On Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:12:18 -0400, Pim van Meurs wrote:
[continued]
PM>p. 8(q): {For example, the Academy's rule against negative
>argument automatically eliminates the possibility that science has
>not discovered how complex organisms could have developed.}
>
>This is nonsense. Science doesn't claim to know all the answers,
>else, there would be no need for research.
Johnson was simply pointing out that the National Academy of
Science's rules in "Science and Creationism: A View from the
National Academy of Sciences" (1984) that:
1. "the most basic characteristic of science" is "reliance upon
naturalistic explanations" and "the creation of the universe,
the earth, living things, and man was accomplished through
supernatural means inaccessible to human understanding."
and
2. "negative argumentation employed" against "the theory of
evolution" is "antithetical to the scientific method"
effectively meant that "advocates of supernatural creation may
neither argue for their own position nor dispute the claims of the
scientific establishment" (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993,
pp7-8)
PM>p. 9(q): {When he contemplates the perfidy of those who refuse
>to believe, Dawkins can scarcely restrain his fury. "It is
>absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to
>believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or
>wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." Dawkins went on to
>explain, by the way, that what he dislikes particularly about
>creationists is that they are intolerant.}
>
>So what is tolerance? Tolerance is described generally as the
>ability not to interfere with those with whom you disagree.
>Nowhere has Johnson demonstrated that Dawkins practices
>intolerance. In fact, since Dawkins' disagreement with
>fundamentalists appears so extreme, this absence of evidence of
>intolerance may point to a very tolerant person indeed. Johnson's
>grasp of rhetorical devices and fallacies is solid, but his
>willingness to engage in "cold and dispassionate logic" certainly
>is not anywhere in evidence here.
I can scarcely believe that Elsberry seeks to defend Dawkins as "a
very tolerant person indeed"! My Dictionary defines "tolerance" as:
tolerance, n. 1. the disposition to be patient and fair towards those
whose opinions or practices differ from one's own; freedom from
bigotry. 2. the disposition to be patient and fair to opinions which are
not one's own...." "The Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary", 1991,
p1006)
which certainly does not fit the description of a man (an Oxford
University professor at that) who describes those who do not believe
what he does as "stupid or insane...or wicked".
PM>p. 14(q): {I assume that the creation-scientists are biased by
>their precommitment to Biblical fundamentalism, and I will have
>very little to say about their position. The question I want to
>investigate is whether Darwinism is based upon a fair assessment of
>the scientific evidence, or whether it is another kind of
>fundamentalism.}
>
>Gee, I can hardly wait to see how this turns out, given that
>Johnson decries "Darwinism" as a form of fundamentalism on the
>jacket of the book. Here we see the creationist fondness for
>systems of oppositional dualism.
Johnson does not say *anything* "on the jacket of the book". But
Johnson does question in the book (indeed in Elsberry's quote above)
whether "Darwinism...is another kind of fundamentalism".
PM>p.15(q): {The story of Charles Darwin has been told many times,
>and no wonder. The relationship with the lawyer-geologist Charles
>Lyell, the long voyage in the Beagle with the temperamental Captain
>Fitzroy, the observations and adventures in South America and the
>Galapagos Islands, the long years of preparation and delay, the
>eventual rushed publication of "The Origin of Species" when Alfred
>Russell Wallace appeared about to publish a similar theory, the
>controversies and the smashing triumph -- all these make a great
>saga worth another retelling.}
>
>However, the great saga is not worth a revionist retelling, as it is
>plain that Johnson would do. Darwin did not publish "TOoS" to beat
>out Wallace's publication. The rush was over when to present the
>basic thesis to their peers. This was done in a joint presentation to
>the Linnean Society in 1858 of both Darwin and Wallace's papers on
>the topic. "TOoS" was published in 1859, and Darwin did rush his
>production of it, but not for the reason which Johnson has given.
>When Johnson cannot even give such basic historical facts accurately,
>one must wonder what else is being given short shrift or deliberate
>spin.
