Darwin’s epiphany — as important historically as Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus — forced him to confront the limits of his natural theology, but as a true man of science, he let the evidence lead him rather than his preconceptions.
As a result, the incredible body of biological knowledge that has developed truly demonstrates, as @richarddawkins wrote so eloquently, one crucial aspect of the Magic of Reality.
If only the cdesign proponentsists would adopt a modicum of intellectual integrity, they too could experience that *real* magic and replace their Stone Age beliefs with ones that have tangible value (medical, ecological, etc.); alas, societal progress will come on this, as it does in physics, one funeral at a time.
didn't know bats flew 2000 miles to inhabit Hawaii. The USGS article quoted Olival from EcoHealth, who wrote the DARPA Defuse proposal to vaccinate bats in the Wuhan BSL4 (aka Covid)
At this point, it is fair to say that Darwinism and neo-Darwinism have been refuted. They simply aren't consistent with the evidence, including the geological record. Everything points toward some type of Lamarckian process, via epigenetics and other modes. Natural selection appears to play a minor and trivial role (like an asteroid extinguishing some species). Importantly, the general idea of species emerging out of other species is much older than Darwin and can't be considered Darwinism. But the simple extrapolation from intra-species adaptations (short beak - long beak) to inter-species evolution (new types of reproduction and so on ) remains unproven and hypothetical. It could be based on the same process or based on different or additional processes. Darwin was sill very far from explaining how evolution really works, and he didn't even try to explain how life emerged.
Speciation does not require “new types of reproduction.” Most placental mammals do it the same way. Indeed, horses and zebras, lions and tigers (maybe humans and chimps?) can even produce offspring.
Oh yes, it often requires new types of reproduction, both at the genetic, developmental and behavioral level. And the reproductive aspect is itself only one of the many fundamental differences between intra-species variation and inter-species evolution.
It is a distinction in scale, not kind. There’s obviously no biological mechanism that flips off once a certain amount of differentiations has accumulated. You understand toy poodles descended from wolves, right? The same processes—mutation, selection, genetic drift, recombination—continue driving changes among isolated populations until the differences are so large the populations are considered distinct species. Your statement is like saying erosion can wear away rocks but can't carve a canyon.
Finally, speciation has been directly observed both in the lab and in nature. A few examples:
Rhagoletis pomonella (apple maggot fly) began specializing on apples instead of hawthorns, and populations are now partially reproductively isolated—on their way to becoming distinct species.
Ensatina salamanders are a ring species--which also prove the case.
Again, in cichlid fish in African lakes, new species have arisen rapidly due to ecological and sexual selection.
In lab experiments, E. coli populations evolved the ability to metabolize citrate under aerobic conditions—a novel function—after tens of thousands of generations.
Dennis crash-landed hard here... Thought dog-breeding and Galapagos finches prove Darwin when they actually prove the opposite. No speciation in either case! Simple fact is, Darwin didn't know how speciation works, and we still don't know it. Fossil record still unexplained.
The case of dogs--dachshunds and English mastiffs, etc.--confirms that organisms can change drastically due to very slight changes that accumulate over many generations. Jason refuses to think about this point because of his extreme emotional attachment to a fairytale he learned when he was a child.
Darwin was a committed atheist and materialist. His theory was built to exclusively exclude any theistic causes. There is still to this date absolutely no scientific evidence of macro-evolution. Micro evolutionary changes obviously can occur within species. His overall theory of progressive evolution from inorganic to organic life forms to complex life forms to humans is a fantasy.
You should actually glance at the post to which you are responding--or anything by Darwin. Darwin was extremely religious and was trying to prove natural theology. You seem to accept what you call, "micro evolution." Do you accept that the 13 species of Galápagos finches all derive from a common ancestral species that became marooned on the island?
The Galapagos finches aren't species, this was debunked decades ago. They are counter-example to Darwin's hypothesis (but played no role in his thinking). We don't really know how micro-evolution works, either, but it doesn't look very random...
I conflated your contributions & that of Paul Chambers, as your complementary cdesign proponensist arguments meld together into a mass of underinformed madness.
