More Denton: A new book (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, February 25, 2016, 13:46 (3194 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I've been too busy to get beyond Chapter Four, but this review by a physicist is excellent:
http://www.christianscientific.org/review-of-dentons-evolution-a-theory-still-in-crisis/-Much of this article deals with “saltation”. You and I have long since agreed that Darwin's gradualism is out. The inventive mechanism is the explanation I favour. -QUOTE: "Denton's second argument against the Darwinist understanding of the Forms is the “robustness” of these Forms—after their sudden appearance, they endure for tens to hundreds of millions of years with little or no change.”-I can't see any problem here. If an innovation (sudden appearance) functions well, there is no need for it to change.
 
QUOTE: "Another type of robustness of the Forms is in their origin: when radically different processes give rise to the same forms. This is called “convergent evolution” in standard Darwinian evolution, but giving it a name doesn't solve the problem it creates.”-I don't see why this is a problem either. If intelligent organisms are faced with similar problems, it makes perfectly good sense that they should come up with similar solutions.-QUOTE: "How could such radical saltation of new forms come about? For those adhering to intelligent design, the saltation events could be miraculous interventions. Is 100,000 too many? Why so? What is the maximum number of interventions we may impose on God?"-This is what you and I have called “dabbling”, but “miraculous interventions” is a nice term, since it emphasizes the vast number of miracles necessary - except that it would have to be millions and millions if we are to include every innovation,lifestyle and natural wonder. You left the next quote incomplete:-QUOTE: "Denton does not invoke intelligent miraculous intervention. He favors a physical, materialist mechanism. As discussed above, his argument does not rest on having actually found such a mechanism. His argument is entirely empirical— the novelties of new Forms cannot have been acquired gradually via natural selection, so we must look for something else. Denton favors some version of “self-organization” along the lines promoted by Ilya Prigogene and Stuart Kaufmann. Somehow, internal physical forces conspire to create something completely new".-The bold is what you left out, and some version of “self-organization” is precisely what I have suggested with my autonomous inventive mechanism. Why Denton talks about internal physical forces instead of intelligence only he knows, although I suspect from your previous post that he would like to keep all explanations under the umbrella of the nebulous “laws of nature”. 
 
Interestingly, you had to stop short of the following paragraph: “A third possible cause of the prolific saltation, which Denton alludes to but does not seem to favor, is that all of the dramatic changes were pre-programmed in the very first living organism....There is actually genetic evidence that this has happened, with elements that exist in ancestor life forms and are triggered into operation only in the descendents. The amount of design needed to pre-program this, not just for one transformation but for the whole tree of life, is staggering, but it would not be beyond the powers of an omniscient God.” -This is the first time I have seen your theory repeated by another scientist. Of course, anything would be possible for an omniscient (and omnipotent) God, and so no matter how staggering it may be, the faithful can believe it. One might hope that the faithful might also be able to believe that God is capable of creating an autonomous intelligent inventive mechanism that would not necessitate any of the staggering preprogramming or the millions of personal interventions, but would operate within all organisms to produce the vast variety of forms that make up the history of life on earth. But your reviewer doesn't seem to have thought of that.