Johnson does not say that Darwin publish "`TOoS' to beat
out Wallace's publication". He simply says that Darwin "rushed
publication of "The Origin of Species" when Alfred Russell Wallace
appeared about to publish a similar theory". Elsberry does not give
his alternative "reason" why "Darwin did rush his production of it".
But that "Johnson has given" the "basic historical facts accurately"
is evident from the following:
"Darwin's qualms were allayed and his originality was not smashed,
because Lyell and Hooker insisted that an extract from Darwin's
Essay of 1844 and the letter written by him to Asa Gray in 1857
should be published together with Wallace's paper. The joint paper
was read before the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858 and
published in the Society's Journal of Proceedings on 20 August, under
the title 'On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the
perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. At
long last, DARWIN'S HAND HAD BEEN FORCED and he was obliged to
publish the theory on which he had been engaged for over twenty
years...On Darwin himself, the effect was to force him once more to
follow Lyell's and Hooker's advice and lose no time in writing 'an
abstract' of his whole work so as to lay it before the public without
waiting to finish the large book on which he had been engaged." (de
Beer G., "Charles Darwin: Evolution by Natural Selection", 1963,
pp150-151)
"Alfred Russel Wallace, a comparatively unknown, youthful naturalist,
had divined Darwin's great secret in a moment of fever-ridden insight
while on a collecting trip in Indonesia. He, too, had put together
the pieces and gained a clear conception of the scheme of evolution.
Ironically enough, it was to Darwin, in all innocence, that he sent
his manuscript for criticism in June of 1858. Darwin, understandably
shaken, turned to his friends Lyell and Hooker, who knew the many
years he had been laboring upon his magnum opus. The two
distinguished scientists arranged for the delivery of a short summary
by Darwin to accompany Wallace's paper before the Linnean Society.
Thus the theory was announced by the two men simultaneously...Darwin,
though upset by the death of his son Charles, went to work to explain
his views more fully in a book...WHICH MUST NOW BE WRITTEN AT TOP
SPEED." (Eiseley L.C., "Charles Darwin", in "Darwin and the
Mysterious Mr. X", E.P. Dutton: New York, 1979, pp11-12. My
emphasis.).
"Few events inspire more speculation than long and unexplained pauses
in the activities of famous people. Rossini crowned a brilliant
operatic career with William Tell and then wrote almost nothing for
the next thirty-five years. Dorothy Sayers abandoned Lord Peter
Wimsey at the height of his popularity and turned instead to God.
Charles Darwin developed a radical theory of evolution in 1838 and
published it twenty-one years later ONLY BECAUSE A. R. WALLACE WAS
ABOUT TO SCOOP HIM" (Gould S.J., "Ever Since Darwin", 1991, p21. My
emphasis.)
"...in 1858, Darwin received a letter and manuscript from a young
naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, who had independently constructed
the theory of natural selection while lying ill with malaria on an
island in the Malay Archipelago. Darwin was stunned by the detailed
similarity...Lyell and Hooker...came to Darwin's rescue. While
Darwin stayed home, mourning the death of his young child from
scarlet fever, they presented a joint paper to the Linnaean Society
containing an excerpt from Darwin's 1844 essay together with
Wallace's manuscript. A year later, Darwin published his FEVERISHLY
COMPILED "ABSTRACT" of the longer work-the Origin of Species.
Wallace had been eclipsed" (Gould S.J., "The Panda's Thumb", 1990
reprint, p44. My emphasis.)
PM>p. 16-17 (q)(footnote): {"Mutation" as used here is a simple
>label for the set of mechanisms which provide the genetic variation
>upon which natural selection can go to work. The set includes point
>mutations, chromosomal doubling, gene duplication, and
>recombinations. The essential point is that the variations are
>supposed to be random. Creative evolution would be much easier to
>envisage if some guiding force caused the right mutations to arrive
>on schedule. Orthodox genetic theory insists that no such guiding
>principle for mutation exists, so creatures have to make do with
>whatever blind nature happens to provide.}
>
>Where to start? Natural selection does not operate upon all
>mutations, only those which result in an expressed phenotypic trait
>that has some selection pressure upon it.
