists
are unconvinced by the supposed gradualness of Darwinian evolution; they feel that the evidence points to
abrupt change-or else to no change at all. Some geneticists question Darwin's explanation for the 'origin of
species', feeling that natural selection may have virtually nothing to do with the events that lead to the
appearance of new species. Among other scientists, for example among immunologists, embryologists and
taxonomists, the same feeling seems to be growing: there is a lot more to evolution than Charles Darwin
envisaged, and even the modern synthesis of evolutionary ideas-called neoDarwinism ... seems inadequate
in many respects. In some ways the attacks are nothing new; several of the debates now surfacing can be
traced to Darwin himself, and even before. What is new is the climate that the debates are creating. Since the
days of Darwin and his 'bulldog', T.H. Huxley, and especially since the confident synthesis that created neo-
Darwinism in the 1940s, any attack on evolutionary theory has been treated rather like flat-earthism:
evidence of mental aberration due to religious mania or political fanaticism. Such attacks were simply not
taken seriously. This is no longer true. In the past ten years has emerged a new breed of biologists who are
considered scientifically respectable, but who have their doubts about Darwinism." (Leith, B., "The Descent
of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism," Collins: London, 1982, pp.10-11)
3/08/2006
"The raising of the status of Darwinian theory to a self-evident axiom has had the consequence that the
very real problems and objections with which Darwin so painfully laboured in the Origin have become
entirely invisible. Crucial problems such as the absence of connecting links or the difficulty of envisaging
intermediate forms are virtually never discussed and the creation of even the most complex of adaptations is
put down to natural selection without a ripple of doubt. The overriding supremacy of the myth has created a
widespread illusion that the theory of evolution was all but proved one hundred years ago and that all
subsequent biological research - paleontological, zoological and in the newer branches of genetics and
molecular biology has provided ever-increasing evidence for Darwinian ideas. Nothing could be further from
the truth. The fact is that the evidence was so patchy one hundred years ago that even Darwin himself had
increasing doubts as to the validity of his views, and the only aspect of his theory which has received any
support over the past century is where it applies to microevolutionary phenomena. His general theory, that
all life on earth had originated and evolved by a gradual successive accumulation of fortuitous mutations, is
still, as it was in Darwin's time, a highly speculative hypothesis entirely without direct factual support and
very far from that self-evident axiom some of its more aggressive advocates would have us believe."
(Denton, M.J., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett Books: London, 1985, p.78)
3/08/2006
"When country changes rapidly, we should expect most species. The difference [between] intellect of man and
animals not so great as between living thing without thought (plants) and living thing with thought (animal). ...
My theory very distinct from Lamarck's." (Darwin, C.R., "First Notebook (July 1837-February 1838)," in de Beer,
G.R., ed., "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species (1837-1839)," in Appleman, P., ed., "Darwin: A
Norton Critical Edition," W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, First Edition, 1970, p.76)
3/08/2006
"If my theory true, we get 1st a horizontal history of earth within recent times, and many curious points of
speculation; for having ascertained means of transport, we should then know whether former lands intervened.
2d) By character of any two ancient fauna, we may form some idea of connection of those two countries. Hence
India, Mexico and Europe-one great sea. (Coral reefs .'. shallow water at Melville island). 3d) We know that
structure of every organ in A.B.C., three species of one genus can pass into each other by steps we see; but this
cannot be predicated of structures in two genera. Although D.E.F. follow close to A.B.C., we cannot be sure that
structure (C) could pass into (D). We may foretell species, limits of good species being known. It explains the
blending of two genera. It explains typical structure. Every species is due to adaptation hereditary structure;
Latter far chief element. ... Little service habits in classification or rather for the fact that they are not far the most
serviceable. We may speculate of durability of succession from what we have seen in old world and on amount
changes which may happen. It leads you to believe the world older than geologists think; it agrees with
excessive inequality of numbers of species in divisions, -look at articulata!!?" (Darwin, C.R., "First Notebook
(July 1837-February 1838)," in de Beer, G.R., ed., "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species (1837-1839),"
in Appleman, P., ed., "Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition," W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, First Edition, 1970,
p.77. Emphasis original)
3/08/2006
"With belief of transmutation and geographical grouping we are led to endeavour to discover causes of
changes,-the manner of adaptation (wish of parents??), instinct and structure becomes full of speculation
and line of observation. View of generation being condensation, test of highest organization intelligible.
May look in first germ, led to comprehend true affinities. My theory would give zest to recent and fossil
Comparative Anatomy; it would lead to study of instincts, heredity and mind heredity, whole [of]
metaphysics. It would lead to closest examination of hybridity, to what circumstances favour crossing and
what prevent it; and generation, causes of change in order to know what we have come from and I,, what we
tend, this and direct examination of direct passagesof structure in species might lead to laws of change,
which would then be [the] main object of study, to guide our speculations with respect to past and future."
(Darwin, C.R., "First Notebook (July 1837-February 1838)," in de Beer, G.R., ed., "Darwin's Notebooks on
Transmutation of Species (1837-1839)," in Appleman, P., ed., "Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition," W.W.
Norton & Co: New York NY, First Edition, 1970, p.78. Emphasis original)
3/08/2006
"I utterly deny the right to argue against my theory because it makes the world far older than what geologists
think: it would be doing what others but fifty years since [did] to geologists,--& what is older- what relation in
duration of planet to our lives. Being myself a geologist, I have thus argued to myself, till I can honestly reject
such false reasoning." (Darwin, C.R., "Fourth Notebook (October, 1838-July 10, 1839)," in de Beer, G.R., ed.,
"Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species (1837-1839)," in Appleman, P., ed., "Darwin: A Norton Critical
Edition," W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, First Edition, 1970, p.80. Emphasis original)
4/08/2006
"One unorthodox radiometric method addresses the question of whether the earth is young....To understand
the method, first consider neptunium237, the first member of a natural radioactive decay sequence. We
cannot, however, find neptunium-237 in minerals or any natural source. But we can synthesize it in nuclear
reactors and measure its half-life. Those who claim the earth is very old maintain that we cannot find this
isotope because its half-life, 2.2 million years, is too short. Thus, if it were present in the beginning, in 2.2
million years only half the initial amount would be present; in 4.4 million years, only one-fourth. Obviously,
if the earth is several billion years old , we could not find neptunium-237 today; the 'missing' neptunium-237
could indicate the earth is very old. Of course, a person who claims the earth is but ten thousand years old
would very likely maintain that neptunium-237 was not present at the time of creation. Fair enough. But a
problem arises because neptunium-237 is not the only 'missing' isotope. Here is the critical piece of
information: all 40 radioactive isotopes whose half-lives are between 1000 years and 50 million years are
missing in nature; all 17 radioactive isotopes with halflives greater than 50 million years are present in
nature. If the earth is several billion years old, then even for a 50-million year half life, many half lives have
elapsed since the beginning: one would not expect to find now in nature a substance with a half-life of as
much as 50 million years. But if the earth is young--say, 10,000 years old--all 57 (40 plus 17) isotopes would
be present in nature now if they were present initially. Yet, since we know of some of these isotopes only
because we can synthesize them, it would not be necessary for all 57 to be present; on a random basis, some
could have been present, others absent. In a young earth we would at the present time find whichever of the
57 isotopes were present initially. What, then, is the probability that the 40 short-lived isotopes would be
missing and the 17 long-lived would be present at the beginning? Calculation shows that the probability of
such a distribution at the beginning, compared to all possible random distributions, is less than one part in
100 thousand billion; this is thus also the probability that the earth is young. " (Maatman, R.W.*, "The
Impact of Evolutionary Theory: A Christian View," Dordt College Press: Sioux Center IA, 1993, pp.276-277.
Emphasis original)
4/08/2006
"Nearly all the finches collected by Charles Darwin are similar in appearance to those taken by later
collectors, but there are two forms which have not been recorded since 1835. First, there are three male and
four female specimens obviously referable to the large ground-finch Geospiza magnirostris, but which are
considerably larger than any collected since. ... while it would be pleasing to demonstrate measurable
evolution on the basis of specimens collected by Darwin, it seems far more probable that these large birds
represent an extinct subspecies of G. magnirostris from Charles, where the bird no longer resides. ... Also
among the Beagle specimens are two which in my opinion belong to an unknown form related to the sharp-
beaked groundfinch G. difficilis. They have a similar shape of beak, though the beak is larger." (Lack, D.,
"Darwin's Finches: An Essay on the General Biological Theory of Evolution," [1947], Harper Torchbooks:
New York NY, 1961, reprint, pp.22-23)
5/08/2006
"Nonetheless, the claim that evolution must be too slow to see can only rank as an urban legend-though not
a completely harmless tale in this case, for our creationist incubi can then use the fallacy as an argument
against evolution at any scale, and many folks take them seriously because they just `know' that evolution
can never be seen in the immediate here and now. In fact, a precisely opposite situation actually prevails:
biologists have documented a veritable glut of cases for rapid and eminently measurable evolution on
timescales of years and decades. However, this plethora of documents-while important for itself, and surely
valid as a general confirmation for the proposition that organisms evolve-teaches us rather little about rates
and patterns of evolution at the geological scales that build the history and taxonomic structure of life. The
situation is wonderfully ironic-a point that I have tried to capture in the title of this article. The urban legend
holds that evolution is too slow to document in palpable human lifetimes. The opposite truth has affirmed
innumerable cases of measurable evolution at this minimal scale-but to be visible at all over so short a span,
evolution must be far too rapid (and transient) to serve as the basis for major transformations in geological
time. Hence the `paradox of the visibly irrelevant'-or, `if you can see it at all, it's too fast to matter in the long
run!'" (Gould, S.J., "The Paradox of the Visibly Irrelevant," in "The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate
Reflections in Natural History," [2000], Vintage: London, 2001, reprint, pp.333-346, pp.334-335)
5/08/2006
"I would recommend this book as supplementary reading in an introductory university course on evolution,
but not without a word of caution. Whether the book is a masterpiece or not, its scope is quite narrow; there
is some painful oversimplification and a number of irritants. Mr. Dawkins is solely concerned with what one
may call `efficiency selection,' namely, when shortages of material resources generate a reproductive payoff
for individuals that -- somehow -- manage to spend less of the precious resources on body maintenance and
growth and thus proportionately more on reproduction. Designers also strive for this ideal and draw
attention to it with the slogan `Less is more.' However, there are regimes of natural selection based not on
poverty but on wealth, on superabundance of material resources, whether they are seasonal or
circumstantial. Eyes and spider webs are organs of utility, and their evolution through efficiency selection
runs by somewhat different rules from those of `luxury organs,' such as deer antlers and peacock tails. Mr.
Dawkins's time frame for evolution is too optimistic. After all, organisms act to defeat natural selection, to
escape from evolution. Mr. Dawkins pays no attention to adaptive phenotypic plasticity -- an organism's
ability to alter its physiology to accommodate changes in its environment -- which normally thwarts natural
selection on genes. Thus a false impression is conveyed that genes (mutations) generally produce the same
results. They rarely do. Organisms vary in size, in form and structure and in other ways based on the
environment they exploit, so that identical genetic constitutions can give rise to very different shapes and
behaviors within the same species, depending on the environment they experience during early growth and
maturation. While natural selection is continuous, evolution begins only when individuals in a population
cannot adjust to environmental stresses with existing abilities. Mutations whose effect can be overridden by
the normal abilities of individuals spread randomly and, at best, become part of the genetic load of the
species. We expect evolution (genetic change) to be rare, and when it does occur, it is proof of
incompetence, of extinction barely avoided. Successful forms do not evolve noticeably as they deal
competently with environmental vagaries. To be a `living fossil' is the hallmark of biological success." (Geist,
V., "The Origin of Eyes." Review of "Climbing Mount Improbable," by Richard Dawkins, W. W. Norton &
Co: New York, 1996. The New York Times Book Review, September 29, 1996)
5/08/2006
"In Darwin's Journal the year 1837 contains an entry which runs, `In July opened first notebook on
`Transmutation of Species'-Had been greatly struck from about month of previous March on character of S.
American fossils--& species on Galapagos Archipelago. These facts origin (especially latter) of all my views.'
This notebook is transcribed and printed below and forms the subject of the present study. ... It will be noticed
that the passage from the journal quoted above must have been a retrospective entry written at a later date, for if
he only began his Notebook in July 1837 he could not then have known what `all his views' were." (de Beer, G.R.,
ed., "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species (1837-1839)," in Appleman, P., ed., "Darwin: A Norton
Critical Edition," W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, First Edition, 1970, pp.70-71)
7/08/2006
"The personality of Galileo, as it emerges from works of popular science, has even less relation to historic
fact than Canon Koppernigk's. In his particular case, however, this is not caused by a benevolent
indifference towards the individual as distinct from his achievement, but by more partisan motives. In works
with a theological bias, he appears as the nigger in the woodpile; in rationalist mythography, as the Maid of
Orleans of Science, the St George who slew the dragon of the Inquisition. It is, therefore, hardly surprising
that the fame of this outstanding genius rests mostly on discoveries he never made, and on feats he never
performed. Contrary to statements in even recent outlines of science, Galileo did not invent the telescope;
nor the microscope; nor the thermometer; nor the pendulum clock. He did not discover the law of inertia; nor
the parallelogram of forces or motions; nor the sun spots. He made no contribution to theoretical
astronomy; he did not throw down weights from the leaning tower of Pisa, and did not prove the truth of the
Copernican system. He was not tortured by the Inquisition, did not languish in its dungeons, did not say
'eppur si muove' ["it still moves"]; and he was not a martyr of science. What he did was to found the modern
science of dynamics, which makes him rank among the men who shaped human destiny. It provided the
indispensable complement to Kepler's laws for Newton's universe: 'If I have been able to see farther,'
Newton said, 'it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants.' The giants were, chiefly, Kepler, Galileo,
and Descartes." (Koestler, A., "The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe",
[1959], Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1972, reprint, p.358. Parentheses mine)
7/08/2006
"The Court's reasoning in section E-4 is premised on: a cramped view of science; the conflation of intelligent
design with creationism; an incapacity to distinguish the implications of a theory from the theory itself; a
failure to differentiate evolution from Darwinism; and strawman arguments against ID. The Court has
accepted the most tendentious and shopworn excuses for Darwinism with great charity and impatiently
dismissed evidence-based arguments for design. All of that is regrettable, but in the end does not impact the
realities of biology, which are not amenable to adjudication. On the day after the judge's opinion, December
21, 2005, as before, the cell is run by amazingly complex, functional machinery that in any other context
would immediately be recognized as designed. On December 21, 2005, as before, there are no non-design
explanations for the molecular machinery of life, only wishful speculations and Just-So stories." (Behe, M.J.,
"Whether Intelligent Design is Science: A Response to the Opinion of the Court in Kitzmiller vs Dover Area
School District," Center for Science & Culture, Discovery Institute, Seattle WA, 2006)
7/08/2006
"But Doesn't Intelligent Design Refer to Something Supernatural? From an ID perspective, the natural-
vs.-supernatural distinction is irrelevant. The real contrast is not between natural laws and miracles, but
between undirected natural causes and intelligent ones. Mathematician and philosopher of science William
Dembski puts it this way: `Whether an intelligent cause is located within or outside nature (i.e., is
respectively natural or supernatural) is a separate question from whether an intelligent cause has operated.'
