Darwinism has always had legitimate critics and many criticisms of Darwin's theory remain unresolved

Thank you Denyse for citing my recent commentary on the Darwinian myth.

The issue of the failure of Darwinism is very definitely resolved and has been for a very long time. Natural selection never had anything to do with the appearance of any new life form. How could nature select for a creature or structure which had not yet appeared? That is the question that Mivart asked in 1873 in his "Genesis of Species." The Darwinians have simply pretended the question was never asked. It is of course unanswerable. Natural selection also had virtually nothing to do with an organism once it did appear.. The vast majority of species appeared, flourished and disappeared unchanged from their original form.

The various intermediate forms that appeared did not represent gradual continuous transformations but rather were discrete partial approximations of the final form which was latent in each evolving lineage. The so-called horse series is very clear on this. The various intermediates were all so different from one another that each had to be ascribed to a separate Genus. We can't even tell which forms were ancestral to which. What is clear is that Equus, the modern horse, is the final product of a predetermined sequence, just as Homo sapiens is for the Primate sequence that produced us as its ultimate product.

In very simple language creative evolution is finished and has been for a very long time. I agree with Robert Broom, an antiDarwinian and with Julian Huxley, who somehow remained a Darwinian, who each claimed evolution was finished with not a new Genus in the last two million years. Actually it was Broom who influenced Huxley as I documented in my Evolutionary Manifesto. I have extended this to challenge the documented appearance of new species in historical times.for which I have received no satisfactory rebuttal although a great deal of hysterical abuse.

The simple truth is that here is absolutely nothing in the Darwinian paradigm that ever had anything to do with organic evolution beyond its capacity to generate intraspecific varieties and subspecies, none of which are incipient species in any event. They are all cul de sacs, evolutionary dead ends, doomed to ultimate extinction without further significant change. While this is interpreted as a radical position by contemporary Darwinian zealots, it is exactly what necessarily follows from the testimony of the fossil record.

It was Leo Berg, the greatest Russian biologist if his day, who properly framed the evolution mystery in 1922. Commenting on ontogeny and phylogeny -

"Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance."
Nomogenesis, page 134.

As for natural selection -

"The struggle for existence and natural selection are not progressive agencies, but being, on the contrary, conservative, maintain the standard."
Nomogenesis, page 406.

And what has served as a partial basis for my Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis he offered -

"Evolution is in a great measure an unfolding of pre-existing rudiments."
page 406.

Leo Berg was, in my opinion, to Evolutionary Science what Einstein was to Physics. He was able to see through and discard the entire Darwinian fabric and properly recognize the only viable alternative just as Einstein did with Newtonian Physics. He was able to do this because as a Russian he was largely insulated from the so called "Age of Enlightenment" which had enveloped Western Europe. The "Age of Enlightenment " was not that at all. It was the "Age of Denial," an Age which still prevails today, a "mindset" that cannot recognize, probably for congenital reasons, that organic evolution, like the development of the individual organism, was a goal-directed process in which chance played no role whatsoever.

Stated another way, Berg was a strict determinist like Einstein and of course myself. Einstein warned us of our weaknesses in no uncertain terms -

"Everything is determined...by forces over which we have no control."

and

"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion.

Darwinism, based as it is on allelic mutation and selection, is a total failure as an explanatory hypothesis. It does not even qualify as an hypothesis because it denies a goal, still adhering to the mythical "random walk." Phylogeny was never random any more than ontogeny is and always was. I am convinced that creative evolution is a phenomenon of the distant past. What we see today are the final and immutable products of a directed sequence which has now reached its goals, the contemporary biota. As near as I can discern, the present biota can only beome extinct and much of it already has!

Unfortunately, we are seeing rampant extinction due largely to the actions of man on his envrionment. Our future as the custodians of the planet is, in my opinion, in dire jeopardy. Homo sapiens, as the terminal product of a planned evolution, may well prove to be the species with the shortest life span, less than 150,000 years.

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

John, I'm not familiar with your work but welcome to the group!

