11.24.09
Booknotes: The Altenberg 16
The Darwin Day celebration needs a good reminder that the Darwin consensus is mostly for public victims of propaganda: there are plenty of Darwin critics in the science community. Suzan Mazur’s book on the Altenberg conference is finally coming out, with a lot of interesting material on the dissent within the bio community: The Altenberg 16: An Expose of the Evolution Industry (Paperback)
~ Suzan Mazur
Stephen P. Smith said,
November 24, 2009 at 11:00 pm
The Evidential Refutation of Darwinism
What does it mean that Darwin`s theory is provisional? It means that it is limited to a narrow domain of application (like plant and animal breeding), and we can point to things that Darwin`s theory can`t tell us. Darwin’s theory did not anticipate biological symbiosis. It did not explain the extreme convergences of a kind noted by Simon Conway Morris. It did not anticipate the fewness of our genes. It did not anticipate the Hox systems, and the extreme examples of cooption noted by the interactive complexity apparent in the genome. It did not anticipate the findings of epigenetics where DNA is found activated by environmental cues. Darwin’s theory anticipates little, it merely rationalizes itself after the fact of discovery. And therefore, such a theory cannot be used as a foundation for evolution.
The Ontological Refutation of Darwinism
Darwin’s theory assumes a friendly space-time fabric turned sample space and represented by Richard Dawkins’s bioform space (depicting genotypic and phenotypic morphology). In asserting that the fabric is a sample space the theory invents a hypothetical probability distribution function that represents “random variation.” Then this theory assumes a dynamic (responsive to biological change) and smooth (i.e., friendly to natural selection) fitness landscape. That is, Darwin’s theory comes with a precondition that natural selection can never explain, as this boundary is hardwired into the very fabric of space-time. And in deed, the boundary can be co-opted by an agency turning natural selection into artificial selection. And you see natural selection cannot explain the precondition or the agency that co-opts the space-time fabric. Darwin`s theory is found asserting a truth statement about the space-time fabric, but it is not a theory about space-time. Or stated another way: Randomness and selection are not context independent. Therefore, Darwin`s theory is provisional, and cannot serve as a framework for broad evolution.
The Metaphysical Refutation of Darwinism
Life is said to have an impetus to survive, but Darwin`s theory is found equivocating badly on this issue. In one sense this theory implies that the impetus is determined by genes that interact with the environment. Then only an indifferent process of selection and variation is said to determine the successful genes that are passed on to future generations. But life`s impetus is also intended to carry a struggle for survival, and this is a duplicity. In one case, the impetus is said to be genetically determined and otherwise indifferent, but in another case the impetus is said to be a struggle for survival and far from indifferent. The two meanings are unable to find agreement, and the only way to resolve this conflict is to return to the space-time fabric.
reece sullivan said,
November 26, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I’ve been reading “Morphic Resonance” by Sheldrake. He gives many examples of problems with (especially) neo-darwinism and also, of course, attempts to solve these problems. One of the more interesting involves regeneration. He uses the example of a newt’s eye whose lens has been removed surgically. The lens grows back, but from the eye’s iris (!). The book’s loaded with highly interesting examples of this nature . . . examples of traits being passed down through means other than genes.
At any rate, I think it belongs with other books that call into question the theory of evolution through natural selection. I think it – morphic resonance – can also coincide with biocentrism, as well.