Michael Denton's *REAL* views on evolution

[James J. Lippard]

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The following is posted for James J. Lippard at his request.
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A work frequently cited by creationists is Michael Denton's book,
_Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_ (1985). They like to cite him
because he is a non-creationist working in molecular genetics who
attacks evolution (but see below). Denton's book has received
quite negative reviews in the scientific journals (e.g., Mark
Ridley, "More Darwinian Detractors," Nature 318(14 Nov. 1985):124-
125; Niles Eldredge, Quarterly Review of Biology 61(Dec.
1986):541-542) and has been criticized in Creation/Evolution
(e.g., Matthew Landau, "Protein Sequences and Denton's Error,"
Winter 1989-90, issue 26, pp. 1-7).
On March 18, 1988, Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation
Research debated Ian Plimer, then professor of geology at the
University of Newcastle (now at the University of Melbourne). In
that debate, Gish made reference to Denton's book. In response,
Plimer held up a copy of the book and said, "What we were not told
was that Michael Denton, at this university last year, said and
admitted he was wrong. That was published. He also said that he
was unaware of the fossil record when he wrote it." Plimer's
claim is untrue.
Gish then said, "Dr. Denton did not deny or go back on
anything he put in his book. This is what he did say: that if he
were going to write a book on this subject that he'd take a
different approach. The evidence that he discussed in here he
said is subjective. ...But from the perspective now in genetic
research he believes that possibly it's possible to objectively
establish that [sic] if evolution is possible or not. And
certainly from his present state of knowledge he believes it can
be objectively proven that it's impossible." Gish's remarks are
more or less accurate up to the less sentence, but there his claim
is also untrue.
The Australian Skeptics published an inaccurate version of
the quotation I just gave from Gish, stating that Gish had said
Denton claimed evolution was "possibly now a provable reality."
(Steve Roberts and Tim Mendham, "News Report: Gish/Plimer Debate,"
The Skeptic, vol. 7, Winter, pp. 10-13) This inaccurate quotation
was republished in the Creation/Evolution Newsletter (July/August
1988, p. 17) and only recently corrected via a letter from me
(NCSE Reports, Summer 1991, p. 19). Unfortunately, the editor of
NCSE Reports altered my submission in such a way to make it say
some things that are false, such as calling Denton a creationist
(he isn't, as I shall show).
I have recently corresponded with Denton (who is presently in
the Biochemistry Department at the University of Otago in Dunedin,
New Zealand), and he has given me permission to show his letter of
October 1, 1991 to anyone (all Denton quotations below are from
this letter). It appears that Plimer's remark is based on a
misrepresentation of a conversation Denton had with paleontologist
Michael Archer, in which Denton "conceded that perhaps the
divisions/discontinuities in the order of nature might not be as
biologically significant" as he implied in his book. But Denton
"argued strenuously with Archer that an objective interpretation
of the gaps was impossible given the current state of biological
knowledge. They could be basically only 'sampling errors' and
biologically trivial, [or] they could be determined by fundamental
restrictions on what is possible in the realm of organic design
and hence of deep significance." Denton maintains that
"interpreting the gaps on morphological grounds was bound in the
subjective" and still thinks that "the discontinuous appearance of
nature poses a challenge to the strictly gradualistic Darwinian
interpretation of evolution."
As for the claim that Denton was ignorant of the fossil
record, he devotes a chapter of his book to the subject (titled
"The Fossil Record"). Contrary to another report in the
Creation/Evolution Newsletter (Stan Weinberg, "Creation-Evolution
Literature from Australia," September/October 1986, pp. 20-22),
Denton also was familiar with the mammal-like reptiles when he
wrote his book--he discusses them on pp. 180-181 of his book.
So just what are Denton's current views? I'll let him speak
for himself:

"I am myself still very sceptical about the Darwinian claim
that all the adaptive complexity of biological nature has come as
a result of the process of 'cumulative selection' (Dawkins'
phrase), i.e., by the gradual accumulation of small random
mutations each of which *fortuitously* conferred some tiny
selective advantage to the organism in which it occurred.
Although sceptical re: this claim I concede that it is a possible
explanation for adaptive evolution. Nonetheless I would insist
that it has certainly not been proved nor can I see at present,
given the fantastic, practically unfathomable complexity of living
things how one could conceivably go about proving such a notion."

He goes on to mention the recent work of Barry Hall and John
Cairns (some of which has been published in Nature) on apparent
directed mutation as evidence for what we don't know about the
nature of mutation (though he says he doesn't accept that Hall and
Cairns have proven their case). He concludes:

"I am sure that the cause of evolution will turn out to be
perfectly natural even though as yet we have no satisfactory
naturalistic explanation. However I am inclined to the view that
when the natural explanations are elucidated they will represent
deeply embedded laws or tendencies in the nature of things which
will largely restrict life forms to designs similar to those
actually manifest on earth or in other words that life's design is
not contingent as Gould claims but directed in large measure by
physics in the most general sense of the term."

Denton has told me that he has not seen the Landau article I
mentioned above, which I intend to forward to him. Watch this
space as well as Creation/Evolution and NCSE Reports for future
updates.

--
Jim Lippard Lip...@RVAX.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy Lip...@ARIZRVAX.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85722

Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily
represent those opinions of this or any other organization. The facts,
however, simply are and do not "belong" to anyone.
j...@sun4.jhuapl.edu or j...@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu or meritt%aplvm.BITNET

[Kevin D. Quitt]

Thanks for the posting. I don't see anything in his views that
supports the fundamentalist view of creation, however. He merely
refutes Darwin's original "slow change" model as being the sole possible
model of evolution. I doubt there's anyone who still believes that
Darwin's model is the only one possible. Darwinian evolution certainly
does occur, but there are obviously periods of very rapid change (i.e.
punctured equilibrium).

How do the fundies claim that this supports their view?

--
_
Kevin D. Quitt srhqla!venus!kdq k...@3D.com
3D systems, inc. 26081 Avenue Hall Valencia, CA 91355
VOICE (805) 295-5600 x430 FAX (805) 257-1200

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