Loads of profs and docs dissent from Darwinian "consensus"

[dilute micro]

"A large number of well trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found - yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy as crept into textbooks....One of the ironies of the evolution-creation debate is that the creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and orderly progression and they have gone to great lengths to accommodate this 'fact' in their Flood geology." - David Raup, U of Chicago & Field Museum, Science, vol.213, p289.

I always smile when I read this.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Which creationist challenges to the actual science haven't been answered over and over again? (and repeated over and over again by the creationists despite that)

?

 

[dilute micro]

Which creationist challenges to the actual science haven't been answered over and over again? (and repeated over and over again by the creationists despite that)

You're not a critical thinker when it comes to this Bernie. An answer is worthless when it's nothing but imagination, and circular reasoning at that. I even gave an example earlier in this thread which is typical of all the answers to questions "creationists" ask.

My point in this thread is to show you that even naturalists ask the same questions creationists do.

You're so stuck on the creationists vs naturalists thing.

Read up Bernie. Even non-creationists see Darwinism has problems.

 

[dilute micro]

“Darwin predicted that the fossil record should show a reasonably smooth continuum of ancestor-descendant pairs with a satisfactory number of intermediates between major groups . Darwin even went so far as to say that if this were not found in the fossil record, his general theory of evolution would be in serious jeopardy. Such smooth transitions were not found in Darwin’s time, and he explained this in part on the basis of an incomplete geologic record and in part on the lack of study of that record. We are now more than a hundred years after Darwin and the situation is little changed. Since Darwin a tremendous expansion of paleontological knowledge has taken place, and we know much more about the fossil record than was known in his time, but the basic situation is not much different. We actually may have fewer examples of smooth transitions than we had in Darwin’s time, because some of the old examples have turned out to be invalid when studied in more detail. To be sure, some new intermediate or transitional forms have been found, particularly among land vertebrates. But if Darwin were writing today, he would still have to cite a disturbing lack of missing links or transitional forms between the major groups of organisms.” – David Raup, Godfrey’s Scientists Confront Creationism

 

[gorski]

This is a Balcanic logic: if you aren't with me, you're against me. Tertium non datur.

Yayks!

 

[dilute micro]

And then there's the agnostics, as I said...

One needn't be a creationist to be critically minded and take on whatever needs taking on...

Exactly.

 

[gorski]

I suspect that this puzzle is mostly a problem of imagination.

Yep. Nothing but. Thou shalt find where thou shalt seek.

Hmmmmmmmm... A methodological conundrum...

 

[gorski]

And the more one looks the more one sees a church arising...

Frightened people, holding onto a straw like a drunkard holds onto a lamp-post... Couldn't admit to any difficulty in fright of their very lives....

 

[Knotted]

Is that such a puzzle? We're very bad at properly setting vast periods of time into context. Life has had billions of years to evolve. It is hard to conceptualise what could be possible over such a vast time period. Years ago, Dawkins came up with a simple computer program that mimicked simple evolution by starting with a very simple shape. Within just a few generations, very complex shapes had developed.

I suspect that this puzzle is mostly a problem of imagination.

The puzzle is not a puzzle if you know the answer! But that's the importance of Darwinism.

 

[Knotted]

Yes they are.

You sure?

ETA: I ask because it seems that Brian Goodwin is talking about a structuralist thesis arising from his complexity theory approach. I believe he is talking about some sort of emergent form arising from genes and organisms. I don't see the connection between this and largescale sorting of species.

By the way isn't all this dogmatic complexity theory a bit passe nowadays?

design?

No one is talking about design.

When Gould and Goodwin criticize Darwinism in the quotes above they're attacking the point of transspeciation, not complexity. To be clear I should say the mechanism.

In that case what they say is not a criticism of Darwinism at all.

 

[Knotted]

Again wrong.... It's well known that transitional types are not at all "enough". In fact there's hardly any as Darwinism predicts.


“Each new generation, it seems, produces a few young paleontologists eager to document examples of evolutionary change in their fossils. The changes they have always looked for have, of course, been of the gradual, progressive sort. More often than not their efforts have gone unrewarded – their fossils, rather than exhibiting the expected pattern, just seem to persist virtually unchanged….This extraordinary conservatism looked, to the paleontologist keen on finding evolutionary change, as if no evolution had occurred. Thus studies documenting conservative persistence rather than gradual evolutionary change were considered failures, and, more often than not, were not even published. Most paleontologists were aware of the stability, the lack of change we call stasis." – Eldredge, Evolutionary Tempos and Modes: A Paleontological Perspective


You want quotes? I got quotes.

That's not even a quote about gaps in the fossil record.

 

[Knotted]

"A large number of well trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found - yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy as crept into textbooks....One of the ironies of the evolution-creation debate is that the creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and orderly progression and they have gone to great lengths to accommodate this 'fact' in their Flood geology." - David Raup, U of Chicago & Field Museum, Science, vol.213, p289.

I always smile when I read this.

Yawn. A minor controversy about textbook paleontology and the creationists pounce.

"Some species once formed never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." Charles Darwin, Origin of Species.

 

[dilute micro]

You sure?

ETA: I ask because it seems that Brian Goodwin is talking about a structuralist thesis arising from his complexity theory approach. I believe he is talking about some sort of emergent form arising from genes and organisms. I don't see the connection between this and largescale sorting of species.

By the way isn't all this dogmatic complexity theory a bit passe nowadays?



