Ten years after Goldschmidt’s “Material Basis of Evolution” was published (1940), Otto Schindewolf published “Grundfragen der Palaeontologie,” (1950). It was 43 years before it was translated into English as “Basic Questions in Paleontology.” (1993). The only remarkable feature of the translation was the nature of the Foreword written by Stephen Jay Gould. Praising Schindewolf by describing him as, in his day, the greatest living paleontologist, Gould let his real feelings be expressed on page xi of his Foreword. After disposing of Schindewolf by describing his views as “spectacularly flawed,” Gould then had this to say -

“Opposing views are scarcely discussed or even cited. Schindewolf’s Grundfragen is a credo or manifesto for a saltational, internally driven evolutionism in the Continental formalist tradition versus the longstanding English preference for functionalist theories based on continuous adaptation to a changing external environment.”

Gould’s characterization of Schindewolf’s thesis is entirely accurate. Obviously Gould was not at all pleased with the thrust of Schindewolf’s science and was doing his level best to undermine the very book for which he had written the Foreword. What is especially significant is that Schindewolf had been dead for twenty-two years when Gould wrote the Foreword. I doubt very much if Gould would have made those statements if Schindewolf had been alive. I never forgave Gould for that cheap shot at the greatest paleontologist since Cuvier. It is important to recount this matter as Gould’s position still persists today. The “Darwinista” remain adamantly opposed to the notion of a predetermined, purposeful phylogeny even as everything we continue to learn renders the selectionist neo-Darwinian model completely obsolete, a shambles, with no foundation whatsoever as my sources have each already established.

Just as Goldschmidt endorsed Schindewolf’s saltational, preadapted phylogenesis, Schindewolf responded to Goldschmidt’s conclusions -

“Richard Goldschmidt laid out his intellectual edifice in 1940 in an intensive, thoroughly provocative work entitled “The Material Basis of Evolution,” with which I was not yet familiar when I prepared this manuscript. His earlier communications on this subject have had considerable influence on my thinking or have strengthened it, but in essence, the concepts described here grew out of my own analysis of paleontological material. All the more surprising and pleasing, then, is the broad agreement in our views. ‘Schindewolf’s theory is practically identical with that of Goldschmidt,’ as D.D. Davis (1949) observed recently based on my 1936 publication. I regard this convergence of views arising from extremely different premises as a welcome sign that we are on the right track….This explanatory attempt by Goldschmidt has aroused much opposition among other geneticists. Paleontology has no right to intervene in this dispute. From my personal point of view, I can add only that Goldschmidt’s inferences completely meet the challenge that the fossil material appears to me to pose, and that he, a leadimg geneticist, has presented a complete interpretation that does justice to the tangible, historical phylogenetic data.”
Basic Questions in Paleontology, page 352.

Schindewolf had other convictions with which I have come, at first reluctantly, but finally, firmly to agree –

“Many recent authors have spoken of experimental evolution; there is no such thing. Evolution, a unique, historical course of events that took place in the past, is not repeatable experimentally and cannot be investigated in that way.”
Basic Questions in in Paleontology, page 311, Schindewolf’s italics.

and

“At most, the environment plays only a similar role with regard to organisms; it can only provoke and set in motion some potential that is already present.”
page 313, Schindewolf’s italics.

Note how Schindewolf agrees here with the positions already held by Richard B. Goldschmidt, William Bateson, Reginald C. Punnett and Leo Berg. It is interesting that Schindewolf made no reference to either Bateson or Punnett and his only reference to Berg was on another matter. It serves to further support the notion of a predetermined phylogeny when so many different investigators have independently reached the same conclusion, rendering that hardly a coincidence. Nevertheless, the Darwinians still pretend it never happened. Their position is nothing short of a scandal.

It is important at this point in time to introduce two other scientists into my narrative, both Darwinian selectionists. First Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Incidentally, Thomas Henry, while he defended Darwin, never became an ardent Darwinian himself while his grandson Julian most definitely did. In 1942, two years after the publication of Goldschmidt’s “Material Basis of Evolution,” Huxley’s “Evolution: The Modern Synthesis” appeared. Huxley referenced Goldschmidt 29 times yet remained a convinced Darwinian selectionist nevertheless. Huxley, however, made a very important contribution on page 571, 7 pages from the end when he maintained in no uncertain language that evolution was finished. How such an assertion (with which I agree) could ever be reconciled with the Darwinian model is difficult to understand. I discussed this conflict in detail in my paper “The Blind Alley”: Its significance for evolutionary theory” and so I won’t repeat it here except to indicate the sort of muddled thinking that must be involved when such statements appear and remain unexplained. The Darwinians naturally pretend that Huxley, one of their own, never made those statements. The idea that evolution was largely finished was not original with Huxley but was “borrowed” without citation from Robert Broom, one of my anti-Darwnian sources. I am not going to burden this essay with documentation of the whole sordid affair as I have done so elsewhere and it is unnecessary to the thrust of the present discussion.

