Request for Review & Approval - FAQ on Julian Huxley "Quote"
catshark
It has been suggested that the following demonstration by Ed Babinski (who
has other articles in the Archives) of creationist quote mining should be
made a part of the Archives. I'm posting this on his behalf and will
convey to him any objections/suggestions for changes/etc.
======================================================================
Lies Creationists Tell: The Julian Huxley Lie
by Edward T. Babinski (Aug. 11, 2004 revision)
THE JULIAN HUXLEY LIE
"Sir Julian Huxley, one of the world's leading evolutionists, head of
UNESCO, descendant of Thomas Huxley -- Darwin's bulldog -- said on a talk
show, 'I suppose the reason we leaped at The Origin of Species was because
the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.' (Henry M. Morris, The
Troubled Waters of Evolution, Creation-Life Publishers, 1974, p. 58)."
-- D. James Kennedy, Why I Believe, originally published 1980 (revised in
1999)
COMMENT: The reference that Kennedy pointed to in Morris' book does not
refer to "Julian" at all, but instead refers to his grandfather, "Thomas
Henry Huxley," and it has nothing to do with "sexual mores," for it states,
"He [Thomas Henry Huxley] had a work to do in England, a messianic purpose,
and he dedicated to that purpose his tireless energy and his vast resources
of knowledge and ability. And he did attain the success his heart desired,
for Huxley was recognized as a prophet in his own country."
[Scientific Monthly, April, 1957, p.172 in an article on "Thomas Henry
Huxley" by Charles S. Blinderman]
---------------------
SEEKING THE SOURCE OF THE "JULIAN HUXLEY" QUOTATION
Kennedy's organization, "Creation Studies" (ma...@creationstudies.org),
could not tell me which talk show, nor what year Julian Huxley uttered the
quotation above. Instead, they piled lie upon lie and told me:
"That is not a lone opinion. Aldous Huxley, one of the great agnostic
evolutionists of the twentieth century, said the same thing. He believed in
the meaninglessness of the world, which Darwin taught, because, he said,
'We objected to morality, because it interfered with our sexual freedom.'"
"I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently
assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying
reasons for this assumption . The philosopher who finds no meaning in the
world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he
is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally
should not do as he wants to do... For myself, as no doubt for most of my
contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an
instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously
liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from
a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it
interfered with our sexual freedom."
-- Aldous Huxley, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist," Report: Perspective
on the News, Vol. 3, June, 1966, p.19. [Grandson of evolutionist Thomas
Huxley, Aldous Huxley was one of the most influential writers and
philosophers of the 20th century.]
---------------------
THE INADEQUACY OF THE REPLY ABOVE
Not only did "Creation Studies" fail to substantiate what the name of the
alleged "talk show" was, nor the year it aired, but they added the lie that
"Aldous Huxley said the same thing." (He did not say "the same thing," far
from it, as I shall show below, based on reading the Aldous Huxley
quotation in context.)
---------------------
A SUBSTANTIATED REMARK FROM JULIAN HUXLEY ON THE REASON WHY DARWIN'S THEORY
GAINED GROUND
Julian Huxley wrote and spoke a lot about the reasons why Darwin's theory
gained ground in its day, but is never recorded as saying that people
"leapt at Darwin's theory," rather, it took twenty years before it gained
widespread approval among scientists. Furthermore, Julian Huxley explained
the reason for the success of Darwin's theory in words that are fully
substantiated in numerous places in his writings, and he never once
mentioned "sexual mores." Below is part of a transcript of a TV interview
with Julian Huxley that Dr. Kennedy apparently missed:
JULIAN HUXLEY: The theory of evolution was in the air... Asa Gray had got
halfway; Lyell, a third of the way. It would have been formulated well
before the end of the 1800s even if Darwin had died. [Alfred Russel Wallace
arrived at nearly identical conclusions to Darwin and they presented their
paper jointly to the Royal Society. -- E.T.B.] But it would not have
happened in the same decisive way [not without Darwin]. Darwin not only had
this brilliant inspiration of natural selection but also collected a great
volume of facts to buttress the idea of 'transformation' -- which was what
evolution was then generally called. [Keep in mind that back then, many
scientists continued to resist the idea that a single species, any species,
might "tranform" into a near identical species with uniquely different
habits or diets. Tough crowd I'd say. -- E.T.B.] And Darwin did what
Wallace did not even try to do until much later: he deduced many
consequences from the principle of natural selection, which you can still
read with profit today...
DARWIN [actor playing the role]: But the majority of scientists took twenty
years after the book appeared before they accepted evolution...
HUXLEY: But the people who mattered did accept it immediately.
-- Julian Huxley, "'At Random': A Television Preview" (transcript of a TV
show aired on WBBM-TV, CBS, Chicago, on the evening of Nov. 21, 1959, just
prior to Darwin's Centennial Celebration, where Julian was the key
speaker), published in Issues in Evolution, Vol. III: The University of
Chicago Centennial Discussions (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 63
---------------------
JULIAN HUXLEY'S PERSONAL "SEXUAL MORES"
And speaking of Julian's personal "sexual mores," admittedly they were not
perfect, but they functioned well enough to enable him to enjoy his Golden
Wedding anniversary:
"In March 1969, Juliette and I celebrated our Golden Wedding anniversary.
As a venue appropriate for this special Rite de Passage of ours, we chose
the Fellows' Restaurant at the Zoo and gave a party to as many of our
friends as it could accommodate. It was a good party. Sir John
Redcliffe-Maud gave one of his inimitable speeches and made us all laugh
with his wit and audacious imitations. Lord Haloford, an old friend,
bravely overcame a bad tooth-ache to second a vote of congratulations,
which he did splendidly. Juliette and I moved in a euphoric dream, not
quite believing that it was really ourselves who had worked our way through
fifty years of married life, and were being feted by our many wonderful
friends.
"We both resisted answering questions by reporters as to what we really
though of such enduring marriage. Marriage poses as many problems as it
solves: indeed, the flavor and essence of long-lasting marriage cannot be
put into words.
"Probably, busy as I was with my many avocations, I took less account of
the problems and adjustments involved; Juliette had to make the relevant
adaptions and for this I give her every credit. She sometimes teases me by
saying that had she known what she was in for when she accepted my
proposal, she would have run for miles. But she willingly admits that,
whatever the inevitable squalls we suffered, we have led a tremendously
interesting life together, involving a great variety of experience with our
different but complementary awarenesses.
"Perhaps the key to a good marriage is acceptance, which in its turn
creates a capacity both for independent growth and for joint perception.
One might say that there is no such thing as a 'perfect' marriage. But I
can certainly affirm that our marriage has been fruitful and sustaining.
How fortunate I was to be accepted by the lovely girl from Neuchatel whom I
met at Garsington, fifty-three years ago -- a girl who has retained her
freshness in her maturity; a woman with many interests and a rare capacity
for making friends and for enriching our joint existence!"
-- Sir Julian Huxley, Memories II (New York: Harper & Row, 1973) p. 245-246
---------------------
SEEKING THE SOURCE OF THE ALDOUS HUXLEY QUOTATION
Kennedy's "Creation Studies" organization, told me that the Aldous Huxley
quotation came from an article titled, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist"
published in Report: Perspective on the News, Vol. 3, June, 1966, p.19. I
have since discovered that the title of the journal was Report: News of the
Month in Perspective, a somewhat conservative news-digest, and the Aldous
Huxley quotation indeed lay on page 19 of the June 1966 issue, and there
are words above the Huxley paragraph that the editor undoubtedly added
(since Aldous Huxley had died three years earlier) that read, "Confessions
of a Professed Atheist." But that single paragraph by Aldous Huxley was
merely part of a much longer article that stretched from pages 16 to 20,
titled, "An Interview with God" by Dennis Helming.
---------------------
IS IT POSSIBLE THAT A LAPSE IN KENNEDY'S MEMORY IS TO BLAME FOR HIM FALSELY
ATTRIBUTING THE "SEXUAL MORES" QUOTATION TO "JULIAN HUXLEY?"
Is it possible that Kennedy read Dennis Helming's article, "Interview with
God," or a reprint of the article, or a reprint of just the page with
Aldous's paragraph on it, and it stuck in Kennedy's mind that "Huxley" had
mentioned that "we objected to the morality because it interfered with our
sexual freedom?" If Kennedy read the quotation in Helming's "Interview with
God," then the word, "interview," might have stuck in Kennedy's mind,
leaving him with the lasting impression that the quote was "said" in an
"interview." Kennedy may even have seen Julian Huxley on a "talk show"
speaking of Darwin's "Origin," but Kennedy might have later combined his
memories of that paragraph by one "Huxley" with his memories of seeing the
other "Huxley" on TV. The time needed for Kennedy to blend these two things
together in his memory is also there since Aldous died in 1963 and Julian
died in 1975, while Kennedy (so far as I have been able to determine) began
promoting the story of "Julian's talk show remark" in 1980 in a book that
was published seventeen years after Aldous had died and five years after
Julian had died. So the possibily exists that Kennedy's memory might be to
blame for the mix up.
Neither the "Institute for Creation Research," nor, "Answers in Genesis"
have posted Kennedy's "Julian" remark on their websites. However, they do
quote the remark by Aldous Huxley: "We objected to the morality because it
interfered with our sexual freedom." Perhaps "ICR" and "AiG" have their own
doubts concerning Kennedy's unsubstantiated memory? The fact remains that
24 years have passed since Kennedy began promoting the "Julian" remark in
print, and no one else has stepped forth to substantiate Kennedy's memory.
No one has found any newsman of Julian's era, nor biographers of Julian,
mentioning such a remark. Kennedy remains the only person on record who
claims to have heard "Julian" say it. So it would appear that Aldous is the
main suspect. His quotation is the only one that has been substantiated.
Though Aldous's remark does not even mean what Kennedy says it does, as we
will see below!
---------------------
FURTHER FAILED SEARCHES FOR THE SOURCE OF KENNEDY'S "JULIAN" QUOTATION
Six years after Dr. Kennedy introduced the "Julian Huxley" quotation into
his books and sermons, it popped up, unsubstantiated and unreferenced, in a
book written by another "doctor," Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer (Senior Pastor of The
Moody Church, and host of "Moody Church Hour"):
"Julian Huxley was once on a television program in which he responded to
the question of why evolution was so readily accepted. He admitted, 'The
reason we accepted Darwinism even without proof, is because we didn't want
God to interfere with our sexual mores.'"
-- Dr. Lutzer, Erwin W., Exploding The Myths That Could Destroy America
(Chicago : Moody Press, 1986)
Lutzer never claimed he personally heard Julian utter such a remark, and a
friend I know emailed Dr. Lutzer at The Moody Church, asking him to please
substantiate the quotation, and the Media Call Supervisor at the Moody
Church, Joshua Hall (joshu...@moodychurch.org), responded: "I just
Googled the actual quote and found out that it was actually Sir Julian
Huxley's brother, Aldous Huxley, who was an author." [Email sent to Julie
Johnson from Joshua Hall, Wed., Nov. 12, 2003 5:18 PM] At least the Media
Call Supervisor at Lutzer's church had the humility to suggest that Lutzer
had made an error in attributing it to "Julian Huxley," which is more than
what Kennedy's "Creation Studies" organization keeps doing. Since Lutzer
repeated the "Julian" remark six years after Kennedy first wrote about it,
Lutzer probably lifted it from one of Kennedy's writings or sermons, or it
was shared with him by some Christian friends who were repeating the
unsubstantiated remark.