To me, the world described by science more and more resembles the world revealed by faith. No one would call Einstein an idiot but even his theories are not adequate to explain the universe and in some scientific circles are being challenged. Yes, you are correct that science is not simple but neither is faith nor theology.
I have never described evolution as simple, but its evidence is overwhelming. Now, "then a miracle happened" is simple. Creationism is simple--really, freakin' simple. What does Genesis devote to it? About a dozen lines--memorizable by school children?
While the one gene-one polypeptide hypothesis is a fundamental concept, it's not universally true. Many proteins, especially those with complex structures like hemoglobin, are formed from multiple polypeptide chains, each encoded by a separate gene.
Evolutionary scientists discovered this, and? You want citations to papers on the subject of the evolution of hemoglobin? And notice how the argument has shifted among Creationists—from the claim that "evolution is false and can't explain the origin of species" to the much narrower suggestion that "evolution might not fully account for a few microscopic traits among billions found across millions of species on Earth."
I can reply more later, but unless a protein actually folds the right way, it is useless and possibly lethal. The combination of amino acids necessary if arranged randomly results in numbers that would take longer than the current age of the universe to produce one useful protein let alone what is necessary for complex life.
Busy today but more on this later.
Also let’s not forget language development which if examined critically does not fit easily into Darwinian evolution.
You seem to have missed my response. The flaw here is the same one we find in most critiques of evolution—such as “So you’re telling me a fish gave birth to a monkey?” It skips all intermediate steps to make the jump seem impossible. Jerry A Coyne in Quillette (links below) has already addressed this argument, and I quote him in full:
“First, he argues that the chance that useful proteins could evolve is close to zero, asserting that “random mutation plus natural selection” are insufficient to create new protein shapes. That’s equivalent to the claim that these processes aren’t sufficient to explain new protein sequences.
“The fallacy here is obvious. Gelernter assumes there is a useful, pre-specified target protein that must be reached from a “nonsense” sequence of amino acids. Then he multiplies together the small probabilities needed to convert each amino acid in the starting “gibberish protein” into the ones in the final target. The resulting probability is so minuscule that, he concludes, the Darwinian evolution of useful proteins is impossible.
“This argument rests on several big errors. First, evolution doesn’t start with “gibberish proteins”; it continues with what it had before: useful proteins that evolved via natural selection from earlier sequences, but can still improve further. Second, evolution doesn’t drive proteins toward pre-specified target sequences. All that’s required for evolution to work is a mutation changing a gene (and its protein product) in such a way that the new gene leaves more copies than its antecedent. It’s an incremental form of improvement, not a narrowing-in on a specified target.” [Cli
“There are many similar examples, all showing that a small change in an already useful protein sequence can make it extra useful in new environments. This is the way evolution has worked from the very first Ur-protein.”
Finally, as I noted you seem to have surrendered the rest of the macroscopic organic world to evolution. So I no longer have to salami-slice you through breeds, sub-species, species, genus, family, order, and class. So it seems you accept evolution to explain (at least much of) the speciation of all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc. And you agree that Darwin’s discovery was extremely important and accounts for how much of the organic world developed—and now you’re looking to find miracles in much more obscure locations. You agree God didn’t zap marine iguanas into existence on Galápagos, but you still suspect something supernatural in the creation of new proteins.
Again, I respectfully disagree. I do not think that chemicals can give rise to conscious thought or true knowledge. No evidence has ever been shown to demonstrate one species can become another. Embryology proves nothing of any obvious reality. The ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny has long ago been discarded since it had no real basis in reality. Haeckel’s embryonic drawings were not correct nor were they comparative of different species at similar developmental stages.
My next post will be proof of one species turning to another. Now what’s your theory for how the thirteen most seemingly closely related Galapagos species of finch all ended up on that archipelago?
Let me recorrect my terminology a bit. It’s been awhile since I have had to use it. I am going to yield on species since what i meant is closer to phyla or sub phyla level. And i wont completely rule out universal common descent but it appears highly unlikely if you consider all the evidence including biochemical, 3D functional necessities of proteins folding in just the right way, etc, the probabilities of naturally occurring seem to exceed the age of the universe let alone the earth.