Human actions are a case in point: `Just as humans do not perform miracles every time they act as intelligent
agents, so there is no reason to assume that for a designer to act as an intelligent agent requires a violation
of natural laws.' On the other hand, even if an object were miraculously created, it could still be studied.
Take the flagellum, for example. No matter what its origins, a flagellum is a flagellum. We can take it apart, we
can examine its components, we can modify it, we can figure out how it works. And we can do that whether
it evolved over eons or popped into existence two seconds ago. In the world of human technology, this is
called reverse engineering. But the same process is also used in biology. `That’s basically what everybody
at the bench is doing,' said Scott Minnich, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho. `We don’t have the
blueprints in the true sense. We have the DNA code for a lot of organisms, but in terms of the assembly of
these molecular machines, it’s a matter of breaking them apart and trying to put them back together to figure
out how they function.' This is also the kind of work that will be done with the human genome. Speaking to
the New York Times in late June, when the human genome breakthrough was announced, Harold Varmus,
former director of the National Institutes of Health commented, `The important thing is having pieces of
DNA in your hand, and being able to figure out how they work by modifying and mutating them. That's
where the game is now.' Fittingly, the metaphor he used to describe this process was examining a clock:
`You can take the clock apart, lay the pieces out in front of you, and then try to understand what makes it
tick by putting it back together again.'" (Hartwig, M., "Frequently Asked Questions about Intelligent
Design," Access Research Network: Colorado Springs CO, 2003)
7/08/2006
"It is a hard fact that the scientific case for the intelligent design hypothesis is getting much stronger. ...
How will the idea of intelligent design be regarded by the public and by the scientific community in years to
come? ... On the one hand, although newspaper editorialists might disapprove, polls show that the great
majority of the public already is convinced of design. On the other hand, because it has been raised on
Darwinism, much of the scientific community is used to thinking exclusively in Darwinian terms.
Nonetheless, even there it seems, the times they are a- changin'. A recent news article in the journal
Nature reported on an invitation-only meeting where up-and-coming students could rub elbows with
Nobel prize winning scientists. For this year's meeting the organizing committee `... invited scientific
academies and other agencies around the world to open competitions for young scientists to attend, then
whittled down a list of nearly 10,000 applicants. The final 2005 list of 720 invitees represented a new profile
of participant: academically excellent, familiar with societal impacts of their research and fluent in English.
They are generally under thirty, but the majority are now Ph.D. students or postdocs.' But the students
asked surprising questions. `it is curious to see the questions that students from different cultures ask,'
[Gunter Blobel (medicine, 1999)] remarked after a discussion on evolutionary biology led by Christian de
Duve (medicine, 1974). He was taken aback to find some students expressing so much interest in the
`creative guiding hand' of intelligent design.[Abbott, A., "Nobel laureates: Close encounters," Nature 436,
July 14, 2005, pp.170-171]" (Behe, M.J., "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,"
[1996], Free Press: New York NY, 10th Anniversary Edition, 2006, pp.272-273)
8/08/2006
"The term homology is derived from the Greek homologia which means `agreement', and is applied to
corresponding organs and structures of plants and of animals which show `agreement' in their fundamental
plan of structure, as for example the leaf of an oak tree with the leaf of an ash tree, or the right forelimb of a
dog with the right forelimb of a horse. Richard Owen introduced the term into biological language in 1843 to
express similarities in basic structure found between organs of animals which he considered to be more
fundamentally similar than others. ... As it turned out, Owen was right in basing homology and homologous
organs, or homologues, on their structure regardless of their function. An organ is homologous with
another because of what it is, not because of what it does. Homologous organs are the `same' organs
however modified in detailed form and in the function that they carry out. The forelimb of a horse is
homologous with the wing of a bat, although the former serves for locomotion on land and the latter for
flight in the air. Homology is therefore to be distinguished sharply from analogy, the term applied by
Owen to structures that perform similar functions but do not correspond to the same representative in the
archetype. The wings of an insect serve the same function as the wings of a bird and are analogous to them,
not homologous with them. The entire science of comparative anatomy is concerned with the recognition of
homologous organs in different groups of organisms, plants and animals, and their distinction from
analogous organs. Like other people, Owen had predecessors in his way of thinking, and the earliest was
Aristotle who may be said to have founded comparative anatomy in his Historia animalium, when he
wrote: `There are living beings such that all the parts of one recall the corresponding parts of others';
forelimb of quadruped, wing of bird, fin of fish. " (de Beer, G.R., "Homology, An Unsolved Problem," Oxford
University Press: London, 1971, p.3. Emphasis original)
8/08/2006
"Darwin's bombshell of evolution, which burst in 1859, had a profound effect on the concept of the
explanation of homology, but without touching the criteria by which it is established. At one stroke, it was
obvious that metaphysical `archetypes' do not exist, and that homology between organs is based on their
correspondence with representatives in a common ancestor of the organisms being compared, from which
they were descended in evolution. `What can be more curious,' asked Darwin, `than that the hand of a man,
formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing
of the bat, should be all constructed on the same pattern, and should include similar bones, in the same
relative positions?' In the 6th edition of the Origin of species [sic] (1872) he went on to quote Sir William
Flower: `We may call this conformity to type, without getting much nearer to an explanation of the
phenomenon, but is it not powerfully suggestive of true relationship, of inheritance from a common
ancestor?' In other words, it is homologous organs that provide evidence of affinity between organisms that
have undergone descent with modification from a common ancestor, i.e. evolution. Furthermore, since
evolution is the explanation of the `agreement' between homologous organs, their study, if they are hard
parts susceptible of fossilization, is not restricted to the morphology of living organisms, but the entire
range of palaeontology is available for it. So, provided with a cast-iron explanation in terms of affinity, of
inheritance in evolution from a common ancestor, it looked as if the concept of homology was at last
soundly based and presented no more problems of principle; however, as will be seen below, it
unfortunately does." (de Beer, G.R., "Homology, An Unsolved Problem," Oxford University Press: London,
1971, pp.4-5. Emphasis original)
8/08/2006
"We can accept a certain amount of luck in our explanations, but not too much. The question is, how much?
The immensity of geological time entitles us to postulate more improbable coincidences than a court of law
would allow but, even so, there are limits. Cumulative selection is the key to all our modern explanations of
life. It strings a series of acceptably lucky events [random mutations] together in a nonrandom sequence so
that, at the end of the sequence, the finished product carries the illusion of being very very lucky indeed, far
too improbable to have come about by chance alone, even given a timespan millions of times longer than the
age of the universe so far. Cumulative selection is the key but it had to get started, and we cannot escape
the need to postulate a single-step chance event in the origin of cumulative selection itself." (Dawkins, R.,
"The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W
Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, pp.139-140. Emphasis original)
10/08/2006
"The Darwinian Hypothesis. ... We have allowed that natural selection can be accepted, within certain
narrow limits. It is a probable enough explanation of the phenomenon of mimicry. Animals whose colour and
instinctive habits made them inconspicuous survived; the misfits died out. Indeed there is a good deal to be
said for Willis' contention, that a new species or genus having more or less suddenly appeared on the earth,
its individuals in subsequent generations began to vary in all directions, and natural selection licked them
into shape, eliminating the unsuitable, improving those that fitted well into the scheme of life. That all living
things change, and have changed in past geological time, seems clearly established. What Willis does not
make clear is how the new genus or family first comes into existence. Where natural selection comes to grief
is when it is pressed further, and is made responsible for the origin of new families of animals or plants quite
different from the alleged ancestors, or when it is supposed to account for the origin of new structures, such
as feathers in birds, or the eye, which turns up not only in the vertebrates but also in the cephalopods, such
as the octopus. If vertebrates and cephalopods ever had a common ancestor, it is practically certain that
there was no such well-developed eye. As L. Berg, of Leningrad, stated in his book, the idea that the eye
should have been evolved twice over, in cephalopods and in vertebrates, by mere throws of chance as the
Darwinians suppose, is `a miracle no naturalist ought to contemplate'. It is equally difficult to see how the
numerous enzymes that occur in the living body, of such complicated chemical structure, so easily
destroyed, and of such diverse function, can have been evolved by natural selection alone." (Short, A.R.*,
"Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human Body,"
[1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.127-129. Emphasis original)
10/08/2006
"The theory is, of course, that new organs and new functions did not `arrive' suddenly, but that there were a
multitude of simpler stages that went to the building up of the perfected structure. But, as has been pointed
out a hundred times, if these intermediate stages served no useful purpose, natural selection, being blind to
the future, would eliminate them, not foster them. The tissue cells of the body compete for fluids, for oxygen,
for sugar, for other forms of nourishment; there is none to spare for such as are mere consumers and not
contributors. It is past the wit of man to offer a reasonable suggestion as to the value of every stage. For
instance, by what succession of useful stages did feathers arise?" (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some
Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter
UK, Reprinted, 1964, p.129)
10/08/2006
"It is true that we can sometimes find examples of organs simpler in animals than in man. In Crustacea of the
crayfish family, there is a little pocket at the base of the antenna, beset with hair cells and supplied with
nerves, which contains a gritty particle, and serves to inform the animal which way up it is. This is a very
simple form of the utricle and semicircular canals in mammals and man. The cochlea in birds is straight, not
coiled, and one bone, the columella, takes the place of the malleus, incus and stapes. But the coiling of the
cochlea is a mere elaboration to make room for the very many more sensory receptors that are needed to
appreciate such a wide variety of musical notes. The main miracle of producing an apparatus to respond to
musical notes has already been accomplished. How?" (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern
Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK,
Reprinted, 1964, pp.129-130)
10/08/2006
"It would take us too far from our main theme to discuss the pros and cons of the Darwinian hypothesis in
detail, so we shall deal with further difficulties of the theory in a few paragraphs. It fails to offer a solution of
the problem of the origin of life in the first place on the earth. ... Our modern chemists have not yet been able
to synthesize the proteins that are the raw material of living cells. Even if proteins had somehow been
formed in some primitive ocean or mud bank, they would have needed a cell membrane to enclose them, or
they would have dissolved away into the surrounding fluids. Our new knowledge of cell chemistry, with the
series of enzymes, all of which must be present to enable a living cell to function, goes to show that the
problem of the origin of a primitive living cell is much more complicated than it appeared a hundred years
ago, and even then Darwin did not succeed in solving it." (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern
Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK,
Reprinted, 1964, p.130)
10/08/2006
"The Darwinian theory fails to explain the strange way in which the first fossils appear. The Pre-Cambrian
strata, the oldest known to us, and supposed to have taken far longer to lay down than any of the
subsequent formations, are barren of life, but in the Cambrian rocks that follow them, fossils of quite
complicated animals suddenly appear; brachiopods, trilobites, graptolites, and the rest. No fewer than 1119
genera of Cambrian fossils have been described. [Dewar, D., Journal of Transactions of Victoria Institute,
1948, 80, 12] " (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and
Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.130-131)
10/08/2006
"To introduce another serious difficulty, we will quote a few paragraphs from Professor D'Arcy Thompson's
book Growth and Form (p.1092). `In the study of evolution, and in all attempts to trace the descent of the
animal kingdom, fourscore years' study of the origin of species has had an unlooked-for and disappointing
result. It was hoped to begin with, and within my own recollection it was confidently believed, that the
broad lines of descent, the relation of the main branches to one another and to the trunk of the tree, would
soon be settled, and the lesser ramifications would be unravelled bit by bit and later on. But things have
turned out otherwise. We have long known, in more or less satisfactory detail, the pedigree of horses,
elephants, turtles, crocodiles and some few more; and one's conclusions tally as to these, again more or less
to our satisfaction, with the direct evidence of palaeontological succession. But the larger and at first sight
simpler questions remain unanswered; for eighty years of Darwinian evolution has not taught us how birds
descended from reptiles, quadrupeds from fishes, nor vertebrates from invertebrate stock. The invertebrates
themselves involve the same difficulties, so that we do not know the origin of the echinoderms, or of the
molluscs, or of the coelenterates, nor of one group of protozoa from another... . The breach between
vertebrate and invertebrate, worm and coelenterate, coelenterate and protozoan, is so wide that we cannot
see across the intervening gap at all.' `The failure to bridge this the cardinal problem of evolutionary biology
is a very curious thing, and we may well wonder why the long pedigree is subject to such breaches of
continuity. We used to be told, and were content to believe, that the old record was of necessity imperfect-
we could not expect it to be otherwise; the story was hard to read because every here and there a page had
been lost or torn away, like some hiatus valde deflendus in an ancient manuscript. But there is a deeper
reason. A principle of discontinuity, then, is inherent in all our classifications... . To seek for stepping stones
across the gaps between is to seek in vain for ever.' Many other authorities besides D'Arcy Thompson have
commented on this difficulty; it is allowed by Julian Huxley himself. [Huxley, J.S., "Evolution, The Modern
Synthesis," p.488]" (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and
Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.131-132)
10/08/2006
"Another objection to the theory of natural selection is that the qualities which separate one species from
another older species, in the great majority of cases, do not convey any obvious benefit, and we are left to
wonder why natural selection selected them. Thus far, we have been thinking of the applicability of the
theory to animals in general, and not specially to man. ... There are, however, some characteristics of the
human body which call for special notice. For instance, there is the bare skin. Loss of the hairy coat, if our
ancestor ever had one, would seem to be a positive drawback, not an advantage to be exploited by natural
selection. The hair would be a protection from injury, from rain, and from cold. Most tropical mammals have
a hairy coat and do not seem to be any the worse for it, but they are often quiescent during the heat of the
day. Some, like the horse family, have such short hair that they sweat freely. The advantage of the bare skin
is to allow man to inhabit regions of tropical heat and of Arctic cold, but to enjoy this benefit he has to wear
clothes, and natural selection can scarcely be expected to take that into consideration." (Short, A.R.*,
"Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human Body,"
[1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.132-133)
10/08/2006
"But the desperate bankruptcy of the theory is proclaimed to all the world, when it presumes to account for
man's mental powers, his ability to think, talk, plan forward, invent, theorize. In the words of Professor Wm.
McDougall, [McDougall, W., Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge, p.352] of Harvard, a leading
authority on psychology, "It is now widely recognized that the strict neo-Darwinian theory of organic
evolution is inadequate... . It finds itself at the end of its attempts with mind upon its hands as an enormous
remainder or surd, that cannot intelligibly be brought into the scheme, or ignored, save at the cost of the
absurdity of the scheme as a whole." Are we seriously invited to conclude that our thinking powers are the
result of mere chemical and physical forces, determined by natural selection acting on random variations? If
so, our thinking, and out opinions, are predetermined for us, and have no relation to evidence or reality.