Taking the equs "series" - is it your position that the various species for which we have fossil evidence are examples of some kind of pre-determined development or alternatively some kind of degradation from an original or more perfect form?

Do you believe it might be possible to trace a single linage from the modern horse to the earliest examples of the equine family or do you believe that these are separate created entities (for example in the way that an 5th generation ipod is similar to a 1st generation iPod, because they are refinements of an iterative design process and not because one is the ancestor of another).

Can you be more clear about the role played by "natural selection" over history of life on earth? For example do you believe that nature presents any kind of selective influence over which species die-out and which thrive?

The simple truth is that here is absolutely nothing in the Darwinian paradigm that ever had anything to do with organic evolution beyond its capacity to generate intraspecific varieties and subspecies, none of which are incipient species in any event.

Some darwinist biologists (most notably Allen McNeil) have offered claims of speciation events which require relatively little genetic change. He claims that speciation can happen quickly requiring very few mutations, whereas adaptation is slow usually requiring a number of mutations accumulated over time.

Also, how would you address darwinist claims that non-directed, natural processes can create new information? '

As my previous messages here indicate, I have rejected every aspect of the Darwinian fairy tale so I cannot respond to your questions very effectively. I recommend you visit my weblog where I am confident you will find answers to the questions you have asked and more.

john.a.davison.free.fr/

Thank you for your interest.

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

John, sorry I'd been a lurker here for a while but I had not known you posted here before. That's my fault, so excuse me for calling you a "new member" - when it is in fact me who is the newb.

I do wish to explore the notion that you "have rejected every aspect of the Darwinian fairy tale", for example both you (and me) and Darwinists agree that Darwinian evolutionary processes can account for intra-species variation and some degree of adaptation. It seems to me that you have a great deal in common with classical evolutionists.

I read through your paper on "The Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis", which I admit I couldnt fully understand reminded me a great deal of some of the arguments made by Mike Gene who has a theory that a process that might look superficially like Darwinian evolution may have taken place, except that it was not random and that what appears to have been unguided evolution is actually the unfolding of a master-plan.

One of the problems with Gene's theories are that there is no apparent way to experimentally verify his theories, indeed the set of predictions made by his theories match exactly those predicted by conventional evolutionary biology.

Your paper correctly pointed out the difficulty of experimentally verifying both the Lamarkan and Darwinian models of evolution - but what of your own evolutionary hypothesis? Does it suffer from the same apparent problem? Your paper did not suggest any experimental means of verifying the claims you have made. In all honesty, could your own theory share the weaknesses of the two flawed theories it purports to replace?

BobM

In your last message you finally asked me a question. Could my hypothesis be wrong? Of course it could but I certainly hope not. At present I can honestly say that there is nothing in the experimental and descriptive evolutionary literature that is at variance with the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis. At the same time I can also say that there is absolutely nothing in favor of an evolution in which chance played a significant role. Darwinism can never be "patched up." It was wrong at its inception which its co-author, Alfred Russel Wallace made indelibly clear in the title of his last book -

"The World of Life: A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose."

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

But is there any testable experimental result predicted by your hypothesis which is not predicticed by mainstream neo-darwinism? Could one devise an experiment to determine which of the two hypotheses are true?

I re-read through your paper and could not find any section directly addressing my question about speciation, I appreciate that you had every right to ignore my question as it was rather vague.

http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2006/11/island-mice-may-evolve-faster-from-one.html

In this article Professor McNeil proposes one particular model for "chromosomal speciation" which he claims can sometimes occur "rapidly". McNeil believes that a speciation event has occurred because mice from a common genetic background have now diverged into two or more groups which are completely unable to breed with each other.

Since your theory predicts that such events do not happen I propose we could attack McNeil's claims, for example we could demonstrate the "species" he observed were never related to begin with, or for example show that they are really not separate species at all. Failing that, we could show that the event that caused the "speciation" event to occur was not a random-freak event but a pre-programmed event.