---------------------
KENNEDY'S "JULIAN" QUOTATION HAS MUTATED!
Speaking of repeating unsubstantiated remarks, Christian internet sites are
known for granting miraculous "angel's wings" to any and all remarks that
may prove useful in their battle to embarrass the enemies of their sacred
faith. And Kennedy's "Julian" remark has not only proven useful, but it has
undergone a few mutations:
Mutation #1) One person on the internet has been bold (or foolish) enough
to supply a date for the quotation: "FloridaFormula5" (an Evangelical
Christian) wrote in the blob of Gloria Brame on April 3, 2004 that "Sir
Julian Huxley said it best in a 1973 public television interview..." I
wrote "FloridaFomula5" three times to find out where he came up with the
date "1973," which was more than Kennedy was able to do in his books or
sermons over the past 24 years. "FloridaFormula5" has not responded.
Mutation #2) Kennedy's unsubstantiated "Julian" quotation has become fused
with two substantiated quotations! Fusion has taken place!
"The concept of a Creator-God interferes with our sexual mores. Thus, we
have rationalized God out of existence. To us, He has become nothing more
than the faint and disappearing smile of the cosmic Cheshire cat in Alice
in Wonderland."
-- Guest Feature Article At Chuck Colson's "Prison Fellowship" website
(pfm.org), "The Double Helix Meets the Bacterial Flagellum: An Argument for
Intelligent Design" by Al Dobras, August 25, 2003
"It is because the concept of a Creator-God interfers with our sexual
mores. Thus, we have rationalized God out of existence. To us, He has
become nothing more than the faint and disappearing smile of the cosmic
Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland."
-- "Quotations on Evolution," Haven Free Will Baptist Church
(havenfwbchurch.org)
The first half of the quotations above were apparently derived from
Kennedy's "Julian" remark and remain unsubstantiated. Meanwhile, the latter
half of the quotations come from the following two remarks by Julian
Huxley:
"Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator from the sphere of
rational discussion."
-- Julian Huxley, "'At Random': A Television Preview" (transcript of a TV
show aired on WBBM-TV, CBS, Chicago, on the evening of Nov. 21, 1959, just
prior to Darwin's Centennial Celebration, where Julian was the key
speaker), published in Issues in Evolution, Vol. III: The University of
Chicago Centennial Discussions (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 45
"The god hypothesis is no longer of any pragmatic value for the
interpretation or comprehension of nature, and indeed often stands in the
way of better and truer interpretation. Operationally, God is beginning to
resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat."
-- Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation (London: Max Parrish, 1957),
p. 58
Having read the two articles where the two substantied quotations were
found, I was unable to discover Kennedy's "Julian" quotation in either of
those two articles.
---------------------
WHAT DID ALDOUS HUXLEY REALLY SAY AND TEACH ABOUT "THE PHILOSOPHY OF
MEANINGLESSNESS" AND "SEXUAL MORES?"
As mentioned above, a conservative editor in 1966 printed a paragraph from
Aldous Huxley on "the philosophy of meaninglessness" and "sexual mores,"
and added a title above the paragraph that read, "Confessions of a
Professed Atheist." But what the editor failed to reveal to his readers was
that Aldous was not an "atheist" when he wrote that paragraph, but was
arguing against "atheism." The paragraph itself was taken from Aldous
Huxley's book, Ends and Means, written in 1937 (chapter 14, the chapter on
"Beliefs"), and he was not speaking about why people in Darwin's day
"leaped at the Origin," but speaking about the rise of the "philosophy of
meaninglessness" and materialism among the "masses" after the First World
War, the generation of the 1920s. And speaking of Aldous's generation in
the 1920s and 30's, John Derbyshire wrote:
"The second and third decades of the twentieth century were notoriously an
age of failed gods and shattered conventions, to which many thoughtful
people responded in obvious ways, retreating into nihilism, hedonism, and
experimentalism. Literature became subjective, art became abstract, poetry
abandoned its traditional forms. In the 'low, dishonest decade' that then
followed, much of this negativism curdled into power-worship and escapism
of various kinds. Aldous Huxley stood aside from these large general
trends. Though no Victorian in habits or beliefs, he never entered
whole-heartedly into the spirit of modernism. The evidence is all over the
early volumes of these essays. James Joyce's ground breaking novel,
Ulysses, he declares in 1925, is 'one of the dullest books ever written,
and one of the least significant.' Jazz, he remarks two years later, is
'drearily barbaric.' Writing of Sir Christopher Wren in 1923, he quotes
with approval Carlyle's remark that Chelsea Hospital, one of Wren's
creations, was 'obviously the work of a gentleman.' Wren, Huxley goes on to
say, was indeed a great gentleman, 'one who valued dignity and restraint
and who, respecting himself, respected also humanity.' In his thirties, in
fact, Huxley comes across as something of a Young Fogey."
-- John Derbyshire, "What Happened to Aldous Huxley," The New Criterion
Vol. 21, No. 6 (February 2003)
In another chapter of Ends and Means (chapter 15, "Ethics") Aldous, the
"Young Fogey," abhorred "sexual addictions," or using sex as a means to
achieving base ends. And Aldous' chapters on "Religious Practices,"
"Beliefs," and "Ethics" argued in favor of a meaningful cosmos and a
universal spirituality that Aldous said was reflected in the works of
certain Eastern mystics as well as some famous Christian mystics. Below is
a series of quotations demonstrating what I have said above, all taken from
Aldous Huxley's Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and
into the Methods Employed for Their Realization (Harper & Brothers
Publishers, New York and London, 1937, fifth edition).
---------------------
ALDOUS HUXLEY REBUTTS THE "PHILOSOPHY OF MEANINGLESSNESS"
"From the world we actually live in, the world that is given by our senses,
our intuitions of beauty and goodness, our emotions and impulses, our moods
and sentiments, the man of science abstracts a simplified private universe
of things possessing only... elements which can be weighed, measured,
numbered, or which lend themselves in any other way to mathematical
treatment. By using this technique of simplification and abstraction, the
scientist has succeeded to an astonishing degree in understanding and
dominating the physical environment. The success was intoxicating and, with
an illogicality which, in the circmstances, was doubtless pardonable, many
scientists and philosophers came to imagine that this useful abstraction
from reality was reality itself. Reality as actually experienced contains
intuitions of value and significance, contain love, beauty, mystical
ecstasy, intimations of godhead. Science did not and still does not possess
intellectual instruments with which to deal with thses aspects of reality.
Consquently it ignored them and concentrated its attention upon such
aspects of the world as it could deal with by mean of arithmetic, geometry
and the various branches of higher mathematics. Our conviction that the
world is meaningless lend itself very effectively to furthering the ends of
erotic or political passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error -- the
error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning
and value has been deliberately excluded, with ultimate reality.
"[The philosopher, Hume's, erroneous attitude was typical] Hume wrote, 'If
we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for
instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstracts reasoning concerning
quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning
concerning matter of fact or evidence? No. Commit it then to the flame; for
it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.' Hume mentions only
divinity and school metaphysics; but his argument would apply just as
cogently to poetry, music, painting, sculpture and all ethical and
religious teaching. Hamlet contains no abstract reasoning concerning
quantity or number and no experimental reason concerning evidence; nor does
the Hamerklavier Sonata, nor Donatello's David, nor the Tao Te Ching [book
of Chinese philosophy and wisdom], nor the Following of Christ. Commit them
therefore to the flames: for they can contain nothing but sophistry and
illusion.
"We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early
successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after... The contents
of literature, art, music -- even in some measure of divinity and school
metaphysics -- are not sophistry and illusion, but simply those elements of
experience which scientists chose to leave out of account, for the good
reason that they had no intellectual methods for dealing with them. In the
arts, in philosophy, in religion, men are trying -- to describe and explain
the non-measureable, purely qualitative aspects of reality... [p. 308-310]
"In recent years, many men of science have come to realize that the
scientific picture of the world is a partial one -- the product of their
special competence in mathematics and their special incompetence to deal
systematically with aesthetic and moral values, religous experiences and
intuitions of significance. Unhappily, novel ideas become acceptable to the
less intelligent members of society only with a very considerable time-lag.
Sixty or seventy years ago the majority of scientists believed -- and the
belief caused them considerable distress -- that the product of their
special incompetence was identical with reality as a whole. Today this
belief has begun to give way, in scientific circles, to a different and
obviously truer conception of the relation between science and total
experience. The masses on the contrary, have just reached the point where
the ancestors of today's scientists were standing two generations back.
They are convinced that the scientific picture of an arbitrary abstraction
from reality is a picture of reality as a whole and that therefore the
world is without meaning or value. But nobody likes living in such a world.
To satisfy their hunger for meaning and value, they turn to such doctrines
as nationalism, fascism and revolutionary communism. Philosophically and
scientifically, these doctrines are absurd; but for the masses in every
community, they have this great merit: they atytribute the meaning and
value that have been taken away from the world as a whole to the particular
part of the world in which the believers happen to be living.
"These last considerations raise an important question, which must now be
considered in some detail. Does the world as a whole possessthe value and
meaning that we constatntly attribute to certain parts of it (such as human
beings and their works); and, if so, what is thenature of that value and
meaning? This is a question which, a few years ago, I should not even have
posed. For, like so many of my contemporaries, I took it for granted that
there was no meaning. This was partly due to the fact that I shared the
common belief that the scientific picture of an abstraction from reality
was a true picture of reality as a whole; partly also to other,
non-intellectual reasons. I had motives for not wanting the world to have a
meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any
difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.
"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want
to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall
use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do
so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world
should be meaningless." [p. 311-312]
"No philosophy is completely disinterested. The pure love of truth is
always mingle to some extent with the need, consciously or unconsciously
felt by even the noblest and the most intelligent philosophers, to justify
a given form of personal or social behavior, to rationalize the traditional
prejudices of a given class or community. The philosopher who finds meaning
in the world is concerned, not only to elucidate that meaning, but also to
prove that is it most clearly expressed in some established religion, some
accepted code of morals. The philosopher who find no meaning in the world
is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also
concerned to prove that there is not valid reason why her personally should
not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political
power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves.
The voluntary, as opposed to the intellectual, reasons for holding the
doctrines of materialism, for examples, may be predominantly erotic, as
they were in the case of Lamettrie (see his lyrical account of the
pleasures of the bed in La Volupte and at the end of L'Homme Machine ['The
Human Machine,' a work of materialist philosophy]), or predominantly
political, as they were in the case of Karl Marx. The desire to justify a
particular form of political organization and, in some cases, of a personal
will to power has played an equally large part in the formulation of
philosophies postulating the existence of meaning in the world. Christian
philosophers have found no difficulty in justifying imperialism, war, the
capitalistic system, the use of torture, the censorship of the press, and
ecclesiastical tyrannies of every sort from the tyranny of Rome to the
tyrannies of [Calvin's] Geneva and [Puritan] New England. In all cases they
have shown that the meaning of the world was such as to be compatibel with,
or actually most completely expressed by, the iniquities I have mentioned
above -- iniquities which happened, of course, to serve the personal or
sectarian interests of the philosophiers concerned. In due course, these
arose philosophers who denied not only the right of Christian special
pleaders to justify iniquity by an appeal to the meaning of the world, but
even their right to find any such meaning whatsoever. In the circumstances,
the fact was not surprising. One unscrupulous distortion of the truth tends
to beget other and opposite distortions. Passions may be satisfied in the
process; but the disinterested love of knowledge suffers eclipse. [p.