How can anyone imagine that the masterpieces of human eloquence, or architecture, or painting, or poetry,
or music, or literature; or the masterpieces of human behaviour, that have won the Victoria Cross, or have
liberated enslaved nations; or the great discoveries of science, are all the product of just material forces? To
use an illustration which is becoming hackneyed, if all that is looked upon as credible, it is just as reasonable
to allege that if a million monkeys were each given a typewriter, and a million years in which to work, one of
them would eventually tap out something equivalent to a book of the New Testament. But he would not
know anything about it when he had done it. We may put it another way. Let us imagine that the B.B.C., to
save the salary of the announcer, have 365 gramophone records prepared of next year's news written up
beforehand by some amateur prophet. Some mechanical device every day feeds one of these records,
selected at random, into the microphone, to constitute the news for the day. The system would no doubt
work admirably and economically. The only trouble is that nobody would think it worth while to switch on.
Yet is not this predetermined mechanical thinking just what the materialists want to reduce us to?" (Short,
A.R., "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human
Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.134-135)
10/08/2006
"Let it not be supposed that it is only the theologians and the philosophers who realize that natural
selection, acting on chance variations, with no plan or purpose or programme to guide, is hopelessly
inadequate to account for the origin of new organs and new functions, or of new families of animals and
plants quite different from any that have gone before them. We could fill pages with quotations from
scientists of repute to show that the inadequacy is just as obvious to them. A. R. Wallace, the co-founder,
with Darwin, of the evolution theory, in his last book, The World of Life has a chapter which he entitles
Proofs of an Organizing Mind. He remarks that-those who deny such a mind are like visitors from another
planet inspecting all the activity of a sawyard, who see figures running about, saws working, and timber
being cut up, but entirely fail to realize that the men at work are intelligent beings, and not just machines like
the saws. Sir Arthur Keith, the eminent anatomist and anthropologist, and an ardent evolutionist, by no
means trammelled with religious orthodoxy as the quotation will show, wrote in 1946, in his Essays on
Human Evolution, "What are we to say then about, such a complicated and efficient instrument as the
human eye? If it had been made of wood, brass and glass, it would have been said to have been planned for
a purpose, but because it has been `evolved', is made of living tissues, and came into existence without a
preliminary `blue print', it is not purposive. Are not my critics, by the use of a verbal quibble, seeking a
sophist's escape from a real difficulty? Would it not be more honest to say that the finer purposive
adaptations we see in plants and animals remain, as yet, unexplained? The eye has been evolved; that much
is quite certain; the living vital forces which moulded it are probably still at work, but as yet we have not
isolated them. I would as easily believe the doctrine of the Trinity(!), as one which maintains that living,
developing protoplasm, by mere throws of chance, brought the human eye into existence. The essence of
living protoplasm is its purposiveness... . To ask me to believe that the evolution of man has been
determined by a series of chance events is to invite me to give credit to what is biologically unbelievable."
(Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the
Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.135-136)
10/08/2006
"Let us conclude this section with a parable. The owner of a jewellery store comes to his office one
morning and finds that his rather old-fashioned safe has been ransacked, all the cash, and the less
distinctive articles of jewellery, have gone. The bulkier articles, those of little value, and some that lend
themselves to easy recognition, are left behind. The safe has been opened by cutting round the lock, and
the edges show signs of great heat. The tablecloth and crockery which he used for a late supper the
previous evening he on the floor,, and a plate is smashed. In anger and dismay he sends for the police. The
stolid inspector who arrives to view the scene is a lazy man. He foresees lots of trouble in trying to trace the
burglars, and loss of prestige if he fails to catch them. He gives it as his opinion that the damage was done
by the office cat: He says he has seen a cat pull off a table-cloth and break a plate, just like this, trying to
catch a mouse. When the indignant jeweller asks if he considers that the cat also used an oxyacetylene
flame to cut into the safe, and sorted out the jewellery, the inspector replies that the data are so conflicting
that it is not worth while to try to be dogmatic as to what really happened. This sounds an improbable story.
Some degree of damage and loss can quite reasonably be attributed to the cat, but when they go beyond
a certain point, and there is evidence that skill has been at work, any jury will give a verdict that perverted'
human intelligence is responsible. Now, we may fairly ask the Darwinians what degree of complexity, of
fittedness to fulfil a, useful function, do they demand of the structures and organs of the human body,
before they will acknowledge that it was not the cat but the man, not the unthinking, purposeless processes
of chance, but an intelligence like our own intelligence, working to a plan as we work to a plan, that was the
architect of our bodies? If the answer is that no conceivable degree of complexity or purposefulness will
convince them, we cannot help being reminded of the proverb that none are so blind as those who won't
see. They remind us, in fact, of the very hypothetical police inspector. If the answer is that a considerable
degree of complexity and adaptation for a purpose would convince them, we ask, is there not already
enough described in the foregoing chapters? And it ought to be realized that we have only been able to
describe what is relatively easy to be understood. What we now think we understand about the functions of
the human body is only a small fraction of the whole. Enough is left to baffle our successors for a hundred
years, and perhaps for ever." (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the
Structure and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.136-137.
Emphasis original)
10/08/2006
"A Super-Intelligence. Thus far we have shied away from the idea that there may be another explanation,
that human physiology may have been decreed and constructed by an outside intelligence not resident in
the organism, but independent of it. Why? Because, say some, the theory of a superintelligence is the
conception of an immature mind. Primitive man was terrified by phenomena he could not account for;
thunder, tempest, pestilence. He was gratified to see corn growing in his fields, and his cattle bearing young.
He attributed these banes and blessings to supernatural powers. We, today, understand thunder; we can
forecast storms; we can show you under our microscopes the bacteria that cause pestilence; we have
classified and named the best varieties of wheat, and we know the value of fertilizers and the dangers of
exhaustion of the soil. To that extent, we do not need to believe in God. When science has advanced a little
further, everything will be explained, and the idea of a superintelligence will be obsolete. Sentiments like
these grew like weeds in the days of science triumphant, in shall we say the late Victorian era. But things
have turned out other than certain optimistic philosophers expected. They thought we had only to explore a
small island. We know now that we have landed on a vast continent, and no one can tell how big it is or
what lies on the other side, if there is another side. The sciences have become more, not less, complex.
Newtonian physics was relatively intelligible; Einstein's teachings are not so simple. We thought Helmholtz
had explained how we see colours; we are now aware that simple theories will not do. We were told that the
atom was the smallest possible fragment of matter; now, we are trying to get used to protons and neutrons
and electrons. Simple explanations in physiology nearly always turn out to be inadequate explanations.
Darwinism seemed to account for the origin of species beautifully; now, by many biologists, though they
believe in derivation by descent, it is regarded as inadequate to explain the beginning of new organs. It
looks as if the more we find out about nature, the more, not the less, shall we need to believe in God." (Short,
A.R., "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human
Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.136-137. Emphasis original).
10/08/2006
"A Super-Intelligence. Thus far we have shied away from the idea that there may be another explanation,
that human physiology may have been decreed and constructed by an outside intelligence not resident in
the organism, but independent of it. Why? ... Because, say others, it is the negation of the spirit of scientific
enquiry to attribute everything you cannot explain to some supernatural power. This is an arm-chair theory.
It does not take the trouble to make enquiries. If it could be shown that in a country like Britain, where a
considerable number of educated people do profess belief in God, the great scientific discoveries were
nearly all made by unbelievers, it might be feasible to argue convincingly that research is cramped by
theism. On the other hand, we might retort that physiologists who believe that the functions of an organ of
the body are designed for a purpose are more likely to make an earnest search to discover what those
functions are, than others who think the organ may have been formed quite at random by the genes, like
boys stealing a boat and going sailing without a chart or compass, they know not where. However, it is not
very profitable to bandy guesses like these, when the question can easily be tested. Books have been
published giving particulars of the religious opinions of leading British scientists, and it is evident that the
proportion of Christian believers, agnostics, and undeterminates is much the same as in the general
population of the country. Very long lists can be given of eminent research scholars in science who avowed
themselves believers in God, including several Presidents of the Royal Society. Others imply belief; for
instance Lord Rayleigh, the discoverer of the inert gases in the atmosphere, which discovery led up to our
neon lighting, prefaced his book by quoting: `The works of the Lord are great, `Sought out of all them that
have pleasure therein.' Were Lord Lister, and Sir James Young Simpson, and Lord Kelvin, and Sir Ambrose
Fleming, to mention only a very few to whom the world is indebted for great discoveries, handicapped in
their work because they were Christians? Einstein, perhaps the greatest of them all, has not been looked on
as a religious man, but he has written, `My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior
spirit who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That
deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the
incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.' [Barnette, L., The Universe and Dr. Einstein ,1949,
p.95]." (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of
the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.137-139. Emphasis original).
10/08/2006
"The favourite weapon in the hands of those who would have us rule out the idea of a divine Creator is to
make the most of the alleged imperfections of His work. Why, they ask, are there functionless organs or
useless relics in the human or animal body? Why is pain allowed? Why are there congenital idiots, or
infants with club foot, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, cleft palate; or monstrosities? We submit that this
argument is entirely beside the point. It is an attempt to sidestep the challenge to recognize a divine
intelligence. No thoughtful person, certainly no physiologist, is likely to argue that you can prove from
nature, or from physiology, that the Intelligence we are almost bound to postulate as responsible for the
master plan, is a kindly Intelligence. Even if such a proposition were supported by human physiology, it
would have to face the challenge of other difficulties, and find a reason for carnivorous animals, snakes,
tornadoes, droughts. If an aeronautical engineer invents an entirely new and much more efficient engine, he
is not looked upon as a complete nitwit because though ninety-nine out of : hundred of his engines work
well, one breaks down in action owing to faulty materials. .... Let us take one step at a time. Kindly or not,
has a Power with intelligence been at work, or not?" (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern
Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK,
Reprinted, 1964, pp.140-141).
10/08/2006
"It may be replied, that it is not His kindliness that is in question, but the technical perfection of His
handiwork. But we must beware of hasty and shortsighted conclusions. It is just as difficult for the
advocates of natural selection, or of entelechy, to explain functionless organs, or useless relics. Why did
they ever develop, and why were they not eliminated? They make demands on fluids, oxygen, and food
supplies needed by other organs, as already pointed out. As a matter of fact, when we ask for examples in
human anatomy of these useless structures, they are few and doubtful. The body has so many reserve
mechanisms that it by no means follows that an organ is useless because it can be removed without ill-
effects. The spleen is a case in point, and probably the appendix. The pituitary, and the parathyroids, were
at one time thought to be functionless, but quite mistakenly. The thymus has been alleged to be
functionless, but removal cures myasthenia gravis, so it cannot be inert. Some structures, such as the
branchial arches, have a function in the foetus; they convey blood to the brain. Some structures are present
in the embryo, which the hormones determining sex either cause to grow, or keep in abeyance; if they were
not there the hormones would have nothing to act on. Thus, rudimentary nipples are present in the male,
and Wolffian ducts in the female. The so-called Darwinian tubercle on the ear is said to be a relic of a long-
eared ancestor, but apes and monkeys have not long ears. We are not arguing that human structures are
never the equivalents of something much more useful in the other Primates. The muscles of the scalp, and
certain variable muscles of the trunk or limbs, do correspond to more active muscles in animals. But it is
absurd to say that the presence of rudimentary organs is unworthy of the intelligence of a Creator."
(Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the
Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.141-142)
10/08/2006
"But what about the congenital idiots, Siamese twins, and so on? `A nasty bit of work', people say. Do these
defects actually disprove divine intelligence? We must not assume that because we do not like these
aberrations therefore there is something radically wrong about them. These afflicted creatures are usually
quite happy, in their limited way. They have not our dreads of the future, for instance. They cost us
something as ratepayers; perhaps that is a reason for our dislike. Why do they occur? According to the
geneticists, because when the sort-out of genes took place before and after the sperm entered the ovum,
these creatures drew an unlucky combination. The agnostic scientists look upon genes, marvellous as are
their properties, as the product of blind forces; this chapter has given reason for regarding them as the gifts
of a directing Intelligence. Then why should there be, in, say, one case in a hundred, an unlucky draw?
Probably because, apart from a succession of miracles to prevent it, it was inevitable. Let us go back to basic
principles. All living things vary, and always have varied. No two human beings, therefore, are exactly alike,
in character, facial appearance, or even fingerprints. To provide for this variety, the gene-mixture must be
capable of innumerable combinations, and they cannot all be happy. Grossly defective combinations lead to
still-birth. Less harmful combinations result in a live birth, but often the child does not reach puberty. We
may take our choice: human beings all exactly alike; incessant miraculous intervention to avoid misfits; the
world as it is. Are we sure that our wisdom would have improved matters?" (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully
Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human Body," [1951],
Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, p.142)
10/08/2006
"If a study of human physiology, and of the course of man's life in the world, does not convince us that the
fashioning Power is kindly, still less does it prove that Power to be malevolent. The basal ganglia of our
brains are capable of sensations of pleasure as well as of pain. Only a small minority of sane and healthy
individuals really prefer death to life, and wish they had never been born. We find that the world contains at
least as many things beautiful as things menacing and ugly. Even animals appear to enjoy life. An unhappy
man is said to `lead a dog's life', but take a puppy for a walk, and then tell us he did not enjoy it!" (Short,
A.R., "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure and Functions of the Human
Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.142-143)
10/08/2006
"Physiology not the only Evidence. Whatever conclusions we may draw from a study of physiology as
to the mystery that underlies all the processes of this world, we must not forget that physiology is far from
being the only window into the unknown. For instance, investigations in the realm of cosmogony have
made it more and more probable that there was a creation. We have already given a quotation from that
outstanding authority Dr. Einstein. Professor Sir Edmund Whittaker, in his Donnellan Lectures given in
1946, said, "Three different estimates converge to the conclusion that there was an epoch about 10^10 or
10^11 years ago, on the further side of which the cosmos, if it existed at all, existed in some form totally
unlike anything known to us, so that it represents the ultimate limit of science. We may perhaps without
impropriety refer to it as the Creation." Sir James jeans and other eminent physicists have written to the
same effect. Quite recently, it has been argued by F. Hoyle, H. Bondi, T. Gold and others that creation did
not take place once only and never again, but that there has been and may still be a continuous series of
processes of creation. On this view the sun and this earth are running down by heat loss, but the universe
as a whole is not. Astronomers are still very critical of these ideas, but if true they still do not enable us to
avoid belief in creation." (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure
and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, p.143. Emphasis original)
10/08/2006
"The Darwinians think they can attribute the adaptation of animals and plants to their environment, and the
origin of new organs and faculties, to evolution controlled by natural selection. But this explanation fails to
cover :another type of adaptation; the extraordinary manner in which this earth has become fit for habitation
by plants, animals, and man. Unless certain conditions are fulfilled, life as we know it is not possible. There
must be carbon, that essential constituent of all living things. There must be oxygen to breathe. Water must
be present, not only to drink, but to carry substances in solution in our bodies, to break down rocks into soil
by virtue of its strange habit of expanding just above its freezing temperature, and in many other ways
besides to serve the purposes of living things. There must not be very wide variations of temperature if a
planet is to be inhabited for any great length of time, or all life will be alternately scorched and frozen. It is
astounding that the enormous output of heat by the sun has never since the beginning of geological time,
as far as the evidence of palaeontology tells us, ruined all life by excesses one way or another. However,
this is a very big subject." (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the Structure
and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.143-144)
"Another ground for believing in God is the experience of mankind. This appears in the virtually universal
sense of a Sky-Father, found in every primitive race of men. Polytheistic religions, historically, are believed
by good authorities to be degenerations from an earlier monotheism. In all ages, amongst people of the
highest as well as the lowest culture, there have been testimonies to individual experiences of God. The
history of nations, especially of the people of Israel, but also of Britain, shows a certain providential
overruling at critical periods." (Short, A.R.*, "Wonderfully Made: Some Modern Discoveries About the
Structure and Functions of the Human Body," [1951], Paternoster: Exeter UK, Reprinted, 1964, pp.142-143.