Does that sound credible?

With the avatar and name, BobMort, I guess you must be a fan of Matt Lucas.

Thanks for asking... but no. He's not really my thing.

How can Darwinism predict anything when it denies a goal in evoloution? How can a "random walk" lead to a predictable result? The Darwinian model is a perfect failure.

"Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed."
Thomas Henry Huxley

Darwinism is the most protracted, consistent and certain form of intellectual suicide ever conceived by an overactive human imagination. It has survived for one reason only. It is because there is a substantial fraction of the human population that is constitutionally unable, probably for genetic reasons, to accept a purposeful universe. They are opposed by another "born that way" fraction of religious fanatics. There is no place in science for either camp and never has been.

"Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source....They are creatures who can't hear the music of the spheres....Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion."
Albert Einstein

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
Winston Churchill

"A past evoltion is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable"

John,

How can Darwinism predict anything when it denies a goal in evoloution? How can a "random walk" lead to a predictable result? The Darwinian model is a perfect failure.

Is it your position that the modern theory of Evolution has no predictive power nor any explanatory power at all? An utterly worthless theory?

If so, that would be an extreme position (even for an ID proponent such as myself) - because Evolution seems to make perfectly satisfactory predictions and explanations in certain mundane circumstances (e.g. epidmiology, immunology ). For example Evolution provides a perfectly adequate explanation for why it is that bacteria are able to acquire immunity to novel antibiotics. Evolutionary theory also predicts that we will never be able to produce an immunity-proof antibiotic. This prediction seems to hold true.

On the other hand, evolutionary theory does not yet provide an explanation of how life on Earth originated - if ID proponents are able to account for this then we we could demonstrate that our theory has exactly the kind of explanatory power that evolution lacks.

Unfortunately I am not aware that any ID researcher has seriously tackled this question other than to point out that the theory of evolution says nothing at all about the earliest origins of life.

Surely the test of any good scientific theory is it's ability to predict and explain the available experimental data. I believe that at some time in the future ID will be able to offer a more complete and rigorous explanation of observed phenomena than evolutionary theory, however I am forced to concede that ID's explanatory power is pitifully weak at the moment and that the ID community has done a pathetic job of experimentally verifying the predictions and explanations offered by evolutionary theory.

Do you agree?

My position is now and has been clear for a long time. First, there is no modern evolutionary theory, only two sublimely failed hyhotheses, Lamarckism and Darwinism. A "theory" is a verified hypothesis and neither qualifies. Darwinism can account for the production of intraspecific varieties and in some few instances subspecies and nothing more. The Darwinian model never had anything to do with creative evolution. It has proven to be useless as an explanatory hypothesis.

"An hypothesis does not cease to be an hypothesis whan a lot of people believe it."
Boris Ephrussi

I am not on this weblog to defend my convictions as I have published them beginning a quarter century ago with my paper "Semi-meiosis as an Evoitionary Mechanism" in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, followed by several published papers since, as well as my unpublished "An Evolutionary Manifesto: A new Hypothesis for Organic Evolution." It is obvious from your questions that you are unfamiliar with this extensive literature as well as the answers I have produced in response to the criticisms that have been levied against my position. I recommend you digest this extensive literature before you continue asking questions I have answered many times. You will find all my papers at ISCID's "brainstorms" forum along with my defense of them.

I now frequent weblogs primarily to expose the total bankruptcy of the Darwinian fairy tale and to present my alternative veiws based largely on the researches of some of the finest biologists of the post-Darwinian era. I Recommend you peruse and digest this extensive literature where I am confident you will find my answers to the questions you have asked.

I believe, with Robert Broom, that evolution was a planned phenomenon. I further hold that that the Plan, a word Broom capitalized, is now complete with the present biota which will in all probability become extinct as did those that preceded it. That process has already begun. I realize this is a rather pessimistic view of the future but it remains my conviction nevertheless.

