Dawkins bashing? (The atheist delusion)

by David Turell , Friday, January 02, 2009, 00:06 (5804 days ago) @ George Jelliss
edited by unknown, Friday, January 02, 2009, 01:00

No evolutionist says natural selection was "formed by chance". It is the necessary outcome of circumstances. If variation occurs then it will be subject to natural selection.
 
Any absolutely true statement by George. But note the final sentence: "If variation appears then it will be subject to natural selection. The word 'if' tells us that 'mutation and natural selection' is a passive process. Variation has to appear for some reason, chance or otherwise, and then natural selection can actively act. - > 5. "natural selection clearly cannot account for the arrival of the fittest." 
 
>Total piffle. Ernst Mayr's interpretation of Blyth's work is correct. This appears to be a old-style misunderstanding of what survival of the fittest means, namely survival of those best fitted to the environment at the time, not those "fittest" in some absolute sense. - This is a total misinterpretation of #5. Clearly the meaning is that only after variation arrives can natural selection decide which are the fittest, as I discussed above. Reading the website I referenced in a previous entry makes that quite clear.
 
 
> 7. "Natural selection better describes biology's "ordinary rules of stability" than major evolutionary change."
>This is just trying to use Gould's ideas as a lever against Darwin. But he was fully a supporter of Darwin's ideas and helped to advance them. - 
There is much discussion among various writers on Darwinism that Gould did not completely support Darwin. After all he and Eldridge invented 'punctuated equilibrium' which had to due with stability (no change) for long periods. The Gould comment used to support #7 describes something Darwin didn't know. See #8 next.
 
> 8. "the Cambrian explosion established virtually all the major animal body forms" 
 
> This is an exaggeration, but the Cambrian explosion is perfectly in accord with Darwin's theory. Great variation was possible because there were no existing species to compete and to overcome.
 
 #8 is not an exaggeration. It is a major problem for the Darwin theory. In a 5-10 million period, after a very long period of virtual stasis, 36 of the original ancestors of 36 currently existing animal phyla suddenly appeared. The 37th appeared later. Actually, about 60-100 new forms appeared, and were culled out by natural selection to leave 37 remaining till now. What preceded this period were Ediacarans, sponge like sheets, and then bilaterians, bags of cells in which the interior of the bag acted as a digestive system. These were bilaterally symmetrical. What appeared in the Cambrian had eyes, legs, digestive systems, excretory systems and primitive nervous systems,basically out of nowhere. This is what Gould alluded to in #7 - Finally, of course there was no competition. Nothing like this had ever existed before. What happened to the Darwin concept of tiny changes gradually leading to new forms?? The Cambrian explosion absolutely refutes it.