Emphasis original)
10/08/2006
"There is one last lesson which coordinate geometry helps us to learn; it is simple and easy, but very
important indeed. In the study of evolution, and in all attempts to trace the descent of the animal kingdom,
fourscore years' study of the Origin of Species has had an unlooked-for and disappointing result. It was
hoped to begin with, and within my own recollection it was confidently believed, that the broad lines of
descent, the relation of the main branches to one another and to the trunk of the tree, would soon be settled,
and the lesser ramifications would be unravelled bit by bit and later on. But things have turned out
otherwise. We have long known, in more or less satisfactory detail, the pedigree of horses, elephants,
turtles, crocodiles and some few more; and our conclusions tally as to these, again more or less to our
satisfaction, with the direct evidence of palaeontological succession. But the larger and at first sight simpler
questions remain unanswered; for eighty years' study of Darwinian evolution has not taught us how birds
descend from reptiles, mammals from earlier quadrupeds, quadrupeds from fishes, nor vertebrates from the
invertebrate stock. The invertebrates themselves involve the selfsame difficulties, so that we do not know
the origin of the echinoderms, of the molluscs, of the coelenterates, nor of one group of protozoa from
another. The difficulty is not always quite the same. We may fail to find the actual links between the
vertebrate groups, but yet their resemblance and their relationship, real though indefinable are plain to see;
there are gaps between the groups, but we can see, so I to speak, across the gap. On the other hand, the
breach between vertebrate and invertebrate, worm and coelenterate, coelenterate and protozoon, is in each
case of another order, and is so wide that we cannot see across the intervening gap at all." (Thompson
D.W., "On Growth and Form," [1917], Cambridge University Press: London, Second Edition, 1942, Reprinted,
1952, Vol. II, pp.1092-1093)
10/08/2006
"This failure to solve the cardinal problem of evolutionary biology is a very curious thing; and we may well
wonder why the long pedigree is subject to such breaches of continuity. We used to be told, and were
content to believe, that the old record was of necessity imperfect-we could not expect it to be otherwise; the
story was hard to read because every here and there a page had been lost or torn away, like some hiatus
valde deflendus in an ancient manuscript. But there is a deeper reason. When we begin to draw
comparisons between our algebraic curves and attempt. to transform one into another, we find ourselves
limited by the very nature of the case to curves having some tangible degree of relation to one another; and
these `degrees of relationship' imply a classification of mathematical forms, analogous to the classification
of plants or animals in another part of the Systema Naturae. An algebraic curve has its fundamental
formula, which defines the family to which it belongs; and its parameters, whose quantitative variation
admits of infinite variety within the limits which the formula prescribes. With some extension of the meaning
of parameters, we may say the same of the families, or genera, or other classificatory groups of plants and
animals. We cross a boundary every time we pass from family to family, or group to group. The passage is
easy at first, and we are led, along definite lines, to more and more subtle and elegant comparisons. But
we come in time to forms which, though both may still be simple, yet stand so far apart that direct
comparison is no longer legitimate. We never think of `transforming' a helicoid into an ellipsoid, or a circle
into a frequency-curve. So it is with the forms of animals. We cannot transform an invertebrate into a
vertebrate, nor a coelenterate into a worm, by any simple and legitimate deformation, nor by anything short
of reduction to elementary principles." (Thompson D.W., "On Growth and Form," [1917], Cambridge
University Press: London, Second Edition, 1942, Reprinted, 1952, Vol. II, pp.1093-1094. Emphasis original)
10/08/2006
"A `principle of discontinuity,' then, is, inherent in all our classifications, whether mathematical, physical or
biological; and the infinitude of possible forms, always limited, may be further reduced and discontinuity
further revealed by imposing conditions-as, for example, that our parameters must be whole numbers, or
proceed by quanta, as the physicists say. The lines of the spectrum, the six families of crystals, Dalton's
atomic law, the chemical elements themselves, all illustrate this principle of discontinuity. In short, nature
proceeds from one type to another among organic as well as inorganic forms; and these types vary
according to their own parameters, and are defined by physico-mathematical conditions of possibility. In
natural history Cuvier's `types' may not be perfectly chosen nor numerous enough, but types they are; and
to seek for stepping-stones across the gaps between is to seek in vain, for ever. This is no argument against
the theory of evolutionary descent: It merely states that formal resemblance, which we depend on as our
trusty guide to the affinities of animals within certain bounds or grades of kinship and propinquity, ceases
in certain other cases to serve us, because under certain circumstances it ceases to exist. Our geometrical
analogies weigh heavily against Darwin's conception of endless small continuous variations; they help to
show that discontinuous variations are a natural thing, that `mutations sudden changes, greater or less-are
bound to have taken place, and new `types' to have arisen, now and then. Our argument indicates, if it does
not prove, that such mutations, occurring on a comparatively few definite lines, or plain alternatives, of
physico-mathematical possibility, are likely to repeat themselves: that the `higher' protozoa, for instance,
may have sprung not from or through one another, but severally from the simpler forms; or that the worm-
type, to take another example, may have come into being again and again." (Thompson D.W., "On Growth
and Form," [1917], Cambridge University Press: London, Second Edition, 1942, Reprinted, 1952, Vol. II,
pp.1094-1095. Emphasis original)
10/08/2006
"Finally, we have considered the special difficulty of the evolution of complex organs and of co-
adaptations, of which the interrelations of the male and female genitalia are one example. The argument
employed by Fisher and Haldane to show that Natural Selection might account for the evolution of such
structures, depends on the assumption that very minute changes in a complex situation will, as likely as not,
lead to an improvement. As we have previously stated (p. 224), we are very doubtful whether the enhanced
survival value conferred by such minimal variants would give a sufficiently steady selection-rate to ensure
the establishment of the variant. ... In short, we do not believe that Natural Selection can be disregarded as a
possible factor in evolution. Nevertheless, there is so little positive evidence in its favour, so much that
appears to tell against it, and so much that is as yet inconclusive, that we have no right to assign to it the
main causative rôle in evolution." (Robson, G.C. & Richards, O.W., "The Variation of Animals in Nature,"
Longmans, Green & Co: London, 1936, p.316)
11/08/2006
"Now, what about that relationship between DNA and protein? How did it get started? Evolutionists picture
a time long ago when the earth might have been quite different. They imagine that fragments of DNA and
fragments of protein are produced. These molecules are supposed to `do what comes naturally' over vast
periods of time. What's going to happen? Will time, chance, and natural chemical reactions between DNA
and protein automatically produce life? At first you might think so. After all, nothing is more natural than a
reaction between acids and bases. Perhaps you've used soda (a base) to clean acid from a battery The fizz is
an acid-base reaction. So is using `Tums' to neutralize stomach acid. Nothing is more common than reactions
between acids and bases. If you just wait long enough, acid-base reactions will get DNA and protein
working together, and life will appear-right? Wrong! Just the opposite. The problem is that the natural
relationship between bases and acids is the wrong relationship for living systems Acid-base reactions
would `scramble up' DNA and protein units in all sorts of `deadly' combinations. These natural reactions
would prevent, not promote, the use of DNA to code protein production. Since use of DNA to code protein
production is the basis of all life on earth these acid-base reactions would prevent, not promote, the
evolution of life by natural processes." (Parker, G.E.*, "Creation: the Facts of Life," [1980], Master Book
Publishers: San Diego CA, Third Printing, 1984, pp.6,8. Emphasis original)
11/08/2006
"Peter Grant, Rosemary Grant and their students stand at the other extreme of Galapagos researchers-
returning time and again for decades. They too continually find new things. For example, the Grants'
increasing recognition of crossbreeding among Darwin's finches suggests that hybridization plays a larger
role in evolution than was previously thought. Galapagos ground finches do breed across species, the
Grants find, and their hybrid offspring can thrive where conditions favor intermediate types. `The discovery
of superior hybrid fitness over several years suggests that the three study populations of Darwin's finches
are fusing,' they note, `and calls into question their designation as species.' [Grant, P.R. & Grant, B.R,
"Hybridization of Bird Species," Science, Vol. 256, 1992, pp. 193-197] Under strict phylogenetic or
breeding-population definitions of species, Peter Grant concludes, only six separate species of Darwin's
finches may exist, not the traditional fourteen. Owing to these findings, made more than half a century after
David Lack's landmark study, Ernst Mayr once again wonders whether Darwin's finches offer a textbook
case of adaptive radiation [Mayr, E.W., Interview with author, 20 April 2000, Cambridge MA]. The ground
finches may indeed constitute a `hybrid swarm' with marked varieties, much as Darwin feared and pre-Lack
ornithologists surmised. [Lowe, P., "The Finches of the Galapagos in relation to Darwin's Conception of
Species," Ibis, Vol. 6, 1936, pp. 310-321, p.311]" (Larson, E.J., "Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on
the Gala´pagos Islands," Allen Lane: London, 2001, p.240)
14/08/2006
"In recent years, the convergence of theology and science upon a form of religious evolutionary humanism
has reached its apotheosis in the writings of some sociobiologists. In his major work Sociobiology: The
New Synthesis (1975), Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson makes strong claims for the ability of
evolutionary biology to account not only for human social behaviour but also for religious beliefs and
practices. `It is a reasonable hypothesis', he writes `that magic and totemism constituted direct adaptations
to the environment and preceded formal religion in social evolution' (Wilson, 1975, p.560). Of course, there is
nothing particularly new about this functionalist view of religion: Indeed, it was clearly formulated almost a
century ago by the social philosopher Benjamin Kidd (1894), who argued that religion had been a crucially
important non-rational sanction for ethical conduct during human evolution. But sociobiology has provided
a newly refined theoretical framework within which to interpret behaviour; and as Vernon Reynolds and
Ralph Tanner demonstrate in chapter 5 of this volume, it raises for the first time the serious prospect of
biological investigation of the adaptive value of religion. At the same time, however, it presents us with a
curious dilemma. For to explain religion in non-cognitive terms might be thought to undermine its credibility;
and if this is so, then sociobiology may well threaten the very phenomenon whose biological utility it sets
out to establish. Wilson himself is aware of this problem, for in his more recent book On Human Nature he
sets his account of the sociobiology of religion alongside an impassioned plea for the re-investment of `the
mythopoeic requirements of the mind' in `the evolutionary epic ... [which] ... is probably the best myth we
will ever have' (Wilson, 1978, pp.200-1)." (Durant, J.R., "Introduction," in "Durant, J.R., ed., "Darwinism and
Divinity: Essays on Evolution and Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, pp.30-31)
14/08/2006
"This brings us back once again to the deification of the evolutionary process. Mary Midgley explores this
theme in more detail in chapter 6 of this volume; but in the present context it is worth noting how very
similar are the creation myths of Christian theism and religious evolutionary humanism. Each provides an
account of the natural order and of the place of humankind within it; each casts its account in the form of a
narrative epic centred upon the origin and destiny of humankind; and each derives from its account practical
lessons for the ordering of human affairs, together with the comforting reassurance that the universe is on
the side of our noblest aspirations. As the philosopher John Passmore once observed, `it is astonishing just
how often 'god-smashing' evolutionists have substituted for the ancient gods a new god-man as he is to be,
with powers of a kind which had ordinarily been ascribed only to the divine' (Passmore, 1970, p.240). This,
surely, is Wilson's position. Reasoning, as he puts it, `in direct line from the humanism of the Huxleys,
Waddington, Monod, Pauli, Dobzhansky, Cattell, and others', he concludes On Human Nature by looking
forward to the construction of `the mythology of scientific materialism ... kept strong by the blind hopes that
the journey on which we are now embarked will be farther and better than the one just completed' (Wilson,
1978, pp.206, 209)." (Durant, J.R., "Introduction," in "Durant, J.R., ed., "Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on
Evolution and Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, pp.31-32)
14/08/2006
"I began this chapter with the conventional image of Darwinism as a potent force for the de-mythologization
of world-view, but I have ended up with the unconventional image of it as a major ingredient within the
mythic world-view of religious evolutionary-humanism. I believe that each of these images captures
something of the truth. On the one hand, there can be no doubt that Darwinism was a secularizing force in
the nineteenth century. It contributed very materially to a separation of spheres in which increasingly
distinct professional communities of scientists and theologians were able to get on with their work without
having to pay much attention to one another (Turner, 1974; Young, 1980). On the other hand, however, it is
equally the case that evolutionary theory in general and Darwinism in particular have always tended to blur
the simple distinction between knowledge and values. For all thoughtful Darwinians, including Darwin
himself, have recognized that there are strong links between questions such as, Where have we come from?
What sort of creatures are we? And what could we or should we do with our lives? To try to draw neat lines
around each of these questions, labelling some `scientific' and others `religious' or `moral', is
counterproductive, since it is in the connections between them that all the crucial issues are located."
(Durant, J.R., "Introduction," in "Durant, J.R., ed., "Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution and
Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, pp.32-33)
14/08/2006
I have argued that there are resources within evolutionary theory that make it attractive to certain kinds of
theology. Darwin opened the door to a particular form of alliance by presenting natural selection as a
`secondary law' instituted by the creator to populate the earth. Overwhelmingly, however, it has been the
idea of evolution as a law of progressive historical development culminating in humankind that has proved
most attractive to biologically-minded theologians and theologically-minded biologists. This is an area of
interaction that deserves closer study. For the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection contains
no `law of progress'; and whether and in what way it applies to human culture, where such a law is most
urgently sought, are still matters of intense debate within the human sciences. In the past, attempts to derive
optimistic lessons from biology concerning the future of humankind have owed far more to prior religious or
political convictions than they have to any independent insights derived from science; and, as the example
of Julian Huxley illustrates, this has been the case even where those involved have been major authorities
on Darwinism. There is nothing in a scientific training, it would seem, that immunizes a person against their
own prejudices." (Durant, J.R., "Introduction," in "Durant, J.R., ed., "Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on
Evolution and Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, p.33)
14/08/2006
One of the most ironic aspects of the deification of Darwinism in the twentieth century has been the
encouragement that such idolatry has afforded to the forces of religious anti-evolutionism. I have argued
that in the 1920s the association between evolutionism, on the one hand, and secularism and liberalism, on
the other, helped to fan the flames of popular anti-evolutionary sentiment. Significantly, the same
association appears to be playing its part in the current battle between evolutionists and so-called `scientific
creationists' in the United States. ... All that needs to be said here is that this phenomenon is as deeply
ideological today as it was 60 years ago. In the foreword to the bestknown textbook of scientific creationism,
for example, the authors declare that, `in the name of modern science ... a nontheistic religion of secular
evolutionary humanism has become, for all practical purposes, the official state religion promoted in the
public schools' (Morris, ed., 1974, p.iii). To learn more about this religion we have only to read on, for at
various stages in the book it is linked with atheism, materialism, mechanism and liberalism, as well as with
behaviourism, libertinism, racism and communism (Morris, ed., 1974, pp.196-201, 252). Obviously, none of
these labels is intended as a compliment, but it would be wrong to dismiss them as nothing more than a
cheap exercise in mud-slinging. For much of the energy of the creationist movement arises from a sense of
moral outrage at the advance of an evolution-centred worldview that has the audacity to parade its secular,
liberal values as if they were the objective findings of science. Here at least, if not in matters of biological
fact and theory, creationism has a point of which the scientific community might do well to take heed."
