Humans, Dogs and oxytocin (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, September 29, 2015, 20:36 (3342 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: We believe evolution began when single cells combined. Bacteria survived, but the new forms led to improvement, -I don't think you mean what the sentence says. There was evolution among the first single cells. Archaea came first. Multicellularity came after cyanobacteria and common bacteria appeared in many species. 
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> DAVID: I don't believe in his [Darwin's] theory.
> [DAVID, 21 September: I accept evolution. I have my own theory as to how it works.] 
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> dhw: I presume you mean you do believe his theory of common descent, but you do not believe his theory of gradualism and random mutations. -Yes, I accept evolution through a form of common descent. 
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> DAVID: The concept of evolution was bandied about for most of the century before Darwin. He did not invent the concept that we evolved.
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> dhw: That does not invalidate the theory. 
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> DAVID: His theory doesn't explain evolution. He popularized the idea as a chance mechanism while Wallace, who did most of the observation work for him at least recognized the probable need for design. I simply accept the probability of evolution because of the fossil record following a progressive time line. 
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> dhw: Darwin was travelling the world, observing species and working on his theory long before he knew Wallace. He joined HMS Beagle in 1831, when Wallace was eight years old! In fact it wasn't until 1858 that Darwin realized through their correspondence that Wallace was coming to the same conclusions as himself! Origin was published in 1859. This is not a very fruitful line of discussion, is it?-Yes it is. You know they had much correspondence up to 1858. if I'm correct, Darwin did just three years of observation, Wallace many more. And Darwin finally got around to publishing in 1859 to beat Wallace to the punch. I must repeat, Darwin popularized the concept of evolution, a theory which had been around for years. The method of evolution he proposed has never been proven, and remains a tenuous hypothesis to this day. You've agreed to not accepting chance mutation and natural selection. What is left of his proposal is common descent, nothing else.