Criticizing neo-Darwinism

I don't see problem with this extract. Might be atheist Nietzsche would agree too if he head been alive. You see - the quotation do not mentioned darwinism as explanation of evolution.

I quoted Friedrich Nietzsche and Nabokov who dismissed darwinism. Maybe these poets - to be ironic - did not underestand complicated dialectical "science" of neodarwinism with it's theories of sexaul selection, neutral drift or even that of neutral draft etc. But G.B.Shaw opinion of darwinism and especially of Natural selection seems to be of the same sort:

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...the Darwinian process may be described as a chapter of accidents. As such, it seems simple, because you do not at first realize all that involves. But when its whole significance dawns on you, your heart sinks into a heap of sand within you. There is a hideous fatalism about it, a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration, to such casually picturesque changes as an avalanche may make in landscape, or a railway accident in a human figure. To call this Natural Selection is a blasphemy, possible to many for whom Nature is nothing but a casual aggregation of inert and dead matter, but eternally impossible to the spirits and souls of the righteous. If it be no blasphemy, but a truth of science, then the stars of heaven, the showers and dew, the winter and summer, the fire and heat, the mountains and hills, may no longer be called to exalt the Lord with us by praise: their work is to modify all things by blindly starving and murdering everything that is not lucky enough to survive in the universal struggle for hogwash." (Shaw 1921, p. xliv-xlvi).

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Darwinists here explained diversification (adaptive radiation) of mammalian orders during Eocene because of empty niches after K/T period and extinction of dinosaurs due Yucatan catastrophe. They argued that when all emptied niches after dinosaurus extinction were re-occupied by suddenly evolved mammals no other mammalian order arose. I interpreted this fact observed first by Broom and Davison as slow down or end of evolutionary process.Yet according a research published in Nature 30.4.1998 this radiation occured before K/T period when dinosaurus obviously occupied all niches. I would like to know what interpretation of origin of mammalian orders before K/T period darwinists conceive in such a case. How would they explain that almost all mammalian orders arose in very distant past where no emptied niches were available. After that period no mammalian order arose.

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At least five lineages of placental mammals
arose more than 100 million years ago, and most of the modern
orders seem to have diversified before the Cretaceous/Tertiary
extinction of the dinosaurs.

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Amolecular timescale for vertebrate evolution
Sudhir Kumar & S. Blair Hedges
http://www.kumarlab.net/pdf_new/KumarHedges98.pdf------------This post would fit more on "is evolution of mammals finished" but the thread was closed. So I put it here.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

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Is there anything else totally obvious that you're having trouble understanding?

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You obviously didn't follow discussion of mammalian evolution. The point is that no mammalian order arose after Eocene - evolution is finished. Darwinists here tried to explain the curious phenomenon by adaptive radiation after K/T extinction of dinosaurus. Considering my previous post such radiation occured before K/T and consequently such explanation is probably only another darwinian fancy. Let me quote some of them: and this one is of interest - obviously reverse happened in reality: According the research I have given above there were no emptied niches when mammalian orders arouse. Quoting again Robert Broom about mammals:

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There were great varieties of evolution in the Orders that had appeared, but strangely enough Nature seemed incapable of forming any more new Orders.

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Probably you are wrong in this point either. In my introducing post I quoted and addressed the point of mammalian familes too (Eutheria btw). The best preserved fossils records John Day formation show this:

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The periodof 39 to 20 million years ago (John Day Forma-tion) seems to harbor the greatest diversity inknown fossils of families and genera. Current diversity of families and genera of the basin assess-ment area does not match that of this period...

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Qutation and other interesting graphs is at:

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http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr_410/pg069-79.pdf

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http://EvC Forum: Is evolution of mammals finished? -->EvC Forum: Is evolution of mammals finished?I addressed there also number of primate families, perissodactyls etc. - now we are witnessing only shadow of their former glory. Yet the issue is Mammalian Orders not Families. If the research is correct, no mammalin Order arose after long before K/T - strange enough Robert Broom's observation is subsequently more accurate - evolution seems to be over. Emptied niches has nothing to do with adaptive radiation of mammals.

I don't think so:

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The origin of most mammalian orders seems not to be tied to the filling of niches left vacant by dinosaurs, but is more likely to be related to events in Earth history 12.

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http://www.kumarlab.net/pdf_new/KumarHedges98.pdf

And yet it obviously doesn't mean that diversification was into newly available niches. Evolution is guided by some unknown internal forces and so emptied niches play no role in diversification. That no mammalian order arose more than 65 mil years (according the research) means that evolution is dramatically slowing down. It his hardly imaginable (if the reserach is correct) that after mass extinction of dinosaurs after K/T boundary there were no emptied niches. It was btw. the main argument of folks here why adative radiation of mammals occured. If you believe that there were enough emptied niches during dinosars dominion on the earth that mammals evolved into all nowadays known orders its your opinion.

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Once again you throw a sting of assertions into the mix with nothing to back them up.

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Anyway you cannot back your views. Is there any research about how "empty niche" caused a speciation? Was it really observed? Some experiments? I dont't think so - it is only claimed. It is only atheistic belief of extraordinary self-structuring properties of matter in "empty niche", nothing more. Never observed.You know mushrooms and butterflies became my favorite anti-darwinian examples of evolution. Maybe you wouldn't like the following example of strength of the Nature and life as out of topic. And yet micelium of fungi do not seek "emty niche" to create mushroom. Is there asphalt above? - doesn't matter. The mushroom break through asphalt.Maybe the same for evolution of mammals: isnt't there empty niche? Who cares - the new mammalian order will be created nevertheless. As prescribed or directed by other forces.Asphalt Penetrating Mushroom! photo - Richard Calmes photos at pbase.com

I am not sure this example elucidates process of origin of new Orders. As far as I can judge forams belong to one Order and what they observed was speciation within the Order.One of the best critic of darwinism on my opinion who summarized antidarwinian thoughts is John Davison and he did so in his Manifesto. He expressed also this interesting view elsewhere:

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It is perfectly possible that life originated as many times as there are Orders of animals and plants.

