Encode rejected (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, February 25, 2013, 11:31 (4291 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: You and I and countless others agree that random mutation and gradualism are major flaws in the theory. [...] Common descent is the "nitty-gritty", as against the then common belief in separate creation, and natural selection explains why some organs and organisms survive while others perish. These concepts are not MEANT to explain the complexity of cells. The unresolved problem within his theory is how cells are able to adapt and invent. Darwin almost certainly guessed wrong [i.e. random mutations], but he knew full well how incomplete his picture was.-I then quoted Darwin's forecast that "an almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation" etc.
 
DAVID: In the preceding entry by Behe, he carefully dissects the Darwin theory as three portions: common descent, natural selection and random mutation. He accepts common descent as very important and the other two as relatively minor. Natural selection can only act when competition is present and on whatever organism is presented to NS by evolution. He discusses mutations as generally destructive of DNA, and wonders if evolution has reached its pinnacle of development.-Thank you for this summary, which in effect is saying exactly the same as my own post, other than the speculation that evolution may have reached its pinnacle.
 
DAVID: Behe offers no clue as to how a new species might develop. Darwin also had no clue.-That is why the title of Darwin's masterpiece is so misleading. He himself spends a long time bemoaning the fact that nobody actually knows how to define species! In the meantime, you and I have gone one better than both Darwin and Behe, as we have agreed on the likeliest explanation ... namely, that the genome is possessed of some form of intelligence which enables organisms to adapt and invent. Darwin's book sets out to prove that evolution happened. In relation to the eye, he wrote: "How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated." In the context of how evolution works, we might say: "How the genome comes to be intelligent hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated." In the context of whether God exists or not, these two questions of "how" become all-important, but that is a matter of focus, and one can hardly blame Darwin for expounding his theory of evolution instead of discussing whether God exists or not. I do not have a first edition of Origin to compare mine with, but for the record, later editions mention many times that all this was the work of "the Creator", although I must repeat (ad nauseam!) that Darwin regarded himself as an agnostic.