Phyla! And you won’t rule out “universal common descent”! Now we are getting somewhere (almost everywhere). So I no longer have to salami-slice you through breeds, sub-species, species, genus, family, order, and class. So it seems you accept evolution to explain (at least much of) the speciation of all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc. And you agree that Darwin’s discovery was extremely important and accounts for how much of the organic world developed—and now you’re looking to find miracles in much more obscure locations. You agree God didn’t zap marine iguanas into existence on Galápagos, but you still suspect something supernatural in the creation of new proteins.
Anyway, the flaw here is the same one we find in most critiques of evolution—such as “So you’re telling me a fish gave birth to a monkey?” It skips all intermediate steps to make the jump seem impossible. Jerry A Coyne has already addressed this argument here and I quote him in full:
“First, he argues that the chance that useful proteins could evolve is close to zero, asserting that “random mutation plus natural selection” are insufficient to create new protein shapes. That’s equivalent to the claim that these processes aren’t sufficient to explain new protein sequences.
“The fallacy here is obvious. Gelernter assumes there is a useful, pre-specified target protein that must be reached from a “nonsense” sequence of amino acids. Then he multiplies together the small probabilities needed to convert each amino acid in the starting “gibberish protein” into the ones in the final target. The resulting probability is so minuscule that, he concludes, the Darwinian evolution of useful proteins is impossible.
“This argument rests on several big errors. First, evolution doesn’t start with “gibberish proteins”; it continues with what it had before: useful proteins that evolved via natural selection from earlier sequences, but can still improve further. Second, evolution doesn’t drive proteins toward pre-specified target sequences. All that’s required for evolution to work is a mutation changing a gene (and its protein product) in such a way that the new gene leaves more copies than its antecedent. It’s an incremental form of improvement, not a narrowing-in on a specified target.” [Cli
“There are many similar examples, all showing that a small change in an already useful protein sequence can make it extra useful in new environments. This is the way evolution has worked from the very first Ur-protein.”
However I do respect your views but in my humble opinion I do believe his grandfather and father were atheist but knew how to fit into society. His wife was definitely a Christian. In any case his theory is far from proven nor settled scientific fact.
Are you sure, Paul, that it’s not the Christian views of *your* parents passed on to you when you were a child that are relevant here? Are you sure that’s not the reason why you are so motivated to deny such an obvious reality—reconfirmed by biogeography, embryology, fossil record, genetics, etc.? I mean there’s many dozens of creation myths across the world— with the religious in the US at odds with the religious in India, Iran, China, etc. And yet the brilliant, realistic, scientific minded of every nation accept the same theory of evolution. Big difference.
His grandfather Erasmus was a known atheist who professed a superficial belief in Christianity to fit in a Christian society. Erasmus defiantly had some un Christian like sexual forays.
Darwin was not religious , he was a nominal member of Unitarianism. His theory was designed to lead to atheism as it must if actually believed. He was smart enough to see what happened during the French Revolution when atheism was culturally embraced by the masses that he preferred a slower embrace of cultural materialism.
He was in his early 20s when he traveled on The Beagle--and at that point was deeply religious. So your claim he invented the theory because he was an atheist is false. Instead, his important discoveries about species and organisms led him to question his religious views--not the other way around.
Yes, that quote showing Darwin had been a Christian who believed in the literal truth of the bible when he went on his voyage falsifies the view he was an "atheist" whose "theory was built to exclusively exclude any theistic causes." What he discovered made him question his religious views. It's not the other way around.
"In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."
Darwin didn't really solve the origin of species, let alone the origin of life. He proposed that species *somehow* emerged out of other species, but even today it's still largely unknown how this is supposed to work. The hard questions still haven't been solved.
Yes, of course, Darwin solved the origin of new species. And no, it's not "largely unknown how this is supposed to work." The origin of species is now no more mysterious than the origin of breeds of dogs.
No, Darwin didn't solve it and couldn't solve it, and even today, we still don't really know how it works. In fact, the "breeds of dogs" has often been used as a counter-example to Darwin's hypothesis, because it's both directed and doesn't create new species... The fossil record is another huge problem for Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. Serious evolutionary biologists know this, but they don't like to talk about it publicly because they fear the Creationists (who don't have any answers either, of course). Origin of life is yet another question that Darwin didn't even try to explain (nor could he).
