Pesky Details: Essays for "Left Brain" Christians by Bob Knight Barsch
Chapter VII - Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection
Through the next thirty-six pages, Darwin discussed specific questions that cast doubts on this general theory of macroevolution. He did not organize the questions, comments, nor his answers under any topics. Possibly his lack of organization in this uncomfortable section reflected purposeful obfuscation? I will address some of the issues he wrestled with along with his comments in the order he wrote about them.
(1) A "distinguished German naturalist" objected that Darwin considered all organic beings as imperfect. Darwin countered that species "are not as perfect as they might have been" (Page 196). He said that if they were perfect then invading species would not be able to supplant them from their native habitats.
Critique
I discussed the lack of perfection at the end of the last chapter. I am not sure that predation by exotic rats, house cats, and red foxes on native Australian marsupials speaks to "imperfection" in the native species. If prey species were perfect, I suppose imperfect predators would vanish rapidly?
(2) If species represent an improvement from their ancestors, one would think that through time, each species would last longer than its predecessors. Darwin said that annual plants survive only a year but survive through their seed and that natural selection was responsible for that survival technique.
Critique
Darwin's answer was a diversion in this case. He never addressed the question of the longevity of a species, nor of the individual, theoretically living longer than its less adapted predecessor. Rather he said that some individual plants live only a year but perpetuate the species through their seed (Page 197).
(3) Why do so many species remain unchanged through the ages? Darwin believed that they remained unchanged because natural selection had brought them to high level of survivability.
Critique
The pattern of speciation is that species appear and disappear rapidly without transitional forms and that they do not change in morphology/structure over the life of the species. Thus, the Darwinian pattern must be that natural selection produced perfected species abruptly to the point that they, in their state of evolutionary perfection, remained unchanged...and then they mysteriously, abruptly disappeared? This is an example of the problem of trying to meld Darwin's speculations with the fossil evidence.
Darwin said that some primitive organisms that were simple persisted for a long time because they lived in simple environments where natural selection had little chance to improve them. Or, simple organisms were complex and had reached perfection in their evolutionary journey. They survived unchanged because they were primitive and simple, complex and perfectly evolved?
(4) "The celebrated paleontologist, Bronn, at the close of his German translation of this work, asks, how on the principle of natural selection, can a variety live side by side with the parent species" (page 197). Darwin said species that range over wide areas inhabit different habitats and the species changes in those different locations to better fit different living conditions. He believed that most species developed without isolation but through the evolution of varieties within the parent species range: "Moreover, in the case of animals which wander much about and cross freely, their varieties seem to be generally confined to distinct regions" (Page 197).
Critique
Contrary to the implications in his response to Bronn, Darwin insisted that the superior offspring virtually always replaced the inferior parent species. Darwin's evolutionary "tree of life" displayed opposite branching rather than alternate branching (Page 117). Alternately arranged limbs would have suggested that the parent species coexisted with the offspring species for long periods of time. In Darwin's model, the varieties or "incipient species" were continuously in the process of eliminating the parent species across its range in all habitat types without physical isolation.
By contrast, the fossil record confirms that "Animals that wander much about and cross freely" assure that a species remains morphologically unchanged throughout the life of the species. Thus, natural selection has shown little if any power to change established species. In contrast, a new and varied environment may offer opportunities for a founder species to rapidly produce new sister species to fill empty niches (living situations). See Epigenetic niche-match under Definitions/Notes at the end of this essay - a more reasonable hypothesis for speciation.
(5) Bronn also insisted that distinct species always differ in numerous characters, not just one part. How then did the many parts achieve modification at the same time through variation and natural selection?
As was his practice, Darwin referred to observations on the development of domestic varieties to respond to Bronn's inquiry. Breeds of dogs, for example, differ in their structure and potential behavior though we cannot trace the development of the characters of the different breeds. Darwin thought it important to note that such alterations occurred through slight changes over long periods of time. He also said that the different parts of the organism could take turns evolving:
...we should not see great and simultaneous changes, but first one part and then another slightly modified and improved" (Page 198).
Critique
Darwin's reference to microevolutionary changes within a species through domestication, fail to support his general theory of the macroevolution of all species from a common (1-celled) ancestor. We do observe, of course, that tall people, tend to have larger feet than short people and that small breeds of dogs are relatively small in all their characters. Thus, genetic linkage of characters is commonly observed. We can illustrate the importance of this genetic linkage in changing species through microevolutionary processes. For example, if we disposed of all large dogs and allowed only small dogs in the existing gene pool to reproduce, we would over a few years produce a population of small dogs. Selection for small dogs would illustrate a microevolutionary process but would still not answer Bronn's question as to how multiple characters evolve simultaneously and gradually in the Darwinian macroevolutionary model. Darwin suggested that the various organs and structures take turns evolving.
(6) Bronn noted "that many characters appear to be of no service whatever to their possessors, and therefore cannot have been influenced through natural selection" (page 198). Bronn suggested that the length of ears and tails in different species of hares and mice and folds of enamel in the teeth of many animals were examples of characters that serve no particular purpose.
