Re: Why isn't the easily observable evolution of bacteria and viruses evidence enough for skeptics?
- From: "david ford" <dford3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 20 Oct 2005 14:35:20 -0700
Kleuskes & Moos wrote:
> david ford schreef:
> > tbonepower07@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > > Why isn't the easily observable evolution of bacteria and viruses
> > > evidence enough for skeptics? If it can be shown that evolution occurs
> > > in bacteria/viruses, why doesn't this prove to skeptics that evolution
> > > is possible in other organisms?
> >
> > From
> > Essay on Problems with Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection
> > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.10A.B3.10005310900310.17702-100000%40jabba.gl.umbc.edu
>
> See also
>
> http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/grasseli.htm
>
> So you are now a fervent supporter of Neo-Lamarckism?
No. Steele is.
Steele, Edward J., Robyn A. Lindley, Robert V. Blanden.
1998. _Lamarck's Signature: How Retrogenes Are Changing
Darwin's Natural Selection Paradigm_ (Reading, MA:
Perseus Books), 286pp. This book is part of the Frontiers of
Science series, with Paul Davies as series editor. According
to the dust jacket, Steele is Associate Professor of Biological
Sciences at the University of Wollongong, New South
Wales, Lindley is Director of the Technology Innovation
Research Centre at the University of Wollongong, Australia,
and Blanden is in the Division of Immunization and Cell
Biology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in
Canberra, Australia. From the Epilogue, a paragraph on 209,
and material on 210 and 220-221:
The Darwinian revolution was a resounding success, but
the problem with intellectual revolutions is that they
often harden into suffocating dogma-- and at their
apogee tend to be guarded by the holders almost as a
sacred mantra. For a while the dogma is useful, but then
an 'establishment' inevitably forms, the individuals of
which find it almost impossible to break ranks, because
if they do their careers and financial livelihood are put at
great risk. This is antithetical to the spirit of scientific
inquiry (yet sadly, an accurate commentary on the
human condition). Today it is an unfortunate fact that
_neo_-Darwinian ideas have evolved into almost a
religion within sections of the scientific establishment.
Neo-Lamarckian soma-to-germline gene feedback loops
are still resisted with an irrational passion in a few
quarters. This is particularly so amongst some
immunologists and population geneticists who still seem
wedded to the sterile concept, to us at least, of the
'neutral theory' of molecular evolution of Kimura. Yet
as we have shown here, the soma-to-germline concept
has great explanatory and predictive power for the
evolution and structure of the V-region gene families of
the vertebrate immune system.
....we are strongly motivated to address certain issues
arising from the widely read writings of Daniel C.
Dennett (a philosopher from Tufts University) and
Richard Dawkins (of Oxford University), both of whom
have emerged as late twentieth-century defenders of an
extreme and uncompromising brand of neo-Darwinism.
Stephen Jay Gould has recently called it 'Darwinian
Fundamentalism', and it has been also brilliantly
exposed by the mathematician and novelist David
Berlinski in his recent essay in _Commentary_ magazine
entitled 'The Deniable Darwin'.
.... For the aficionados we raise the issue of 'final
causes', a concept that a traditional neo-Darwinist might
incorporate into any form of Lamarckian inheritance.
The short answer is that 'divine purpose' or 'final causes'
are outside the scope of scientific work. However, it is
ironic that in his attempt to eliminate all traces of 'divine
intervention' or 'deliberate design' from his extreme
brand of neo-Darwinism, Richard Dawkins, in books
such as _The Blind Watchmaker_, sets himself up as the
supreme 'artificer of design'! This is lucidly explained
in David Berlinski's essay 'The Deniable Darwin'. Thus
all of his computer-based models demonstrating the
'power of natural selection' depend ultimately on
Dawkins setting all the selection criteria and the
sequential (algorithmic) rules for the desired result of
his selection program. Thus 'divine intervention' by the
programmer is intrinsic to all computer-based
evolutionary selectionist programs....
1996 David Berlinski's "The Deniable Darwin"
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=130&printerFriendly=true
Feynman, R. Reid, and Berlinski on _ad hominems_
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990102235105.11328B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
how has the theory of NS survived?:
Grasse, C. P. Martin, Berlinski, 1929 D. M. S. Watson
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96.980608234718.51C-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
> Did you know this
> guy has allready been debunked by Theodosius Dobzhansky?
What Dobzhansky words did you have in mind?
Simpson and Dobzhansky on the need for a mechanism,
Dawkins on mutation, Gordon Rattray Taylor and David Raup on
explosive radiations, Arthur Koestler on testing Darwinian and
Lamarckian theory by experiment
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8beptq%24hgk%241%40nnrp1.deja.com
Dobzhansky's 1937 redefinition of "evolution"; Radl in English in 1930
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.981011235608.19729A-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
.
- References:
- Why isn't the easily observable evolution of bacteria and viruses evidence enough for skeptics?
- From: tbonepower07
- Re: Why isn't the easily observable evolution of bacteria and viruses evidence enough for skeptics?
- From: david ford
- Re: Why isn't the easily observable evolution of bacteria and viruses evidence enough for skeptics?
- From: Kleuskes & Moos
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