In fact, the thirteen species of Galápagos finches resemble one another far more closely than, say, a dachshund resembles an English mastiff. So if you find it easy to accept that those two dog breeds share a common ancestor, it should be even easier to grasp that the Galápagos finches—despite being classified as separate species—also evolved from a single ancestral species that accidentally got marooned on those islands, right?
The Galapagos finches aren't even species, this was debunked decades ago. They actually are another counter-example to the Darwinian hypothesis. They also played no role in Darwin's thinking, that's yet another myth.
It's obvious: Darwin didn't and couldn't solve the origin of species, let alone the origin of life. We still don't know how it works. Natural selection only plays a trivial role in suppressing species. Even without natural selection we'd have speciation (probably more of it). The Galapagos finches and dog breeds are counter-examples to Darwin's hypothesis.
Yes, artificial selection can result in new species. And if you understand wolves are the ancestors to toy poodles, dachshunds, and sheep dogs--and how these extreme varieties are brought about through a selection process--then you know the same must occur when similar selective processes operate on animals in the wild. It's just head-in-the-sand to try to ignore this.
Wolves/dogs are yet another counter-example to Darwin. Not natural selection, not even a new species (they are considered a sub-species). This topic is far more complex than you imagine.
So you agree great danes and toy poodles share a common wolf ancestor--and so you agree that great changes in organisms can be brought about by selective pressures, right? You are trying to duck this point.
No, you're talking about micro-evolution at most, but we don't know how macro evolution works. The selection process mostly kills species (trivial), it doesn't (and can't) create species.
So, yes, you accept that the thirteen species of Galápagos finches all come from the same ancestor that got marooned on the island? But you think that's just microevolution?
They aren't species, this was debunked decades ago. Micro-evolution is adaptation in existing species, and not truly random, either... This topic is far more complex than you imagine. We simply don't know how it works. Claiming Darwin solved it is as silly as claiming God created everything.
Ken Wilber sees Evolution as a central force in the universe. He uses the term Eros to refer to this driving force, suggesting that there is a creative, self-transcending impulse at the heart of the cosmos, which pushes all things toward greater complexity, consciousness, and unity. In “A Brief History of Everything,” he writes: “Evolution is not a random process. It is driven by Eros, a fundamental force of self-organization, self-transcendence, and unfolding complexity.”
Yeah, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin tried that too. It’s mumbo jumbo dressed up in a cloak of scientism: all the external trappings, with none of the troublesome rigour of the scientific method.
All that exists is quantum fields (quantum mechanics/QFT), the curvature of space time (general relativity), entropy (statistical mechanics), and energy gradients (thermodynamics), and all the complexity we see at all scales emerge from those, with no evidence of teleological influences, and fewer and fewer gaps in which such might be found.
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By Huxley this is an excellent post, Dennis.
Darwin’s epiphany — as important historically as Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus — forced him to confront the limits of his natural theology, but as a true man of science, he let the evidence lead him rather than his preconceptions.
As a result, the incredible body of biological knowledge that has developed truly demonstrates, as @richarddawkins wrote so eloquently, one crucial aspect of the Magic of Reality.
If only the cdesign proponentsists would adopt a modicum of intellectual integrity, they too could experience that *real* magic and replace their Stone Age beliefs with ones that have tangible value (medical, ecological, etc.); alas, societal progress will come on this, as it does in physics, one funeral at a time.
Be well, and keep sharing that Magic of Reality!
PS. My granddaughter is named Huxley, btw.
Amazing!
I hope she’s a bulldog!
Great post, thanks
didn't know bats flew 2000 miles to inhabit Hawaii. The USGS article quoted Olival from EcoHealth, who wrote the DARPA Defuse proposal to vaccinate bats in the Wuhan BSL4 (aka Covid)
https://www.usgs.gov/news/state-news-release/origins-hawaiian-hoary-bat-revealed
Great post! Immediately subscribed.
Disappointed to see so many kooks come out of the woodwork as soon as evolution comes up.