Elsberry could "start" by reading exactly what the author he is
reviewing actually writes! Johnson doesn't say that "Natural
selection" does "operate upon all mutations".
PM>Recombination is not considered "mutation" by any geneticist that
>I know of. It appears obvious that Johnson has not considered the
>growing literature on directed mutagenesis.
Gould raised the same type of objection to Johnson's first edition.
Here is the objection and Johnson's reply (in parentheses) in the
Epilogue of his second edition:
"Johnson writes that the Darwinian mechanism for creating new organs
is composed of two principal elements, mutation and selection. "He
then realizes that he has neglected sexual recombination, the vastly
predominant source of immediate variation in sexual species, but he
makes his error worse by including recombination as a category of
mutation." [Baloney. It is standard practice to use "mutation" as a
convenient term to denote the supposedly random genetic changes upon
which natural selection is said to work. Footnote 2 in Chapter Two
explains this usage clearly. Recombination is an important source of
immediate variation, but by definition it is not a source of genuine
innovations.]" (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993, p207)
PM>p. 18(q): {Natural selection is a conservative force that
>prevents the appearance of the extremes of variation that human
>breeders like to encourage.}
>
>Assertion without evidence. This is a faulty argument with a long,
>long history.
Elsberry should try telling that to any "human breeder" of animals or
plants. Unless the breeder breeds for the "extremes of variation" by
artificially selecting for them, and protecting the resultant
offspring from interbreeding with original members of the species,
the normal action of natural selection is to undo the breeders
efforts and revert them back to the original type.
As Johnson points out, this "conservative" role of "natural
selection" is even given a name - "stabilizing selection":
"We saw there that the hypothesis that natural selection is a major
creative force is not well supported empirically, and that Darwinists
have employed the concept as a virtually self-evident logical
proposition, something that just must be true. Despite official
denials, Darwinists continue to evoke natural selection this way to
account for whatever innovation or stasis nature happens to have
produced. If new forms appear, the credit goes to creative natural
selection; if old forms fail to change, the conservative force is
called stabilizing selection; and if some species survived mass
extinctions while others perished, it is because the survivors were
more resistant to extinction." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial",
1993, p90)
Here are some quotes as to the "conservative force" of "natural
selection":
"Kimura's view of evolution has thus been amply confirmed. Random
events are responsible for much of evolutionary change. Although it
turns out that selection does play a role in these changes, it is
largely a passive one, like that of a gardener who weeds but does not
plant. The activity of this selective gardener can be detected from
the fact that even third-position bases in functioning genes evolve
more slowly than any of the bases do in pseudogenes. This suggests
that new mutations in these third- position bases are lost more
readily than if they were selectively neutral, which in turn implies
that they are being selected against- weeded out, in effect. So it
seems that even third-position bases of functioning genes must have
some slight importance to the organism, because changing them appears
to be disadvantageous. The selection acting on such bases seems
always to be conservative, always preventing change." (Wills C.,
"The Runaway Brain", 1994, p219)
"If the environment-itself a concept not easy to define
precisely-remains stable, natural selection often tends to be
conservative and keeps a set of interbreeding organisms within a
narrow range, since, in a loose sense perfection has already been
reached and any further improvement may need an exceedingly rare
event, all the moderately rare ones having been tried out by that
time." (Crick F., "Life Itself", 1981, p58)
PM>p. 19(q): {With respect to animals, Darwinists attribute the
>inability to produce new species to a lack of sufficient time.}
>
>I wonder about this, since the datum expressed here is not true.
>Animal speciation has been observed in the wild and also has been
>produced in the laboratory. Even at least one new species of
>Drosophila has been noted.