Darwin provided several answers to Bronn's attack on natural selection. First, one should not assume that certain structures are of no use to a species. Secondly, a useless character may simply have been connected to the inheritance of a useful modification. Thirdly, the character may simply be the result of "spontaneous variations". Finally, unknown causes may "act persistently" until all the members of a species are modified (Page 199). Darwin considered the "spontaneous variations" and inheritable tag-along characters to reflect "the laws of growth," which meant that he believed such things happened repeatedly enough to be classified as a "law" of nature.
Darwin then proceeded to discuss examples of species that had variations with no apparent survival value and were therefore not the product of natural selection. One example was found in the sunflower type of plants that have compound flowers, each with ray flowers and disc flowers. There is no apparent reason for the same plant to produce flowers with different structures. He noted that "The acquisition of a useless part can hardly be said to raise an organism in the natural scale..." (Page 203). He considered the appearance of a useless modification to be a state of retrogression: "and so it must be with many parasitic and degraded animals" (Page 203).
Critique
The source of variation in a population is mutation. Mutations nearly always represent a diminishment or rearrangement of gene parts. Within the gene pools of species exist numerous hurtful and neutral mutations. Congenital diseases, the result of inherited mutations, range in severity from lethal to incon
Often, biologists formulate guesses as to the usefulness of a structure or behavior in a species without knowing. Darwin was aware of this problem and cautioned others not to jump to judgment:
...we ought, in the first place, to be extremely cautious in pretending to decide what structures now are, or have formerly been, of use to each species" (Pages 198-199).
At other times, to support his cause, Darwin often ignored his own advice and judged that various structures were of no use to the organism or had evolving uses. He readily classed such structures or organs as "rudimentary" or "incipient." "Rudimentary" organs and structures showed evolutionary linkage to ancestry that had required those organs and structures to survive. And, "incipient" organs/structures showed that the organism was evolving toward a new species. All this script evolved in light of Darwin's caution to others to refrain from judging the usefulness of certain organs/structures.
Darwin created a bit of a comic effect when he insisted that unknown causes may "act persistently" until all the members of a species are modified (Page 199). That is, "...we do not know the cause of change but if the unknown cause keeps changing the species, the species will change." Now that is something to write home about! Contemporary materialists commonly use the Latin "de novo" to skip over unknown processes. Latin sounds educated and thereby adds needed weight to comments on the unknown.
We see again Darwin founding "laws" of nature to "explain" his numerous inexplicable observations. He decided that "spontaneous variations" and inheritable tag-along characters should be placed into the "laws of growth." The placement of such observations into the class "law" readily eliminated all explanatory difficulties.
(7) A distinguished zoologist, Mr. St. George Mivart" stated that natural selection is incompetent to account for the incipient stages of useful structures" (pages 204-205). Darwin responded:
Mr. Mivart passes over the effects of the increased use and disuse of parts, which I have always maintained to be highly important..." (Page 204).
That is, Darwin believed that if a giraffe ancestor, for example, stretched its neck to feed in the tops of trees, that effort would produce a longer neck over time and the offspring of the animal would inherit longer necks. Darwin described this process as "the inherited effects of the increased use of parts" (Page 206). In like manner, complex structures and organs would diminish if the organism reduced the use of those parts. In Darwin's mind such processes fell under the "laws of growth" and therefore required no explanation. That is just the way nature operates.
Mivart also noted that the giraffe was a large animal and that during a drought, smaller body size that required less forage would be an advantage. Darwin suggested that the large body of the giraffe prevented predation except by lions and the long neck of the animal enabled it to watch for predators. He observed that "Sir S. Baker remarks, that no animal is more difficult to stalk than the giraffe" (Page 206).
Mivart then asked if natural selection were so potent, why had not other hoofed animals developed long necks like the giraffe. Darwin noted that in England the horses and cows browse the lower branches of shrubs heavily and that if sheep were there, there would be no advantage to the sheep to strain its neck and thereby lengthen it to acquire forage that is already taken. Darwin wondered why there were no large-bodied, hoofed animals with long giraffe-like necks in South America but he did not hazard a guess on that question:
...we cannot explain why, in many quarters of the world, hoofed quadrupeds have not acquired much elongated necks or other means for browsing on the higher branches of trees (Page 208).
Because of counter arguments by Mivart, Darwin conceded that conditions existed where natural selection had little power to change structures:
For instance, if the number of individuals existing in a country is determined chiefly through destruction by beasts of prey, - by external or internal parasites, etc., - as seems often to be the case, then natural selection will be able to do little, or will be greatly retarded, in modifying any particular structure for obtaining food ...Lastly, natural selection is a slow process, and the same favorable conditions must long endure in order that any marked effect should thus be produced (Pages 207-208).
Critique
Darwin's belief that animals' behaviors would change their structure and be inherited by their offspring was "Lamarckian". The Frenchman Lamarck believed that improvements acquired through behavior by an individual in its lifetime would pass on to the offspring.
Darwin said that predation could negate the power of natural selection. This belief may explain why Darwin largely ignored the roll of predation in formulating and explaining his theory of the gradual evolution of species through competition, variation, and natural selection. As a population biologist, I would distrust any model for evolution of species that largely ignored the effects of predation, parasitism, and disease.
