Re: [asa] The term Darwinism

Hi, Doug!

Re Point 1, I had in the back of my mind two things:

A. In the 60-70 years between Darwin and the Modern Synthesis, there were
many (scientists, I mean, not religious objectors) who accepted evolution
but who rejected Darwin's emphasis on natural selection. True, those
evolutionists wouldn't call themselves "Darwinists", so your point is valid
as far as the vocabulary goes. But I do think it's important to remind
people here (many of whom seem to know little of the history of evolutionary
theory) that there were other models of evolution, even within the
scientific community, than the Darwinian. This is especially important to
think about now, as over the last few years we see non-Darwinian models of
evolution proposed once more.

B. Someone here, maybe Mike Gene (I don't remember) mentioned some sort of
debate at about the time of the modern synthesis, between those who
emphasized "drift" more, and those who emphasized "natural selection" more.
In that context, my point would be that the "pure Darwinists" would have
continued to emphasize "natural selection" (even if they could accommodate
"drift" to some extent). But again, I concede your point about the
vocabulary. Yes, Darwinism is intrinsically tied up with natural selection;
that (along with the inherent variability observable in nature and under
domestication) was the centrepiece of Darwin's thought. Other factors he
introduced (sexual selection, occasionally some Lamarckian-sounding notions,
etc.) were clearly secondary.

So we're not disagreeing on Point 1.

RE Point 2, I think that majority of the scientific community did support
Darwin's form of gradualism until fairly recently. I don't know how old you
are, but I can vouch for the fact that Darwinian gradualism was the standard
version presented to the public by classic Darwinians like Gaylord Simpson
in the 1940s and 1950s and by the popular-science-writers-with-Ph.D.s (Isaac
Asimov, Carl Sagan, etc.) in the 1960s. Obviously, since Gould started
writing, things have changed, though I would bet that among the general
public there are still a lot of people (and not just among the general
public, but even among scientists who are not evolutionary biologists) whose
notion of evolution has not caught up with Gould's, and who still think in
terms of a small genetic change which makes a giraffe's neck an inch longer,
and so on. Even Dawkins still usually writes in this way.

On Point 3, you wrote:

"But entire spectrum of evolutionary change from micro and macro scales is
well documented.
Examining character differences (morphological or biochemical changes)
onto phylogenetic trees (genetic relationships) that extend from the
near-present (populations and subspecies) to more distant past
(species, genera, etc.) demonstrate that microevolutionary changes
(some of which we can know the precise genetic basis for) do lead to
macroevolutionary differences."

Just as an aside, you use the word "demonstrate" far more loosely than I
would. But if you really believe that macroevolutionary mechanisms have
been "well-documented", there is an easy way of proving me wrong: provide
me with the titles of those 500-page books I mentioned earlier. If the
mechanisms of macroevolutionary change are "well documented", the shelves of
the science library will be filled with such books. But no one here so far
can give me the title of even one. I can go into the library and in five
minutes find a book (in fact, many books) that will tell me in tremendous
detail how to build a suspension bridge. I cannot find a book which gives
me the genetic details of how fins became feet while gills simultaneously
became lungs. Rather odd, if macroevolutionary mechanisms have been "well
documented" and in fact "demonstrated". From my point of view, your
statement is not a scientific statement at all, but a faith statement, i.e.,
an assertion of your belief that eventually detailed macroevolutionary
pathways will be demonstrable.

On Point 5, I didn't claim that it was possible to prove God's intervention
scientifically. Not even fully orthodox ID people point to *particular
mutations* and say "God was acting in a special way there". The most that I
would claim (and I haven't even claimed that) is that design detection in
biology could be scientific. It could well be that the overall pattern of
mutations in some cases is so unlikely to have been the product of chance
that a designing intelligence must be supposed. Even there, it might be
argued that this is not a scientific inference, but a philosophical one.
I'm not sure how important that difference is. If reason, informed by the
best modern science, causes us to infer that chance can't be responsible for
X, is the inference less powerful because it's a combination of science and
philosophy than it would be if were a purely scientific inference? For that
matter, what is a purely scientific inference? Was it a purely scientific
when scientists inferred that there was a "force" of gravity acting between
all objects? What is a "force", anyway? The boundary between science and
metaphysics is much blurrier than many people here suppose. But it's a
useful polemical device when people, for either atheist or Christian
reasons, wish to prevent others from discussing the possibility of
intelligent design.

Cameron.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Hayworth" <becomingcreation@gmail.com>
To: "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
Cc: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 10:38 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] The term Darwinism

Hi Cameron,

I only have time for a couple of brief comments...

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Cameron Wybrow<wybrowc@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> 1. Yes, Darwinism is traditionally heavy in emphasis upon natural
> selection.

It doesn't make sense to say that Darwinism is TRADITIONALLY heavy on
NS, as if a modern meaning could by light on NS. If you're talking
about what the evolutionary biology community means by the term,
Darwinism = heavy on NS. To be light on NS is to be something other
than a Darwinist.

This was my main point before. Darwinism means something specific
within the evolutionary biology scientific community. Your comments
seem to conflate the scientific and popular culture meanings.

