Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, November 22, 2013, 14:10 (4018 days ago) @ David Turell

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 isnot 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.-DAVID: 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.-Which sadly puts you in the same bracket as those atheists who argue against ID "all in one lump sum". Every argument should be taken on its merits. -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.-DAVID: 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.-You said that Darwin "invented a supposition that is falling apart", and the discovery of even more complexity "will destroy Darwinism". Would it not be more accurate to say that Darwin's "reasonable" Theory of Evolution will not fall apart and will not be destroyed, but we are now learning more and more about the complexities that have enabled evolution to take place?