I agree with Mivart that natural selection cannot explain the nascent development of complex organs or structures. Darwin suggested that if the giraffe stretches its neck to reach foliage, the body quite simply accommodates the needs of the individual by changing complex organs and structures. And, quite fortuitously, the offspring inherent the new complex changes.
(8) Unidentified persons asked Darwin why the ostrich did not gain the ability to fly and why bats and seals on islands without other mammal species did not evolve into terrestrial species. Darwin had ready answers for these questions. The ostrich did not gain the powers of flight because:
an enormous supply of food would be necessary to give to this bird of the desert force to move its huge body through the air.
The reason the seal did not give birth to new species of terrestrial mammals is that it would have to begin "hunting for food in shallow water, then in streams or lakes" to evolve toward terrestrial species. Islands do not provide those aquatic habitats that would be required for the seal to slowly change into new species. And, bats:
Bats might, indeed, like many birds, have had their wings greatly reduced in size, or completely lost, through disuse; but in this case it would be necessary that they should first have acquired the power of running quickly on the ground, by the aid of their hind legs alone, so as to compete with birds or other ground animals; and for such a change a bat seems singularly ill-fitted (Pages 208-209).
Critique
So much of what Darwin had to say was based on specious speculations. But wishing to address the argument rather than the author...I suppose one guess is about as good as another? The bat is ill-fitted to some changes? What happened to the power of species being so thoroughly plastic in their abilities to change?
(9) Why are some animal species more intelligent than others; for superior intelligence would be a benefit to all species? Darwin said that some races of savages are smarter than others and that he did not have a good explanation for the difference.
Critique
Darwin had no answer for the question. We do not know how Darwin measured the IQs of "races of savages".
(10) Mivart questioned the development of mimicry in insects. According to Darwin, "there is a constant tendency to indefinite variation" (Page 209). Mivart noted that with innumerable minute variations aimed randomly in all directions, the variations would tend to "neutralize" each other. How could such unstable minute modifications:
...ever build up a sufficiently appreciable resemblance to a leaf, bamboo, or other object, for Natural Selection to seize upon and perpetuate? (Page 209).
Darwin responded that the habitat offered unlimited objects for variable species to conform to in color and structure. Some insects already visually fade into some aspects of their habitats; therefore they have a head start on evolving mimicry. And, birds see a lot better than we do, so every smal
Critique
I hypothesize that rapid changes in the appearance of a species would alter its form enough to provide survival value. However, microscopic changes in the shape and/or color of an insect would not be noticeable to an insectivorous bird unless the evolutionary process continued in one direction over many millennia under the direction of some mysterious vital force. There are two formidable difficulties with the gradual appearance of noticeable changes toward the goal of mimicry: 1) random mutations occur about once every hundred million births and 2) random mutation is unable to make cumulative beneficial steps toward a goal (Behe 2014:68, 112- 113). I think Darwin would have to give up his theory on the gradual development of characters or his theory that evolution was an undirected random process in order to account for intricate, microscopic, nascent mimicry among species.
(11) Mivart also inquired about the evolution of baleen in species of whales. How did such structures arrive at a state of usefulness from minuscule beginnings that had no survival value? Darwin approached this problem by discussing the various bills extant in the duck family. Some ducks have bills for sifting mud and water to obtain food much like a whale uses its baleen to sift small food items from the ocean. Some duck species are well suited for this dabbling and sifting process and the bills of others, such as some species of geese, are more adept at grazing grasses. The merganser duck has small recurved "teeth" in its bill for catching fish, its main food source. Thus, the bill of the duck evolved different structures to accommodate the various food habits of the different species. In the same manner, all steps in the development of the baleen of the whale could have been beneficial to the incipient species of whales.
Critique
Mivart inquired as to how complex structures like the baleen in some species of whales developed when there was no particular selective value for minuscule, incipient beginnings of such structures. Darwin failed to address Mivart's question. Instead he changed the subject and merely pointed out that various species of ducks have specialized mouth parts for foraging. He just as well could have stayed with species of whales and said that different species of whales evolved different mouth parts for different methods of foraging. The basic question that Darwin failed to address concerned the process of evolving complex organs and structures from infinitesimally small beginnings, which have no apparent survival value.
Let us paraphrase Darwin's logic. Mivart asked how the beginning, infinitesimally small buddings of baleen helped evolving whales to forage for food. Darwin answered: "Some whales have teeth and some whales have baleen." End of argument.
Mivart's question addressed a conundrum inherent in Darwin's theory of the gradual development of complex structures and processes in organisms. Microbiologist Michael Behe (1998) addressed this problem of "irreducible complexities" of some organs and physiological processes in his book Darwin's Blackbox. In his book, Behe discussed, for example, the biochemical complexity of a bacterial flagellum and the blood clotting system. Because the flagellum cannot function without each of its forty parts, how did each incipient part get to its state of interaction with the other parts, as required for the structure to function, through separate actions of natural selection? Because the blood clotting system requires a cataract of interacting, complex processes to function, how did natural selection develop the complex functions required in each step and then organize them in time and space? The problem is that if the system as a whole, with each step properly functioning, does not work, the organism dies. And, the system offers no survival value unless it has all of its parts/steps in place. Had Darwin had an idea of how complex organs and organisms are at the molecular and cellular level, he likely would not have written the Origin.
