08.19.08
Darwinism and the limits of observation
A selection from World History And The Eonic Effect: Amazon ready
The Limits of Observation
The debate over natural selection has gone on too long. Darwinists should have long since confessed the metaphysical speculation and methodological abuse of right science latent in Darwin’s theory. We need to be finished with the matter by demanding proper proof. It is an issue of science, not religion. Where did Darwin go wrong? Darwin’s theory is a provocative generalization applied to immense vistas of time that are unobserved. Those unobserved intervals in deep time can fool us badly. We can exit the chronic debate by simply demanding proper evidence. The demand for evidence of the fact of evolution is far less stringent than that for natural selection. Demonstration that the latter is the key to all forms of higher complex structure has never been demonstrated scientifically. The task is exceedingly difficult, for starters. The difficulty may preempt easy hopes for a theory of evolution. One way to see the problem with claims for natural selection is to look at history, and we will proceed to an examination of non-random evolution in the dynamics of historical emergence.
The hurricane argument Consider a hurricane, a very brief event by comparison, as a global ‘system evolution’ on the surface of a planet. We know a hurricane when we see one, but its dynamics, mechanism, and full progression require incremental ‘closing’ on degrees of evidence and observation, a task not fully accomplished until the advent of satellites able to map global coordinates. In the same way we know evolution when we see it, roughly speaking, given the fossil evidence, but its dynamics, mechanism and full progression require incremental ‘closing’ on degrees of evidence and observation, a task not fully accomplished. Note the analogy suggests global positioning satellites over the entire planet over millions of years, to observe drifting species and their changes. Suppose an observer in outer space only had loosely sampled data on pre-Neolithic man, and post-twentieth century man, and then conjectured that some mutation caused this dramatic change.
This analogy shows at once where Darwinism departs from scientific practice. Historians routinely assume they must close on the facts in such an analysis, yet Darwinists wish to claim exemption. We have no fully observed datasets in Darwinian deep time. It is an insidious trap.
In all the noise of the Darwin debate, this judgment is final, and it is important therefore to grasp that no one is under any evidentiary obligation to take Darwinian selectionism as established scientifically, surprising as some may find that. We put it that way because we can’t refute Darwinists in their provocative claims that routinely ignore the basic objection. The question is very simple: were there any witnesses to the facts claimed? No. We are done. If we find evidence of ‘evolution’ in history, Darwinian claims are void as counterevidence.