(Durant, J.R., "Introduction," in "Durant, J.R., ed., "Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution and
Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, pp.33-34)
15/08/2006
"Stressing connectedness and continuity also led Darwin to deny another important empirical pattern in the
fossil record: stasis. Philosopher David Hull, in his Darwin and His Critics (1973), reprints all the early
reviews of the first edition of Darwin's Origin, including some four or five by paleontologists. All of them
remark on the absence of any truly significant discussion of the well-known fact (to paleontologists) that
once a species appears in the fossil record, though it may exhibit normal variation both within local
populations and geographically, little net evolutionary change tends to accumulate throughout its entire
duration. This duration is now known to be typically 5 to 10 million years, at least in the case of marine
invertebrate species. But Darwin did acknowledge that some species change more slowly than others (see
above quote and note 20); he responded more fully to his critics on just this point in his sixth edition. Yet
stasis remained an embarrassment to him, because the actions of natural selection should on first principle
act to perfect and thus by definition modify adaptations were the environment to remain stable. Either that
or it would modify species to keep fitting what mid-nineteenth-century geologists had been pointing out:
that the earth, including its climate, is continually changing. For the most part, Darwin simply denied the
reality of stasis. Instead, he chose once again to blame the nonprevalence of "incessantly graded series" in
the fossil record on a poor record: poor preservation, lack of time documented in sediments, and lack of
paleontological collecting and analytic experience. But none of these reasons could explain away the
problem for later generations." (Eldredge, N., "The Pattern of Evolution," [1998], W.H. Freeman & Co: New
York NY, 2000, pp.88-89. Emphasis original)
15/08/2006
"What really irked Simpson, then, was not so much the rhetoric on the origin of reproductive disjunction but
rather what he took to be the sheer triviality of the entire issue of species. The differences between closely
related species are typically minor: Coyotes and timber wolves are fairly similar. To Simpson, all the energy
expended on developing a biological species concept was never really worth it, simply because speciation
itself entails only minor evolutionary changes. Simpson thought of speciation simply as a process of
subdivision of the adaptive `zone' already occupied by the ancestral species-hardly the stuff of evolutionary
novelty and innovation. What grabbed Simpson's attention, instead, were the large-scale changes in
evolution: the origin of mammals from an ancestral reptilian stock, the origin of birds, or the diversification of
the major subdivisions (the orders) of placental mammals. Steeped in Darwinian gradualist tradition,
Simpson maintained that countless cases of evolution at and around the species level documented in the
fossil record upheld the Darwinian view that change comes slowly, progressively, and gradually-and doesn't
get anywhere far. New genera might arise in this slow, steady fashion. But, Simpson claimed in his highly
original Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), such can hardly be the case for families, orders, and all the
taxa of higher categorical rank in the Linnaean hierarchy. Some additional factors must be at work that
prompt lineages to leave one adaptive zone for another. Such, it seemed to Simpson, was the stuff of true
evolutionary creativity." (Eldredge, N., "The Pattern of Evolution," [1998], W.H. Freeman & Co: New York
NY, 2000, pp.133-134)
15/08/2006
"In example after example, Simpson saw that new groups seemed to appear suddenly in the fossil record.
New higher taxa such as whales (mammalian order Cetacea), bats (order Chiroptera), or even the lineage of
grass-grazing horses that evolved from leaf-browsing ancestors all made sudden appearances. Seldom was
there a long series of intermediate forms that could be traced back through the tens of millions of years that
such large-scale evolution would seem to call for. Moreover, Simpson saw that these new groups first
appear pretty much in recognizable form. In modern terms, the defining characteristics, the
synapopmorphies, that mark a lineage as distinct and evolutionarily homogeneous (monophyletic) are
in place at the very outset of a group's evolutionary history. Eocene whales, for example, were distinctly
whalelike. As one might expect, they were primitive in certain ways as whales; for example, they bore
serrated teeth and still retained a pair of pelvic flippers. But those earliest whales were by no means half-way
between a four-legged terrestrial mammalian ancestor and a modern sperm whale. They were much more like
the latter than the former. Bats offer an even more dramatic example. The earliest ones known, also from the
Eocene Epoch, have not only wings but also the distinctive inner-ear apparatus to show that echolocation
had already evolved! And here is the kicker. The earliest whales Simpson knew about are some 55 million
years old. If one could devise some sort of measure of rate of evolutionary change, the rate of change within
whales over the past 55 million years would seem to be slow to moderate. If that rate were then extrapolated
back to encompass the far greater anatomical changes between the earliest whales and their wholly
terrestrial, four-legged mammalian ancestors, we would have to place the beginnings of whale evolution
hundreds of millions of years back in geological time! And that is a patent absurdity, as placental mammals
of any kind had appeared at most only a few tens of millions of years prior to the advent of the earliest
whales." (Eldredge, N., "The Pattern of Evolution," [1998], W.H. Freeman & Co: New York NY, 2000,
pp.134-135. Emphasis original)
15/08/2006
"Simpson was, in a sense, skating on thin ice. For other paleontologists had also recognized this general
pattern. Foremost among them was Otto Schindewolf, a German invertebrate paleontologist. Schindewolf
imagined such evolutionary transitions to be as abrupt as the fossil record seemed to be indicating.
Typostrophism was his term for it, literally a leap between one `type' and another. Such `saltational' ideas are
reminiscent of another German biologist, Richard Goldschmidt, the geneticist remembered mostly for his
advocacy of the sudden appearance of `hopeful monsters' through `macromutations.' Simpson had to
distance himself from such renegade thinking. All the while, though, he admitted, albeit tacitly, that
Schindewolf had a point about the pattern of relatively abrupt origin of higher taxa. He did so by developing
a theory, Quantum Evolution, which could explain the absence of intermediate forms required by any
version of a Darwinian-based explanation of evolutionary patterns. The core of Simpson's idea is that, at
certain times and in certain circumstances, lineages evolve in rapid spurts. These bursts occur in such
relatively small populations, happen so rapidly, and typically involve such a drastic transition from one
major environment to another (for example, from land to sea for whales; from land to air for bats) that the
chances of them leaving much of a fossil record is slight. Simpson was saying that the origin of higher taxa,
the major evolutionary transitions, was essentially Darwinian in character. A full series of intermediates
connects ancestors with descendants. But the whole process works so rapidly, involves so few creatures,
and occurs in such unusual surroundings and circumstances that we can expect to find few or even no
intermediate fossil forms in most instances. This absence of evidence, the lack of intermediate forms,
troubled Simpson no matter how content he may have been with his explanation of that missing data."
(Eldredge, N., "The Pattern of Evolution," [1998], W.H. Freeman & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.134. Emphasis
original)
15/08/2006
"In its own limited field, the science of genetics was immensely successful, and still is. But it took a long
time for the more thoughtful among its practitioners to realize that their labours, while providing new
insights into the mechanisms of minor hereditary variations, had little or no relevance to the basic problem
of evolution: the origin and why and how of the major steps up the evolutionary ladder, the emergence of
higher life-forms and new life-styles. In the words of Pierre Grassé who, let us remember, held the chair of
evolution for thirty years at the Sorbonne (italics in the original): `Variation is one thing, evolution quite
another: this cannot be emphasized strongly enough ...' [Grassé, P. "L'Evolution du Vivant," Editions
Albin Michel: Paris, 1973, p.21 `Let. us repeat it once more: mutations do not provide an explanation for
the nature or temporal order of the phenomena of evolution; they do not create evolutionary novelties; they
cannot account for the precise fitting together of the parts of an organ and the mutual co-ordination of
organs ... '[Ibid., p.351] `Mutations provide change but not progress ...' [Ibid.] `The repertory of mutations
or mutation-spectrum of a species has nothing to do with evolution. The 'Jordanons' (equivalents of
mutations) of the whitlow grass Erophila verna); of the wild pansy Viola tricolor); of the Plantains
(Plantago); of the candytuft (Iberis), which add up to a rich and well-catalogued assortment, are the
irrefutable proof of it. When all is said, Erophila verna, Viola tricolor, etc., despite their numerous
mutations, do not evolve. This is a fact. The various races of dogs, and of all the other domesticated
animals, represent merely the mutation spectrum of the species, manipulated by artificial selection. The
same applies to garden plants. Nothing in all this amounts to an evolution.' [Ibid.]" (Koestler, A., "Janus: A
Summing Up," Picador: London, 1983, pp.182-183. Emphasis original)
15/08/2006
"`In any given culture and at any given moment,' Foucault wrote in Les mots et les choses, `there is
always only one episteme that defines the conditions of possibility of all knowledge, whether expressed in a
theory or silently invested in a practice.' This observation, which might otherwise serve as a motto for this
book, immediately presents difficulties: Only one episteme? All knowledge? As shall be seen, a large part of
the conflict in Darwin's era arose from the fact that there were, in effect, not one but two major epistemes in
natural history invoking different standards of scientific knowledge and influencing in multitudinous ways
the practice of naturalists as well as their theories about nature. I shall call them positivism and creationism.
The positivist limited scientific knowledge, which he saw as the only valid form of knowledge, to the laws of
nature and to processes involving `secondary, or natural, causes exclusively. The creationist, on the other
hand, saw the world and everything in it as being the result of direct or indirect divine activity. His science
was inseparable from his theology. His epistemology was closely geared to a metaphysics, and in
metaphysics he tended to be an `idealist.' To comprehend nature fully, for a scientist of this persuasion, was
to Understand the workings of the mind of the Creator. This emphasis on minded purposes and design in
nature is what I shall mean by `idealism.'" (Gillespie, N.C., "Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation,"
University of Chicago Press: Chicago IL, 1979, p.3)
15/08/2006
"The widespread movement in recent years toward the establishment of new private Christian schools has
been stimulated largely by the failure of the public schools to maintain academic and philosophic
objectivity. In the name of modern science and of church-state separation, the Bible and theistic religion
have been effectively banned from curricula, and a nontheistic religion of secular evolutionary humanism
has become, for all practical purposes, the official state religion promoted in the public schools." (Morris,
H.M.*, "Scientific Creationism," [1974], Master Books: El Cajon CA, Second Edition, 1985, p.iii)
15/08/2006
"We are using the term `religion' in a very broad sense, as including any concepts of ethics, values, or
ultimate meanings. Evolution is, in fact, a religious belief in this sense, and so is atheism. In fact, this is one
very cogent reason why creationists object to the exclusive teaching of evolution in the schools, since in
effect this amounts to indoctrinating young: people in a particular religion, with its own system of ethics and
values and ultimate meanings. That evolution is fundamentally religious, is recognized officially by the
American Humanist Association. `Humanism is the belief that man shapes his own destiny. It is a
constructive philosophy, a non-theistic religion, a way of life... . The American Humanist Association is a
non-profit, tax-exempt organization, incorporated in the early 1940's in Illinois for educational and religious
purposes.' ["What is Humanism?," Membership Brochure, Humanist Community of San Jose, San Jose CA) .
Many prominent evolutionists, such as Julian Huxley, H. J. Muller, Hudson Hoagland, and others are listed
as leading members of the association. One of the founders is listed as John Dewey, the man more
responsible than any other single individual for our modern philosophy of public education. The A.H.A.
promotional brochure quotes Julian Huxley as follows: `I use the word `humanist' to mean someone who
believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or plant; that his body, mind and soul
were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that he is not under the control or
guidance of any supernatural being or beings, but has to rely on himself and his own powers.' No one
questions the right of Julian Huxley, John Dewey or anyone else to believe such things if he wishes, but
that does not give them the right to indoctrinate students in such beliefs, especially under the name of
`science.'" (Morris, H.M.*, "Scientific Creationism," [1974], Master Books: El Cajon CA, Second Edition,
1985, pp.196-197. Emphasis original)
16/08/2006
"Evolutionary thought today provides many other instances where the priority of the paradigm takes
precedence over common sense. Take the response by specialists in pre-biotic evolution to the implications
of the shrinking time available for the origin of the cell. ... over the past decade the estimates of the time
when life first occurred on the planet have moved closer and closer to the formation of the Earth's crust. A
span of time which was once measured in thousands of millions of years has now shrunk to a few hundred
million at the most. The recent discovery of blue green algae in rocks nearly 3.5 x 10^9 years old leaves a gap
of perhaps 400 x 10^6 years between the formation of the oceans and the appearance of life. It is beginning
to look as though simple life appeared as soon as the surface waters were sufficiently plentiful and cool
enough to support it. On top of this, evidence from the earliest sedimentary rocks gives no indication of a
supposed primeval soup. One might have expected, considering the great difficulty in visualizing how life
might have arisen as a result of simple random processes that the ever-shrinking time available at the
roulette wheel would have caused at least a ripple of doubt in the mind of even the most earnest believer.
But, on the contrary, Carl Sagan in a recent Scientific American article takes the shrinking time available
as evidence that life is probable! `Thus the time available for the origin of life seems to have been short, a
few hundred million years at the most. Since life originated on the earth, we have additional evidence that
the origin of life has a high probability.' [Sagan, C., "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence," Scientific
American, Vol. 232, No. 5, May 1975, pp.80-89, p.82]. Thus again the paradigm prevails and the holistic
illusion is created that every single fact of biology irrefutably supports the Darwinian thesis. Hence, even
evidence that is to all common sense hostile to the traditional picture is rendered invisible by unjustified
assumptions. Of course, the triumph is only psychological and subjective. The rationalizations are
unconvincing to anyone not emotionally committed to the defence of Darwinian theory. To an outsider from
the community of belief, they merely tend to emphasize the metaphysical nature of evolutionary claims and
the lack of any sort of rational or empirical basis." (Denton, M.J., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett
Books: London, 1985, pp.352-353)
17/08/2006
"In the first edition of the Origin, after the sentence ending with the words `...insects in the water,' I added
the following sentence:- `Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if
better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears
being rendered by Natural Selection more and more aquatic in their structures and habits, with larger and
larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.' [Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species
by Means of Natural Selection," First Edition, 1859, Penguin: London, 1985, reprint, p.215] This sentence
was omitted in the subsequent editions, owing to the advice of Prof. Owen, as it was liable to be
misinterpreted; but I have always regretted that I followed this advice, for I still think the view quite
reasonable." (Darwin, C.R., Letter to R.G. Whiteman, May 5th, 1881, in Darwin, F. & Seward, A.C., eds,
"More Letters of Charles Darwin," John Murray: London, 1903, Vol. 1, pp.392-393).