(12) Mivart further questioned Darwin on the development of the flatfish (flounder). How did species developing into the flatfish benefit by the slow movement of the eye from one side of the head to the other? Darwin noted that the eyes of the baby flatfish are symmetrically located on each side of the head as in most other fish species. He said that the baby fish has a tendency to lie on one side and when it does, it looks up and strains the eye to move across the head. The head of the young flatfish is not hardened bone but is cartilaginous with less resistance. Thus, the use of the eye tends to enable it to move across the fish's head. Darwin believed that organisms could use the structures of their bodies and that use would transform the structure in a beneficial manner in concert with the desires and behavior of the individual. The offspring of the organism would inherit the favorable change caused by the actions of the parent. Darwin also noted that the bottom of the flatfish was white because of a lack of light and inferior because of the disuse of parts (Page 215).
Critique
Darwin answered Mivart's question on the evolution of the flatfish by referring to the development of the young flatfish. Again, Darwin failed to address Mivart's question as to how the evolving steps toward the structure of the flounder benefited the fish in each step. Instead, Darwin ignored the question and stated that when the fish tried to look up, the eye began to migrate across the head and the bottom side of the flounder regressed to a state of inferiority from disuse. Darwin failed to acknowledge the vitalism underpinning his Lamarckian views. Whatever happened in nature that was baffling or inexplicable simply fell into the gap of "law" - whether the hypothesized phenomenon occurred or not. Darwin basically said that "each step in the movement of the founder's eye benefited the fish because the head of the young founder is cartilaginous and relatively soft and the eye kept moving through the soft parts of the fish's head because the fish kept looking up." My paraphrase; Darwin's logic.
(13) In reference to the possession of prehensile tails by South American monkeys, Mivart noted:
It is impossible to believe that in any number of ages the first slight incipient tendency to grasp could preserve the lives of the individuals possessing it, or favour their chance of having and of rearing offspring (page 216).
Darwin commented on a species of mouse that structurally has no prehensile tail but still grasps limbs with it. Thus, the non-prehensile tail still had some value for balance in the limbs of a tree but not as much as a prehensile tail. African monkeys do not have prehensile tails but their tails help maintain balance when these animals leap from limb to limb.
Critique
All those back-and-forth explanations/guesses/hypotheses remind me of lawyers trying to create reasonable doubt in defense of a weak case. Provide some possible answer because the theory dies in the absence of possibilities provided in large part by the force of personality (presumed intelligence in this case).
(14) Mivart questioned Darwin on the evolution of the mammary system in mammals:
Is it conceivable that the young of any animal was ever saved from destruction by accidentally sucking a drop of scarcely nutritious fluid from an accidentally hypertrophied cutaneous gland of its mother? And even if one was so, what chance was there of the perpetuation of such a variation? (Page 216).
Darwin responded that mammals descended from a marsupial that had already developed mammary glands within the marsupial sack. Even further back in time, the fish (Hippocampus/seahorse) developed a pouch where the eggs hatch and the young are retained for a period of time. Darwin further cited an observation of these fish by an American naturalist, Mr. Lockwood, who believed that the young fish are nourished by a secretion from cutaneous glands in the sack. Thus it is easily conceivable that more advanced species would develop the mammary system. Darwin said that some of the cutaneous glands in the sack would over time form breasts owing to the "principle of specialisation". He did not know if such specialization of the skin glands would occur because of "compensation of growth, the effects of use, or of natural selection" (Page 217).
Critique
Darwin did not address Mivart's specific question on how the incipient mammary system initially developed. Rather, Darwin referred to a questionable observation by a c
Darwin's diversion from Mivart's basic question equates well with the thought processes of modern Darwinists who ignore the improbabilities of chance (1 in 1077) producing a single functional protein of modest length (150 amino acids) but insist that random chance can produce new genetic information and new body plans by the fortuitous mixing of mutated, extant genes stored in "junk" DNA (Meyer 2013: 185-204).
Behe (2014:153-154) calculated the probabilities of three proteins randomly joining together to form a new multiprotein structure. Such a process would require the formation of two new protein binding sites through random mutation. Because studies of the malaria parasite reveal no new protein binding sites in the production of 1020 malaria cells, it is reasonable to conclude that it would take a minimum 1040 cells by random mutation to produce the two coordinated binding sites required to make a new three-protein structure. Of interest, Behe (2014) noted that 1040 is the estimated total number of cells that have existed in the history of the planet.
Thus, producing a new three-protein structure is beyond the reasonable capability of random mutation. Given these improbabilities, one wonders how the cilium (the tail of some 1-celled organisms), which is made of hundreds of protein structures, evolved without intelligent intervention/programming.
(15) This discussion addressed the origin of the organs called pedicellariae in sea urchins and star fish. The pedicellariae are the small pincer like structures that starfish and sea urchins have for cleaning and for the capture of minute prey. Of these structures, Mivart asked:
What would be the utility of the first rudimentary beginnings of such structures, and how could such incipient buddings have ever preserved the life of a single Echinus? (Pages 218-219).