314-316]
"For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of
meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation
we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and
economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We
objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom; we
objected to the political and economic system because it was unjust. The
supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the
meaning (a Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world. There was an
admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time
justifying ourselves in our political and erotic revolt: we could deny that
the world had any meaning whatsoever... The men of the new Enlightenment,
which occurred in the middle years of the nineteenth century, once again
used meaninglessness as a weapon against the [conservative] reactionaries.
The Victorian passion for respectability was, however, so great that,
during the period when they were formulated, neither Positivism nor
Darwinism was used as a justification for sexual indulgence. [p. 316-317]
---------------------
ALDOUS HUXLEY'S WARNING AGAINST SEXUAL ADDICTION
"It is only when it takes the form of physical addiction that sex is evil.
It is also evil when it manifests itself as a way of satisfying the lust
for power or the climber's craving for position and social distinction."
[p. 358]
---------------------
ALDOUS HUXLEY ON FAITH AND ETHICS
"There are some... who believe that no desirable 'change of heart' can be
brought about without supernatural aid. There must be, they say, a return
to religion. (Unhappily, they cannot agree on the religion to which the
return should be made.)" [p. 2]
"In practice, Christianity, like Hinduism or Buddhism, is not one religion,
but several religions, adapted to the needs of different types of human
beings. A Christian church in Southern Spain, or Mexico, or Sicily is
singularly like a Hindu temple. The eye is delighted by the same gaudy
colors, the same tripe-like decorations, the same gesticulating statues;
the nose inhales the same intoxicating smells; the ear and, along with it,
the understanding, are lulled by the drone of the same incomprehensible
incantations [in the old Catholic Latin mass tradition], roused by the same
loud, impressive music.
"At the other end of the scale, consider the chapel of a Cistercian
monastery and the meditation hall of a community of Zen Buddhists. They are
equally bare; aids to devotion (in other words fetters holding back the
soul from enlightenment) are conspicuously absent from either building.
Here are two distinct religions for two distinct kinds of human beings."
[p. 262-263]
"In Christianity bhakti [or, loving devotion] towards a personal being has
always been the most popular form of religious practice. Up to the time of
the [Catholic] Counter-Reformation, however, the way of knowledge
("mystical knowledge" as it is called in Chrstian language) was accorded an
honorable place beside the way of devotion. From the middle of the
sixteenth century onwards the way of knowledge came to be neglected and
even condemned. We are told by Dom John Chapman that "Mercurian, who was
general of the society (of Jesus) from 1573 to 1580, forbade the use of the
works of Tauler, Ruysbroek, Suso, Harphius, St. Gertrude, and St.
Mechtilde." Every effort was made by the [Catholic] Counter-Reformers to
heighten the worshipper's devotion to a personal divinity. The literary
content of Baroque art is hysterical, almost epileptic, in the violence of
its emotionality. It even becomes necessary to call in physiology as an aid
to feeling. The ecstasies of the saints are represented by
seventeenth-century artists as being frankly sexual. Seventeenth-century
drapery writhes like so much tripe. In the equivocal personage of Margaret
Mary Alacocque, seventeenth-century piety pours over a bleeding and
palpitating heart. From this orgy of emotionalism and sensationalism
Catholic Christianity seems never completely to have recovered." [p.
281-282]
"First Shakespeare sonnets seem meaningless; first Bach fugues, a bore;
first differential equations, sheer torture. But training changes the
nature of our spiritual experiences. In due course, contact with an
obscurely beautiful poem, an elaborate piece of [musical] counterpoint or
of mathematical reasoning, causes us to feel direct intuitions of beauty
and significance. It is the same in the moral world. A man who has trained
himself in goodness come to have certain direct intuitions about character,
about the relations between human beings, about his own position in the
world -- intuitions that are quite different from the intuitions of the
average sensual man... [p. 333]
"The ideal of non-attachment has been formulated and systematically
preached again and again in the course of the last three thousand years. We
find it (along with everything else) in Hinduism. It is at the very heart
of the teachings of the Buddha. For Chinese readers the doctrine is
formulated by Lao Tsu. A little later, in Greece, the ideal of
non-attachment is proclaimed, albeit with a certain, pharisaic
priggishness, by the Stoics. The Gospel of Jesus is essentially a gospel of
non-attachment to "the things of this world," and of attachment to God.
Whatever may have been the aberrations of organized Christianity -- and
they range from extravagant asceticism to the most brutally cynical forms
of realpolitik -- there has been no lack of Christian philosophers to
reaffirm the ideal of non-attachment. Here is John Tauler, for example,
telling us that 'freedom is complete purity and detachment which seeketh
the Eternal...' Here is the author of "The Imitation of Christ," who bids
us 'pass through many cares as though without care; not after the manner of
a sluggard, but by a certain prerogative of a free mind, which does not
cleave with inordinate affection to any creature.'" [p. 5, 6]
"...as knowledge, sensibility and non-attachment increase, the contents of
the judgments of value passed even by men belonging to dissimilar cultures,
tend to approximate. The ethical doctrines taught in the Tao Te Ching, by
Buddha and his followers, in the Sermon on the Mount, and by the best of
the Christian saints, are not dissimilar." [p. 327]
---------------------
ALDOUS HUXLEY ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE WORST ASPECTS OF THE BIBLE ON THE
HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
"Examples of reversion to barbarism through mere ignorance are unhappily
abundant in the history of Christianity. The early Christians made the
enormous mistake of burdening themselves with the Old Testament, which
contains, along with much fine poetry and sound morality the history of the
cruelties and treacheries of a Bronze-Age people, fighting for a place in
the sun under the protection of its anthropomorphic tribal deity... Those
whom it suited to be ignorant and, along with them, the innocent and
uneducated could find in this treasure-house of barbarous stupidity
justifications for every crime and folly. Texts to justify such
abominations as religious wars, the persecution of heretics... could be
found in the sacred books and were in fact used again and again throughout
the whole history of the Christian Church. [p. 328]
"In this remarkable compendium of Bronze-Age literature, God is personal to
the point of being almost sub-human. Too often the believer has felt
justified in giving way to his worst passions by the reflection that, in
doing so, he is basing his conduct on that of a God who feels jealousy and
hatred... and behaves in general like a particularly ferocious oriental
tyrant. The frequency with which men have identified the prompting of their
own passions with the voice of an all too personal God is really
appalling." [p. 276-277]
"According to his very inadequate biographers, Jesus of Nazareth was never
preoccupied with philosophy, art, music, or science and ignored almost
completely the problems of politics, economics and sexual relations. It is
also recorded of him that he blasted a fig tree for not bearing fruit out
of season, that he scourged the shopkeepers in the temple precincts and
caused a herd of swine to drown. Scrupulous devotion to and imitation of
the person of Jesus have resulted only too frequently in a fatal tendency,
on the part of earnest Christians, to despise artistic creation and
philosophic thought; to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to believe
themsevles justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer
to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
In the name of the bee
And of the butterfly
And of the breeze, amen
- Emily Dickinson -
david ford
sp.
> into a near identical species with uniquely different
> habits or diets. Tough crowd I'd say. -- E.T.B.] And Darwin did what
> Wallace did not even try to do until much later: he deduced many
> consequences from the principle of natural selection,
Such as?
sp?
Instead: "?
> If Kennedy read the quotation in Helming's "Interview with
> God," then the word, "interview," might have stuck in Kennedy's mind,
> leaving him with the lasting impression that the quote was "said" in an
> "interview." Kennedy may even have seen Julian Huxley on a "talk show"
> speaking of Darwin's "Origin," but Kennedy might have later combined his
> memories of that paragraph by one "Huxley" with his memories of seeing the
> other "Huxley" on TV. The time needed for Kennedy to blend these two things
> together in his memory is also there since Aldous died in 1963 and Julian
> died in 1975, while Kennedy (so far as I have been able to determine) began
> promoting the story of "Julian's talk show remark" in 1980 in a book that
> was published seventeen years after Aldous had died and five years after
> Julian had died. So the possibily
sp.
blog?
> of Gloria Brame on April 3, 2004 that "Sir
> Julian Huxley said it best in a 1973 public television interview..." I
> wrote "FloridaFomula5" three times to find out where he came up with the
> date "1973," which was more than Kennedy was able to do in his books or
> sermons over the past 24 years. "FloridaFormula5" has not responded.
>
> Mutation #2) Kennedy's unsubstantiated "Julian" quotation has become fused
> with two substantiated quotations! Fusion has taken place!
>
> "The concept of a Creator-God interferes with our sexual mores. Thus, we
> have rationalized God out of existence. To us, He has become nothing more
> than the faint and disappearing smile of the cosmic Cheshire cat in Alice
> in Wonderland."
> -- Guest Feature Article At Chuck Colson's "Prison Fellowship" website
> (pfm.org), "The Double Helix Meets the Bacterial Flagellum: An Argument for
> Intelligent Design" by Al Dobras, August 25, 2003
>
> "It is because the concept of a Creator-God interfers
sp.
> with our sexual
> mores. Thus, we have rationalized God out of existence. To us, He has
> become nothing more than the faint and disappearing smile of the cosmic
> Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland."
> -- "Quotations on Evolution," Haven Free Will Baptist Church
> (havenfwbchurch.org)
>
> The first half of the quotations above were apparently derived from
> Kennedy's "Julian" remark and remain unsubstantiated. Meanwhile, the latter
> half of the quotations come from the following two remarks by Julian
> Huxley:
>
> "Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator from the sphere of
> rational discussion."
> -- Julian Huxley, "'At Random': A Television Preview" (transcript of a TV
> show aired on WBBM-TV, CBS, Chicago, on the evening of Nov. 21, 1959, just
> prior to Darwin's Centennial Celebration, where Julian was the key
> speaker), published in Issues in Evolution, Vol. III: The University of
> Chicago Centennial Discussions (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 45
>
> "The god hypothesis is no longer of any pragmatic value for the
> interpretation or comprehension of nature, and indeed often stands in the
> way of better and truer interpretation. Operationally, God is beginning to
> resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat."
> -- Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation (London: Max Parrish, 1957),
> p. 58
1957 Julian Huxley on _Religion without Revelation_
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407270344.53d3af56%40posting.google.com
> Having read the two articles where the two substantied
sp?
sp.
> was doubtless pardonable, many
> scientists and philosophers came to imagine that this useful abstraction
> from reality was reality itself. Reality as actually experienced contains
> intuitions of value and significance, contain love, beauty, mystical
> ecstasy, intimations of godhead. Science did not and still does not possess
> intellectual instruments with which to deal with thses
sp.
> aspects of reality.
> Consquently
sp.
> it ignored them and concentrated its attention upon such
> aspects of the world as it could deal with by mean of arithmetic, geometry
> and the various branches of higher mathematics. Our conviction that the
> world is meaningless lend
lends?
> itself very effectively to furthering the ends of
> erotic or political passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error -- the
> error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning
> and value has been deliberately excluded, with ultimate reality.
Interesting.
sp.
> experiences and
> intuitions of significance. Unhappily, novel ideas become acceptable to the
> less intelligent members of society only with a very considerable time-lag.