I have little sympathy with the so called "Intelligent Design Movement." Intelligent design has always been obvious to me just as it was to many other students of the natural world, including, later in life, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-author of the Darwinian myth. ID certainly does not need to be defended as it is obvious to any enlightened observer of the natural world.

I have rejected the Christian Fundamentalist position as well as the posture of the atheist Darwinians. Neither ever had anything to do with the great mystery of organic evolution. The truth lies elsewhere in what I have identified as a "prescribed evolution."

"The main source of the present day conflicts between the spheres of religion and science lies in the concept of a personal God."'
Albert Einstein

John, please forgive me for not being familiar with your position - In truth I was not aware of your work until you started posting again on this site - so for the purposes of this discussion please assume I am not aware of the breadth of your research - and do feel free to point me to spesific references when necessary.

My position is now and has been clear for a long time. First, there is no modern evolutionary theory, only two sublimely failed hyhotheses, Lamarckism and Darwinism. A "theory" is a verified hypothesis and neither qualifies. Darwinism can account for the production of intraspecific varieties and in some few instances subspecies and nothing more. The Darwinian model never had anything to do with creative evolution. It has proven to be useless as an explanatory hypothesis.

My worry with the above is that while there is no modern Lamarckism, there is beyond doubt a modern Evolutionary theory which has some concepts in common with the evolution theory originally proposed by Darwin 150 years ago. There are a 'core' of concepts which have stood the test of time (e.g. common descent, natural selection, sexual selection).

Additionally, if you insist that "A "theory" is a verified hypothesis" then by that criteria you deny that ID is a theory. As yet the ID community has not been able to experimentally verify our propositions. Would you then relegate ID to being merely a pholosophical proposition, or perhaps simply a world-view?

I am not on this weblog to defend my convictions as I have published them beginning a quarter century ago with my paper "Semi-meiosis as an Evoitionary Mechanism" in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, followed by several published papers since, as well as my unpublished "An Evolutionary Manifesto: A new Hypothesis for Organic Evolution." It is obvious from your questions that you are unfamiliar with this extensive literature as well as the answers I have produced in response to the criticisms that have been levied against my position.

As for the unpublished papers I suspect I may have dificulty finding them. If you have links to published papers (preferably in downloadable format) I would be delighted to study them before asking further questions.

I believe, with Robert Broom, that evolution was a planned phenomenon. I further hold that that the Plan, a word Broom capitalized, is now complete with the present biota which will in all probability become extinct as did those that preceded it. That process has already begun. I realize this is a rather pessimistic view of the future but it remains my conviction nevertheless.

This raises intriguing possibilities - for one we should be able to determine the approximate date when the Plan became complete. This would be the time when new species no longer appear. If it could be shown that a new species has formed in the recent history then that would suggest we are not yet in this final phase or that no such final phase exists. In any case, this is exactly the kind of proposition which can be experimentally verified - do you agree?

I have little sympathy with the so called "Intelligent Design Movement." Intelligent design has always been obvious to me just as it was to many other students of the natural world, including, later in life, Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-author of the Darwinian myth. ID certainly does not need to be defended as it is obvious to any enlightened observer of the natural world.

Some of the hardest challenges in science are explaining and understanding that which is superficially obvious. Proponents of ID have relied on stating the obvious for far too long, and this is why we have been accused of lack of rigor in our thinking. I suggest that it a rigorous defense of ID is exactly what is needed.

There is very little tangible evidence for common descent. The monophyletic assumption of the Darwinists is without foundation. Enormous gaps exist for which there is no evidence for reproductive continuity. The present state of our knowledge of the fossil record, known ancestry and chromosome structural homology remains largely in accord with Leo Berg's assertion -

"Organisms have developed from tens of thousands of primary forms."
Nomogenesis, page 406.

Statements like that are what prompted Darwinian, congenital, atheist mystics to denigrate the greatest Russian biologist of his generation. I regard Leo Berg as the greatest evolutionist of all time. He was to evolutionary science what Einstein was to Physics.