At this point, it is fair to say that Darwinism and neo-Darwinism have been refuted. They simply aren't consistent with the evidence, including the geological record. Everything points toward some type of Lamarckian process, via epigenetics and other modes. Natural selection appears to play a minor and trivial role (like an asteroid extinguishing some species). Importantly, the general idea of species emerging out of other species is much older than Darwin and can't be considered Darwinism. But the simple extrapolation from intra-species adaptations (short beak - long beak) to inter-species evolution (new types of reproduction and so on ) remains unproven and hypothetical. It could be based on the same process or based on different or additional processes. Darwin was sill very far from explaining how evolution really works, and he didn't even try to explain how life emerged.
Speciation does not require “new types of reproduction.” Most placental mammals do it the same way. Indeed, horses and zebras, lions and tigers (maybe humans and chimps?) can even produce offspring.
Oh yes, it often requires new types of reproduction, both at the genetic, developmental and behavioral level. And the reproductive aspect is itself only one of the many fundamental differences between intra-species variation and inter-species evolution.
Latest post has a four panel comic that confirms evolution. https://dennismccarthy.substack.com/p/the-comic-that-frustrates-all-creationists And you would have no response to it. Anyway, your distinction between inter-and intra-species is rhetorical, not biological.
It is a distinction in scale, not kind. There’s obviously no biological mechanism that flips off once a certain amount of differentiations has accumulated. You understand toy poodles descended from wolves, right? The same processes—mutation, selection, genetic drift, recombination—continue driving changes among isolated populations until the differences are so large the populations are considered distinct species. Your statement is like saying erosion can wear away rocks but can't carve a canyon.
Finally, speciation has been directly observed both in the lab and in nature. A few examples:
Rhagoletis pomonella (apple maggot fly) began specializing on apples instead of hawthorns, and populations are now partially reproductively isolated—on their way to becoming distinct species.
Ensatina salamanders are a ring species--which also prove the case.
Again, in cichlid fish in African lakes, new species have arisen rapidly due to ecological and sexual selection.
In lab experiments, E. coli populations evolved the ability to metabolize citrate under aerobic conditions—a novel function—after tens of thousands of generations.
Dennis crash-landed hard here... Thought dog-breeding and Galapagos finches prove Darwin when they actually prove the opposite. No speciation in either case! Simple fact is, Darwin didn't know how speciation works, and we still don't know it. Fossil record still unexplained.
The case of dogs--dachshunds and English mastiffs, etc.--confirms that organisms can change drastically due to very slight changes that accumulate over many generations. Jason refuses to think about this point because of his extreme emotional attachment to a fairytale he learned when he was a child.
Darwin was a committed atheist and materialist. His theory was built to exclusively exclude any theistic causes. There is still to this date absolutely no scientific evidence of macro-evolution. Micro evolutionary changes obviously can occur within species. His overall theory of progressive evolution from inorganic to organic life forms to complex life forms to humans is a fantasy.
You should actually glance at the post to which you are responding--or anything by Darwin. Darwin was extremely religious and was trying to prove natural theology. You seem to accept what you call, "micro evolution." Do you accept that the 13 species of Galápagos finches all derive from a common ancestral species that became marooned on the island?
The Galapagos finches aren't species, this was debunked decades ago. They are counter-example to Darwin's hypothesis (but played no role in his thinking). We don't really know how micro-evolution works, either, but it doesn't look very random...
Darwin's religious beliefs are another very complex topic, but it's clear he opposed Creationism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Charles_Darwin
Opposing creationism — a position into which his beliefs evolved due to the observations he made — does not equate to atheism.
Is it in your nature to lie so casually, Jason?
Do you think your Lord approves of such duplicity? (Check out the 10 Commandments, something about bearing false witness)
I didn't mention atheism. Why such duplicity and casual lies on your part?
My sincere apologies, you did not.
I conflated your contributions & that of Paul Chambers, as your complementary cdesign proponensist arguments meld together into a mass of underinformed madness.
To me, the world described by science more and more resembles the world revealed by faith. No one would call Einstein an idiot but even his theories are not adequate to explain the universe and in some scientific circles are being challenged. Yes, you are correct that science is not simple but neither is faith nor theology.
Things are a lot more complex than you are making it to be.
I have never described evolution as simple, but its evidence is overwhelming. Now, "then a miracle happened" is simple. Creationism is simple--really, freakin' simple. What does Genesis devote to it? About a dozen lines--memorizable by school children?
