by Sokolova » Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:37 pm
Hi Dreams End<br><br>I think we need to draw some distinctions here. <br><br>Firstly I'm <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>not </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> a Creationist or a 'believer' in Intelligent Design. I just dislike the way that 'natural selection' is sold as being a far more complete and realistic model than it really is; I dislike the way the many problems it faces from a scientific perspective are obscured. <br><br>The idea of a 'natural selection' of random mutations has always had many serious problems, both in biology and in physics. Most obviously there is the extreme rarity in the fossil record of morphological changes in a given species. Put simply - T-Rexes remained T-Rexes for 20 million years without altering; so did brontosaurids, giant elk etc. The skeletons from the beginning and end of their span on earth look identical. We find lots of different types of animal, and some with obvious relationships between each other, but no sign in any given set of skeletons of the actual morphing process whereby the T. Rex, or the brontosaurus, or the elk might be shifting into something else. Instead what we seem to have is sudden swift changes, often accompanying global cataclysms, where one species dies and another new one seems to immediately to arise from 'nowhere' and take its place. <br><br>This is not what the theory evolution predicts and so the very fossil record itself has always challenged it in that regard.<br><br>It was in response to this that Stephen Jay Gould developed the idea of what he called 'punctuated equilibrium' , in which he posited that species remain stable for thousands or millions of years, before undergoing a rapid 'morphing' over a few thousand years (rapid in geological time) into something new.<br><br>This fits better with the fossil record, but yet it really flies in the face of Darwin's original idea of a slow mutation brought on by pressures of competition and environment - the hard evidence for which remains almost entirely lacking.<br><br>For this and numerous other reasons, neo-Darwinism is - and has been for some time - in a paradigm crisis. The evidence that is amassing doesn't really fit the theory, the theory needs to be questioned, modified, maybe even discarded in part. And this is where the problem starts.<br><br>Most Biologists have been raised in a paradigm that equates any questioning of Darwin with the 'demon haunted world' of superstition and irrationality. Ergo, when Darwin is questioned it <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>must</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> be being questioned irrationally. And ergo, again, any defence of the theory <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>must</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> be rational. The neo-Darwinists like Richard Dawkins are so imprisoned by this false syllogism ("Darwin='rational', ergo if I am defending Darwin I am being rational"), that they entirely fail to see themselves morphing into exactly the kind of non-rational, dogma-haunted, truth-fearing bigots they most fear and despise.<br><br>They routinely get colleagues sacked, or blacklisted for merely considering the works of 'heretics' like Sheldrake. They control what is published in journals like 'Nature' so rigidly that none of the newer ideas can get a hearing. They have so succesfully managed the media that few people know there even is a discussion of 'alternatives' or 'amendments' to Darwin beyond the ludicrous extreme of Creationism. They present a false either/or dichotomy, in order to herd people into consensus.<br><br>We need to remind ourselves there is no either/or. The movement and development of life can't be confined into our simple little paradigm-crises. It remains hardly less a mystery for us than the origins of the universe, and Darwin himself might be appalled at the extremes of hubris to which his theory is taken. <br><br>Even if we ignore all its manifold problems ,the theory of Evolution was developed to offer a way of understanding how <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>species evolved</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. It doesn't even presume to try to tell us how life itself actually began, let alone how the universe came into being. Yet somehow not only do we try to disguise the theory's numerous problems, but as a culture we take the theory and elevate it beyond anything it was ever designed to be until it becomes a shorthand formula for the lazy belief underpinning our culture that we don't need to wonder or doubt any more! We tend to portray ourselves as being in the postion of knowing pretty much everything, save for a few little gaps where 'God' can be squeezed in at a pinch by those benighted souls who still feel the need.<br><br>That's got to be the ultimate in species-insanity hasn't it? We need to rememebr that ultimately we are dealing with a collection of atoms (the universe) that seemingly arose out of some place we can't picture, in some way we can't explain out of some kind of timeless void we can't imagine. We need to remember we are looking at an infinity of unknowableness, and that with all our theories we probably know less about whether that infinity has a God (or First Cause, or Intelligent Designer or what you will) in it than when we were still sitting in trees and using an animal mind to connect with the universe.<br><br>But that's another thing altogether.<br><br>Ellie <p></p><i></i>