17/08/2006
"Darwin's Origin of Species contains some wonderful insights and magnificent lines, but this masterpiece
also includes a few notable clunkers. Darwin experienced most embarrassment from the following passage,
curtailed and largely expunged from later editions of his book: `In North America the black bear was seen by
Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even
in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not
already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection,
more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as
monstrous as a whale.' [Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," First Edition,
1859, Penguin: London, 1985, reprint, p.215] Why did Darwin become so chagrined about this passage? His
hypothetical tale may be pure speculation and conjecture, but the scenario not entirely absurd. Darwin's
discomfort arose, I think, from his failure to follow a scientific norm of a more sociocultural nature. Scientific
conclusions supposedly rest upon facts and information. Speculation is not entirely taboo, and may
sometimes be necessary faute de mieux. But when scientists propose truly novel and comprehensive
theories-as Darwin tried to do in advancing natural selection as the primary mechanism of evolution-they
need particularly good support, and invented hypothetical cases just don't supply sufficient confidence for
crucial conclusions." (Gould, S.J., "Hooking Leviathan by Its Past," in "Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections
in Natural History," Harmony Books: New York NY, 1995, pp.359-360)
18/08/2006
"The development of whalebone (baleen) in the mouth of the whale is another difficulty. A whale's mouth is
furnished with very numerous horny plates, which hang down from the palate along each side of the mouth.
They thus form two longitudinal series, each plate of which is placed transversely to the long axis of the
body, and all are very close together. On depressing the lower lip the free outer edges of these plates come
into view. Their inner edges are furnished with numerous coarse hair-like processes, consisting of some of
the constituent fibres of the horny plates-which, as it were, fray out, and the month is thus lined, except
below, by a network of countless fibres formed by the inner edges of the two series of plates. This network
acts as a sort of sieve. When the whale feeds it takes into its mouth a great gulp of water, which it drives out
again through the intervals of the horny plates of baleen, the fluid thus traversing the sieve of horny fibres,
which retains the minute creatures on which these marine monsters subsist. Now it is obvious, that if this
baleen had once attained such a size and development as to be at all useful, then its preservation and
augmentation within serviceable limits would be promoted by `Natural Selection' alone. But how to obtain
the beginning of such useful development?" (Mivart St.G.J., "On the Genesis of Species," Macmillan &
Co: London, Second edition, 1871, pp.45-46. My emphasis)
18/08/2006
"With respect to the baleen, Mr. Mivart remarks that if it "had once attained such a size and development as
to be at all useful, then its preservation and augmentation within serviceable limits would be promoted by
natural selection alone. But how to obtain the beginning of such useful development?" In answer, it may be
asked, why should not the early progenitors of the whales with baleen have possessed a mouth constructed
something like the lamellated beak of a duck? Ducks, like whales, subsist by sifting the mud and water; and
the family has sometimes been called Criblatores, or sifters. I hope that I may not be misconstrued into
saying that the progenitors of whales did actually possess mouths lamellated like the beak of a duck. I wish
only to show that this is not incredible, and that the immense plates of baleen in the Greenland whale might
have been developed from such lamellæ by finely graduated steps, each of service to its possessor."
(Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London,
1994, p.183)
18/08/2006
"The Hyperoodon bidens [pygmy sperm whale] is destitute of true teeth in an efficient condition, but its
palate is roughened, according to Lacèpede, with small, unequal, hard points of horn. There is, therefore,
nothing improbable in supposing that some early cetacean form was provided with similar points of horn on
the palate, but rather more regularly placed, and which, like the knobs on the beak of the goose, aided it in
seizing or tearing its food. If so, it will hardly be denied that the points might have been converted through
variation and natural selection into lamellæ as well-developed as those of the Egyptian goose, in which case
they would have been used both for seizing objects and for sifting the water; then into lamellæ like those of
the domestic duck; and so onwards, until they became as well constructed as those of the shoveller, in
which case they would have served exclusively as a sifting apparatus. From this stage, in which the lamellæ
would be two-thirds of the length of the plates of baleen in the Balænoptera rostrata, gradations, which may
be observed in still-existing Cetaceans, lead us onwards to the enormous plates of baleen in the Greenland
whale. Nor is there the least reason to doubt that each step in this scale might have been as serviceable to
certain ancient Cetaceans, with the functions of the parts slowly changing during the progress of
development, as are the gradations in the beaks of the different existing members of the duck family."
(Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London,
1994, pp.185-186. My parenthesis)
18/08/2006
"Whales are divided into two main groups, toothed whales and baleen whales. Both, of course, are mammals
descended from land-dwelling ancestors, and they may well have 'invented' the whale way of life
independently of one another, starting from different land-dwelling ancestors. The toothed whales include
sperm whales, killer whales and the various species of dolphins, all of which hunt relatively large prey such
as fish and squids, which they catch in their jaws. Several toothed whales, of which only dolphins have
been thoroughly studied, have evolved sophisticated echo-sounding equipment in their heads." (Dawkins,
R., "The Blind Watchmaker," W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, p.96)
18/08/2006
"By the mid-Oligocene [~32 mya], the teeth of some mysticetes had given way to rows of baleen plates, the
remarkable keratin feeding structures present in all modern mysticetes, which evolved suspended from the
curved transverse ridges of the palate. Baleen is epidermal in origin, growing as fibres embedded in a softer
matrix. As the softer material is rubbed away by the tongue, the fibres become exposed. Most present-day
types of baleen whales still have teeth during the early stages of fetal development, and some very primitive
fossil mysticetes had functional teeth as adults, further indications of their common ancestry with the
toothed whales (supporting independent anatomical and chromosomal evidence). Many modifications of
the archaeocete skull towards the odontocete and mysticete forms involved telescoping of the front of the
skull ... In odontocetes, the development of acoustic scanning, as a means of locating cues underwater and
to aid the capture of fish, probably took place alongside the telescoping of the skull, and evolution of
various specialised organs including the melon, nasal passages and, in the sperm whales, the spermaceti
organ. Active echolocation may have been practised by the earliest odontocetes of the Oligocene or at least
they were pre-adapted to do this, with the ear bones isolated by fat bodies and air sacs allowing directional
hearing." (Evans, P., " The Natural History of Whales & Dolphins," Christopher Helm: London, 1987, p.23.
My parenthesis)
19/08/2006
"When it is not the `desire for some such hypothesis,' or the feeling that `it is better to think in terms
of improbable events than not to think at all,' that draws men to Darwinism, it is often the confusion
between the theories of evolution and natural selection. Every paleontological discovery that seems
to have evolutionary significance is somehow taken as confirmation of the theory of natural selection,
even when it has not the remotest bearing upon that theory. Similarly every evidence of natural
selection, manifesting itself upon however small a scale, is taken as evidence of Darwinian evolution,
of the `origin of species by means of natural selection.' Thus the one item of empirical evidence that
is cited again and again in reply to the skeptic's demand for proof is the famous experiment of
H.B.D. Kettlewell in 1924 [sic 1955], demonstrating that the smoke-blackened regions of industrial
England favor the perpetuation of darker-rather than lighter-colored moths. But no one questions the
operation of natural selection on this level, just as no one questions the evidence for the evolution of
the horse. What is in question is the operation of natural selection in the evolution of one major
species into another, and ultimately the operation of natural selection in the evolution of all species
from the `one primordial form' posited by Darwin." (Himmelfarb, G., "Darwin and the Darwinian
Revolution," [1959], Elephant Paperbacks: Chicago IL, 1996, reprint, p.446)
19/08/2006
"The press-stud, by means of which two distinct parts of the body are united, is found in certain arthropods
both insects and crustaceans, and also in some cephalopod molluscs. Aquatic Hemiptera (bugs) of the
Hydrocorixidae family, such as Nepa, Ranatra, Nototecta, Corixa or water boatmen, possess the typical
press-stud. It unites the outer edge of the hemelytron (or thickened front wing) to the thorax. In Notonecta
the thorax carries a protruding knob, hard and chitinous, which fits into a circular depression on the outer
edge of the hemelytron. Adherence is reinforced by the scaly nature of the two surfaces in contact. As the
insect flies away its wings are freed and the click of the press-stud as it comes apart can be heard. The
aquatic life of these insects means that the device is particularly valuable. Notonecta, when deprived of its
press-studs, dives with difficulty; since the hemelytra are no longer affixed to the thorax air accumulates in
the intervening spaces. This air acts as a float and the insect tends to rise to the surface. If the hemelytra are
artificially stuck to the thorax the insect can again dive normally. The mutilated insect will, however, swim
like a normal insect after a few hours have elapsed, though the period of time it stays under water is shorter.
The press-studs of the other Hydrocorixidae have the same general structure with certain modifications of
detail. The press-stud is commonly found among cephalopod molluscs in which it fastens the lower ventral
edge of the 'funnel' to the internal surface of the 'mantle'. Its position is fixed, but its structure varies in
different families. The best developed is that of the cuttlefish which fits tightly and allows the animal to
swim backwards. Water in the mantle cavity, forcibly expelled by the cuttle-fish, can escape only by the
narrow mouth of the funnel, and the jet thus produced shoots the animal backwards like a torpedo. The
pressstud relies on the active participation of the muscles and ceases to function with the animal's death. In
reposes the elasticity of the muscles keeps the device closed and its solidity is further increased by the
muscular contraction which accompanies swimming. The cephalopods which swim most strongly are, in
fact, endowed with the most efficient press-studs, reinforced by cartilaginous elements. ... But how could
these organic inventions, these small tools, appear? It seems most improbable that a single mutation could
have given rise simultaneously to the various elements which compose, say, a press-stud or hooking
device. Several mutations must therefore be assumed, but this implies the further assumption of close
coordination between different and distinct mutations. Such indispensable coordination is a major stumbling
block, for no known mutations occur in this way. Neo-Darwinism recognizes only fortuitous and always
isolated mutations. In addition, the fossil record shows that the musical equipment of the cricket, for
instance, and the hooking apparatus of insect wings, evolved and slowly improved. Successive mutations,
not being simultaneous, must have been coordinated in order to achieve those adjustments without which
the devices could not function. It is extremely difficult to imagine such an unlikely mechanism. The genesis
of tools, in fact, remains an enigma." (Tétry, A., "Theories of Evolution," in Rostand, J. & Tétry, A.,
"Larousse Science of Life: A Study of Biology Sex, Genetics, Heredity and Evolution," [1962], Hamlyn:
London, 1971, pp.429,432)
22/08/2006
"An imaginative idea about what a prebiotic genetic system might have been like has been proposed by A.
G. Cairns-Smith, most recently in a charming book titled Seven Clues to the Origin of Life. Bizarre as the
idea may appear at first, or even upon reflection, Cairns-Smith thinks that clay crystals have qualities that
might make possible their combination into a form of pre-organic mineral life. According to Darwinist
assumptions, natural selection would then favor the more efficient clay replicators, preparing the way for an
eventual `genetic takeover' by organic molecules that had evolved because of their increasing usefulness in
the pre-organic process. The imagination involved in the mineral origin of life thesis is impressive, but for
my purpose it is sufficient to say that it is altogether lacking in experimental confirmation. According to the
biochemist Klaus Dose, `This thesis is beyond the comprehension of all biochemists or molecular biologists
who are daily confronted with the experimental facts of life.' [Dose, K., "Book Review of Clay Minerals and
the Origin of Life by A.G. Cairns-Smith and H. Hartman," BioSystems, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1988, p.89]. That
would ordinarily be more than enough reason to discard a theory, but many scientists still take the idea of a
mineral origin of life seriously because there is no clearly superior competitor." (Johnson, P.E.*, "Darwin on
Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 1993, pp.108-109)
22/08/2006
"Q: Given the prominence of the evolutionary perspective in your work, can you comment on the current
efforts to present `Intelligent Design' as an alternative to biological evolution in public schools in America?
A: It is a sorry commentary on the state of public understanding of science that a large fraction of the US
population is willing to accept that Intelligent Design (ID), essentially a tarted-up version of creationism,
and evolution are in some sense parallel or comparable. The ID argument, as near as I can tell is `These
biological organisms are so complex that I cannot imagine how they got to be like they are. If I cannot
understand that, nobody can understand it. Better call in God'. To think that ID in any way provides
evidence against biological evolution shows a lack of even a rudimentary understanding of the nature of
scientific evidence and scientific argument. At the risk of sounding cynical, though, I would venture that
most of the people pushing ID do not give a rat's patootie about having a scientific discussion over
evolution or considering what the data might tell us; they're simply looking for a way to insert their own
peculiar religious beliefs into public education." (Hendrix, R., "Q & A: Roger Hendrix, Current biology,
Vol 16, No. 16, 22 August 2006, pp.R619-R620)
23/08/2006
"The human brain is now about three times larger than that of Australopithecus. This increase has often
been called the most rapid and most important event in the history of evolution. But our bodies have also
increased greatly in size. Is this enlargement of the brain a simple consequence of bigger bodies or does it
mark new levels of intelligence? To answer this question, I have plotted cranial capacity against inferred
body weight for the following fossil hominids (representing, perhaps, our lineage): Australopithecus
africanus; Richard Leakey's remarkable find with a cranial capacity of nearly 800 cubic centimeters and an
antiquity of more than two million years (weight estimated by David Pilbeam from dimensions of the femur);
Homo erectus from Choukoutien (Peking Man); and modern Homo sapiens. ... Evolutionary increase in
human brain size (dotted line). The four triangles represent a rough evolutionary sequence.
Australopithecus africanus, ER- 1470 (Richard Leakey's new find with a cranial capacity just slightly less
than 800cc), Homo erectus (Peking Man), and Homo sapiens. The slope is the highest ever calculated for an
evolutionary sequence. The two solid lines represent more conventional scaling of brain size in
australopithecines (above) and great apes (below). ("Size and Scaling in Human Evolution," Pilbeam, David,
and Gould, Stephen Jay, Science Vol. 186, pp. 892-901, Fig. 2, 6 December 1974. ... The graph indicates that
our brain has increased much more rapidly than any prediction based on compensations for body size would
allow. My conclusion is not unconventional, and it does reinforce an ego that we would do well to deflate.
Nonetheless, our brain has undergone a true increase in size not related to the demands of our larger body."
(Gould, S.J., "Sizing Up Human Intelligence," in "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History," [1978],
Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.p.183-185)
24/08/2006
"In 1966, an American evolutionist, G.C. Williams, produced a work, Adaptation and Natural Selection,
designed to promote the progress of evolutionary theory (which it did). Williams begins with a statement
about the scope of natural selection. His book, he says, `is based on the assumption that the laws of
physical science plus natural selection can furnish a complete explanation for any biological phenomenon'.