While the one gene-one polypeptide hypothesis is a fundamental concept, it's not universally true. Many proteins, especially those with complex structures like hemoglobin, are formed from multiple polypeptide chains, each encoded by a separate gene.
Evolutionary scientists discovered this, and? You want citations to papers on the subject of the evolution of hemoglobin? And notice how the argument has shifted among Creationists—from the claim that "evolution is false and can't explain the origin of species" to the much narrower suggestion that "evolution might not fully account for a few microscopic traits among billions found across millions of species on Earth."
I can reply more later, but unless a protein actually folds the right way, it is useless and possibly lethal. The combination of amino acids necessary if arranged randomly results in numbers that would take longer than the current age of the universe to produce one useful protein let alone what is necessary for complex life.
Busy today but more on this later.
Also let’s not forget language development which if examined critically does not fit easily into Darwinian evolution.
You seem to have missed my response. The flaw here is the same one we find in most critiques of evolution—such as “So you’re telling me a fish gave birth to a monkey?” It skips all intermediate steps to make the jump seem impossible. Jerry A Coyne in Quillette (links below) has already addressed this argument, and I quote him in full:
“First, he argues that the chance that useful proteins could evolve is close to zero, asserting that “random mutation plus natural selection” are insufficient to create new protein shapes. That’s equivalent to the claim that these processes aren’t sufficient to explain new protein sequences.
“The fallacy here is obvious. Gelernter assumes there is a useful, pre-specified target protein that must be reached from a “nonsense” sequence of amino acids. Then he multiplies together the small probabilities needed to convert each amino acid in the starting “gibberish protein” into the ones in the final target. The resulting probability is so minuscule that, he concludes, the Darwinian evolution of useful proteins is impossible.
“This argument rests on several big errors. First, evolution doesn’t start with “gibberish proteins”; it continues with what it had before: useful proteins that evolved via natural selection from earlier sequences, but can still improve further. Second, evolution doesn’t drive proteins toward pre-specified target sequences. All that’s required for evolution to work is a mutation changing a gene (and its protein product) in such a way that the new gene leaves more copies than its antecedent. It’s an incremental form of improvement, not a narrowing-in on a specified target.” [Cli
“In fact, we have plenty of examples, in our species and others, in which a small change in an existing protein leads to a better protein. This has occurred, for instance, in proteins adapting human cultures to diving in water (https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(18)30386-6.pdf?ref=quillette.com,) enzymes for making fatty acids (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0167?ref=quillette.com) in populations that are largely vegetarian, in genes controlling armor plating (https://www.nature.com/articles/srep42677?ref=quillette.com) that reduces predation on marine stickleback fish, and in proteins conferring an attraction to human odor (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4286346/?ref=quillette.com) in mosquitoes that invaded urban areas.
“There are many similar examples, all showing that a small change in an already useful protein sequence can make it extra useful in new environments. This is the way evolution has worked from the very first Ur-protein.”
“And mutations don’t have to be changes in single proteins, either ….” For the rest, please check https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-ditching-darwin/ "
Finally, as I noted you seem to have surrendered the rest of the macroscopic organic world to evolution. So I no longer have to salami-slice you through breeds, sub-species, species, genus, family, order, and class. So it seems you accept evolution to explain (at least much of) the speciation of all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc. And you agree that Darwin’s discovery was extremely important and accounts for how much of the organic world developed—and now you’re looking to find miracles in much more obscure locations. You agree God didn’t zap marine iguanas into existence on Galápagos, but you still suspect something supernatural in the creation of new proteins.
Again, I respectfully disagree. I do not think that chemicals can give rise to conscious thought or true knowledge. No evidence has ever been shown to demonstrate one species can become another. Embryology proves nothing of any obvious reality. The ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny has long ago been discarded since it had no real basis in reality. Haeckel’s embryonic drawings were not correct nor were they comparative of different species at similar developmental stages.
My next post will be proof of one species turning to another. Now what’s your theory for how the thirteen most seemingly closely related Galapagos species of finch all ended up on that archipelago?