> Darwin himself was also extremely heavy on gradualism, and so
> have most of his followers been, though of course there have been
> dissenters
> like Gould. And Gould's motive for dissent is the best: the empirical
> evidence -- the fossil record -- can only with difficulty be reconciled
> with
> Darwin's gradualism. (Dawkins strives, in *The Blind Watchmaker*, to
> achieve this reconciliation; but Dawkins is also on record as saying that
> Gould is not the most reliable evolutionary theorist.) On the other hand,
> huge leaps seem theoretically incoherent on Darwin's principles (see *The
> Origin* for why). Michael Denton's second book is interesting in that it
> offers at least a potential solution to the problem: Darwin might have
> been
> right about the individual genetic changes accumulating gradually, but
> wrong
> in assuming that therefore morphological changes would be gradual. Darwin
> assumed a "one to one" correspondence between morphological change and
> genetic change, and Denton explains why this correspondence has been
> undermined: we now know that several genes can affect a single external
> trait, and that single genes can affect several different external traits.
> Further, Denton argues, genetic changes might be "saved up" in clumps, so
> to
> speak, and released at certain times, allowing for greater morphological
> leaps in a short space of time. This would be possible if the entire
> genetic mechanism is, as Denton believes, the equivalent of a massive
> computer program for the generation of species over time.

You mischaracterize the scientific community with regard to
gradualism. I think that very few (if any) evolutionary biologists
continue to hold to Darwin's form of gradualism. Everyone knows that
it is more nuanced than that. It's just like uniformitarianism in
geology; YECs mischaracterize that as meaning there can never be any
catastrophic changes, which of course no modern geologist claims.
Darwin may have been a strict gradualist, but everyone knows now that
mutationally and developmentally there is a whole range of possible
changes that can be manifest morphologically at "gradual" and
seemingly "punctuated" scales. Even Gould did not contend that change
was punctuated on a generation-by-generation timescale; only at
geological timescales (>1000's of generations) would you be able to
see that there were relatively different rates of morphological
change.

>
> 2. Check out my scenario #3. I didn't say that God's involvement had to be
> an *alternative* to natural selection; I acknowledged that it could be
> *supplemental to* natural selection and other Darwinian processes (as the
> gardener's work in Don Winterstein's analogy is supplemental to the work
> of
> nature).
>
> 3. You wrote, "We know that mutation occurs by real chemical-physical
> mechanisms and produces variation in populations. When that variation
> exists, N.S. (and other factors, such as drift) will in fact operate to
> cause evolution." The first sentence is unobjectionable, but the second
> sentence, without qualification, is an overstatement. We do not "know"
> that
> N.S. will in fact cause "evolution", if by evolution is meant
> macroevolution. At most we "know" that N.S. is one contributory cause to
> microevolution. That N.S. or any combination of natural causes can produce
> macroevolution is at this point simply speculation, as is evidenced by
> lack
> of books and articles (already discussed by me in earlier posts)
> demonstrating in genetic detail how macroevolution has in fact been
> achieved
> in the case of any particular organ, organelle, system, or organism.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this point, as I doubt that I
can convince you otherwise. Microevolution WILL lead to macroevolution
over time. The fact that we cannot wait around for 10,000 years to
document it directly doesn't mean that there's some strange mystery
about it. Sure there are some interesting dynamics to consider with
regard to things like speciation (splitting) and long-term patterns of
change (e.g., Gould's punctuated equilibrium). But entire spectrum of
evolutionary change from micro and macro scales is well documented.
Examining character differences (morphological or biochemical changes)
onto phylogenetic trees (genetic relationships) that extend from the
near-present (populations and subspecies) to more distant past
(species, genera, etc.) demonstrate that microevolutionary changes
(some of which we can know the precise genetic basis for) do lead to
macroevolutionary differences.

>
> 4. You made some remarks about Calvinism. Calvinism is not a unitary body
> of theology, but a family of theologies based more or less on the writings
> of Calvin. Calvinists have quite different understandings of various
> things
> amongst themselves. George Hunter is a Calvinist whose theology differs in
> important respects from several TE people here who are also Calvinist.
> Other
> ID people known to me are Calvinists who would disagree strongly with
> TE-Calvinists in many areas, starting with the notion of the character,
> authority and interpretation of Scripture, and working up to the sovereign
> freedom of God.

I was not trying to be precise about it. I was just trying to point
out that people at opposite ends of the theological spectrum of views
about God's providence would agree about the implications of God's
form-conferring interventions.

>
> 5. There is no reason why God could not choose to work through a
> combination of natural causes and intervention, if he so pleases. Human
> beings, especially Calvinists who (if they are orthodox) insist on God's
> radical and absolute freedom, should know better than to stipulate how God
> would create. Maybe God is like Don Winterstein's gardener who relies
> primarily on the powers of nature, but likes to take a hand now and then,
> and direct things. That is up to his good pleasure.

Except for the full-blown process theologians among us, we all agree
that God can do whatever he wants according to his good pleasure. And
most of us are happy to accept that God has done this at least on rare
occasions (in addition to the resurrection). Yet we don't pretend that
we can demonstrate this scientifically (and so far, ID researchers
have not been able to do so). Even if God does act this way on
occasion, how is that useful scientifically? As far as we could ever
measure, there would be a genetic basis and environmental or random
genetic drift cause. As a philosphical/theological concept, believing
that God can and does act to front-load or choose among quantum
possibilities or mutational variation is great. But it doesn't add
anything helpful to the doing of science.

Regards,
Doug

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Jul 2 13:58:54 2009