In that case what they say is not a criticism of Darwinism at all.

Yes. They're both on the same thing. They're using different words so it may have seemed confusing.

“…all evolution is due to the accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural selection, and that transspecific evolution is nothing but an extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within populations and species.”

“[Darwinian evolution, above]...beguiled me with its unifying power when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960’s , since then I have been watching it slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution.” ….

“...then that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy.” – Gould, Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?


“Darwin’s assumption that the tree of life is a consequence of the gradual accumulation of small hereditary differences appears to be without significant support. Some other process is responsible for the emergent properties of life, those distinctive features that separate one group of organism from another—fishes and amphibians, worms and insects, horsetails and grasses.” – Brian Goodwin, How the Leopard Changed its Spots

They're both talking about Darwin's general theory, although Gould mentioned the special theory (natural selection) then the general theory "extrapolation and magnification", where Goodwin merely assumed you'd know what he was talking about and went straight to the lack of a mechanism to bring the change natural selection was supposed to be able to bring. Yes it is a criticism of Darwinism. Darwin connected them.

 

[dilute micro]

Yawn. A minor controversy about textbook paleontology and the creationists pounce.

"Some species once formed never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form." Charles Darwin, Origin of Species.

Naturalists are doing the pouncing.

David Raup - not a creationists.

 

[888]

But there are some cases of a clear progression, maybe the number of cases is being over reported, but really, what's your point? What are they pouncing on? Are you just trying to criticise the bold words in "gradual accumulation of small hereditary differences"? Or what?

 

[dilute micro]

But there are some cases of a clear progression, maybe the number of cases is being over reported, but really, what's your point? What are they pouncing on? Are you just trying to criticise the bold words in "gradual accumulation of small hereditary differences"? Or what?

To show that it's not just creationists that might sign a petition asking for proper science. Naturalists have also taken issue with the same thing.

Give me real science, not dogma, and don't indoctrinate me. Just give me the tools and let me think. I believe in evolution. But only to the extent of what has been scientifically shown.

They're having to take issue with parts of Darwin's theory that don't make sense but are nonetheless held as fact.

No, I'm not trying to criticize "gradual"& "small" nor am I supporting punctuated theories of evolution. I'm criticizing the extrapolation of the power of selection of Darwin's theory.

 

[gorski]

It's still a belief, ffs... At best a "theory"...

There's more trouble for it, methodologically and ideologically if one reads "The Great Transformation" by Karl Polanyi...

 

[d.a.s.h]

It's still a belief, ffs... At best a "theory"...

There's more trouble for it, methodologically and ideologically if one reads "The Great Transformation" by Karl Polanyi...

Nonetheless it has shed more light on the natural world than any of the musty philosophical tracts you've been speed-reading.

 

[Knotted]

Naturalists are doing the pouncing.

David Raup - not a creationists.

Of course. But its quotes like that that creationists (and "agnostics") pounce on. Read the quote honestly and you will see that its pretty bland. He talks about oversimplification in textbooks - implying the Darwinian ideas that they are oversimplifying are not wrong.

 

[Knotted]

Yes. They're both on the same thing. They're using different words so it may have seemed confusing.

They're both talking about Darwin's general theory, although Gould mentioned the special theory (natural selection) then the general theory "extrapolation and magnification", where Goodwin merely assumed you'd know what he was talking about and went straight to the lack of a mechanism to bring the change natural selection was supposed to be able to bring. Yes it is a criticism of Darwinism. Darwin connected them.

I still don't think they are talking about the same thing. Not that I've read Goodwin's book, so I'm not sure. As far as I can tell Goodwin is talking about mechanisms at the level of individual organisms and/or at the level of genes. Gould is talking about how the standard theory does not extrapolate to species selection. These points aren't even similar.

The reason I'm picking up on this is that you are raising technical criticisms of neo-Darwinism but not going into any of the technical details. At the minute its just quote mining. I'd rather get down to the nitty-gritty and see what these technical points actually are and what they amount to.

 

[Knotted]

It's still a belief, ffs... At best a "theory"...

There's more trouble for it, methodologically and ideologically if one reads "The Great Transformation" by Karl Polanyi...

Scientific theories don't have methodological or ideological trouble.

 

[gorski]

Bullshit!

 

[gorski]

Nonetheless it has shed more light on the natural world than any of the musty philosophical tracts you've been speed-reading.

But of course, that's its job, for crying out loud. What else?

But it doesn't mean we need to take it as a dogma, which one can see in this polarisation with Creationism, while not allowing for other possibilities, other than A or B, that is...

 

[Knotted]

Bullshit!

No it isn't.

Tell you what though. Put some flesh on your "critical" Lysenkoism bones and we can get beyond "yes it is" - "not it isn't".

 

[Knotted]

But of course, that's its job, for crying out loud. What else?

In other words this stuff about ideology and methodology doesn't matter.

 

[gorski]

No time, so here's Held on Habermas... from his Intro to C.T. Enjoy!

 

[gorski]

You know nothing, K!

 

[Crispy]

The possibility of philosophy taking a critical approach to knowledge dissolved

And good riddance!

 

[Knotted]

No time, so here's Held on Habermas... from his Intro to C.T. Enjoy!

I continue to regard Habermas with boredom tinged with suspicion. Not much of interest in that intro. It would have been nice to discuss a man of substance like Polanyi instead.

 

[gorski]

Bullshit. To both of ya!