Post by Josh on Mar 9, 2009 9:13:02 GMT -8
Elsewhere, Steve wrote:
Pure naturalistic evolutionary theory has alway had one problem: the mechanisms: Gene flow, Genetic Drift, and natural selection.
All of these mechanism adequately describe how species in and of themselves can vary. In fact, they can be observed and tested with great success. But in all of these, we are speaking of microadaptions within a kind, and are unable to apply these models to large changes or huge complexity developments. The kind of changes of which I am speaking are, for example, the development of organs. Can you imagine how an eye or an ear could develop from a lower lifeform? There would need to be thousand of stages in between where the developing organ would be functionless and thereby present a characteristic which would be selected out. Such a development would require some "help" and would be working against the only three evolutionary mechanisms available. Early on, it was thought that if one had enough time, such a progression was possible. One was comforted by the sheer enormity of the time scale and the assurance that given enough time, such a thing would happen. But in the absence of any trace of an idea how such a jump could occur, some naturalist comforted themselves with the phrase "punctuated equilibrium" (Gould and Eldridge). It's the idea that drastic changes occured suddenly within a population. This means the a bird hatched and egg and a zebra popped out. (Moritz, please forgive my exaggeration.) Applying a nice long scientific sounding name doesn't help us evade the fact that this idea is no better than magic. I'm of the opinion that this conundrum is the reason why many naturalist have wandered over to the life-force camp. I don't actually know anyone right now who believes in pure naturalistic evolution, but perhaps I'm living in a cave. I need to get out more.
To which Mo responded:
The key problem of your post is that you are exposing very elementary misconceptions about the Theory of Evolution (especially about natural selection) along with "haarsträubender" missinformation and gaps in knowledge.
To which I responded:
I think the core of what Steve is saying is valid- the failure of naturalistic evolution to provide adequate mechanisms for change from species to species.
Since this conversation probably deserves it's own thread, I'm starting one here.
Pure naturalistic evolutionary theory has alway had one problem: the mechanisms: Gene flow, Genetic Drift, and natural selection.
All of these mechanism adequately describe how species in and of themselves can vary. In fact, they can be observed and tested with great success. But in all of these, we are speaking of microadaptions within a kind, and are unable to apply these models to large changes or huge complexity developments. The kind of changes of which I am speaking are, for example, the development of organs. Can you imagine how an eye or an ear could develop from a lower lifeform? There would need to be thousand of stages in between where the developing organ would be functionless and thereby present a characteristic which would be selected out. Such a development would require some "help" and would be working against the only three evolutionary mechanisms available. Early on, it was thought that if one had enough time, such a progression was possible. One was comforted by the sheer enormity of the time scale and the assurance that given enough time, such a thing would happen. But in the absence of any trace of an idea how such a jump could occur, some naturalist comforted themselves with the phrase "punctuated equilibrium" (Gould and Eldridge). It's the idea that drastic changes occured suddenly within a population. This means the a bird hatched and egg and a zebra popped out. (Moritz, please forgive my exaggeration.) Applying a nice long scientific sounding name doesn't help us evade the fact that this idea is no better than magic. I'm of the opinion that this conundrum is the reason why many naturalist have wandered over to the life-force camp. I don't actually know anyone right now who believes in pure naturalistic evolution, but perhaps I'm living in a cave. I need to get out more.
To which Mo responded:
The key problem of your post is that you are exposing very elementary misconceptions about the Theory of Evolution (especially about natural selection) along with "haarsträubender" missinformation and gaps in knowledge.
To which I responded:
I think the core of what Steve is saying is valid- the failure of naturalistic evolution to provide adequate mechanisms for change from species to species.
Since this conversation probably deserves it's own thread, I'm starting one here.
