View Single Post
Old 23rd November 2005, 11:22 PM   #762
Eos of the Eons
Mad Scientist
 
Eos of the Eons's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 13,749
Quote:
For example, I don't think any scientist believes that mutations arising at random at some sort of background frequency are sufficient to explain the rise of life on Earth at its current level of diversity. Such mutations occur, of course, but the true picture is much more complicated than that. There appear to be significant interactions among genes, including catalytic reactions at the biochemical level, and these greatly increase the probability of certain types of change. This does not require intelligent design, any more than the assembly of the highly ordered structure of a crystal.

Modern evolution, both fact and theory, is not "Darwinism", because, of course, Darwin knew nothing about genes. It is the cumulative result of tens of thousands of pieces of research carried out since Darwin's time, and represents the current state of a continuously developing body of theory and observation. Those who wish to refute it have a vast amount of material to rebut.

Further, as far as history is concerned, the reference to Lamarck was surely not intended to suggest that he was "suppressed" by Darwin or anyone else. Evolution as an idea had been around for many years before either Darwin or Lamarck came up with it; even Darwin's grandfather published his own version of it. Lamarck and Darwin, unlike earlier writers, came up with mechanisms for how evolution could work. Lamarck's ideas, however, simply did not match the evidence and were rapidly disproved. Darwin's, on the other hand, were supported by a vast amount of evidence, much of it assembled by Darwin himself (though Darwin's own work represents but a minute fraction of the amount of evidence in support of evolution by natural selection available today). If anyone was "shoveled under" by Darwin's fame, it was Alfred Russell Wallace, who came up with practically the same basic theory as Darwin almost simultaneously with him, but failed to support it with the detailed evidence that the extremely meticulous Darwin had assembled before publishing (hardly a criticism of Wallace, who was ill with fever in the East Indies at the time!).

For an excellent and very readable short history of the development of evolutionary theory, may I recommend "Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory" by Edward J. Larson (Modern Library 2004). For a very clear explanation of the state of things today, with lots of pictures (!), read "Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea" by Carl Zimmer (HarperCollins 2001).

And, of course, there is nothing to prevent anyone from believing that there is an intelligence behind anything in our universe, but establishing this belief as a scientific theory (as opposed to a philosophical or religious conviction) will require something better than simply stating that you cannot imagine how it could be otherwise. The universe is not limited by the scope of human imagination.
Ronald Orenstein
__________________
Motion affecting a measuring device does not affect what is actually being measured, except to inaccurately measure it.
the immaterial world doesn't matter, cause it ain't matter-Jeff Corey
my karma ran over my dogma-vbloke
The Lateral Truth: An Apostate's Bible Stories by Rebecca Bradley, read it!
Eos of the Eons is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top