Criticizing neo-Darwinism

I'm still confused - Parasomnium was discussing a biological basis for evolution. He talked about heredity. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me. Neodarwinism is an explanation for biological change. How does 'appealing to biology' present a problem for a biological theory, surely that is precisely what it should do?My only conclusion is that we are using different meanings for neodarwinism. I take neodarwinism to another way of say 'the modern synthesis of the theory of evolution'. So what you are saying is you shouldn't have to appeal to biology to gloss over the weak points in your biological theory.It makes my head spin, no matter how hard I try to comprehend what you are trying to communicate.

I was going to bore you with mindless drivel - I've changed my mind so let me sum it up: I think I understand you. To pad this out, let's look what Dawkins and Gould have to say: sourceSource: The Blind WatchmakerI like Gould the most (but Dawkins is growing on me), so I'll let him have the last say here: That said, at this time I am more inclined to go with Dawkins' explanation, but I am currently reading his book so that might be why. I think Gould is upset that some respected evolutionists have said that his major contribution to evolutionary scientists is 'interesting but not as important as it has been made out.'

The same reason that you can be removed from jury service if you express that you believe the defendant did it before hearing the evidence. We don't accept faith in convicting criminals, we only accept conclusions drawn from evidence that are beyond reasonable doubt. We do this, because we have noted that it is the most reliable way of arriving at truths about the world.We can have faith that this system is the best one we have - but that faith is too founded in evidence: this same system of evidence has provided us with wonderful technology and consistent histories.Still, as Descartes pointed out: Everything has to be taken with some degree of faith other than 'I am'. Believing that my table exists external to my mind is a far cry from believing the tooth fairy exchanges children's baby teeth for cash. The table only relies on the assumptions that allow us to function on a daily basis (the world is real etc etc). Those same assumptions lead us to conclude natural history in the way we do.Having faith in the supernatural world requires additional faith since there is no testable evidence to lend it any credence. We can quite literally make anything we like up if it is a supernatural entity, so there is no telling what supernatural things are real and what are made up. Faith in the religious sense is arbitrarily picking some supernatural ideas up and rejecting others. It is this arbitrariness that makes it stand out from faith in the real world and conclusions drawn from it.We look at the evidence and there is only one solution that stands out. Evolution. If we include supernatural possibilities there could be as many different solutions as our imagination allows.Faith in the religious sense is basically a cultural tradition that has decided which supernatural entities to believe are real without any other reason than because our elders told us that this was so.Even with the evidence stacked against it: Allowing cultural tradition determine what is real and what is not in the supernatural has shown constant changes, as if cultural tradition was a rubbish way of deciding which supernatural entities are real.

You are almost right. Natural selection is a process which drives a population towards an evolutionarily stable state, where it then hovers in an equilibrium. However, if a part of that population moves into a different environment or if the environment changes (a new predator or volcanic island etc) then the fitness landscape for that sub-population will be different than the fitness landscape of the parent population. Therefore, the evolutionarily stable strategy for the sub-population differs from the parent population. Since natural selection drives a population towards the evolutionarily stable state (by trimming those extremities away), the sub population will evolve in a different 'direction' than the parent.Such processes occurring time and again lead to further and further divergence from the original equilibrium point.This is how punctuated equilibrium is essentially looked at - times when the fitness landscape remains largely constant outnumber the times when changes occur. Thus we see a history of mostly equilibrium punctuated by relatively shorter periods of change.It would be foolish to think fitness landscapes do not change - and every time one does natural selection will either trim the excesses away so that extinction occurs, or the survivors will be closer to the equilibrium as will their children (and the extremities here will be trimmed so the next generation either doesn't happen or is closer to the equilibrium).