Let me recorrect my terminology a bit. It’s been awhile since I have had to use it. I am going to yield on species since what i meant is closer to phyla or sub phyla level. And i wont completely rule out universal common descent but it appears highly unlikely if you consider all the evidence including biochemical, 3D functional necessities of proteins folding in just the right way, etc, the probabilities of naturally occurring seem to exceed the age of the universe let alone the earth.
Phyla! And you won’t rule out “universal common descent”! Now we are getting somewhere (almost everywhere). So I no longer have to salami-slice you through breeds, sub-species, species, genus, family, order, and class. So it seems you accept evolution to explain (at least much of) the speciation of all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc. And you agree that Darwin’s discovery was extremely important and accounts for how much of the organic world developed—and now you’re looking to find miracles in much more obscure locations. You agree God didn’t zap marine iguanas into existence on Galápagos, but you still suspect something supernatural in the creation of new proteins.
Anyway, the flaw here is the same one we find in most critiques of evolution—such as “So you’re telling me a fish gave birth to a monkey?” It skips all intermediate steps to make the jump seem impossible. Jerry A Coyne has already addressed this argument here and I quote him in full:
“First, he argues that the chance that useful proteins could evolve is close to zero, asserting that “random mutation plus natural selection” are insufficient to create new protein shapes. That’s equivalent to the claim that these processes aren’t sufficient to explain new protein sequences.
“The fallacy here is obvious. Gelernter assumes there is a useful, pre-specified target protein that must be reached from a “nonsense” sequence of amino acids. Then he multiplies together the small probabilities needed to convert each amino acid in the starting “gibberish protein” into the ones in the final target. The resulting probability is so minuscule that, he concludes, the Darwinian evolution of useful proteins is impossible.
“This argument rests on several big errors. First, evolution doesn’t start with “gibberish proteins”; it continues with what it had before: useful proteins that evolved via natural selection from earlier sequences, but can still improve further. Second, evolution doesn’t drive proteins toward pre-specified target sequences. All that’s required for evolution to work is a mutation changing a gene (and its protein product) in such a way that the new gene leaves more copies than its antecedent. It’s an incremental form of improvement, not a narrowing-in on a specified target.” [Cli
“In fact, we have plenty of examples, in our species and others, in which a small change in an existing protein leads to a better protein. This has occurred, for instance, in proteins adapting human cultures to diving in water (https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(18)30386-6.pdf?ref=quillette.com,) enzymes for making fatty acids (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0167?ref=quillette.com) in populations that are largely vegetarian, in genes controlling armor plating (https://www.nature.com/articles/srep42677?ref=quillette.com) that reduces predation on marine stickleback fish, and in proteins conferring an attraction to human odor (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4286346/?ref=quillette.com) in mosquitoes that invaded urban areas.
“There are many similar examples, all showing that a small change in an already useful protein sequence can make it extra useful in new environments. This is the way evolution has worked from the very first Ur-protein.”
“And mutations don’t have to be changes in single proteins, either ….” For the rest, please check https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-ditching-darwin/
However I do respect your views but in my humble opinion I do believe his grandfather and father were atheist but knew how to fit into society. His wife was definitely a Christian. In any case his theory is far from proven nor settled scientific fact.
Are you sure, Paul, that it’s not the Christian views of *your* parents passed on to you when you were a child that are relevant here? Are you sure that’s not the reason why you are so motivated to deny such an obvious reality—reconfirmed by biogeography, embryology, fossil record, genetics, etc.? I mean there’s many dozens of creation myths across the world— with the religious in the US at odds with the religious in India, Iran, China, etc. And yet the brilliant, realistic, scientific minded of every nation accept the same theory of evolution. Big difference.
His grandfather Erasmus was a known atheist who professed a superficial belief in Christianity to fit in a Christian society. Erasmus defiantly had some un Christian like sexual forays.
Darwin was not religious , he was a nominal member of Unitarianism. His theory was designed to lead to atheism as it must if actually believed. He was smart enough to see what happened during the French Revolution when atheism was culturally embraced by the masses that he preferred a slower embrace of cultural materialism.
Quote: "I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible…"
-- Charles Darwin, from his autobiography , on the years 1828-1831 just preceding his voyage around the world.
“Thought… being hereditary it is difficult to imagine it anything but structure of brain hereditary..”
