Sticking a fork in Natural Selection (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, December 06, 2011, 21:51 (4736 days ago) @ David Turell

Excellent review with many editorial overtones on "What Darwin Got Wrong":

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=1111-scambray

Passive, passive, passive to the nth power.

There is one and only one definitive test that would permanently displace Natural Selection:

An species that emerges without a corresponding stimulus from environment.

Whoa!! We have no idea HOW NEW SPECIES EMERGE! All fossils show is sudden emergence, and don't remind me of Dawkins' whales. Each step is a sudden jump. Tell me how the Cambrian occurred.

The problem here is that whenever you bring this up... please define a sudden jump, and then explain how the "snapshot" observation of the fossil record is false... because to me, Evolution has always been something that could speed up and slow down based on need, so I don't see where the Cambrian Explosion really, fully, argues against the traditional view of evolution. You seem to be arguing that because we don't have a complete record of every successive form (and why would we?) then that is sufficient to make a case for some kind of "spontaneous" appearance. You don't have a case for that. You have a case for the fact that we lack successive forms. And then look at Horses... for God's sake, why would we assume that the natural progression of horses is any different than that of the Cambrian?

You make a good case for skepticism, but you fail to take it beyond that--and skepticism isn't enough to dislodge theories.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"