Darwin argued that these structures evolved "from simple granules to ordinary spines, to perfect tridactyle pedicellariae" (Page 219). He further stated that these gradations/steps currently exist in different species in the starfish family Echnodermata and sometimes in the individuals of this family. Furthermore, each gradation of ordinary spine to perfect tridactyle pedicellaria was important to the survival of each intermediate. In other words, each step in evolution of the pedicellaria from the first budding spine was beneficial to early starfish and sea urchins.
Critique
Darwin assumed that the pedicellariae developed from spines. In regard to such developments, if true, Meyer (2009:534) stated:
... proteins represent the smallest functionally significant (and selectable) step in evolution. And building new proteins requires new genetic information.
What could be the source of the information required to switch incipient spines at the DNA level into pedicellariae? The development of complex information is commonly associated with intelligent programming.
Darwin noted that the spines and pedicellariae and all steps in between provided survival value. He also believed that "primitive" and "advanced" gradations in the same individual showed the evolution of the specialized claw in the lobster. But if each structure in the same individual had a vital function, why were some structures classified as "primitive" and others as "superior" on the scale of evolution? I suppose it was part of the script needed to support Darwin's vision of macroevolution. A similar line of thinking would lead one to conclude that the fingers of the human hand were all evolutionary steps toward perfection illustrated in the development of the opposable thumb. But what is the
reproductive advantage of having five thumbs?
Darwin noted:
...natural selection is incompetent to account for incipient stages of useful structures" (Page 226)
And he urged others to be cautious in their judgments about the usefulness of small developing or devolving organs:
...we ought in the first place, to be extremely cautious in pretending to decide what structures now are, or have formerly been of use to each species" (Pages 190-199).
However, Darwin was apparently one of those rare individuals who was qualified to make such judgments on a regular basis, depending on the needs of his script. In the case of the evolution of pedicellariae in starfish and sea urchins (Page 220), for example, Darwin said that "...every gradation, from an ordinary fixed spine to a fixed pedicellaria, would be of service."
Thus, "rudimentary" organs of no known use to the organism resulted from the disuse of parts and showed evolutionary linkage to ancestral forms and "incipient" buds were always useful and showed the evolution of a new species. Only Darwin could tell if his script required an organ to be rudimentary and useless or incipiently useful. He therefore threw caution to the wind and failed to take his own advice in his search for supporting evidence.
As noted under item (14) Critique above, providing two new binding sites required for making a new three-protein structure is beyond the ability of random mutation. Also, random mutation has no coherent path aimed at any goal; so, the possibility any add-on protein structures to an existing protein structure, produced in a step-wise fashion, are obviously well beyond the pale of probability and reason (Behe 2014:112-122). Thus, a series of beneficial mutations to improve the benefits of a diminishing gene mutation or to improve on a new protein structure through random mutation are improbable to level of the miraculous.
(16) Mivart asked how natural selection derived similar pincer structures in starfish and in bryozoans, widely separated classes of animals in different phyla. Darwin conceded that he nor his colleagues knew the origin of the pincer structures developed in bryozoans "but it by no means follows from this that such gradations have not existed" (Page 221). However, he did note that in the case of crustaceans (crayfish and lobsters), the appendages on the individual animal show gradations to the development of the claw of the lobster. Darwin continued his discussion of the development of pincer structure in different species of Bryozora. Developed, poorly developed, and modified "pincers" appear on the same individual and often differ between species, illustrating the gradations in evolution of the pincer structure.
Critique
I suggest that the appendages of the lobster do not show the evolutionary steps in the development of the pincer any more than the toes on a person's foot illustrate the evolution of the "more perfect," Darwin's phraseology that would apply to the big toe in a human. Comparison of "primitive" and "advanced" structures among species to illustrate the stages of evolutionary development is also questionable, particularly among living, successful species. If a species is abundant, we would have to assume that its organs are "perfected" by natural selection and beneficial though comparatively "primitive" on the evolutionary scale. To be repetitive in concert with Darwin's redundancy, I believe that by comparing the "advanced" and "primitive" structures of bryozoan species, all Darwin could safely say was that existing, successful species are adapted to different living conditions. His classification of organs as "primitive" and "perfected" or "advanced" were so designated to support his theory of gradual evolution. These classifications were not based on complexity nor functionality of structures (see Critique under Item 15 above).
(17) Mivart in reference to the flowers of orchids and the movements of climbing plants, stated:
...the explanation of their origin is deemed thoroughly unsatisfactory - utterly insufficient to explain the incipient infinitesimal beginnings of structures which are of utility only when they are considerably developed (Pag
Darwin again compared organs in existing species to illustrate the "primitive" beginnings of plant parts and behaviors that could account for the gradual development of the various processes of pollination in members of the orchid family and of the climbing ability of different species of vines. Darwin stated that "the inquiry may be pushed further backwards" to address the origin of parts of organs, to the point that:
it is as useless to ask, as it is hopeless to attempt answering, such questions...for...natural selection is incompetent to account for the incipient stages of useful structures..." (Page 226).
