03.02.10

Lamarck, the real discovery of evolution

Posted in Evolution at 5:11 pm by nemo

In the last post we outlined a basic definition of evolution: a sequence of forms in deep time….
That basic perception is of the facts of the fossil record.
Theories are the source of the confusion.

In a way it was Lamarck who produced the basic outline of the correct theory, not Darwin. But that approach honestly invokes a nearly metaphysical ‘evolutionary driver’ process, the key to right explanation.
It is like the principle of sufficient reason: there has to be a ‘something’ that does ‘evolution’. Darwinism confuses us because it eliminates that ‘something’ and replaces it with random chance. And it is not clear at first that that is actually eliminating explanation.
Lamarck is now discredited because of his theory of adaptation. But that’s not what we are referring to.
Lamarck correctly saw that evolution comes in two processes or levels, the drive toward complexity, and the process of environmental adjustment (or adapation).
This distinction is crucial and it is significant that the man who really started the science of evolution made this distinction. The problem is that with the coming of scientism in the generation after Lamarck the first level or process, the drive toward complexity, was eliminated as metaphysical, and, as is so obvious in Darwinism, all you have left is adaptation. If you reduce the whole of evolution to that one level the confusion created will prove endless, as the Darwin debate suggests.
Lamarck thought in terms of science but worked in the generation before modern science or scientism/positivism, an advantage of clarity and at the expense of–well, scientism.
There is no science known as yet for his ‘drive toward complexity’, and we barely observe this second process. But it was brilliant that Lamarck, whatever you call them, posited two levels. It was brilliant.

We can see S.J. Gould struggling to reinvent Lamarck’s idea, because he sees that two levels are at work, but still can’t quite keep them separate, or free himself from natural selection (adaptation). But the idea of punctuated equilibrium, although still short of Lamarck’s formulation, begins to consider the possibility of two levels, macro, and micro. But Gould wasn’t able to free himself from Darwinism and his punctuated equilibrium idea is spoiled by being grafted onto Darwinism. Gould couldn’t stomach the near metaphysical idea of the ‘drive toward complexity’, evolutionary progress, and all that.

But the basic insight is emerging in his terminology which solved the problem that Gould proceeded to unsolve: there are two levels, macro and micro. The micro equilibrium is punctuated by the ‘evolver’ or drive toward complexity’, the macro. That’s not what Gould said, but he invented the right terminology–for Lamarck.
The problem is that we can’t easily separate the two, and are forever confusing macro and micro. But we can posit the macro as an abstraction, and consider the way that it tells us to separate equilibrium levels of adaptation from advancing processes.
Darwinists are so brainwashed to NOT take this approach, and the result is the hopeless muddle, and confused debate, that haunts the idiocy of Darwin’s reduction of Lamarck.
Small wonder that Butler spent so much time ridiculiing Darwin for his treatment of Lamarck.

Try this with the Cambrian: we can’t exactly detect the ‘macro’ punctuator, but we suspect its existence, since the probable implausibility of natural selection (the micro level) in this case is clear. We think that some macro factor is present.
This drive toward complexity suggests teleology, as we are threatened with metaphysical nosedive. Maybe, but who said there was science of evolution?
Lamarck suggests that the real process of evolution is not fully observable, or reducible to science. But unless we suspect its existence we will invent infernal theories like Darwin’s where natural selection becomes the Monster of Explanation that is false through and through, and violent, delusive and stupid ‘science’.

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