More Denton: My review of my reading so far (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 29, 2016, 01:43 (3191 days ago) @ David Turell

Denton is an agnostic who believes in common descent. However he feels Darwin has no answer for how it works. The evidence is primarily the fact that there is no evidence for gradualism. The record is all saltation and punctuated equilibrium. So he has turned to an old theory of structuralism which preceded Darwin. Nature by some rules or laws provides for initial structures which then can change under 'constraints;' within the organisms. This fits my approach of discussing patterns and the IM becomes a controlled inventor. In contrast he views Darwin as functionalism, where natural selection is the final arbiter of what is presented as organisms respond to environmental challenges. Functional adaptation.-The always obvious problem with Darwin is that one-third or one-half of any advance doesn't work until it is whole and then NS can judge it. The study of evo-devo is covered in chapter 5 and he discusses it as supporting his viewpoint, that is, structuralism he feels is apparent in the research ,and gives examples to support his contention by discussing the known development of various parts of various types of animals. He interprets evo-devo as showing internal controls or constraints on all changes. He concludes the chapter 5 by stating: 'the tree of life and the taxa which forms its branches are pre-ordained into the order of things, part of the fine-tuning of the cosmos for life as manifested on Earth.' No wonder ID'ers and I side with him. BUT, so far he offers no mechanism as to how this works. Evolution is discontinuous, but he admits not knowing how saltations work: 'jumps' or 'actualizations'. -One weird event among many tends to undo Darwin. There are two positions for gut and nerve cord. The arthropods' gut is dorsal and the nerve cord ventral. In vertebrates the spinal cord is dorsal and the gut is ventral. From a common ancestor?? By gradual steps?? But we know this happened.