That "Animal speciation has been observed in the wild" is irrelevant
because the issue that Johnson raisesd is whether it had been
observed in the "laboratory":
"Darwinists...point with pride to experiments with laboratory
fruitflies. These have not produced anything but fruitflies.."
(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993, p19). I would request Pim (or
Elsberry) to substantiate the claim that "Animal speciation...has
been produced in the laboratory". That "at least one new
species of Drosophila has been noted" is conceded by Johnson.
PM>p. 19(q): {In some cases, convincing circumstantial evidence
>exists of evolution that has produced new species in nature.
>Familiar examples include the hundreds of fruitfly species in Hawaii
>and the famous variations among "Darwin's Finches" on the Galapagos
>Islands.}
>
>Incredible. Here Johnson admits that evolution produces new species,
>yet elsewhere he tells us that evolution is not a fact. Rather than
>labeling this as a contradiction, let us classify it as an
>inconsistency and move on.
It is no such thing. Even Creation-Scientists accept "speciation".
Elsberry just confirms one of Johnson's main thesis - because
Neo-Darwinists believe that "evolution" is fundamentally a unitary
process then *any* evidence for it, no matter how trivial, confirms
the whole theory:
"The Weiner article and book review illustrate what I would call the
"official caricature" of the creation-evolution debate, a distortion
that is either explicit or implicit in nearly all media and textbook
treatments of the subject. According to the caricature, "evolution"
is a simple, unitary process that one can see in operation today and
that is also supported unequivocally by all the fossil evidence...
According to the official caricature, the finch-beak variation that
the Grants observed on Daphne Island is fundamentally the same
process that brought birds into existence in the first place.
Essentially the same process, extended over immense stretches of
geological time, produced complex plants and animals from
single-celled microbes. Biological evolution at all levels is thus
fundamentally a single process, which one either accepts or
(irrationally) rejects...Of course the official caricature utterly
misrepresents the scope of the controversy...Critics of evolutionary
theory are well aware of the standard examples of microevolution,
including dog breeding and the cyclical variations that have been
seen in things like finch beaks and moth populations.* The difference
is that we interpret these observations as examples of the capacity
of dogs and finches to vary within limits, not of a process capable
of creating dogs and finches, much less the main groups of plants and
animals, in the first place." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in the
Balance", 1995, pp73-75)
PM>p. 20: Johnson raids Norman MacBeth for some substance as well
>as his book title in repeating "natural selection is a tautology".
Gould in his review of DOT made the same trivial point about the
similarity of Johnson's and MacBeth's "book titles". Even if Johnson
did chose a similar title (it may have been the publisher), so what?
Johnson (like MacBeth) is a lawyer and the legal analogy is apt.
PM>While claiming that "natural selection is a tautology" seems quite
>popular among creationists, demonstrating that it is indeed so is
>not.
Elsberry misunderstands Johnson's argument. He accepts that "natural
selection is" not necessarily "a tautology" but that because of lack
of independent criteria for determining fitmess, Darwinists are
continually appealing to it in a tautological sense:
"I agree that in principle natural selection can be formulated
non-tautologically, as in Kettlewell's industrial melanism
experiment. The problem is not that the theory is inherently
tautological, but rather that the absence of evidence for the
important claims Darwinists make for natural selection continually
tempts them to retreat to the tautology. In Chapter Four we will see
that Gould himself explains the survival of species as due to their
possessing the quality of "resistance to extinction." In raising the
tautology issue I am not merely taking advantage of a few careless
statements. When the critics are not watching, Darwinists continue
to employ natural selection in its tautological form as the
self-evident explanation for whatever change or lack of change
happened to occur. The important point is that the Darwinists have
been tempted continually by the thought that their theory could be
given the status of an a priori truth, or a logical inevitability, so
that it could be known to be true without the need of empirical
confirmation. Their susceptibility to this temptation is
understandable. When the theory is stated as a hypothesis requiring
empirical confirmation, the supporting evidence is not impressive."