It is only within the Mammalian Order that we can be reasonably certain of common ancestry. There is little doubt that all primates including man have shared a common ancestry, but there is also reason to believe that Homo sapiens was produced on more than one occasion and not necessarily from the same immediate ancestor.

Within the Class Amphibia reproductive continuiiy is unlikely as enormous developmental and chromosomal differences exist between the Anura (frogs and toads) and the Urodela (salamanders and newts) Their germ cells don't even arise from the same germ layers!They should probably be elevated from separate Orders to separate Classes.

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."

There is very little tangible evidence for common descent. The monophyletic assumption of the Darwinists is without foundation. Enormous gaps exist for which there is no evidence for reproductive continuity. The present state of our knowledge of the fossil record, known ancestry and chromosome structural homology remains largely in accord with Leo Berg's assertion

John, I am surprised you say this because common descent is one of the few points that both ID proponents and evolutionists have agreed upon.

There is a great deal of tangible evidence for common descent, such as the fact that all life on earth shares the same basic genetic encoding. All known life makes uses similar metabolic pathways and that nested hierarchies made from genetic sequences seem to map exceedingly well onto nested hierarchies made from a study of anatomy. Even a casual scan of biology texts seems to show multiple lines of evidence supporting the notion of common descent.

A quick scan through Google Scholar strongly suggests that these lines of evidence have all been confirmed multiple times through a great deal of peer-reviewed experimentation, I'd say that Common Descent seems to be one of the few points the evolutionists got exactly right!

It is only within the Mammalian Order that we can be reasonably certain of common ancestry. There is little doubt that all primates including man have shared a common ancestry,

From what I can tell this seems to be the mainstream scientific consensus, however many ID proponents object to the notion that homo-sapiens shares common ancestry with apes and other quadrupeds.

Within the Class Amphibia reproductive continuiiy is unlikely as enormous developmental and chromosomal differences exist between the Anura (frogs and toads) and the Urodela (salamanders and newts) Their germ cells don't even arise from the same germ layers!They should probably be elevated from separate Orders to separate Classes.

Are you suggesting that there is evidence that amphibians do not share a common ancestor?

I present my views very clearly and your response is always the same. "Do you really mean what you say?" I answer "Yes I do." About the only thing in favor of common descent is the genetic code. A triplet code involving four bases happens to be the simplest system which can specify the amino acids. George Gamov, a physicist pointed that out long before it was verified. That certainly is not proof of common decent.

What The IDists and the Darwinists agree on bores me to tears. I have my sources for what I believe and they have theirs. I am persona non grata in both factions, a position I find very comfortable. Denyse has been kind to allow me to present my heresies here and for that iI am grateful. I also see little to be gained in continuing a dialogue on matters about which I have presented my position time and time again both in published papers and on the internet wherever I have been given the opportunity. That I will continue to do. "Any port in a storm" as they say.

Let me list a few things about which we know virtually nothing with any degree of certainty. First, no one has the foggiest notion of HOW life could possibly have originated except through supernatural intervention. Those who claim otherwise are, in my opinion, naive beyond comprehension. The notion that it is intrinsic in the nature of matter to self assemble even once into a living, evolving entity is absurd on the face of it. We know virtually nothing about the following as well.

1. How many times life originated.

2. Where life originated.

3. When life originated.

4. How many times, once originated, life may have been redirected.

Now let me indicate what this investigator feels certain about.

Chance has played no role in any of the above, a conclusion shared by every one of the sources which led me to propose the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis. Referring to ontogeny and phylogeny -

"Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance."
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 134.

"To insist, even with Olympian assurance, that life appeared quite by chance and evolved in this fashion, is an unsupported supposition which I believe to be wrong and not in accordance with the facts."
Pierre Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, page 107.

"Any system that purports to account for evolution must evoke a mechanism not mutational and aleatory."
Evolution of Living Organisms, page 245, the sentence in italics for emphasis.

The Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis does exactly that!

I rest my case.

"On the Genesis of Species" was published in 1871, not 1873, as I erroneously reported in an earlier message.

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."