Denis noble debunks neo-Darwinism (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, September 02, 2013, 14:08 (4101 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I fully agree we will never have full scientific proof or any other kind of proof about the evolutionary processes. From single cell to here is an amazing journey. But even the single cell has been shown to be a highly complex information-filled factory. Darwin didn't know that. As a result his philosophic musing about evolution, based as they are on his time in knowledge of geology, paleontology, biology, and even history, are not worth much. You have admitted natural selection is a weak arbiter. We are left with a Darwin who championed the idea that some how or other evolution went from cell to us. Most of us have accepted the idea that life, once started, evolved. In that sense and only that sense only we have accepted Darwin. Debate of mechanisms must leave him behind.-I'm surprised that someone who lives in the heart of Creationist country thinks that Darwin's philosophical musings about evolution "are not worth much", when they have spawned a veritable industry of debate and research. In his conclusion, he writes:
 
"...when we regard every production of nature as one which has a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor [...] when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting [...] will the study of natural history become. / A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct action of external conditions, and so forth."
 
Not worth much? How many avenues of inquiry has Darwin opened up because of his theory? Of course he didn't know what we know now. That's why he talked of an "untrodden field". But the fact of the matter is that his championship of "the idea that some how or other evolution went from cell to us" has revolutionized our way of thinking, we STILL don't know the "somehow" (and many scientists still agree with most of his "musings"), and even you agree we shall never have proof of what it is. I can understand why, with your beliefs, you feel the "true issue" is the interpretation of evolution as a reflection of your God's ingenuity, but I see the course and workings of evolution as a subject in itself, and worth a great deal, even if we never get to discover the "first cause".