Dear Bob,
Thanks for the comments.
Gould is interesting on all this . in Bully for Brontosaurus he reckons
Mivart was answered and in Dinosaur in a Haystack he has an essay on
protowhales. However none of this challenges evolution.
Further evolution is more than Darwin's theory and many evolutionists do not
consider natural selection to be the only mechanism for evolution.
What we clearly have is a succession of species which differ slightly over
time ( e,g, horse and elephants to name two)
Assuming that this is a fairly complete sequence the Intelligent Designer
seemed to have adopted the same sequence of modifications as would be
expected by evolution. This is exactly the point Darwin made in his 1844
draft;
"I must premise that, according to the view ordinarily received, the myriads
of organisms, which have during past and present times peopled this world,
have been created by so many distinct acts of creation. . That all the
organisms of this world have been produced on a scheme is certain from their
general affinities; and if this scheme can be shown to be the same with that
which would result from allied organic beings descending from common stocks,
it becomes highly improbable that they have been separately created by
individual acts of the will of a Creator. For as well might it be said that,
although the planets move in courses conformably to the law of gravity, yet
we ought to attribute the course of each planet to the individual act of the
will of the Creator."
If evolution did not occur then why do fossil sequences occur as one might
expect them to if evolution had occured.
(Please note there is difference of evolution as a historical inference
from the fossil record and evolution as giving a mechanism on how it
occured.)
Is there any more serious criticism?
Regards
Michael
>
> In a message dated 4/17/01 7:10:35 AM, topper@robertschirk.u-net.com
writes:
>
> << Please list the serious criticism of the theory of evolution.
>
> Until I know what this serious criticism is I cannot see what the problem
is
>
>
> Michael >>
>
> Michael,
>
> The longest running criticism of Darwin's theory is by St. Georges Mivart,
> and is called Mivart's dilemma. Shortly after the publication of
_Origins_
> Mivart stated that natural selection is incompetent to account for
incipient
> stages of useful structures. Take for example, the case of the whale
> transition from a small terrestrial mammal to a large aquatic one. The
> lineage had to pass through many incipient stages in which there were
neither
> legs nor flippers. The criticism is how natural selection would ever get
> started and continue changing presumably well adapted legs, through
incipient
> stages that were neither legs nor flippers and less well adapted than the
> legs, and into future useful flippers.
>
> Gould, by the way, stated that Mivartt's criticism has never been
adequately
> been answered. Gould did not try to challenge it either. It has just
been
> ignored.
>
> Using the same example, no paleontologist that I know of, has seriously
> addressed the problem of how random mutations (with respect to the future)
> selected by the environment could produce the many, many coordinated
changes
> that had to take place in this transition. While the fossil record
clearly
> reveals that the transition took place, the mechanism of natural selection
is
> woefully inadequate to account for it, in my opinion and that of others.
>
> I have mentioned the problem of the aging of species, and species death.
> Research on species aging was effectively terminated by Simpson, as I
> mentioned in my previous post. To admit the problem of phyletic aging into
> the arena challenges the Darwinian paradigm because it introduces a family
of
> causal change agents that is independent of the paradigm and operates on
> different biological processes, namely developmental processes. There are
> studies conducted by evolutionary biologists and paleontologists that can
be
> better interpreted with concepts of aging than with evolutionary ones of
> adaptation. I have written briefly on this topic in PSCF. Unfortunately
I
> cannot be more specific on references since my library is packed away
while I
> am making a permanent relocation in Grand Rapids.
>
> I hope this helps in a small way.
>
> Bob
>
>
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