> Sixty or seventy years ago the majority of scientists believed -- and the
> belief caused them considerable distress -- that the product of their
> special incompetence was identical with reality as a whole. Today this
> belief has begun to give way, in scientific circles, to a different and
> obviously truer conception of the relation between science and total
> experience. The masses on the contrary, have just reached the point where
> the ancestors of today's scientists were standing two generations back.
> They are convinced that the scientific picture of an arbitrary abstraction
> from reality is a picture of reality as a whole and that therefore the
> world is without meaning or value. But nobody likes living in such a world.
> To satisfy their hunger for meaning and value, they turn to such doctrines
> as nationalism, fascism and revolutionary communism. Philosophically and
> scientifically, these doctrines are absurd; but for the masses in every
> community, they have this great merit: they atytribute
sp.
> the meaning and
> value that have been taken away from the world as a whole to the particular
> part of the world in which the believers happen to be living.
>
> "These last considerations raise an important question, which must now be
> considered in some detail. Does the world as a whole possessthe
sp.
> value and
> meaning that we constatntly
sp.
> attribute to certain parts of it (such as human
> beings and their works); and, if so, what is thenature
sp.
> of that value and
> meaning? This is a question which, a few years ago, I should not even have
> posed. For, like so many of my contemporaries, I took it for granted that
> there was no meaning. This was partly due to the fact that I shared the
> common belief that the scientific picture of an abstraction from reality
> was a true picture of reality as a whole; partly also to other,
> non-intellectual reasons.
Oh, really.
> I had motives for not wanting the world to have a
> meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any
> difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.
Interesting.
> "Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want
> to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall
> use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do
> so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world
> should be meaningless." [p. 311-312]
Interesting.
> "No philosophy is completely disinterested. The pure love of truth is
> always mingle to some extent with the need, consciously or unconsciously
> felt by even the noblest and the most intelligent philosophers, to justify
> a given form of personal or social behavior, to rationalize the traditional
> prejudices of a given class or community. The philosopher who finds meaning
> in the world is concerned, not only to elucidate that meaning, but also to
> prove that is it most clearly expressed in some established religion, some
> accepted code of morals. The philosopher who find
finds?
> no meaning in the world
> is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also
> concerned to prove that there is not valid reason why her
he
> personally should
> not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political
> power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves.
> The voluntary, as opposed to the intellectual, reasons for holding the
> doctrines of materialism, for examples, may be predominantly erotic,
Whoa.
> as
> they were in the case of Lamettrie (see his lyrical account of the
> pleasures of the bed in La Volupte and at the end of L'Homme Machine ['The
> Human Machine,' a work of materialist philosophy]), or predominantly
> political, as they were in the case of Karl Marx. The desire to justify a
> particular form of political organization and, in some cases, of a personal
> will to power has played an equally large part in the formulation of
> philosophies postulating the existence of meaning in the world. Christian
> philosophers have found no difficulty in justifying imperialism, war, the
> capitalistic system, the use of torture, the censorship of the press, and
> ecclesiastical tyrannies of every sort from the tyranny of Rome to the
> tyrannies of [Calvin's] Geneva and [Puritan] New England. In all cases they
> have shown that the meaning of the world was such as to be compatibel
sp.
> with,
> or actually most completely expressed by, the iniquities I have mentioned
> above -- iniquities which happened, of course, to serve the personal or
> sectarian interests of the philosophiers
sp.
> concerned. In due course, these
there?
> arose philosophers who denied not only the right of Christian special
> pleaders to justify iniquity by an appeal to the meaning of the world, but
> even their right to find any such meaning whatsoever. In the circumstances,
> the fact was not surprising. One unscrupulous distortion of the truth tends
> to beget other and opposite distortions. Passions may be satisfied in the
> process; but the disinterested love of knowledge suffers eclipse. [p.
> 314-316]
>
> "For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of
> meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation
> we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and
> economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We
> objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom;
Whoa.
> we
> objected to the political and economic system because it was unjust.
What did you think is better? Socialist atheocracy?
> The
> supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the
> meaning (a Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world. There was an
> admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time
> justifying ourselves in our political and erotic revolt:
"erotic revolt" has a nice ring to it.
> we could deny that
> the world had any meaning whatsoever... The men of the new Enlightenment,
> which occurred in the middle years of the nineteenth century, once again
> used meaninglessness as a weapon against the [conservative] reactionaries.
> The Victorian passion for respectability was, however, so great that,
> during the period when they were formulated, neither Positivism nor
> Darwinism was used as a justification for sexual indulgence. [p. 316-317]
You don't say.
> ---------------------
>
> ALDOUS HUXLEY'S WARNING AGAINST SEXUAL ADDICTION
>
> "It is only when it takes the form of physical addiction that sex is evil.
> It is also evil when it manifests itself as a way of satisfying the lust
> for power or the climber's craving for position and social distinction."
> [p. 358]
"It is only when" and "It is also evil when": contradiction.
sp.
own passions with the voice of Scientific Truth is really appalling.
> "According to his very inadequate biographers, Jesus of Nazareth was never
> preoccupied with philosophy, art, music, or science and ignored almost
> completely the problems of politics, economics and sexual relations. It is
> also recorded of him that he blasted a fig tree for not bearing fruit out
> of season, that he scourged the shopkeepers in the temple precincts and
> caused a herd of swine to drown. Scrupulous devotion to and imitation of
> the person of Jesus have resulted only too frequently in a fatal tendency,
> on the part of earnest Christians, to despise artistic creation and
> philosophic thought;
Huh. What has atheism contributed to "artistic creation"?
What are atheism's great gifts to "philosophic thought"?
> to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
> long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to believe
> themsevles
sp.
catshark
wrote:
[...]
>> to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
>> long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to believe
>> themsevles
>
>sp.
>
>> justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer
>> to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]
Thanks for the help in proof reading David. I'll even pass along the rest
of your comments, such as they are, for Ed's enjoyment.
Whoa to you too!
david ford
> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
> >> long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to believe
> >> themsevles
> >
> >sp.
> >
> >> justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer
> >> to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]
>
> Thanks for the help in proof reading David.
No problem. Also, a Matthews thing is in the pipeline.
> I'll even pass along the rest
> of your comments, such as they are, for Ed's enjoyment.
Thanks.
> Whoa to you too!
Whoa indeed!
Can anybody think of data that would lead a devout materialist to
cease to [1923 J. Huxley]"reject any explanation which proceeds... by
miracles"?
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990818214806.410371A-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
1957 Julian Huxley on _Religion without Revelation_
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407270344.53d3af56%40posting.google.com
how do blindwatchmakingists "know" that life came from
non-life via non-intelligence-directed processes?:
Haeckel; Goodrich; Wells, J. Huxley, & Wells;
Simpson; Sagan; Dawkins; Johnson (a creationist)
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990812214926.974808E-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
1983 Russell F. Doolittle on origin of life on earth: developed in
stages/evolved; 1959 Julian Huxley: "all aspects of reality are
subject to evolution"
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.95.970802094315.27893C-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
1944 J. Huxley, 1986 Lewin, 1985 Kemp, 1991 Lewontin
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.9909011608210.1038433-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
Agree with J. Huxley's "no"?
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0405271915.6b9b6ce1%40posting.google.com
Chris N. discusses my theory of NS essay; gradualism and
J. Huxley, Dawkins, Schindewolf, Mayr, Lovtrup, 1913 Bateson
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.10A.B3.10004021232370.15068389-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
1982 Saunders & Ho and Gould on neo-Darwinian vagueness; 1925 Osborn;
1940 Haldane on materialism; 1996 and 1995 Dawkins and 1960 J. Huxley
on slow rate and gradual nature of Darwinian NS; abstract of and
extracts from 1977 G&E _Paleobiology_ paper
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0312182040.1e80e3b8%40posting.google.com
catshark
wrote:
>catshark <cats...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<dbmfj0l5g0dnkbb5t...@4ax.com>...
>> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >> to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
>> >> long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to believe
>> >> themsevles
>> >
>> >sp.
>> >
>> >> justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer
>> >> to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]
>>
>> Thanks for the help in proof reading David.
>
>No problem. Also, a Matthews thing is in the pipeline.
>
>> I'll even pass along the rest
>> of your comments, such as they are, for Ed's enjoyment.
>
>Thanks.
>
>> Whoa to you too!
>
>Whoa indeed!
Yep. And when you can actually explain what you mean, instead of just
posting <snipped> urls to old posts, maybe someone other than you will know
what you mean by "Whoa" . . . or care.
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Stupidity, if left untreated, is self-correcting.
- Robert Heinlein -
Dr.GH
Darwin and they presented their paper jointly to the Royal Society. --
E.T.B.]"
As I recall reading, there were two papers read to the Royal Society,
one written by Darwin the other by Wallace, and neither men were
present at the meeting.
On a general level, I would suggest that the author try to reduce the
number of lengthy quoted excerps.
catshark
wrote:
>"[Alfred Russel Wallace arrived at nearly identical conclusions to
>Darwin and they presented their paper jointly to the Royal Society. --
>E.T.B.]"
>
>As I recall reading, there were two papers read to the Royal Society,
>one written by Darwin the other by Wallace, and neither men were
>present at the meeting.
Sort of. First of all, it was the Linnean Society of London, not the Royal
Society. Wallace's portion was a paper (sometimes called the Ternate paper
after the island Wallace wrote it on) he had sent to Darwin to read and
pass on to Lyell for comment. Darwin's part consisted of extracts from his
1844 essay (written in case of his death and shown to only to Hooker at
that point) and a section of Darwin's letter to Asa Gray of September 1857
that laid out a more updated version. Hooker and Lyell engineered this
arrangement partly to establish Darwin's primacy and partly because Darwin
was unable to produce a new sketch of his work because he was distraught at
the illness and eventual death of his son. I won't get into the issue of
how close their ideas really were. ;-)
Maybe something like:
Alfred Russel Wallace arrived at nearly identical conclusions to Darwin and
papers were presented jointly on their behalf to the Linnean Society.
>
>On a general level, I would suggest that the author try to reduce the
>number of lengthy quoted excerps.
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
In the name of the bee
Dr.GH
> On Sun, 5 Sep 2004 04:06:35 +0000 (UTC), gary...@earthlink.net (Dr.GH)
> wrote:
>
> >"[Alfred Russel Wallace arrived at nearly identical conclusions to
> >Darwin and they presented their paper jointly to the Royal Society. --
> >E.T.B.]"
> >
> >As I recall reading, there were two papers read to the Royal Society,
> >one written by Darwin the other by Wallace, and neither men were
> >present at the meeting.
>
> Sort of. First of all, it was the Linnean Society of London, not the Royal
> Society. Wallace's portion was a paper (sometimes called the Ternate paper
> after the island Wallace wrote it on) he had sent to Darwin to read and
> pass on to Lyell for comment. Darwin's part consisted of extracts from his
> 1844 essay (written in case of his death and shown to only to Hooker at
> that point) and a section of Darwin's letter to Asa Gray of September 1857
> that laid out a more updated version. Hooker and Lyell engineered this
> arrangement partly to establish Darwin's primacy and partly because Darwin
> was unable to produce a new sketch of his work because he was distraught at
> the illness and eventual death of his son. I won't get into the issue of
> how close their ideas really were. ;-)
>
> Maybe something like:
>
> Alfred Russel Wallace arrived at nearly identical conclusions to Darwin and
> papers were presented jointly on their behalf to the Linnean Society.