(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993, p176)
PM>Despite the quotes from biologists that seem to make their
>case for them, creationists employ a curious kind of filter to
>biological writings: what agrees with us is true, and all else is
>false. It is intriguing that many of the folks that they quote in
>the context lovingly and with full approbation, they may elsewhere
>denigrate as being entirely mistaken. On pages 23 and 24 of
>Johnson's book, Johsnon provides us with quotes of at least two
>statements of natural selection which are not tautologous.
>Apparently, this inconsistency of treatment slides right by Johnson.
See above. Elsberry's problem is that he does not understand
Johnson's argument.
PM>p. 24(q): {In fact the stock is highly successful at resisting
>improvement, often for millions of years, so there must be something
>wrong with the logic. This time it is the confusion generated by that
>word "advantage".}
>
>The confusion is Johnson's, not the author of the quote just previous,
>as becomes clear from Johnson's further commentary. He notes that
>what "Darwinists" mean by "advantage" is not what Johnson thinks it
>should mean. By extracting this piece of biological jargon from
>context, Johnson aims to make the biologists look deliberately
>obfuscatory, but merely succeeds in making himself look petty and
>uninformed.
Actually it is *Johnson* who gives "what `Darwinists' mean by
`advantage' ":
"Advantage in the proper Darwinist sense, as George Gaylord Simpson
explained for us, does not mean improvement as humans measure it.
Ants and bacteria are just as advantaged as we are, judged by the
exclusive criterion of success in reproduction." (Johnson P.E.,
"Darwin on Trial", 1993, p24)
PM>Johnson also ignores the fact that "improvement" may not
>be accompanied by any morphological change that would be reflected in
>the fossil record. The species "unchanged for millions of years" are
>judged so only on the basis of morphology, and that generally only of
>hard parts. The statement cannot held to be dogmatically true when
>much of the evidence is missing, as Johnson is elsewhere fond ge or
>abandonment due to further experiment or observation. In the absence
>of contradictory evidence, the model will be retained. Johnson holds,
>incorrectly, that theories of evolution must be demonstrated to be
>"true" before we should "accept" them.
Johnson is well aware of this "science" does not "determine truth"
argument:
"To cite an example from my personal experience, it is pointless to
try to engage a scientific naturalist in a discussion about whether
the neo-Darwinist theory of evolution is true. The reply is likely
to be that neo-Darwinism is the best scientific explanation we have,
and that means it is our closest approximation to the truth.
Naturalists will usually concede that any theory can be improved, and
that our understanding of naturalistic evolution may one day be much
greater than it is now. To question whether naturalistic evolution
itself is "true," on the other hand, is to talk nonsense.
Naturalistic evolution is the only conceivable explanation for life,
and so the fact that life exists proves it to be true." (Johnson
P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993, p123)
PM>p. 30(q): {Darwin wrote that "If it could be proved that any
>part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the
>exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory,
>for such could not have been produced through natural selection."
>But this was the same Darwin who insisted that he had never claimed
>that natural selection was the exclusive mechanism of evolution.}
>
>Well, well. Here we see that Johnson is hoist upon his own petard.
>By not defining "evolution" to avoid confusion, he has confused
>himself in attempting to read the literature.
See previous. Johnson defined "evolution" on page 3 (the actual
first page of his book). It is *Elsberry* who is "hoisted upon his
own petard"!
PM>Darwin's theory is natural selection, not "evolution". Evolution
>had been theorized prior to Darwin, as most readers with even a
>slight familiarity with the literature are able to distinguish.
>Johnson's obvious pleasure in picking out what he mistakenly feels
>to be a contradiction on Darwin's part should make this all the more
>embarrassing for Johnson.
Elsberr is the one who should be embarrassed. It is precisely
Johnson's point that "Darwin's theory is natural selection, not
`evolution'"!
PM>[The end. For now.]
Let's hope the second part of Elsberry's review of Darwin on Trial
is better than the first!
Regards.
Steve
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