A quote from Charles Darwin’s notebook C when he was 29 years old.
Seems he was a materialist at age 29.
He was in his early 20s when he traveled on The Beagle--and at that point was deeply religious. So your claim he invented the theory because he was an atheist is false. Instead, his important discoveries about species and organisms led him to question his religious views--not the other way around.
Assuming a single quote settles such a complex question, what can you say? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Charles_Darwin
Yes, that quote showing Darwin had been a Christian who believed in the literal truth of the bible when he went on his voyage falsifies the view he was an "atheist" whose "theory was built to exclusively exclude any theistic causes." What he discovered made him question his religious views. It's not the other way around.
This one?
"In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."
Darwin didn't really solve the origin of species, let alone the origin of life. He proposed that species *somehow* emerged out of other species, but even today it's still largely unknown how this is supposed to work. The hard questions still haven't been solved.
Yes, of course, Darwin solved the origin of new species. And no, it's not "largely unknown how this is supposed to work." The origin of species is now no more mysterious than the origin of breeds of dogs.
No, Darwin didn't solve it and couldn't solve it, and even today, we still don't really know how it works. In fact, the "breeds of dogs" has often been used as a counter-example to Darwin's hypothesis, because it's both directed and doesn't create new species... The fossil record is another huge problem for Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. Serious evolutionary biologists know this, but they don't like to talk about it publicly because they fear the Creationists (who don't have any answers either, of course). Origin of life is yet another question that Darwin didn't even try to explain (nor could he).
In fact, the thirteen species of Galápagos finches resemble one another far more closely than, say, a dachshund resembles an English mastiff. So if you find it easy to accept that those two dog breeds share a common ancestor, it should be even easier to grasp that the Galápagos finches—despite being classified as separate species—also evolved from a single ancestral species that accidentally got marooned on those islands, right?
The Galapagos finches aren't even species, this was debunked decades ago. They actually are another counter-example to the Darwinian hypothesis. They also played no role in Darwin's thinking, that's yet another myth.
It's obvious: Darwin didn't and couldn't solve the origin of species, let alone the origin of life. We still don't know how it works. Natural selection only plays a trivial role in suppressing species. Even without natural selection we'd have speciation (probably more of it). The Galapagos finches and dog breeds are counter-examples to Darwin's hypothesis.
Yes, artificial selection can result in new species. And if you understand wolves are the ancestors to toy poodles, dachshunds, and sheep dogs--and how these extreme varieties are brought about through a selection process--then you know the same must occur when similar selective processes operate on animals in the wild. It's just head-in-the-sand to try to ignore this.
Wolves/dogs are yet another counter-example to Darwin. Not natural selection, not even a new species (they are considered a sub-species). This topic is far more complex than you imagine.
So you agree great danes and toy poodles share a common wolf ancestor--and so you agree that great changes in organisms can be brought about by selective pressures, right? You are trying to duck this point.
No, you're talking about micro-evolution at most, but we don't know how macro evolution works. The selection process mostly kills species (trivial), it doesn't (and can't) create species.
So, yes, you accept that the thirteen species of Galápagos finches all come from the same ancestor that got marooned on the island? But you think that's just microevolution?
They aren't species, this was debunked decades ago. Micro-evolution is adaptation in existing species, and not truly random, either... This topic is far more complex than you imagine. We simply don't know how it works. Claiming Darwin solved it is as silly as claiming God created everything.
Ken Wilber sees Evolution as a central force in the universe. He uses the term Eros to refer to this driving force, suggesting that there is a creative, self-transcending impulse at the heart of the cosmos, which pushes all things toward greater complexity, consciousness, and unity. In “A Brief History of Everything,” he writes: “Evolution is not a random process. It is driven by Eros, a fundamental force of self-organization, self-transcendence, and unfolding complexity.”
Yeah, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin tried that too. It’s mumbo jumbo dressed up in a cloak of scientism: all the external trappings, with none of the troublesome rigour of the scientific method.
All that exists is quantum fields (quantum mechanics/QFT), the curvature of space time (general relativity), entropy (statistical mechanics), and energy gradients (thermodynamics), and all the complexity we see at all scales emerge from those, with no evidence of teleological influences, and fewer and fewer gaps in which such might be found.
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