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It struck me many times when reading about new mammalian Orders that they arouse no one know how and why and no one know exactly from what ancestors. Darwinists anyway agree that mammalian Orders arouse "abruptly". They use "adaptive radiation" or Yucatan meteorite catastrophy & empty niches or some tectonic events or other hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. Maybe it would be better to reconsider it again, because maybe "missing link" never existed as John Davison claimed and mammalian Orders aroused de novo, call it miracle.Quotation of John Davison:

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There may have literally been tens of thousands of either origins or, more likely, that many front loadings of a lesser number of original creations. The origin of life was a miracle, and thousands of miracles are no more miraculous than one.

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Also the following abstract fully support notion that mammalian Orders arouse abruptly and no one know how and why:

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Modern orders of mammals that appeared abruptly on northern continents coincident with the global warming event marking the Paleocene-Eocene boundary are hypothesized to have originated on the Indian subcontinent, but no relevant paleontological information has been available to test this idea.

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Geology, vol. 31, Issue 12, p.1097 Publication Date: 12/2003

Neither you have the evidence that opposite happened. At least I have never heard about an experiment showing how ancient fish transformed by natural selection into homo sapiens. Yet that doesn't mean if somebody at those ancient time claimed that lightning arose via chance (random mutation) he had more scientific view, don't you think? The name of this forum is Evolution versus creation. So I don't see reason why not to discuss here exactly such issues. Btw. I am not convinced - as well as Karl Popper once - that darwinism is science.

But the reality is little different. It was Darwin's idea that evolutionary process is gradual. Fossil records should only prove the idea (like all mimics should have "survival advantage" in case of darwinian idea of mimicry. In darwinism there is always postulated first idea and reality should accomodate aftewards.). It is also not very correct that gaps in the fossil record were being filled. If it was correct than Eldredge and Gould wouldn't conceive "punctuated equilibrium" hypothesis. I take it for granted (from Gould's Pandas thumb book as well) that many new organisms showed up in geological columns abruptly. And never could be. Any hypotheticaly weird organism that would appear would fit into darwinian schema. See platypus. Have darwinists any problem with such curious creature? Not at all. If there are striking similarities between skulls of unrelated sabretooth species
in South America there is omnipotent explanation - Natural selection shaped it so. But obviously Natural selection has no problem endow hawk with sharp eyesight and bats with sonars. But according darwinism the common ancestor of homo sapiens and nowadays carp is an ancient fish, isn't it? My point is mainly that (neo)darwinism is wrong. That there is concept claiming that Natural selection is no way evolutionary force and that Natural selection as well as sexual selection only maintain status quo of extant species removing extremities.It is very bald assumption of darwinism that from some observation showing small changes (like change of beaks length in finches) we can extrapolate that homo sapiens evolved from ancient fish via similar changes. Edited by MartinV, : sabretooth added

I quoted this sentence becuase it reminded me that Bertrand Russel made a cute observation about approach to the animal behavior research by Germans and Americans. I dare say that his observation could be extrapolated to Evolution itself (instincts and mimicry evolved by "random mutation" discussed elsewhere is very good example) considering the fact that German evolutionary thinking after WWII waned and Universities influenced by long German influence adopted neodarwinism (with some prominent exceptions like Portmann, Schindewolf, Neubauer...)

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Bertrand Russell once observed that animal behaviorists studying the problem-solving abilities of chimpanzees consistently seemed to detect in their experimental subjects the "national characteristics" of the scientists themselves. A divergence in the findings of the practical-minded Americans and the theoretically inclined Germans was particularly apparent.

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Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible display of hustle and pep, and at last achieve the desired result by chance. Animals observed by Germans sit still and think, and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness.

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This "inner consciousness" reminds me so to "die Innerlichkeit" or "internal factors" that neodarwinism dismissed complelety. Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article how Oscar the Cat predicts death. The case is interesting, because if true the science is obviously unable to explain it. It is similar to migration etc. where the science is groping as well. Sheldrake supposes some unknown abilities in animals. According Sheldrake we all know about such things from our neigbourhood - at least we have heard about such cases, but the science doesn't pay attention to them.http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/328----I intented to send it at "Instincts - evolution or better answer?" but I put it here by mistake.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

Professor John Davison's Evolutionary manifesto 2002 is one of the best critique of neodarwinian concept of evolution. It's fine that professor Davison has opened a brand new blog now. Because professor Davison has been banned from all forums I hope there is no chance to silence him on internet now. His last blog was destroyed by an adversory who posted there the whole "Origin of species".Have a look if you like:Free Pages Personnelles: Erreur 500 - Erreur interne du serveur

fyiPaleontologist Vaclav Petr from Uni Prague has just published his Evolutionary dictionary:ERROR 404 - Not Found!There are several references to John Davison’s antidarwinian work and his original semi-meiotic hypothesis of evolution. The author is another scientist form Uni Prague who mentioned professor John Davison in his work. The first one was Jaroslav Flegr in his monography Evolutionary biology where he explained professor's John Davison theory of non-homology of germ cells in mammals.Forbidden! Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.