Darwin himself would disagree with you, as I will show at the end of
this post. And your argument is ad hoc - you believe in Darwin
therefore you find nothing but confirmation in nature for his theory.
But if Lamarckian evolution ruled science today and Darwin never
lived, you would find that nature abounds with confirmation of
Lamarck.
Evolution is indeed a mechanism -- but of thought and theory only; it
is nothing more than a method for reflecting upon certain particulars
in nature. The goal of such reflection is not so much the mere
understanding of them as it is the systematization of these
particulars. You think you can see the hand of evolution at work, but
you see nothing of evolution at all, only events such as change or
growth. The mechanism itself is unknowable but it is thought to be
evolution, not just as some theoretical speculation, but as a
necessary mode of approaching these particulars by grounding them
in reason. Evolution theory is thus nothing more but reason's peculiar
manner of arriving at an understanding of nature through the necessary
systematization of its particulars in a theory.
This is why I find your misgivings to be unfounded. To claim, as you
do, that evolution actually exists, and is more than a theory, is
analogous to the claim that God actually exists and got the whole ball
rolling in the first place. The Darwin Vs. Intelligent Design debate
is a modern form of Kantian antinomy: materialism vs. spiritualism, or
empiricism vs. rationalism, in which both sides can claim victory in
the debate simply by disproving its opposition and thus proving itself
by disjunctive syllogism.
But you will see that it is neither logical nor necessary to affirm or
deny either side of this circular debate in order to determine the
victor. Affirming evolution and denying God, or vice versa, proves
nothing positive. It is necessary to affirm the nature of the mind and
how it must approach this issue in order to make certain knowledge
possible at all, that is, to convert its knowledge into absolutes.
Unfortunately, Darwin, who was definitely an empiricist, formed an
analogy with artificial selection, that is, artificial breeding
methods in which breeders select certain phenotypes over others.
This analogy then implies, by mutatis mutandis, that Nature operates
in the same fashion, that is, systematically, as if there were reasons
inherent in nature as there are in man's mind. And thus your error in
asserting that evolution actually exists in more than theory. But this
implied idea that reasons exist in nature can obviously only give
further impetus to Intelligent Design, this is implied by the very
name of that movement. In other words, Darwinian evolution asserts
Intelligent Design, or something like it, within its very own theory,
although of course Darwin himself would deny it and in fact I read
somewhere recently that he was forced into denying it. Darwin,
unfortunately, was no philosopher, and for all his brilliance he could
not think or ponder any deeper than his own empiricism.
That is why I argue for a Kantian teleological solution to the debate
and argue against science's solution which contains an inherent,
almost supernaturalistic booby-trap leading to its own demise. That
solution I have already stated, and while you deny that biologists
actually believe any such thing as "the idea of perfect adaptability
of species" - and I never claimed they did believe in it - I am
attempting to prove that they nevertheless need to believe in it, and
that Kantian philosophy holds the key to resolving the debate. It is
not only possible this way, but Darwin himself provides certain cues
in his own assertions concerning the perfectability of organs and
other features.
'But when we compare the dray-horse and race-horse, the
dromedary and camel, the various breeds of sheep fitted either for
cultivated land or mountain pasture, with the wool of one breed good
for one purpose, and that of another breed for another purpose; when
we compare the many breeds of dogs, each good for man in different
ways; when we compare the game-cock, so pertinacious in battle, with
other breeds so little quarrelsome, with "everlasting layers" which
never desire to sit, and with the bantam so small and elegant; when we
compare the host of agricultural, culinary, orchard, and flower-garden
races of plants, most useful to man at different seasons and for
different purposes, or so beautiful in his eyes, we must, I think,
look further than to mere variability. We can not suppose that all
the breeds were suddenly produced as perfect and as useful as we now
see them; indeed, in many cases, we know that this has not been their
history. The key is man's power of accumulative selection: nature
gives successive variations; man adds them up in certain directions
useful to him. In this sense he may be said to have made for himself
useful breeds.' (Chapter II, "Variation under Nature.")
We must "look further than to mere variability," we must also look to
such concepts as "beauty" and "perfection" which are difficult to
define objectively. In other words, Darwin has taken the science of
biology into subjectivist grounds in order to somehow prove his
contentions. You might break off here and point out that Darwin was
only talking about species bred to be useful to humans, but you forget
the analogy that Darwin has drawn here between artificial and natural
selection. Observe:
"We have seen that man by selection can certainly produce great
results, and can adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the
accumulation of slight but useful variations, given to him by the hand
of Nature. But Natural Selection, we shall hereafter see, is a power
incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's
feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art." (Chapter
III, "Struggle for Existence.")
"No country can be named in which all the native inhabitants are now
so perfectly adapted to each other and to the physical conditions
under which they live, that none of them could be still better adapted
or improved; for in all countries, the natives have been so far
conquered by naturalised productions that they have allowed some
foreigners to take firm possession of the land. And as foreigners
have thus in every country beaten some of the natives, we may safely
conclude that the natives might have been modified with advantage, so
as to have better resisted the intruders." (Chapter IV, "Natural
Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.") No species is so
"perfectly" adapted that it can manage to resist intruders from other
lands, as the European Starling has invaded, and practically
conquered, North America, except for man's attempts to eradicate this
menace to crops.
"Thus I can understand how a flower and a bee might slowly become,
either simultaneously or one after the other, modified and adapted to
each other in the most perfect manner, by the continued preservation
of all the individuals which presented slight deviations of structure
mutually favourable to each other."
Darwin, however, has made another mistake common to his time: his
believe in slow and gradual modifications as against sudden and
perhaps calamitous ones. "And as modern geology has almost
banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single
diluvial wave, so will natural selection banish the belief of the
continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden
modification in their structure." However, in the 20th century such
antidiluvialism, which is a form of anti-catastrophism, has been
disproven through mere geological evidence. And by analogy, Darwin's
belief that there have only been gradual, and never sudden,
modifications may also be proven false. This, fortunately, does not in
itself disprove his theory, as geology was not disproven by the
eradication of anti-catastrophism which was supported against the
cataclysmic views often propounded by religious mythologists. In fact,
it has been found that the English Channel was carved out by an
enormous flood consisting of billions of gallons of water perhaps
450,000 years ago at the end of an Ice Age, thus resulting in the very
creation of a great underwater valley by a single diluvial wave which
Darwin denied could ever exist, so fervent was his disbelief in
"religious" nonsense comparable in his eyes to Noah's Flood. See, for
example:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/26/island_britain/
'A sonar probe of the bed of the English Channel has produced evidence
that Britain may have become an island is less than 24 hours, the
Daily Telegraph reports. The survey, led by Imperial College London's
Sanjeev Gupta, revealed the "remains of a huge valley, running
south-west from the Strait of Dover" plus "deep bowls, scour marks and
piles of rubble on the sea bed that may have been caused by a torrent
of water".'
So much for Darwin's antidiluvialism. But that is not enough to
disprove his belief that there are only gradual modifications of
characteristics, it only shows that his argument by analogy was false,
that his desire to "merge," as it were, antidiluvialism with his
theory of gradual modification was guided by some irreligious notions
held a priori to the evidence, that is, ad hoc.
--
" If I had remembered that the name 'Galt' appears
in one of her books, I would have chosen a different
name for my character."
Stephen R. Donaldson, "Gradual Interview"