[Williams G.C., "Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought,"
[1966], Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1996, pp.6-7] Can this grandiose proposal be justified?"
(Barnett, S.A., "Science, Myth or Magic?: A Struggle for Existence," Allen & Unwin: St. Leonards NSW,
2000, p.84)
24/08/2006
"But the notion of modern Darwinism as a complete theory, easily described, is another illusion. Simple
presumptions about natural selection are always misleading. Its most conspicuous complication was familiar
to Darwin. In On the Origin of Species, his most important work, he wrote on `Correlation of Growth': `I
mean by this expression that the whole organization is so tied together during its growth and development
that when slight variations in any one part occur, and are accumulated by natural selection, other parts
become modified. This is a very important subject, imperfectly understood.' [Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of
Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994, p.114] And here is J.B.S.
Haldane (1892-1964), another giant of theoretical biology, in 1932. `... with an animal or plant we are at first
struck by its obvious adaptations; its claws, teeth, spines, protective colouring, and so on ... But there
remain a host of characters with no obvious value to their possessor ... When we have pushed our analysis
as far as possible, innumerable characters show no sign of possessing selective value.' [(Haldane, J.B.S.,
"The Causes of Evolution," [1990], Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1993, Second Printing, p.62] As
Darwin had realised, when a new trait emerges by natural selection, it can drag along with it other changed
features which are not themselves advantageous. They have been called side effects, free riders or spinoffs.
Yet it is still sometimes supposed that any feature, of any organism, is adaptive: that is, that it has or
recently had selective value." (Barnett, S.A., "Science, Myth or Magic?: A Struggle for Existence," Allen &
Unwin: St. Leonards NSW, 2000, p.85)
24/08/2006
"We can rarely say how the variation we see today has arisen. Darwin asked why the nest of a thrush
(Turdus philomelos) is lined with mud, while the closely related blackbird (Turdus merula) prefers
fibrous roots; he could find no answer. R.C. Lewontin in 1979 similarly pointed to the difference between the
Indian rhinoceros and the African: why has the African species two horns, the other only one? Perhaps no
`Darwinian' answer exists: we need not assume that conditions in Africa once selected for two horns."
(Barnett, S.A., "Science, Myth or Magic?: A Struggle for Existence," Allen & Unwin: St. Leonards NSW,
2000, p.84)
24/08/2006
"This book is based on the assumption that the laws of physical science plus natural selection can furnish a
complete explanation for any biological phenomenon, and that these principles can explain adaptation in
general and in the abstract and any particular example of an adaptation. This is a common but not a
universal belief among biologists. " (Williams, G.C., "Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some
Current Evolutionary Thought," [1966], Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1996, pp.6-7)
24/08/2006
"When different people consider the work of a revolutionary like Darwin, they see different aspects of it as
representing the `real' or `fundamental' element that separates it from the preexistent conformity of thought.
To many ... Darwin's unique intellectual contribution was the idea of natural selection. For them, Darwinism
is the theory that evolution occurs because, in a world of finite resources, some organisms will make more
efficient use of those resources in producing their progeny and so will leave more descendants than their
less efficient relatives. Yet it is by no means certain, even now, what proportion of all evolutionary change
arises from natural selection. Attitudes toward the importance of random events as opposed to selective
ones vary from time to time and place to place." (Lewontin, R.C., "The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary
Change," Columbia University Press: New York NY, 1974, p.3)
24/08/2006
"It is an irony of evolutionary genetics that, although it is a fusion of Mendelism and Darwinism, it has made
no direct contribution to what Darwin obviously saw as the fundamental problem: the origin of species."
(Lewontin, R.C., "The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change," Columbia University Press: New York NY,
1974, p.159)
24/08/2006
"Scientists believe they have found a key gene that helped the human brain evolve from our chimp-like
ancestors. In just a few million years, one area of the human genome seems to have evolved about 70 times
faster than the rest of our genetic code. It appears to have a role in a rapid tripling of the size of the brain's
crucial cerebral cortex, according to an article published Thursday in the journal Nature. Study co-author
David Haussler, director of the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, said his team found strong but still circumstantial evidence that a certain gene, called
HAR1F, may provide an important answer to the question: `What makes humans brainier than other
primates?' Human brains are triple the size of chimp brains. Looking at 49 areas that have changed the most
between the human and chimpanzee genomes, Haussler zeroed in on an area with `a very dramatic change in
a relatively short period of time.' That one gene didn't exist until 300 million years ago and is present only in
mammals and birds, not fish or animals without backbones. But then it didn't change much at all. There are
only two differences in that one gene between a chimp and a chicken, Haussler said. But there are 18
differences in that one gene between human and chimp and they all seemed to occur in the development of
man, he said. Andrew Clark, a Cornell University professor molecular biology who was not part of Haussler's
team, said that if true, the change in genes would be fastest and most dramatic in humans and would be
`terrifically exciting.' However, the gene changed so fast that Clark said that he has a hard time believing it
unless something unusual happened in a mutation. It's not part of normal evolution, he said. .... The
scientists still don't know specifically what the gene does. But they know that this same gene turns on in
human fetuses at seven weeks after conception and then shuts down at 19 weeks, Haussler said."
(Borenstein, S., "Scientists Find Brain Evolution Gene," ABC News/Associated Press, August 16, 2006)
24/08/2006
"... Thomas Henry Huxley invoked the same image in declining to pursue further the decisive victory he had
won over Richard Owen in the great hippocampus debate: `Life is too short to occupy oneself with the
slaying of the slain more than once.' Owen had sought to establish our uniqueness by arguing that a small
convolution of the human brain, the hippocampus minor, was absent in chimps and gorillas (and all other
creatures), but present in Homo sapiens alone. Huxley ... showed conclusively that all apes had a
hippocampus, and that any discontinuity in the structure of primate brains lay between prosimians (lemurs
and tarsiers) and all other primates (including humans), not between man and the great apes. Yet for a
month, in April, 1861, all England watched as her two greatest anatomists waged war over a little bump on
the brain. ... The Western world has yet to make its peace with Darwin and the implications of evolutionary
theory. The hippocampus debate merely illustrates, in light relief, the greatest impediment to this
reconciliation-our unwillingness to accept continuity between ourselves and nature, our ardent search for a
criterion to assert our uniqueness. Again and again, the great naturalists have enunciated general theories
of nature and made singular exceptions for humans. Charles Lyell ... envisioned a world in steady-state: no
change through time in the complexity of life, with all organic designs present from the first. Yet man alone
was created but a geological instant ago-a quantum jump in the moral sphere imposed upon the constancy
of mere anatomical deign. And Alfred Russel Wallace, an ardent selectionist who far out-Darwined Darwin
in his rigid insistence on natural selection as the sole directing force for evolutionary change made his only
exception for the human brain ... Darwin himself, although he accepted strict continuity, was reluctant to
expose his heresy. " (Gould, S.J., "A Matter of Degree," in "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural
History," [1978], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.49-50)
24/08/2006
"Chimps and gorillas have long been the battleground of our search for uniqueness; for if we could
establish an unambiguous distinction-of kind rather than of degree-between ourselves and our closest
relatives, we might gain the justification long sought for our cosmic arrogance. The battle shifted long ago
from a simple debate about evolution: educated people now accept the evolutionary continuity between
humans and apes. But we are so tied to our philosophical and religious heritage that we still seek a criterion
for strict division between our abilities and those of chimpanzees. For, as the psalmist sang: "What is man,
that thou art mindful of him?...For thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him
with glory and honor." Many criteria have been tried, and one by one they have failed. The only honest
alternative is to admit the strict continuity in kind between ourselves and chimpanzees. And what do we
lose thereby? Only an antiquated concept of soul to gain a more humble, even exalting vision of our
oneness with nature." (Gould, S.J., "A Matter of Degree," in "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural
History," [1978], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.50-51)
25/08/2006
"Those who have known and respected A.G. Cairns- Smith as a vivid critic of earlier simulation experiments
and hypotheses now must realize that Cairns-Smith's thesis of `genetic takeover and the mineral origins of
life' is as yet without experimental basis. Interactions of organic molecules with clays as well as the catalytic
activities of clays have likely contributed to prebiotic evolution. These effects deserve much more attention
than they have found so far. But a mineral origin of life? This thesis is beyond the comprehension of all
biochemists or molecular biologists who are daily confronted with the experimental facts of life. The poor
response of life scientists to Cairns-Smith's thesis is therefore no surprise. This book is only of marginal
interest to life scientists." (Dose, K., "Clay Minerals and the Origin of Life." Review of "Clay Minerals and
the Origin of Life," by A.G. Cairns-Smith and H. Hartman, Cambridge University Press, 1986. Biosystems,
Vol. 22., No. 1, 1988, p.89)
25/08/2006
"One of the major unsolved problems of geology and evolution is the occurrence of diversified, multicellular
marine invertebrates in Lower Cambrian rocks on all the continents and their absence in rocks of greater age.
These Early Cambrian fossils included porifera, coelenterates, brachiopods, mollusca, echinoids, and
arthropods. In the Arthropoda are included the well-known trilobites, which were complexly organized, with
well-differentiated head and tail, numerous thoracic parts, jointed legs, and-like the later crustaceans-a
complex respiratory system. From a phylogenetic standpoint the Early Cambrian faunal assemblage is
generally interpreted to represent rather simple ancestral types in their respective phyla, which rapidly
diversified into numerous types (species, genera, families, orders) during and following the Early Cambrian.
Their high degree of organization clearly indicates that a long period of evolution preceded their appearance
in the record. However, when we turn to examine the Precambrian rocks for the forerunners of these Early
Cambrian fossils; they are nowhere to be found. Many thick (over 5000 feet) sections of sedimentary rock
are now known to lie in unbroken succession below strata containing the earliest Cambrian fossils. These
sediments apparently were suitable for the preservation of fossils because they often are identical with
overlying rocks which are fossiliferous, yet no fossils are found in them. Clearly, a significant but
unrecorded chapter in the history of life is missing from the rocks of Precambrian time." (Axelrod, D.I., "Early
Cambrian Marine Fauna," Science, Vol. 128, 4 July 1956, pp.7-9, p.7. References omitted)
25/08/2006
"The battle's been raging for almost 9 million years, but contrary to a beloved evolutionary theory, there was
no arms race between the plant and its pest. Molecular biology's much-studied mustard, Arabidopsis
thaliana, and the plant's old enemy, a Pseudomonas bacterial rot, have not been trumping each other's
defenses with escalating innovations, report Eli A. Stahl of the University of Chicago and his colleagues.
Instead, analysis of DNA regions around the plant's rot-resistance gene suggests that pretty much the same
old weapons have gone through cycles of use and disuse in what the researchers describe as `trench
warfare.' For the mustard-rot war, `we reject the arms race hypothesis,' they state flatly in the Aug. 12
NATURE. Their manifesto challenges what evolutionary ecologist Peter M. Kareiva ... calls `one of the more
compelling metaphors of biology.' The idea resounds through tales of interplay between diseases and hosts
and between herbivores and food plants. `I don't think there has ever been that much empirical evidence for
any sort of escalating arms race,' Kareiva says. `The power of the idea was mostly the power of the
metaphor.' .... For a rigorous look at the history of such conflicts, Stahl and his colleagues sequenced DNA
from mustard plants collected in 26 locales ranging from Indiana to Kazakhstan. Twelve populations had a
gene, rpm1, that allows the plant to recognize the rot and mount a physiological defense. The others had no
resistance gene and developed soft, mushy lesions when exposed to the pest. Had there been an arms race,
the currently effective resistance would have evolved recently. The researchers instead found that rpm1 has
been around for about as long as the species itself. The diversity in the inactive DNA flanking the
resistance gene indicates its ancient origin, argues coauthor Joy Bergelson, also of Chicago. `It was very
surprising,' Bergelson says. This evidence suggests to her that raging epidemics favor the spread of the
resistance genes until so many plants are protected that the rot runs out of victims and recedes. Then rpm1
itself, which might drain some of the plant's resources and thus exact some maintenance cost, wanes in the
population until the next epidemic. `It's very clever, and it's probably right,' comments Kareiva. However, he
muses that there may be too little evidence yet to accept a new model. For example, `it's often hard to
identify a cost of resistance,' he cautions. Regardless, the mustard's history is hardly an arms race, says
Barbara A. Schaal of Washington University in St. Louis. In the classic scenario, any variation is transient.
Yet in the mustard's, there's `good evidence that natural selection is operating to maintain diversity,' she
says. Without more molecular tests, Bergelson doesn't claim to know whether other conflicts follow the
same pattern as the mustard-rot scenario. As Kareiva puts it, however, now `there will be a lot of labs
looking at sequencing data." (Milius, S., "The mustard war wasn't so racy after all," Science News August
14, 1999)
25/08/2006
"The first systems of molecules having the properties of the living state presumably self-assembled from a
mixture of organic compounds available on the prebiotic Earth. To carry out the polymer synthesis
characteristic of all forms of life, such systems would require one or more sources of energy to activate
monomers to be incorporated into polymers. Possible sources of energy for this process include heat, light
energy, chemical energy, and ionic potentials across membranes. These energy sources are explored here,
with a particular focus on mechanisms by which self-assembled molecular aggregates could capture the
energy and use it to form chemical bonds in polymers. Based on available evidence, a reasonable conjecture
is that membranous vesicles were present on the prebiotic Earth and that systems of replicating and
catalytic macromolecules could become encapsulated in the vesicles. In the laboratory, this can be modeled
by encapsulated polymerases prepared as liposomes. By an appropriate choice of lipids, the permeability
properties of the liposomes can be adjusted so that ionic substrates permeate at a sufficient rate to provide a
source of monomers for the enzymes, with the result that nucleic acids accumulate in the vesicles. Despite
this progress, there is still no clear mechanism by which the free energy of light, ion gradients, or redox
potential can be coupled to polymer bond formation in a protocellular structure." (Deamer, D.W.,
"The first living systems: a bioenergetic perspective," Microbiology & Molecular Biology Reviews, Vol 61,
No. 2, June 6, 1997, pp.239-261)
26/08/2006
"The science which shows us evolution actually at work-paleontology should be able to contribute
important information. A large body of facts is available, but there is no unanimity in its interpretation. The
facts of greatest general importance are the following. When a new phylum, class, or order appears, there
follows a quick, explosive (in terms of geological time) diversification so that practically all orders or
families known appear suddenly and without any apparent transitions. Afterwards, a slow evolution follows;
this frequently has the appearance of a gradual change, step by step, though down to the generic level abrupt
major steps without transitions occur. At the end of such a series, a kind of evolutionary running-wild
frequently is observed. Giant forms appear, and odd or pathological types of different kinds precede the
extinction of such a line. Moreover, within the slowly evolving series, like the famous horse series, the
decisive steps are abrupt, without transition: for example, the choice of the middle finger for further
transformation, as opposed to the two middle fingers, in the evolution of the artiodactyls; or the sudden
transition from the four-toed to the three-toed foot with predominance of the third ray." (Goldschmidt, R.B.,
"Evolution, as Viewed by One Geneticist," American Scientist, Vol. 40, January 1952, pp.84-98, p.97)
27/08/2006
"The most ordinary-looking migratory birds turn out to have onboard navigational systems that rival those
of modern airliners in sophistication ... For decades, scientists believed that even for the most complex
journeys, birds relied on the biological equivalent of a pocket guidebook. But a rash of recent discoveries
suggests that birds have navigational systems nearly as sophisticated as those of modern airliners. To get a
fix on direction and position, they process multiple inputs from the stars, the Sun, visible landmarks, and
even the Earth's magnetic field ..." (Pool, R., "Is it a plane? Is it a bird?," New Scientist, 9 November 1996,
p.29, pp.29-32)
27/08/2006
"I've written a little parody of the prologue of the gospel of John to indicate the dominant cultural belief of
our time. It goes like this: `In the beginning were the particles. And the particles somehow became complex
living stuff. And the stuff imagined God, but then discovered evolution.' Here again you have in a few
words a lot of profound learning. `In the beginning were the particles.' John Searle will tell you this. He says
that if you want to be taken seriously in the academic world today, then there are two things you just have
to admit, that you have to agree to, to get a ticket of admission. You're outside the conversation if you don't.
