From: Walter Hicks (wallyshoes@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu Jul 31 2003 - 07:36:19 EDT
The following comes from:
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-15.html
> I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified, during a long course of descent. This has been effected chiefly through the
> natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is, in
> relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously. It appears that I formerly
> underrated the frequency and value of these latter forms of variation, as leading to permanent modifications of structure independently of natural selection. But as my conclusions have lately been much
> misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I
> placed in a most conspicuous position--namely, at the close of the Introduction--the following words: "I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification."
> This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.
>
-- =================================== Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>In any consistent theory, there must exist true but not provable statements. (Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic If you have already found the truth without it. (G.K. Chesterton) ===================================
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