>
Thanks for the corrected information. Your edit suggestion is quite good.
david ford
> On Sat, 4 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
> >catshark <cats...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<dbmfj0l5g0dnkbb5t...@4ax.com>...
> >> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
> >>
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> >> to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
> >> >> long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to
> >> >> believe themsevles
> >> >
> >> >sp.
> >> >
> >> >> justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer
> >> >> to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]
> >>
> >> Thanks for the help in proof reading David.
> >
> >No problem. Also, a Matthews thing is in the pipeline.
> >
> >> I'll even pass along the rest
> >> of your comments, such as they are, for Ed's enjoyment.
> >
> >Thanks.
> >
> >> Whoa to you too!
> >
> >Whoa indeed!
>
> Yep. And when you can actually explain what you mean, instead of just
> posting <snipped> urls to old posts, maybe someone other than you will know
> what you mean by "Whoa" . . . or care.
Hsu, Kenneth J. 1986. "Darwin's three mistakes" _Geology_ 14:532-4.
On 534: "We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy. It is about
time that we cry: 'The emperor has no clothes.'"
_Paleobiology_ 3: 134 (1977), G&E:
In fact, most published commentary on punctuated equilibria has
been favorable. We are especially pleased that several
paleontologists now state with pride and biological confidence
a conclusion that had previously been simply embarrassing ('all
these years of work and I haven't found any evolution').
catshark
wrote:
>catshark <cats...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<6bmjj01esa15rd284...@4ax.com>...
>> On Sat, 4 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
>> >catshark <cats...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<dbmfj0l5g0dnkbb5t...@4ax.com>...
>> >> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
>> >>
>> >> [...]
>> >>
>> >> >> to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
>> >> >> long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to
>> >> >> believe themsevles
>> >> >
>> >> >sp.
>> >> >
>> >> >> justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer
>> >> >> to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]
>> >>
>> >> Thanks for the help in proof reading David.
>> >
>> >No problem. Also, a Matthews thing is in the pipeline.
>> >
>> >> I'll even pass along the rest
>> >> of your comments, such as they are, for Ed's enjoyment.
>> >
>> >Thanks.
>> >
>> >> Whoa to you too!
>> >
>> >Whoa indeed!
>>
>> Yep. And when you can actually explain what you mean, instead of just
>> posting <snipped> urls to old posts, maybe someone other than you will know
>> what you mean by "Whoa" . . . or care.
>
[snip unexplained snippet and reference]
In other words, you can't explain. What a surprise.
david ford
> On Mon, 6 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
> >catshark <cats...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<6bmjj01esa15rd284...@4ax.com>...
> >> On Sat, 4 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
> >> >catshark <cats...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<dbmfj0l5g0dnkbb5t...@4ax.com>...
> >> >> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> [...]
> >> >>
> >> >> >> to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all
> >> >> >> long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to
> >> >> >> believe themsevles
> >> >> >
> >> >> >sp.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >> justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer
> >> >> >> to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]
> >> >>
> >> >> Thanks for the help in proof reading David.
> >> >
> >> >No problem. Also, a Matthews thing is in the pipeline.
> >> >
> >> >> I'll even pass along the rest
> >> >> of your comments, such as they are, for Ed's enjoyment.
> >> >
> >> >Thanks.
> >> >
> >> >> Whoa to you too!
> >> >
> >> >Whoa indeed!
> >>
> >> Yep. And when you can actually explain what you mean, instead of just
> >> posting <snipped> urls to old posts, maybe someone other than you will know
> >> what you mean by "Whoa" . . . or care.
>
> [snip unexplained snippet and reference]
>
> In other words, you can't explain. What a surprise.
Dawkins, Richard. 1989. _The Selfish Gene_ (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), 352pp. On 168:
The physical characteristics of the [alarm] calls [by birds]
seem to be ideally shaped to be difficult to locate. If an
acoustic engineer were asked to design a sound that a
predator would find it hard to approach, he would produce
something very like the real alarm calls of many small
songbirds.
catshark
wrote:
[snip unexplained snippet(s) and reference]
Tell me sonething, David. Do you really think doing this stuff ad nauseum
makes a some sort of point . . . *other* than highlighting your inability
to discuss anything rationally, that is?
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
He may look like an idiot
and talk like an idiot,
but don't let that fool you.
He really is an idiot.
- Groucho Marx -
david ford
Yes.
Eiseley, Loren. 1958. _Darwin's Century: Evolution and the
Men Who Discovered It_ (New York: Anchor Books), 378pp.
The last two paragraphs on the section "Artificial Selection and
the Evolutionists," on 223:
Arguments for a lessened antiquity for the globe began to
mount as nineteenth-century physicists applied their
calculations to the age of the earth. It is interesting to see
that Darwin, who had once been quite casual as to time,
shows an increasing interest in stories which suggest
visible change in the present. He quotes, in the _Descent of
Man_, the story of an American hunter who asserted that in
a certain region male deer with single unbranched antlers
were becoming more numerous than the normal variety. In
reality the bucks were all yearlings with their first antlers,
and the observer had been self-deceived.^25 [25: J. T.
Cunningham, "Organic Variations and Their
Interpretation," _Nature_, 1898, Vol. 58, p. 594.]
The story is less important than the glimpse it affords into
Darwin's mind. Although he had written much about the
minute, age-long increments involved in evolutionary
change, it is clearly apparent that some of these apocryphal
anecdotes possessed a strong appeal for Darwin. There was
an understandable desire to show the process of evolution
in operation, even as one tried to explain why it could not
actually be seen. It is not surprising that Darwin
occasionally succumbed to this temptation and was, in spite
of a judicious temperament, a little too easily tempted by
"spiked buck" stories. They fitted in well with his notions
of the way in which domestic animals were altered. We
come now, however, to a peculiar fact. It would appear that
careful domestic breeding, whatever it may do to improve
the quality of race horses and cabbages, is not actually in
itself the road to the endless biological deviation which is
evolution. There is great irony in this situation, for more
than almost any other single factor, domestic breeding had
been used as an argument for the reality of evolution. Its
significance, however, is somewhat deceptive and capable
of misinterpretation.
catshark
[snip more of the same]
Well, whatever other point you think you are making, at least you
don't disagree that it highlights your inability to discuss anything
rationally.
Which no doubt explains why no one else can see any *other* point.
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Concerning the difference between man and the jackass:
some observers hold that there isn't any.
But this wrongs the jackass.
-- Mark Twain --
david ford
Yes.
> Which no doubt explains why no one else can see any *other* point.
"Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ are almost impossible to
construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence
for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do
not count)."[G&E, "Punctuated Equilibria Reconsidered" _Paleobiology_
(1977), pg. 147.]
catshark
wrote:
[...]
>> Well, whatever other point you think you are making, at least you
>> don't disagree that it highlights your inability to discuss anything
>> rationally.
>
>Yes.
>
>> Which no doubt explains why no one else can see any *other* point.
>
>"Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ are almost impossible to
>construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence
>for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do
>not count)."[G&E, "Punctuated Equilibria Reconsidered" _Paleobiology_
>(1977), pg. 147.]
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html#quote3.3>
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Only two things are infinite,
the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein -
Richard Forrest
> On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 23:26:08 +0000 (UTC), dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford)
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> Well, whatever other point you think you are making, at least you
> >> don't disagree that it highlights your inability to discuss anything
> >> rationally.
> >
> >Yes.
> >
> >> Which no doubt explains why no one else can see any *other* point.
> >
> >"Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ are almost impossible to
> >construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence
> >for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do
> >not count)."[G&E, "Punctuated Equilibria Reconsidered" _Paleobiology_
> >(1977), pg. 147.]
>
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html#quote3.3>
I wonder if David's use of the quotation was done from dishonesty or
ignorance? Perhaps he could enlighten us as to which of the two
options is correct.
RF
david ford
> On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> Well, whatever other point you think you are making, at least you
> >> don't disagree that it highlights your inability to discuss anything
> >> rationally.
> >
> >Yes.
> >
> >> Which no doubt explains why no one else can see any *other* point.
> >
> >"Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ are almost impossible to
> >construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence
> >for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do
> >not count)."[G&E, "Punctuated Equilibria Reconsidered" _Paleobiology_
> >(1977), pg. 147.]
>
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html#quote3.3>
================================================================
From
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html#quote3.3
Representative quote miners: The Revolution Against Evolution:
Archaeopteryx is No Transitional Form and Reason & Revelation:
Archaeopteryx, Archaeoraptor, and the "Dinosaurs-to-Birds" Theory
A more complete quote:
At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic
morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble, though
it remains the "official" position of most Western evolutionists.
Smooth intermediates between Baupläne are almost impossible to
construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence
for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do
not count).
It's now obvious that Gould and Eldredge weren't arguing against
Archaeopteryx being a transitional form, but arguing that it wasn't an
example of a perfectly smooth change between body plans (or
"Baupläne"). For instance, the wing of Archaeopteryx was in essence
the forelimb of a dinosaur covered with feathers. This is what Gould
and Eldredge meant by the term "mosaic": a creature that is a mixture
of both primitive and advanced features. But mosaic forms are exactly
what we should expect from evolutionary transitions, since there's no
reason to expect every part of the body to evolve at the same rate or
at the same time. Evolution has no destination in mind, just as the
Wright Brothers didn't envision modern jet fighters when they flew at
Kitty Hawk.
But did Gould believe that Archaeopteryx was a transitional form? He
did indeed, as can be seen in his article "The Tell-tale Wishbone"
(Gould 1980). Any claim to the contrary would be a misrepresentation.
REFERENCES
Gould, S. J. 1980. "The Tell-tale Wishbone" in The Panda's Thumb: More
Reflections in Natural History, pp 267-277. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc. (Originally published in the November, 1977 edition of
Natural History)
Gould, S. J., & Eldredge, N. 1977. "Punctuated equilibria: the tempo
and mode of evolution reconsidered." Paleobiology 3:115-151.
- Jon (Augray) Barber and John Harshman
[Editor's note: For a further discussion of this quote mine, see:
Archaeopteryx: Answering the Challenge of the Fossil Record by Chris
Nedin.]
================================================================
[Jon (Augray) Barber and John Harshman]"mosaic forms are exactly what
we should expect from evolutionary transitions" Archaeopteryx is a
_mosaic_ "intermediate," and being such, does not fulfill Darwin's
prediction that intermediates would be found, as is alluded to in a
comment by Eldredge:
".... around the bones we can see the fine impressions of feathers--
the _sine qua non_, of course, of birds. What do we really mean by
'intermediates' in evolution? We might suppose that a creature
intermediate between a bipedal carnivorous dinosaur and a house
sparrow would somehow be intermediate in all respects. That's not
what we see at all: _Archaeopteryx_ has some advanced features of
birds, and some primitive retentions-- anatomical features held over
from its reptilian ancestry. _Archaeopteryx_ has the wings and
feathers of a bird, but the face and tail of a carnivorous dinosaur.
_Archaeopteryx_ is a melange of reptilian and bird features. It is a
_mosaic_ rather than a blend, according to Sir Gavin deBeer, famed
embryologist-turned-temporary-paleontologist in his famous monograph
on _Archaeopteryx_ written in the 1950s."[Eldredge, _Fossils_ (1991),
174.]
The platypus is also a curious _mosaic_, a melange of reptilian and
mammal characteristics, and I haven't heard Jon and John calling _it_
an intermediate. How come?