One of them is that the world consists entirely of particles, the things that physicists study. This is a
philosophy that's sometimes called materialism; the correct philosophical term is physicalism, because
particles make up both matter and energy. That's physicalism. Naturalism, another term, means nature is all
there is; nature is made of particles, and everything else just comes from the particles. `In the beginning
were the particles.' No mind, just particles and impersonal laws of physics and chemistry. And by some
combination of chance and these physical laws, the particles somehow became complex living stuff. This is
skipping rapidly over a lot of cosmic history, of course, to get to the main point, that the particles become
complex living stuff by a purely natural mechanism. `And the stuff imagined God ...' Now we get to a key
point. See, it's not `In the beginning was the Word,' not `in the beginning God created,' not `God created
man,' but rather, `man created God.' The complex stuff imagined God, because, having evolved from the
primeval ooze of chemicals and lacking scientific knowledge, primitive human beings imagined a father figure
in the sky, the only good story they knew, and credited that with their creation." (Johnson, P.E., "In the
Beginning Were the Particles," Lecture at Grace Valley Christian Center, March 5, 2000)
27/08/2006
"If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as
rubbish, but I have firm faith in it, as I cannot believe, that if false, it would explain so many whole classes of
facts, which, if I am in my senses, it seems to explain. ... I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of
Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent." (Darwin, C.R., Letter to C.
Lyell, October 11, 1859, in Darwin F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New
York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, pp.6-7)
27/08/2006
"As far as I understand your remarks and illustrations, you doubt the possibility of gradations of intellectual
powers. Now, it seems to me, looking to existing animals alone, that we have a very fine gradation in the
intellectual powers of the Vertebrata, with one rather wide gap (not half so wide as in many cases of
corporeal structure), between say a Hottentot and an Ourang, even if civilised as much mentally as the dog
has been from the wolf. I suppose that you do not doubt that the intellectual powers are as important for the
welfare of each being as corporeal structure; if so, I can see no difficulty in the most intellectual individuals
of a species being continually selected; and the intellect of the new species thus improved, aided probably
by effects of inherited mental exercise. I look at this process as now going on with the races of man ; the less
intellectual races being exterminated. But there is not space to discuss this point. If I understand you, the
turning-point in our difference must be, that you think it impossible that the intellectual. powers of a species
should be much improved by the continued natural selection of the most intellectual individuals. To show
how minds graduate, just reflect how impossible every one has yet found it, to define the difference in mind
of man and the lower animals ; the latter seem to have the very same attributes in a much lower stage of
perfection than the lowest savage." (Darwin, C.R., Letter to C. Lyell, October 11, 1859, in Darwin F., ed., "The
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, p.7)
29/08/2006
"Following a speech to a fundamentalist coalition in Dallas in 1980, then Republican presidential candidate
Ronald Reagan held a press conference at which he was asked if he thought the theory of evolution should
be taught in public schools. He replied, `Well, it's a theory, it is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent
years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as
infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in the schools, then I think that also the
biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught'
([Holden, C., "Republican Candidate Picks Fight with Darwin,"] Science, 1980, 209: 1214). One must
wonder where the President got his scientific advice. Here is ignorance (and pragmatic politics) celebrated at
the highest level through an anti-intellectual appeal to a voting constituency." (Berra, T.M., "Evolution and
the Myth of Creationism: A Basic Guide to the Facts in the Evolution Debate," Stanford University Press:
Stanford CA, 1990, pp.122-123)
29/08/2006
"When Ronald Reagan injected creationism into the 1980 presidential campaign, he took a familiar route.
Referring to evolution, he told reporters (after speaking to a group of fundamentalists in Dallas, Texas) :
`Well, it is a theory, a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of
science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed.'
Beyond the fascinating commingling, of politics, religion, and science, Reagan's remark picked up a standard
creationist ploy when he said that evolution is `a theory, a scientific theory only.' And it is true that most of
us use the word `theory' to mean some tentative, sketchy notion about why or how something happened.
All of us, for instance, have our own `theory' on how and why Reagan was elected, why the oil companies
really have been raising prices, and why inflation has been so bad in recent years. This is standard usage.
But creationists, including some who claim bona fide scientific credentials, have exploited the vernacular
connotation of the word `theory,' in effect saying that scientists use `theory' in precisely the same way.
Thus, if evolution is only a theory, our confidence in it ought to be less than if it were, say, a `fact.'
`Theories' turn into `hare-brained ideas' with ease. `Theory' is a badword: to call an idea a theory is to
impugn its credibility." (Eldredge, N., "The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism,"
Washington Square: New York NY, 1982, pp.28-29)
29/08/2006
"Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 with the considerable help of antievolution activist groups
(see Conway and Siegelman 1982). `I have a great many questions about [evolution],' he said during his
campaign. `I think that recent discoveries down through the years have pointed up great flaws in it'
(Science 1980). Antievolutionism has deep roots in American society." (Cole, J.R., "Scopes and Beyond:
Antievolutionism and American Culture" in Godfrey L.R., ed., "Scientists Confront Creationism," W.W.
Norton & Co: New York NY, 1983, pp.13-14)
29/08/2006
"Speaking to an evangelical group in Dallas, Texas, President Ronald Reagan gave this opinion: `Well, it is a
theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science-that
is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was.' (Gould, S.J., "Evolution as Fact
and Theory," DiscoverVol. 2, No. 5, May 1981, pp.34-37, p.34] The disagreement is not restricted to
contrary students and professors or admitted anti-intellectuals. Among vocal `authorities,' the issue has
been kept alive by Stephen Jay Gould's recent paper `Evolution as Fact and Theory' [Ibid., pp.34-37] and
Duane Gish's creationist response. [Gish, D.T., "Evolution as Fact and Theory," DiscoverVol. 2, No. 7,
July 1981] (Kline, A.D., "Theories, Facts, and Gods: Philosophical Aspects of the Creation -Evolution
Controversy," in Wilson, D.B. & Dolphin, W.D., eds., "Did the Devil Make Darwin Do It?: Modern
Perspectives on the Creation-Evolution Controversy," Iowa State University Press: Ames IO, 1983, pp.37-38)
29/08/2006
"[Evolution is] theory only. In recent years it has been challenged in the world of science. If evolutionary
theory is going to be taught in the schools, then I would think that also the biblical theory of creation, which
is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught. -Ronald Reagan, on the campaign
trail in Dallas, 1980" (Kottler, M.J., "Evolution: Fact? Theory? ... or just a Theory?," in Zetterberg, J.P., ed.,
"Evolution Versus Creationism: The Public Education Controversy," Oryx Press: Phoenix AZ, 1983, p.29.
Emphasis original)
29/08/2006
"Creation and Evolution All of this is well and good, one might say, but is it not ultimately disproved by
our scientific knowledge of how the human being evolved from the animal kingdom? Now, more reflective
spirits have long been aware that there is no either-or here. We cannot say: creation or evolution,
inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the
breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what
they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the
theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot
explain where the "project" of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature.
To that extent we are faced here with two complementary - rather than mutually exclusive - realities."
(Ratzinger, J., "`In the Beginning ...': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall,"
Ramsay, B., transl., Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1995, p.50. Emphasis original)
29/08/2006
"Now let us go directly to the question of evolution and its mechanisms. Microbiology and biochemistry
have brought revolutionary insights here. They are constantly penetrating deeper into the inmost mysteries
of life, attempting to decode its secret language and to understand what life really is. In so doing they have
brought us to the awareness that an organism and a machine have many points in common. For both of
them realize a project, a thought-out and considered plan, which is itself coherent and logical. Their
functioning presupposes a precisely thought-through and therefore reasonable design. But in addition to
this commonality there are also differences. A first and somewhat unimportant one may be described as
follows: An organism is incomparably smarter and more daring than the most sophisticated machines. They
are dully planned and constructed in comparison with an organism. A second difference goes deeper: An
organism moves itself from within, unlike a machine, which must be operated by someone from without. And
finally there is a third difference: An organism has the power to reproduce itself; it can renew and continue
the project that it itself is. In other words, it has the ability to propagate itself and to bring into existence
another living and coherent being like itself." (Ratzinger, J., "`In the Beginning ...': A Catholic Understanding
of the Story of Creation and the Fall," Ramsay, B., transl., Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1995, pp.54-55.
Emphasis original)
29/08/2006
"It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow and how
new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. But we must have the audacity to say that the
great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error. Nor are they the products of a
selective process to which divine predicates can be attributed in illogical, unscientific, and even mythic
fashion. The great projects of the living creation point to a creating Reason and show us a creating
Intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before. Thus we can say today
with a new certitude and joyousness that the human being is indeed a divine project, which only the
creating Intelligence was strong and great and audacious enough to conceive of. Human beings are not a
mistake but something willed; they are the fruit of love. They can disclose in themselves, in the bold project
that they are, the language of the creating Intelligence that speaks to them and that moves them to say: Yes,
Father, you have willed me." (Ratzinger, J., "`In the Beginning ...': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of
Creation and the Fall," Ramsay, B., transl., Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1995, pp.56-57)
30/08/2006
"If we extract chlorophyll from plant tissues in pure form and supply it, in the test tube, with carbon dioxide,
water, and sunlight, we will find that photosynthesis will not take place. Even if we throw in the carotenes
and any other pure substances we find in plant cells, it will not help. Apparently, within plant tissue,
chlorophyll is part of an intricate and well-organized mechanism that acts as a smoothly-working whole to
carry through a photosynthetic process that includes many steps. Chlorophyll makes the key step possible
and without it nothing can happen, but the key step, by itself, is not enough. (To draw an analogy from the
more familiar world of the automobile-the ignition key sets in motion a whole series of events in the
complicated automotive mechanism and starts you moving over the road at a rapid rate of speed. However,
if all you have is an ignition key and nothing else, it won't get you moving even if you sit down on the road
and pile a heap of loose automobile parts all about yourself.)" (Asimov, I., "Photosynthesis," George Allen
& Unwin: London, 1970, p.53)
30/08/2006
"And what about an organelle to handle the photosynthetic half of the carbon cycle. This would have to
contain chlorophyll and would, therefore, be green. Naturally, if an organelle is already colored, it does not
have to be dyed. It can be seen directly. As soon, then, as the ordinary microscope had been refined to the
point where tiny bodies within the cell could be seen, at least as dots, it became possible to tell whether
chlorophyll was spread evenly throughout the cell or was concentrated within organelles. The latter was the
case and, in 1883, Julius Sachs demonstrated that. Eventually, these chlorophyll-containing organelles were
named `chloroplasts.' ... The structure of the chloroplast seems to be even more complex than that of the
mitochondrion. The interior of the chloroplast is made up of many thin membranes stretching across from
wall to wall. These are the `lamellae.' In most types of chloroplasts, these lamellae thicken and darken in
places to make dark condensations called `grana.' The chlorophyll molecules are to be found within the
grana. If the lamellae within the grana are studied under the electron microscope, they, in turn, seem to be
made up of tiny units, just barely visible, that look like the neatly laid tiles of a bathroom floor. Each of these
objects may be a photosynthesizing unit containing 250 to 300 chlorophyll molecules. It was not until 1954,
that Daniel I. Arnon, working with disrupted spinach leaf cells, was able to obtain chloroplasts completely
intact and able to carry through the complete photosynthetic reaction. The chloroplast-thus shown finally
to be a self-contained photosynthetic unit--contains the complete assembly-line for the purpose within
itself. It contains not only chlorophyll and carotenoids, but a full complement of enzymes, coenzymes and
activators as well, all properly and intricately arranged. It even contains cytochromes, ordinarily associated
with respiration, but present in the chloroplast for, as we shall see, good and sufficient reason. (In view of all
this, it is no wonder that chlorophyll by itself cannot carry through photosynthesis.)" (Asimov, I.,
"Photosynthesis," George Allen & Unwin: London, 1970, pp.56-57)
30/08/2006
"Certain magnesium-porphyrins would form with the capacity for making use of the energy of visible light
for the building up of complex compounds from simple ones-a primitive form of photosynthesis. These
magnesiumporphyrins, constantly being ingested by cells, must, on at least one occasion, have remained to
be incorporated into the cellular structure. Even the inefficient use of visible light in the first magnesium-
porphyrin cells must have given them a tremendous advantage over ordinary cells at a time when the
ultraviolet light was slowly being shut off. In the end, all our photosynthesizing cells may have originated
from a single original, which may have been analogous to what we call, today, a chloroplast. Signs of that
original chloroplast remain. There are two thousand species of a group of one-celled photosynthesizing
organisms called `blue-green algae.' (They are not all blue-green, but the first ones studied were.) These are
very simple cells, rather bacteria-like in structure, except that they contain chlorophyll and bacteria do not.
Blue-green algae might almost be viewed as single, rather large, chloroplasts, and they may be the simplest
descendants of the original chloroplast. ... It may be, then, that along with the simple chloroplasts and
mitochondria formed in the slowly oxygenating seas, there would be certain large anaerobic cells, too. If the
latter ingested the former and retained them, we would have the `modern cell' of today. And if such a scheme
is valid, depending as it does on random processes, why could it not happen on planets other than the
Earth? It would seem that on any planet that is sufficiently Earth-like in properties and in chemistry, life
would be bound to form. According to some estimates ... there may be as many as 640,000,000 Earth-like
planets in our own Galaxy alone. What precise form such life might take we cannot say, but the thought that
it may exist there at all is an exciting one. The difficulties of exploration beyond the solar system are
enormous, but the rewards in terms of knowledge are enormous, too. Perhaps some day-some far-distant
day-men will get out there to see." (Asimov, I., "Photosynthesis," George Allen & Unwin: London, 1970,
pp.185-187)
* 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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Copyright © 2006-2008, by Stephen E. Jones. All rights reserved. These my quotes may be used for
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would be appreciated.
Created: 30 March, 2006. Updated: 10 July, 2008.