Darwin believed that climbing plants, for example, initially acquired their ability to climb because of "inherited effects of use" and "by habit" (Page 226). That is, plants pass on to their offspring their behavior acquired through the individual plant repeatedly seeking to use different parts of its environment... vitalistic Lamarckian concepts. That is, a plant "wants" to climb and so some mysterious "law of nature" provides the precise, heritable biological information required for the production and operation of modified and new protein structures needed for the task.
Critique
I concur with Darwin that "...natural selection is incompetent to account for the incipient stages of useful structures..." (Page 226). All we know is that at the molecular and cellular level, the functions and structures of organisms are complex. Any student or specialist or synthesizer must depend on philosophical and/or theological beliefs to produce humble hypotheses as to the origin of those complexities. See Behe (1996) for detailed discussions of what he called "irreducible complexities" and Meyer (2009, 2013) for the source of complex information systems in the cell and Behe (2014) for information on the powers and limits of random mutation.
In this section, Darwin was caught between the need to show that "primitive" organs were useful and had survival value in their nascent states of development and the need to illustrate that rudimentary organs were of low or no use, showing that the same organs evolved from a more primitive ancestor. Thus, the "incipient" or "rudimentary" organs had to be useful in one instance and useless/obsolete in another to support his general theory.
Darwin repeated his speculation on the development of the giraffe's long neck, imitations of objects by insects, the lamellae in waterfowl, the lamellae of whalebone, the migration of the lower eye in the flounder, the mammary system in mammals, the pedicellariae in starfish, structures for pollination in orchids, and twinning in vines (Pages 226-227). He said that the various parts of the giraffe such as the elongated neck and legs derived from a process of:
...prolonged use of all parts together with inheritance ...aided in an important manner in their co-ordination" (Page 226).
That is, when the giraffe stretched its neck to reach forage, the continual stretching elongated the neck and legs and other parts of the body in a coordinated fashion and the animal passed the change in body shape to its offspring.
Concerning imitation of objects by insects, the whole process began with an "accidental resemblance to some common object..." (Page 226). Supposedly, the early insect did not look like the object but over time began to accidentally look like the object a little bit at a time over a great expanse of time. Maybe the insect started looking like its surroundings because, in Lamarckian fashion, it wanted to?
Darwin repeated his belief in the Lamarckian, vitalistic process of plants and animals mysteriously acquiring new, heritable characters simply through use of their environments. Such events filtered through Darwin's philosophical materialism were not vitalistic but fell into the simplistic vacuum of "law" and therefore required no further explanation. It is interesting that Darwin never questioned the origins or mechanisms behind his classifications of natural "principles," "rules," and "laws". He failed to provide any mathematical representations/formulas or other explanations to support or explain these claims of mechanism.
I would consider an insect's incipient, accidental mimic of an object to be a fortuitous saltation. Darwin considered such an accident to represent a gradual, continual step-wise series of innumerable lucky accidents prior to the engagement of natural selection. Only a specific philosophical worldview could determine that such evolutionary steps were slowly developed over enormous spans of time by natural selection acting on randomly acquired variation. As noted above, mutation occurs on average one time in one hundred million births (Behe 2014:68, 113) and the laws of probability would not allow those changes that were incipient and required multiple cumulative mutations to achieve a stage of selective value. Random gene mutation, which represents a diminishment of function, has no goals.
(18) Mivart:
It has often been asked, if natural selection be so potent, why has not this or that structure been gained by certain species, to which it would apparently have been advantageous (Page 227)?
Darwin answered that "it is unreasonable to expect a precise answer to such questions"... (Page 227) because we have no information on the evolutionary history of species. Darwin stated that the reason some species do not have the beneficial structures that would enhance their survival is because evolution requires "many coordinated modifications". He noted that possibly "the requisite parts did not vary in the right manner or to the right degree". Also, "destructive agencies" (predation and disease) (Page 228) can prevent the work of natural selection by decimating populations. And, if living conditions do not persist for long periods of time, natural selection will not have the time required to act on and solidify/fix variations in the population.
Critique
The argument above illustrates the power of a tautological theory to prove itself. However, Darwin did not argue from the point that the survival of species shows that the poorly adapted species are not well adapted to survive. Instead, he blamed predation and disease, rapid weather/habitat changes, and the limited ability of species to change their organs, structures, and behaviors in complicated "coordinated" ways...to explain why, given the potency of natural selection, some species do not possess more beneficial body parts. Of course, the immutable morphologies/bone structures of species over the lives of the species, as reflected in the fossil record, conflicted with Darwin's concept, held in previous arguments, that species were thoroughly plastic and completely open to alteration.
(19) Mr. Mivart believed that "an internal force or tendency" was behind the creation of new species (See Epigenetic niche-match in Citations/Notes at the end of this essay). Mivart also said that new species appear rapidly. Darwin vehemently opposed both views. He stated that there is "no need, as it seems to me, to invoke any internal force beyond the tendency to ordinary variability" (Lamarckian evolution) (Page 228) in concert with the powers of natural selection to explain the process of evolution. Secondly, he was appalled that Mivart believed birds, bats, and pterodactyls (flying reptiles) appeared suddenly in the fossil record:
This conclusion, which implies great breaks or discontinuity in the series, appears to me improbable in the highest degree (Page 229).