[Jon (Augray) Barber and John Harshman]"did Gould believe that
_Archaeopteryx_ was a transitional form? He did indeed, as can be
seen in his article 'The Tell-tale Wishbone' (Gould 1980)."
Gould can say whatever he pleases in his _Natural History_ essays;
however, the standards for peer-reviewed articles are a bit higher.
David B. Kitts of the School of Geology and Geophysics, Department of
the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, says in "Paleontology
and Evolutionary Theory" _Evolution_ 28: 458-72 (1974),
Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of
'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for
evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps'
in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms
between species and paleontology does not provide them.
Writing by himself in "Is a new and general theory of evolution
emerging?" _Paleobiology_ 6: 119-30 (1980)
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406040941.7de39c48%40posting.google.com
Harvard's Gould speaks of
The saltational initiation of major transitions: The absence of
fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions
in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination,
to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a
persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of
evolution.
Such remarks echo G&E's _Paleobiology_ 3: 147 (1977) report that
At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic
morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble,
though it remains the "official" position of most Western
evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ [body
plans] are almost impossible to construct, even in thought
experiments; there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil
record (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do not count). Even
so convinced a gradualist as G. G. Simpson (1944) invoked quantum
evolution and inadaptive phases to explain these transitions.
Even more damning is the following _Paleobiology_ 3: 134 (1977)
testimony by G&E.
david ford
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > >> Well, whatever other point you think you are making, at least you
> > >> don't disagree that it highlights your inability to discuss anything
> > >> rationally.
> > >
> > >Yes.
> > >
> > >> Which no doubt explains why no one else can see any *other* point.
> > >
> > >"Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ are almost impossible to
> > >construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence
> > >for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do
> > >not count)."[G&E, "Punctuated Equilibria Reconsidered" _Paleobiology_
> > >(1977), pg. 147.]
> >
> > <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html#quote3.3>
>
> <snipped>
>
> I wonder if David's use of the quotation was done from dishonesty or
> ignorance? Perhaps he could enlighten us as to which of the two
> options is correct.
Futuyma, Douglas J. 1979. _Evolutionary Biology_ (MA: Sinauer
Associates, Inc.), 565pp., 161-3. In the chapter "The Origins of
Evolutionary Novelties," the section "Phenotypic Gaps and Series"
has 4 paragraphs, of which these are the last 2:
Gradualists have been embarrassed by the fossil record, in which
series of intermediate forms leading to major new taxa are most
uncommon. Fossils from here and there can be pieced together to
form series, as in the succession of horses with decreasing numbers
of toes; but seldom if ever can these be shown to be steps on a
direct line of descent (Eldredge and Gould, 1972, Gould and
Eldredge 1977; _Chapter_ 7). Intermediate forms, such as the
therapsids with both reptilian and mammalian features, or
_Archaeopteryx_, with reptilian and avian characteristics, are
plentiful and demonstrate conclusively the phylogenetic origins of
higher taxa; but they are mosaics of ancestral and derived
character states rather than true intermediates. _Archaeopteryx_
demonstrates that birds arose from reptiles but does not tell us
whether feathers evolved gradually.
Gradualists have traditionally attributed the paucity of
intermediate fossils to failures of preservation and to the other
imperfections of the fossil record. Simpson (1953), however,
advanced another view, championed especially by Eldredge and Gould
(1972; Gould and Eldredge 1977). Major evolutionary changes may
occur by QUANTUM EVOLUTION, to use Simpson's term, or by punctuated
equilibria, to use Eldredge's and Gould's (_Chapter 7, Figure 1_).
New characters, including those diagnostic of major new groups, may
evolve very rapidly when a small population is geographically
isolated and becomes a new species (_Chapter 16_). Because of the
rapidity of change, intermediate forms, if they existed, are not
well preserved in the fossil record. Among the great numbers of
species, those with characteristics that adapt them to a new,
long-lasting adaptive zone are the progenitors of major new groups.
The extinction of the others, by a process of species selection,
together with the rapidity of phenotypic change during speciation,
yields gaps in the fossil record. Thus the theory of punctuated
equilibria suggests that major changes can happen very rapidly, but
it still does not tell us whether they occur through intermediate
morphological steps.
catshark
wrote:
>catshark <cats...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<uqr3m0tu5h7jo4sh7...@4ax.com>...
*Assuming* that was true, so what? Do you think evolutionary theory stands
or falls on what Darwin expected?
>as is alluded to in a
>comment by Eldredge:
>
>".... around the bones we can see the fine impressions of feathers--
>the _sine qua non_, of course, of birds. What do we really mean by
>'intermediates' in evolution? We might suppose that a creature
>intermediate between a bipedal carnivorous dinosaur and a house
>sparrow would somehow be intermediate in all respects. That's not
>what we see at all: _Archaeopteryx_ has some advanced features of
>birds, and some primitive retentions-- anatomical features held over
>from its reptilian ancestry. _Archaeopteryx_ has the wings and
>feathers of a bird, but the face and tail of a carnivorous dinosaur.
>_Archaeopteryx_ is a melange of reptilian and bird features. It is a
>_mosaic_ rather than a blend, according to Sir Gavin deBeer, famed
>embryologist-turned-temporary-paleontologist in his famous monograph
>on _Archaeopteryx_ written in the 1950s."[Eldredge, _Fossils_ (1991),
>174.]
First of all, you have to understand what "mosaic" means (coming soon as an
addition to Quote #3.3:
Ironically, the metaphor of the ladder first denied a role in
human evolution to the African australopithecines. A. africanus
walked fully erect, but had a brain less than one-third the size of
ours (see essay 22*). When it was discovered in the 1920s, many
evolutionists believed that all traits should change in concert
within evolving lineages the doctrine of the "harmonious
transformation of the type." An erect, but small-brained ape could
only represent an anomalous side branch destined for early extinction
(the true intermediate, I assume, would have been a semierect,
half-brained brute). But, as modern evolutionary theory developed
during the 1930s, this objection to Australopithecus disappeared.
Natural selection can work independently upon adaptive traits in
evolutionary sequences, changing them at different times and rates.
Frequently, a suite of characters undergoes a complete transformation
before other characters change at all. Paleontologists refer to this
potential independence of traits as "mosaic evolution." (p. 58)
>
>The platypus is also a curious _mosaic_, a melange of reptilian and
>mammal characteristics, and I haven't heard Jon and John calling _it_
>an intermediate. How come?
In summary, the features of the living platypus, and the evidence
available from its scanty fossil record, are both consistent with
the idea that it has evolved from primitive mammals which still had
many reptilian characteristics. - "Creationism and the Platypus" by
Jim Foley
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/platypus.html>
>
>[Jon (Augray) Barber and John Harshman]"did Gould believe that
>_Archaeopteryx_ was a transitional form? He did indeed, as can be
>seen in his article 'The Tell-tale Wishbone' (Gould 1980)."
>Gould can say whatever he pleases in his _Natural History_ essays;
>however, the standards for peer-reviewed articles are a bit higher.
So, you think Gould said different things in his popular and his scientific
articles? Or, is it just *possible* that you don't understand either?
>
>David B. Kitts of the School of Geology and Geophysics, Department of
>the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, says in "Paleontology
>and Evolutionary Theory" _Evolution_ 28: 458-72 (1974),
> Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of
> 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for
> evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps'
> in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms
> between species and paleontology does not provide them.
Quote #54
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-3.html#quote54>
>
>Writing by himself in "Is a new and general theory of evolution
>emerging?" _Paleobiology_ 6: 119-30 (1980)
>http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0406040941.7de39c48%40posting.google.com
>Harvard's Gould speaks of
> The saltational initiation of major transitions: The absence of
> fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions
> in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination,
> to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a
> persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of
> evolution.
And that contradicts what Gould said in his popular articles how?
>
>Such remarks echo G&E's _Paleobiology_ 3: 147 (1977) report that
> At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic
> morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble,
> though it remains the "official" position of most Western
> evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ [body
> plans] are almost impossible to construct, even in thought
> experiments; there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil
> record (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do not count). Even
> so convinced a gradualist as G. G. Simpson (1944) invoked quantum
> evolution and inadaptive phases to explain these transitions.
And that contradicts what Gould said in his popular articles how?
>
>Even more damning is the following _Paleobiology_ 3: 134 (1977)
>testimony by G&E.
> In fact, most published commentary on punctuated equilibria has
> been favorable. We are especially pleased that several
> paleontologists now state with pride and biological confidence a
> conclusion that had previously been simply embarrassing ('all these
> years of work and I haven't found any evolution').
How is that "damming", David?
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge:
it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so
positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved
by science.
-- Charles Darwin --
Richard Forrest
Which still leaves us with the question:
I wonder if David's use of the quotation was done from dishonesty or
ignorance? Perhaps he could enlighten us as to which of the two
options is correct.
RF
Michael Gray
It is my judgement from his past form that it is not an either/or
question.
He has used the two in conjunction on more occasions than I care to
count.
David Murdock
[snip fordarrhea]
> The platypus is also a curious _mosaic_, a melange of reptilian and
> mammal characteristics, and I haven't heard Jon and John calling _it_
> an intermediate. How come?
Probably because he doesn't own a time machine. Why don't you loan him yours?
---DPM
>
>
david ford
> On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 ric...@plesiosaur.com (Richard Forrest) wrote:
> >dfo...@gl.umbc.edu (david ford) wrote in message news:<dford3-b1c67abe.0...@posting.google.com>...
>
> <snipped>
>
> >Which still leaves us with the question:
> >
> >I wonder if David's use of the quotation was done from dishonesty or
> >ignorance? Perhaps he could enlighten us as to which of the two
> >options is correct.
>
> question.
> He has used the two in conjunction on more occasions than I care to
> count.
"Quantum evolution, he [Simpson] wrote [in _Tempo and Mode in Evolution_
(1944)], 'is believed to be the dominant and most essential process in
the origin of taxonomic units of relatively high rank, such as families,
orders, and classes. It is believed to include circumstances that
explain the mystery that hovers over the origins of such major groups'
(p. 206)."[Gould, "The hardening of the modern synthesis" in _Dimensions
of Darwinism: Themes and Counterthemes in Twentieth-century Evolutionary
Theory_, ed. Marjorie Grene (1983), 81-2.]
G&E's _Paleobiology_ 3: 147 (1977):
At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic
morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble,
though it remains the "official" position of most Western
evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ [body
plans] are almost impossible to construct, even in thought
experiments; there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil
Richard Forrest
RF
david ford
Imagine a situation in which a snake lays two
eggs, out of which a male and a female chicken hatch. In this
instance of extreme saltation, the blindwatchmaking rate has been
very fast, and natural-selection-as-creator played no role in the
rise of the evolutionary novelty-filled chickens from snakes.
