James Barham vs Darwin (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, July 22, 2012, 18:54 (4508 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Where Darwin comes under fire is not the process of evolution (which, David, you have repeatedly said you accept) but the mechanisms by which it takes place. Random mutations and gradualism are the main problems, and the more we learn about the workings of the "intelligent" cell (which I would compare to Darwin's "workmen"), the more it would seem that these lie at the heart of the process. [...] This does not mean throwing Darwin out. Common descent and natural selection still stand as the cornerstones of his theory. -DAVID: But that is exactly the point. Natural selection has a small passive role, and the common descent is much more a bush than a tree, with no evidence of macro-speciation by Darwin's gradualist method. The cornerstones are crumbling, which is not Darwin's fault. His was a fabulous guess as to the underlying process, but he appears to be wrong, as science marches on.-DAVID: Try this explanation to understand Barham:-http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/dec/11/highereducation.uk-The article you have referred me to deals with the origin of life. DARWIN: "How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated." (Difficulties on Theory, p. 211).The theory of evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life, but see above concerning the cell.
 
As regards NS, DARWIN: "...natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations chance to occur" (p. 202). "Chance to occur" seems to both of us a problem, but as you can see from this one quote, he does not claim that natural selection creates anything. The title of his masterpiece is certainly misleading, but the text is not. His point, as you well know, was that God did not make caterpillars green so they would be invisible on green leaves, but green caterpillars survived better than those of other colours, and so now we have green caterpillars. (Somewhat simplified version!) Passive, yes, but an extremely important insight into how the process works.
 
I don't think there is any basic disagreement between us here. You prefer to focus on what I call the mechanisms that drive evolution (random mutations versus some form of intelligent guidance), while I focus on what I call the process of evolution (each form descended from a predecessor and surviving or disappearing by means of NS ... two cornerstones, neither of which is "crumbling"). We agree on punctuated equilibrium, but despite Darwin's insistence on gradualism, p.e. does NOT invalidate common descent. So we both think Darwin was partly right and partly wrong, but you want to throw him out, and I only want to modify him. I also want to hammer home the point that theists and atheists alike constantly misrepresent Darwin (an agnostic), who repeatedly pointed out that evolution was not incompatible with theism.