Darwin insisted that abrupt variations appeared in domestic species because domestic species are more variable. Also, he noted that the "abrupt variations" that appear in domestic species actually represent characters that reappear from the past, characters that developed through gradual processes. He observed that such abrupt "reappearances" constitute doubtful species. Here, contrary to all his previous references to the production of domestic varieties as incipient species, Darwin recognized the process of rapid microevolution acting within the genetic limits of species.
The reason that abrupt variations in domestic species do not last in nature, according to Darwin, is because so few appear and then the individuals are lost to "accidental causes of destruction" (Page 229) or by inbreeding. He chaffed at the highly improbable idea that "several wonderfully changed individuals appeared simultaneously in the same district" (Page 229) in order to breed and create a new species.
At this point in the debate, Darwin repeated some of his arg
Darwin also repeated his observations that the homologous parts (example, the wings of bats and hands of humans) of allied species show gradation from the primitive to the more advanced. That is, for example, that the foot of chimpanzee is not as adapted for upright walking as the foot of a man.
In addition, species could not have been created (God did not do it) and were obviously evolved from one another because genera characters are less variable than the characters of the species. Darwin believed that only evolution could account for this observation and for the fact that:
species...in the larger genera are more closely related to each other and present a greater number of varieties than do the species in the smaller genera (Page 230).
Then, surprisingly, Darwin out of context recanted that some (species) have developed in an "abrupt manner" (Page 230). He then preceded to argue against himself, stating that the reason abrupt changes appear in the fossil record is because the record is "fragmentary" (Page 231).
He then made his argument on the evolutionary relatedness of organisms with an appeal to embryology, stating that there was no evidence of abrupt transformations in the study of embryological development:
It is notorious that the wings of birds and bats, and the legs of horses or other quadrupeds, are undistinguishable at the early embryonic period, and that they become differentiated by insensibly fine steps... and...existing species during the early stages of their development so often resemble ancient and extinct forms belonging to the same class (Page 231).
Darwin continued to plead his case against the rapid appearance of species:
He who believes that some ancient form was transformed suddenly through an internal force of tendency into, for instance, one furnished with wings, will be almost compelled to assume, in opposition to all analogy, that many individuals varied simultaneously...He will further be compelled to believe that many structures beautifully adapted to all the other parts of the same creature and to the surrounding conditions, have been suddenly produced; and of such complex and wonderful co-adaptations, he will not be able to assign a shadow of an explanation (Pages 231-231)...To admit all this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms of miracle... (Page 232).
Critique
Darwin condemned Mivart's view of some vital force guiding the appearance of variation in the species. Oddly enough, and as stated above, Darwin believed that one of the "laws" that created variation in a species was what he called "habit". If an animal or plant changed its behavior, that change mysteriously created differences in the body of the organism and the changes passed on to the offspring. The only difference between Mivart and Darwin was that the latter thought of the process of change as a materialistic "law" and the former classified the process as an inexplicable mystery. Darwin was quick to fill in the gaps of information with the concept of "law". He was incorrect and Mivart was correct about there being no known predecessors of winged bats and flying reptiles. The fossil record continues to support the abrupt appearance of those volant animals.
Darwin had a problem explaining "abrupt variations" appearing in domestic species. Such changes, he insisted, developed gradually in wild species and then reappeared in domestic species. Furthermore, such changes did not produce new species but simply represented inherent variation existing within the species. Here Darwin's insistence on the gradual development of species characters conflicted with his observations of the abrupt appearance of variation in domestic plants and animals. He was forced to conclude that these abrupt changes, which he formally said showed varieties to be incipient species, were within the boundaries of the species' existing inheritance (microevolution within the species gene pool). To support gradualism, Darwin was forced to believe that the numerous characters accounting for the Great Dane and the Chihuahua breeds of dogs developed slowly among wolf populations in the wild and simply reappeared under the selective pressures of domestication. He was caught once again in self-contradiction.
Darwin's belief that species come from species seems logical. We see similarities in anatomy among species that have much in common. However, the rapid appearance of complex structures such as the bat's wing makes us wonder how such a complex structure developed rapidly from a wingless ancestor in a Darwinian gradualist manner. Also, a lot of genetic information is required to change a hand into a wing. How did that vast amount of DNA information evolve ever so slowly by random chance or physicochemical necessity? Too, the abrupt appearance of 12 of 18 extant phyla in the Cambrian without known predecessors, provides no support at that point in time for common descent.
To further illustrate the connectedness of species, Darwin said that the generic characters are less variable than the characters of the species. However, that result is simply an artifact of the classification system. If the generic characters were variable, the species would not be in the same genus. Taxonomists place different species in the same genus based on common anatomical characters; thus, the "genus" is an abstract category of similarities among species. The genus is not an organism. Species of the same "genus" vary little in those characters they are classed as having in common. Of course.