Lest someone charge me with having presented a scenario no
saltationist would endorse, I present a German
blindwatchmakingist, paleontologist, and saltationist, Otto
Schindewolf, advocating the possibility of just such a situation:
Each of the typal sets of characters of these higher units,
however, has formed abruptly and discontinuously in a single
step of greater or lesser scope, all of a piece,
independently of speciation. _Correspondingly, there is a
deep gulf between the first representative of a new type and
its parents_, which belong to the ancestral type and,
therefore, perhaps to another order. Consequently,
Garstang's radical way of putting it, namely, that the first
bird was hatched from a (modified) reptile's egg, which I
have often quoted in the past, is correct. To say, _Natura
__facit__ saltus_ is absolutely valid; nature does indeed
take leaps![Schindewolf, 235]
Schindewolf, Otto H. 1950, 1993. _Basic Questions in
Paleontology: Geologic Time, Organic Evolution, and Biological
Systematics_, translated from the 1950 German edition by Judith
Schaefer, edited and with an afterword by Wolf-Ernst Reif,
foreword by Stephen Jay Gould. (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press), 467pp. On 168-9, the 1st paragraph of the
section "The Absence of Gradual Transitions":
The material we study in paleontology has led us to the
realization that, contrary to the classic theory of
evolutionary descent, the individual types of structural
designs are not smoothly connected by a long chain of
transitional forms linked by small transformational steps,
that the features peculiar to them are not smoothly bridged,
but that they appear in contrast with one another, set apart
by large discontinuities. Opponents of the theory of
descent have advanced this situation, the absence of the
links that, according to Darwin, are to be expected, as
proof that the more comprehensive typal entities could not
have descended one from another, thereby calling into
question the justification for the entire theory of descent.
The argument centers on these structural designs of a higher
order of magnitude; continuous evolutionary change on the
scale of the lower types, of genus or family, for example,
is generally conceded (except by a few extreme doubters); it
is also not easy to explain away.
On 193-4, the first seven paragraphs (out of 12 paragraphs total) of
the section "The Phases of Evolution":
More important than the general fact already discussed, that the
rate of evolution in individual animal and plant groups varies
considerably, is the circumstance that also _within one and the
same lineage_ there are far-reaching differences in the intensity
of transformation and that these follow a very particular
pattern.
Evolutionary transformation does not flow like a smooth, peaceful
river but rather like a stream with many series of waterfalls,
rapids, and sharply changing gradients. Evolutionary development
is episodic-- it proceeds in phases, or in _quantum leaps_; it
exhibits an unmistakable _periodicity_. The unfolding of
lineages is divided into evolutionary periods or cycles of
differing magnitudes, in each of which _three phases of differing
evolutionary rates and differing modes of development can be
distinguished_.
At the onset of a cycle, there is a brief period of abrupt
development of forms. In this phase, a number of different kinds
of structural organizations or types are established rapidly,
even explosively, in large transformationl steps; during the next
phase, these types continue to evolve while retaining their basic
nature unchanged. We call this _first phase_ the _origin of
types_, or _typogenesis_.
This is followed by a _second phase_, one of _type constancy_, or
_typostasis_, which entails a progressive elaboration,
diversification, and differentiation within the framework of the
basic form but does not alter the basic structural design itself.
In this phase, evolution is slow, very gradual, and smooth,
proceeding in small, individual steps.
This typostatic phase usually lasts much longer than the first,
typogenetic period and longer also than the _third phase_--
_typolysis_, or the _dissolution of types_, which brings each
evolutionary cycle to a close. This phase is characterized by
multiple indications of decline, degeneration, and the loosening
of the morphological constraints embodied in the type.
Overspecialization and gigantism in the lineages destined for
extinction give this period its special mark.
Because this periodicity is an extremely widespread and very
general phenomenon, it was recognized early and has been
described in various ways. Thus, Ernst Haeckel spoke of
_Epacme_, _Acme_, and _Paracme_-- of a rising, a flourishing, and
a fading away of lineages; later, Johannes Walther spoke of
_anastrophes_-- period[s] of profuse, turbulent diversification
of lineages alternating with periods of slower, more gradual
evolution. Rudolf Wedekind described this set of circumstances
in his _Virenz_ theory, which holds that from time to time
individual faunal lineages enter a climactic periods of expansion
(a period of _Virenz_), within which a phase of unstable
diversification, a second phase of stable, continuous
development, and a final one of excessive morphological
development can be distinguished.
Recently, Karl Beurlen, in particular, has elaborated upon the
pattern I have just described. He divides the evolutionary cycle
into an early phase of explosive development of forms, during
which the newly formed structural design breaks up into its
various morphological and ecological possibilities; a second
period of more gradual, unidirectional (orthogenetic) elaboration
of the basic forms created during the first phase; and a final
phase characterized by rampant complexity, degeneration, and
dissolution of the stable morphology of the preceding period.
Richard Forrest
<snipping increasingly desparate attempt to cloud the issue with more
irrelevant quotations>
Which still leaves us with the question:
I wonder if David's use of the quotation was done from dishonesty or
ignorance? Perhaps he could enlighten us as to which of the two
options is correct.
Well, David?
RF
david ford
Alas, I already sold my [DM]"time machine."
david ford
Simpson, George Gaylord. 1983. _Fossils and the History of Life_
(NY: Scientific American Library), 239pp. On 166-8, two paragraphs,
with bracketing by Simpson:
In the fossil record, there is evidence-- usually somewhat
indirect, but nonetheless convincing-- that exceptionally rapid
rates of change have usually been involved when distinctly new
kinds or levels of organization and of ecological occupation have
arisen in evolving organisms. Many examples are provided by the
records of almost all major groups of organisms known as fossils.
Among the most striking (but otherwise fairly typical) examples
of this sort of evidence is provided by the bats, which
constitute the order Chiroptera (from the Greek for "hand" and
"wing"). There are some dubious older fossils that may possibly
be bats, but the oldest bat surely identified as such is an
absolutely complete skeleton from the early Eocene of Wyoming,
about 50 million years old. (Other complete fossils of bats are
also known from beds in Germany that are somewhat younger, about
45 to 48 million years old.) This skeleton does have some
features more primitive than those of later bats, pointing back
to ancestry in nonflying, ecologically shrewlike earlier mammals.
Nevertheless, it was already fully bat-like in essentials shared
with all later and recent bats. Its anatomical adaptations to
flying were complete and were _sui generis_ for bats, radically
unlike those of either flying reptiles (the extinct pterosaurs)
or flying birds. The subsequent evolution of bats involved great
proliferation of species, genera, and families. In this, bats
compare with the rodents and exceed all other orders of mammals.
Among these almost innumerable diverging lineages, evolution was
far from static in other respects; but, if one takes adaptation
to flight as the basic point of their entry into a new broad
adaptive or ecological zone, it must be said that, since the
early Eocene, the rate of evolution of the determinants of this
vital adaptation has been extremely slow and has involved
only a few minor or secondary details. Bats' wings have not
progressed essentially over the last 50 million years or so, and
I here iterate a conclusion I reached about forty years ago with
respect to this point: "Extrapolation of this rate in an
endeavor to estimate the time of origin [of a bat's wing) from a
normal mammalian manus [front foot] might set that date before
the origin of the earth." In fact, present knowledge of
mammalian evolution in the late Cretaceous and Paleocene
indicates that transformation of the bats' forelimb structure and
function could hardly have begun earlier (and probably began
somewhat later) than about 70 million years ago. This must then
have been very much more rapid than any later evolution in the
resulting wing, and it is reasonable to infer that it involved
quantum evolution-- no matter which of the many somewhat varied
definitions of that term is applied.
Adaptive radiation (which will be discussed later from a
different point of view) usually involves quantum evolution.
This is not so well exemplified by the bats because their fossil
record, although fairly extensive in Europe, is still scanty
elsewhere. When there is a breakthrough or shift from one
adaptive or ecological zone to another, as in the origin of bats,
this is frequently followed by the expansion of the zone and
exploitation of its various subdivisions-- such as niches, in
ecological terms. This involves proliferations of separate
lineages, and it is clear that, in many instances, the origins of
the lineages are by quantum evolution.
Richard Forrest
david ford
Simpson, George Gaylord. 1949. _The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of
the History of Life and of Its Significance for Man_ (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press), 364pp. On 235:
....there is excellent evidence that evolution involving major
changes often occurs with unusual rapidity, although, as we have
seen, there is no good evidence that it ever occurs
instantaneously. The rate of evolution of the insectivore
forelimb into the bat wing, to give just one striking example,
must have been many times more rapid than any evolution of the
bat wing after it had arisen. The whole record attests that the
origin of a distinctly new adaptive type normally occurs at a
much higher rate than subsequent progressive adaptation and
diversification within that type. The rapidity of such shifts
from one adaptive level or equilibrium to another has suggested
the name "quantum evolution," under which I have elsewhere
discussed this phenomenon at greater length.
Richard Forrest
Very amusing, David.
Evidently you are both dishonest and ignorant. I find it strange that
you take such delight in making a show of your dishonesty and
ignorance.
Is this some obscure religious observance?
RF
david ford
Schindel, David E. 1982. "The gaps in the fossil record"
_Nature_ 297: 282-4. Schindel was a Curator of Invertebrate
Fossils in the Peabody Museum of Natural History and an
Assistant Professor of Geology at Yale University. The
article's first paragraph:
THE fossil record has been both a burden and a blessing
to evolutionary biologists-- a blessing because the
stratigraphical order in which fossils are arrayed
provides broad proof of change with time, but a burden
in that the gradual morphological transitions between
presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by
most biologists, are missing. Darwin and most of his
followers have resolved this dilemma by accepting the
blessing and dismissing the burden as an unfortunate but
inherent limitation in the fossil record resulting from
varying rates of sediment deposition.
Richard Forrest
And you have evidence which suggests that this is not the case?
Are you arguing that sedimenatation rates do not vary? Are you
claiming that the known and observable processes of sedimentation and
taphonomy should result in a complete and comprehensive fossil record?
So where did the authors of this paper get it wrong:
"Spatial variations in a condensed interval between estuarine and
open-marine settings: Holocene Hudson River estuary and adjacent
continental shelf. (Author Abstract) Cecilia M.G. McHugh; Stephen F.
Pekar; Nicholas Christie-Blick; William B.F. Ryan; Suzanne Carbotte;
Robin Bell. Geology, Feb 2004 v32 i2 p169(4)
Abstract:
An interval of stratigraphic condensation extending for 300 km from
the fluvially dominated Hudson River estuary to the adjacent
continental shelf reveals stratal relationships within an
unconformity-related depositional sequence that are commonly difficult
to resolve in seismic reflection profiles and outcrop. High-resolution
side-scan sonar and bathymetry, more than 100 sediment cores ~2 m
long, and radioisotope ([sup.14]C, [sup.137]Cs) age control show that
much of the valley was filled by ca. 3 to 1 ka. The present rate of
sediment accumulation averages 1 mm/yr, corresponding with a sea-level
rise of ~1.2 mm/ yr relative to local bedrock. Condensation is
manifested today by sedimentary bypass in most parts of the estuary
and by the trapping of available sediment (1.2-5.6 x [10.sup.5] t/yr
[metric tons]) along narrow reaches and primarily in the vicinity of
the estuarine turbidity maximum, a part of the estuary located
upstream of the salinity intrusion ~25 km from the mouth (3.0 x
[l0.sup.5] t/yr). Shelf condensation is due to sediment starvation.
The condensed interval merges updip with a nascent sequence boundary
as the estuary reaches its final filling phase and downdip with the
sequence boundary that developed at the Last Glacial Maximum. Delta
progradation may take place as available shelf accommodation is
filled, but such sediments are expected to be removed once sea level
begins to fall. This sedimentation pattern, in which a condensed
interval merges with different sequence boundaries, is consistent with
the stratigraphic record of the Atlantic margin back to the Paleogene
and may be typical of sediment-starved margins. "
How about the arguments presented here:
"Taphonomic losses become taphonomic gains: an experimental approach
using the rocky shore gastropod, Tegula funebralis. S.E. Walker; J.T.
