Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, November 21, 2013, 14:58 (4019 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: "Survival of the fittest" was not Darwin's coinage ... that was Herbert Spencer's. I don't know whether Darwin actually discussed the definition of "fitness", but that is not an argument against the theory of common descent or the process by which organisms change their structure (we don't know how) in order to cope with or exploit the environment.-I know the origin, but in the climate of opinion today the Darwinists meld together all of the above, and so I tend to argue against it all in one lump sum.-> 
> dhw: The main focus is on mutations and gradualism, plus the crucial one of complexity, which underpins all the ID attacks on Darwin, including your own. But these are not attacks on Darwin at all, who time and again reiterated that his theory was not incompatible with religion. ...... As for "tells us little except we evolved", that seems to me to be rather a glib, slick way of dismissing a theory that has revolutionized the way people think ... especially when the dismissal comes from someone who lives in a country full of Creationists.-I am a form of creationist also. Darin's true contribution was to make reasonable the concept that we evolved, even if his theory is sorely lacking, and not his fault from lack of future knowledge.