Darwin stated that evidence of the numerous intermediate forms was lacking because the fossil record was "fragmentary" (Page 231). However, today paleontologists and evolutionary biologists agree that evidence for Darwinian gradualism is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record.
In concert with the fossil evidence, Eldredge and Gould (1972) conceived the theoretical model "punctuated equilibrium." Their "model" merely described what the fossil record shows: species appear abruptly and remain unchanged in their bone structures for the life of the species and then they disappear abruptly. As far as evolutionary process is concerned, these two authors theorized that species in genetic isolation evolve rapidly on the borders of a parent species' range. Eldredge and Gould speculated about the process in isolation that produces new species and whole new body plans. It seems the members of the isolated population retain mutations previously stored by the parent population in the non-protein coding portions of DNA," the so called "nonfunctional" regions of the DNA.
Ironically, recent research has shown that 80% of the "genome performs significant biological functions, dispatching the widely held view that the human genome is mostly 'Junk DNA'" (Meyer 2013:400). One would expect "junk DNA" to comprise most of the genome if it evolved through random gene mutations, the hallmark mechanism of neo-Darwinism.
Nevertheless, neo-Darwinism speculates that new genetic information arises in the daughter population from a random shuffling of mutated, duplicated genes in those nonfunctional regions of the DNA. And, subsequently new traits rapidly arise through inbreeding in a relatively small population. This hypothesized process of speciation Eldredge and Gould called "allopatric speciation." For detailed and formidable critiques of the creation of new genetic information through random mechanisms as envisioned by neo-Darwinists, see Meyer (2013:185-254), Behe and Snoke (2004), and Behe (2014).
Gould believed that the offspring species would compete with and replace the parent species or inferior sister species with the removal of barriers in the landscape. Thus, "survival of the fittest" applied to competition among species, not competition among individuals within a species. "Punctuated equilibrium" was a picture of the fossil record. "Allopatric speciation" was a hypothesis aimed at explaining discontinuances in that record. For a critical overview of these concepts see Meyer (2013: 136-152).
Prothero and Heaton (1996) provided examples of "punctuated equilibrium" in their White River Studies in South Dakota. They found that species of hoofed animals had a species life or around 1.5 milli
Embryological studies have confirmed that Darwin's use of embryology to show the relatedness of animal classes was invalid. This is correct because the organs and structures of developing birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals that resemble each other in their various embryonic and adult stages usually have different genetic and locational origins (Denton 1986:142-156 and Johnson 1991:72-73). The assembly process and origin of organs and tissues among the classes varies too much to support the recapitulation of evolution in the various processes of embryogenesis. I will provide additional explanations and citations later in this paper when I respond to Darwin's repeated misuse of embryology to support gradualism.
In contrast to the neo-Darwinian claim for the production of variation through gene mutation, that mechanism fails to explain many differences among different classes of organisms. For example, the eyes of mice, octopuses, and fruit flies derive from the same or similar gene. In fact, the gene is:
so similar that you can put the mouse gene into a fruit fly that's missing that gene and you can get the fruit fly to develop its eyes as it normally would (Strobel 2004: 54).
The expression of the gene and development of the eye depends on a top-down regulatory system mysteriously housed in the context of the organism. Epigenetic (beyond gene) information of unknown origin rather than gene mutation explains the production of a fruit fly eye from the eye gene of a mouse. This observation is a problem for the neo-Darwinian hypothesis that random mutation of genes housed in "Junk DNA," those that regulate body-plan construction, can explain the creation of new, functional genetic information (Meyer 2013: 185-279).
Ironically, Darwin observed the complicated and rapid process of embryogenesis and noted:
...it is incredible that an animal ...should not bear even a trace in its embryonic condition of any sudden modification; every detail in its structure being developed by insensibly fine steps (Page 231).
I suppose Darwin believed that the development of a single undifferentiated cell, the fertilized egg, into a human being in a period of nine months provided a good picture of the gradual step-wise development required by his vision of the evolution of all organisms from a common (1-celled) ancestor? Rather, it appears to me that the 9-month development of a human from a single undifferentiated cell illustrates a constant stream of programmed and highly complex, and definitely abrupt changes. But then, Darwin saw only what he wanted to see.
At the end of this chapter in the Origin, Darwin addressed his problem with any process that provided for the rapid appearance of species. He insisted that rapid speciation by "an inguinal force or tendency" (Page 231) was not possible. Complex structures such as wings and the accommodating cooperative structure changes needed for flight could not possibly appear abruptly through natural causes. And how would several individuals with the same incredibly complex modifications appear at the same time for breeding purposes? In other words:
...these great and sudden transformations have left no trace of their action on the embryo. To admit all this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms of miracle, and to leave those of Science (Page 232).
Like most philosophical materialists, Darwin was a practical and not a logical determinist. Taken to its logical limit, materialism does not leave room for free will and logical conclusions. Rather than the discipline of logic, it is the physiology of the materialist, according to his/her own philosophy, that fully determines all of his/her thoughts and responses. The logic that enables us to do science depends on the existence of mind, ideas and information, and the mysterious exercise of will and judgment, all of which the materialist must by philosophical necessity assume to be forced illusions.