Carlton. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, April 1995
v114 i2 p197(21)
Abstract
The gaps in the fossil record are not liabilities for paleontologists
but rather assets for evolutionary and paleoecological studies. The
fossil record of rocky shore invertebrates is deemed poor, resulting
from the bias of a high energy (physical) environment. The poor fossil
record of the Pleistocene rocky shore gastropod Tegula funebralis
appears to be no exception to this rule. However, field studies,
including experimentally deployed shells in two habitats, reveal five
important taphonomic processes that affect the resultant fossil
resource for these gastropods: (1) the predilection for Tegula shells
by the intertidal hermit crab, Pagurus samuelis, affects the longevity
of the shells, (2) hermit crab-occupied shells of Tegula have a
distinct array of bionts distinguishable from the living snail and
empty, experimentally tethered shells, (3) biont types on tethered
shells differ between two habitats (mudflat and rocky intertidal), and
are thus useful for paleoenvironmental determinations, (4) physical
processes greatly affected intact shell longevity of experimental
shells at the rocky intertidal site, whereas at the mudflat site,
mistaken predation by durophagous crabs was the most important agent
of shell destruction, and (5) despite these taphonomic losses, the
Pleistocene fossil record of Tegula retains a good record of the
biological factors that affect its preservation, that of pagurid
crustaceans and their gastropod shell-associated bionts. Taphonomic
losses when viewed from a hierarchy of shell users, then, are gains in
biological information that indicate the level of complexity within
the shell-using community, and this record is not completely lost in
high energy regimes."
You could also address the points raised here:
Gaps in the fossil record: a case study. David A. Thomas. Skeptical
Inquirer, Nov-Dec 1998 v22 n6 p26(3)
Here's another paper which addresses some of the issues of
incompleteness of the fossil record:
"Congruence between phylogenetic and stratigraphic data on the history
of life. M.J. Benton; R. Hitchin. Proceedings: Biological Sciences,
June 22, 1997 v264 i1383 p885(6)
Abstract:
The quality of the fossil record and the accuracy of reconstructed
phylogenies have been debated recently, and doubt has been cast on how
far current knowledge actually reflects what happened in the past. A
survey of 384 published cladograms of a variety of animals
(echinoderms, fishes, tetrapods) shows that there is good agreement
between phylogenetic (character) data and stratigraphic (age) data,
based on a variety of comparative metrics. This congruence of
conclusions from two essentially independent sources of data confirms
that the majority of cladograms are broadly accurate and that the
fossil record, incomplete as it is, gives a reasonably faithful
documentation of the sequence of occurrence of organisms through
time."
Incidentally, if you can present a well-reasoned series of
evidence-based arguments against the conclusions Mike Benton and
Rebecca Hitchin present in this paper, I'll pass them on to Mike for
his comment.
Or how about this:
"Fauna, taphonomy and ecology of the Plio-Pleistocene Chiwondo Beds,
Northern Malawi. O. Sandrock; O. Kullmer; F. Schrenk; Y.M. Juwayeyi;
T.G. Bromage.; American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Annual 2003
p182(2)
Abstract
The vertebrate fauna of the Chiwondo Beds in Northern Malawi is
heavily biased towards the preservation of large terrestrial mammals.
A case study carried out at the Late Pliocene hominid site at Malema
shows that twenty species are recognized, eighteen of which are
ungulates, known from other African Plio-Pleistocene localities. Their
diversity resembles an African open-adapted short grass plains
assemblage. The taxonomic diversity is nevertheless low, emphasizing
an incomplete fossil record. Based on modern bovid abundances in
African game parks, statistical tests show that the bovid fauna
consists of a mixture of the Somali-Masai and the Zambezian ecozones.
The occurrence of Paranthropus boisei makes Malema the southernmost
locality in Eastern Africa yielding this early hominid taxon. Its
discovery at a lake margin site corresponds to robust
australopithecine bearing localities along Lake Turkana, Kenya.
The death assemblage was subject to heavy modification after
deposition. This has effected the size distribution, the frequencies
of skeletal elements, and thus the taxonomic composition. High-density
skeletal elements such as molars and partial mandibles prevail. The
analysis of the chemical composition of mammal and fish bones from
Malema suggests a different site formation process than in other
African localities such as Olduvai Bed I despite the proximity of a
paleolake. While bovids also dominate at the Homo rudolfensis locality
at Uraha, the faunal composition and preservation potentials at that
site point to a different taphonomic history.
"
Or this:
"Foraminiferal zonation of late Paleozoic depositional sequences. C.A.
Ross; J.R.P. Ross. ; Marine Micropaleontology, Dec 1995 v26 i1
p469(10)
Abstract:
From the later part of the Devonian through the Permian, calcareous
foraminifers became abundant and evolved rapidly. This rapid evolution
of taxa forms the basis of a detailed zonation through the
Carboniferous and Permian. Comparison of this evolutionary history of
foraminifers, their biostratigraphic zonation, and the depositional
sequences in which they occur suggests that sea-level events in late
Paleozoic depositional history contributed significantly in
subdividing a fairly continuous evolutionary record into a succession
of about 75 identifiable foraminiferal zones during a 100-125 Myr time
span. Although variable in terms of duration and vertical occurrences,
the more completely recorded high-stand intervals give brief histories
of the foraminiferal evolutionary record and are sandwiched between
the poorly recorded or unrecorded low-stand intervals. Many of the
individual foraminiferal zones are confined to a single depositional
sequence.The late Paleozoic carbonate foraminiferal fossil record, as
with the rest of the fossil record, is strongly affected by sediment
deposition-nondeposition as a result of major changes in sea level.
This incomplete fossil record is the result of repeated depositional
breaks because of the way that depositional sequences form. It is not
possible to ascribe macromutations, 'punctuated' evolution or
'punctuated gradualism' as the cause of this evolutionary pattern of
the shelf-carbonate fossil record. This pattern is distinctive and we
refer to it as 'sequence evolution' and 'sequence extinction'. In the
later part of the Middle Permian and in the Late Permian, the fossil
record clearly illustrates that a series of faunal losses through
'sequence extinctions' progressively exceeded faunal replacements and
new species through 'sequence evolution', but not a 'mass extinction'
as is commonly ascribed to the end of the Permian Period. Most Permian
faunas became extinct in the interval of 8 to 4 million years before
the end of the Late Permian."
If you want to address the problem of the incompleteness of the fossil
record, you need to understand the nature of the problem. You don't.
Learn about it, form arguments based on evidence, and present them.
So put up or shut up.
RF
catshark
Forrest) wrote:
[...]
>> Schindel, David E. 1982. "The gaps in the fossil record"
>> _Nature_ 297: 282-4. Schindel was a Curator of Invertebrate
>> Fossils in the Peabody Museum of Natural History and an
>> Assistant Professor of Geology at Yale University. The
>> article's first paragraph:
>> THE fossil record has been both a burden and a blessing
>> to evolutionary biologists-- a blessing because the
>> stratigraphical order in which fossils are arrayed
>> provides broad proof of change with time, but a burden
>> in that the gradual morphological transitions between
>> presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by
>> most biologists, are missing. Darwin and most of his
>> followers have resolved this dilemma by accepting the
>> blessing and dismissing the burden as an unfortunate but
>> inherent limitation in the fossil record resulting from
>> varying rates of sediment deposition.
>
>And you have evidence which suggests that this is not the case?
>
>Are you arguing that sedimenatation rates do not vary? Are you
>claiming that the known and observable processes of sedimentation and
>taphonomy should result in a complete and comprehensive fossil record?
This is a moderately used quote mine used mostly in the form:
“... the gradual morphological transitions between presumed
ancestors and descendants, anticipated by most biologists,
are missing.” David E. Schindel (Curator of Invertebrate
Fossils, Peabody Museum of Natural History), “The Gaps in
the Fossil Record,” Nature, Vol. 297, 27 May 1982, p. 282.
If you have access to the original paper, please feel free to write up
something on it for the Quote Mine Project.
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
In the name of the bee
And of the butterfly
And of the breeze, amen
- Emily Dickinson -
catshark
wrote:
[...]
>The platypus is also a curious _mosaic_, a melange of reptilian and
>mammal characteristics, and I haven't heard Jon and John calling _it_
>an intermediate. How come?
I just ran across a good explanation of why the platypus is not an
"intermediate" in Carl Zimmer's review of Richard Dawkins' _The Ancestor's
Tale_ in the NT Times Book Review:
. . . it is tempting to look at the platypus, a duck-billed mammal
that lays eggs, as a living fossil trapped in the past. In fact,
the platypus is no more primitive than we are. True, its ancestors
branched off from our own some 180 million years ago, before our
more recent ancestors evolved placentas and live births. But the
ancestors of today's platypuses were not frozen in time. They
evolved sophisticated adaptations of their own, like sense organs
in their bills that can detect faint electric fields produced by
other animals. From this perspective, it is humans who are the
living fossils. Dawkins not only makes an important point here,
but does it with flair. He eloquently describes how platypuses
combine information from electric-sense organs with signals from
mechanical sensors in their bills, likening the process to our
measuring how far away a lightning bolt strikes by comparing the
flash to the thunder. "When you think of a platypus, forget duck,"
he writes. "Think huge hand feeling its way, by remote pins and
needles; think lightning flash and thunder rumbling, through the
watery mud of Australia."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/books/review/17ZIMMERL.html?pagewanted=all>
(Requires free registration)
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge:
TomS
<5kq4n0lfe16vvo8tm...@4ax.com>, catshark stated..."
This is a fairly short paper, just over 1 page long, and I
feel uncomfortable with doing either of two things:
1. Posting a long enough segment to really explain what the article
is saying, which might be beyond "fair use" of copyrighted material.
2. Posting too short a segment which may give a mistaken impression
of what is a quite nuanced article.
I've tried several times to break out some quotable bits, but
they all seem to go on to some length about precise details about
the fossil record. This is about the best that I can come up with:
"Over the past ten years, microstratigraphical studies have
appeared which document fine-scale patterns of change. ...
These field studies have faced two serious challenges in the
past year. ... This article provides a response to these challenges
by outlining procedures for evaluating the level of time resolution
obtained in microstratigraphical studies, and the quality of the
patterns they document." (pages 282-283)
(I can make a photocopy and send it to you ... I still have
your mail address.)
--
---Tom S.---
"Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent? Contrivance, by its very
definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to
expedients, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of power."
Paley, Natural Theology, Chapter III
catshark
wrote:
Maybe Richard or some other expert can interpret the article. It sounds
like "microstratigraphical studies" are intended to address just the
"problem" that is being described in the quote mine.
>
> (I can make a photocopy and send it to you ... I still have
>your mail address.)
Please do. Unlike some people, who will remain Nameless, I like to
*actually* have copies of the articles the quote mines come from whenever
possible.
Richard Forrest
<snipped>
Happy to do so if you can email me a pdf, though I can't claim too
much expertise on stratigraphy. Having said that, I know several
people who do have such expertise and who will be willing to help me
out if I get stuck.
RF
<snipped>
catshark
I may have to mail you a text file and JPEGs of any charts/tables, as
I've never done pdfs but I'll get it to you somehow. Thanks.