The second Darwinian that the Darwnians conveniently ignore is Theodosius Dobzhansky who provided a testable physiological definition for what defines a species. Dobzhansky recognized that occasionally two organisms assumed to be different species would spontaneously mate and produce a viable hybrid. He defined the criterion for species as follows. If two forms produce a viable hybrid the parents will be considered to be separate species if the hybrid proves to sterile. If the hybrid proves to be fertile the two forms would have to be assumed to be varieties or subspecies. This criterion is sound genetics and should always be employed when questions arise concerning the validity of named species. By that criterion we know that the horse and the donkey are indeed separate species because the mule is sterile. What is most remarkable is the reticence with which Darwinists have been willing to employ this straightforward experimental test. The perfect untested material is provided by the finches Darwin observed in the Galapagos islands when he was naturalst aboard H.M.S Beagle in 1832. They have become known as “Darwin’s finches” and have been assumed to represent several species. But are they? Finches are among the easiest birds to domesticate. The canary is a finch and has been bred in captivity for centuries. Why haven’t the Darwinians tested Darwin’s finches? My answer is – they are terrified at what the results might be. As a matter of fact, it is already known, based on field observations, that certain of Darwin’s presumed finch species have hybridized spontaneously to produce genetically fit offspring. The primary reason that Darwinians do not test their hypothesis is because they believe that it is settled science and is immune to experimental verification. No hypothesis has ever enjoyed that distinction. As far as we know all Darwin’s finches are but subspecies or varieties of a single species which found its way to the Galapagos long ago. conceivably as a single fertile female.

Dobzhansky made another important contrtibution which proved to be lethal to the notion of selection as the basis for speciation. He deliberately set out to transform, by artificial selection, the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, into a new member of the Genus Drosophila. Dobzhansky tried, failed, admitted he failed yet remained a Darwinian, one of the great mysteries in the annals of experimental biology. It rivals Julian Huxley concluding that evolution is finished yet remaining a selectionist Darwinian nevertheless. What is truly mindboggling is that two Darwinians, Huxley and Dobzhansky, have been instrumental in undermining everything that the Darwinian paradigm stands for, the gradual transformation of one species into another through the agency of natural selection. The proper conclusion to be drawn from the findings of both these investigators is plain enough. Natural selection is not the mechansm for evolutionary change exactly as Leo Berg proclaimed 87 years ago. my italiics.

Robert Broom is the only one of my sources I heard lecture. It was in 1947 or 1948 in a course in Physical Anthropology I was taking at the University of Wisconsin as an undergraduate major in Zoology. At the time I had no idea of Broom’s evolutionary views yet I can remember much of his lecture as if it was yesterday. He was able to reproduce from memory outlines in chalk of the fossil humanoids he and others had discovered. In my opinion Robert Broom was one of the most remarkable human beings who ever lived. Every serious student of evolution should study his life and accomplishments.

Robert Broom has played a key role in my conclusions concerning the great mystery of phylogeny. I will let Broom speak for himself as I have all my other sources. Here is Broom presenting his picture of the causes of phylogeny in the final paragraph of his book, “Finding The Missing Link” (1950).

“Those who consider that all the strange course of evolution is the result of an accident, or a series of accidents, are quite at liberty to think so. I believe that there is a Plan, and though in the slow course of evolution there have been ups and downs, and what look like mistakes, the plan has gone on; and we may feel sure that it cannot fail to reach its goal.”
Finding the Missing Link, page 101.

I am nearing the end of my subect – “What’s Wrong With Darwinism?” – but there is one more very significant scientist, Pierre Grasse, I must mention. Like his Russian counterpart. Leo Berg, Grasse wrote only a single book dealing directly with the subject of organic evolution – “Evolution of Living Organisms,” a curious title in light of the fact that Grasse, like Broom (and Julian Huxley) had independently reached the conclusion that creative evolution was largely if not entirely a phenomenon of the distant past -

“The period of great fecundity is over: present biological evolution appears as a weakened process, declining or near its end. Aren’t we witnessing the remains of an immense phenomenon close to extinction? Aren’t the small variations which are being recorded everywhere the tail end, the last oscillations of the evolutionary movement? Aren’t our plants, our animals lackimg some mechanisms which were present in the early flora and fauna?
Pierre Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, page 71.

Without qualification I answer yes to each of Grasse’s questions simply because that answer is required by the present state of our understanding of the great mystery of organic evolution.

I will make no attempt in this essay to pursue the alternatives to Darwin’s atheist inspired proposal because that is another subject entirely, one I have already addressed elsewhere. I only hope this essay will serve, at least partially, to answer the question – “What’s wrong with Darwinism?” In my opinion – just about everything.

Literature cited

Berg, L.S., Nomogenesis or Evolution Determined by Law. M.I.T. Press, Cambridge Massachusetts and London, 1969.

Broom, Robert, Finding the Missing Link, Watts and Co., London, 1950.

Davison, J.A., The “Blind Alley”, Its significance for evolutionary theory. Rivista di Biologia 86: 101-111, 1993.

Davison, J.A., Is evolution finished? Rivista di Biologia 97: 111-116, 2004.

Goldschmidt, Richard B., The Material Basis of Evolution, Yale University Press, 1940.

Grasse, Paul, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academc Press, New York, 1977.

Huxley, Julian, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, John Wiley and sons, New York, 1942.

Mivart, St. George, On the Genesis of Species, D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1871.

Schindewolf, Otto, Basic Questions in Paleontology, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1993.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/nov/05/astronomy-copernicus-kepler-religion?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments

Edit added Nov 6 , 2009 10:00 am

Thank you Martin.

I added some comments, received the usual abuse, as did you, and then Andrew Brown asked me to stop which was quite unnecessary since he had already refused to publish any more comments from me. Imagine a host who asks a user to stop long after he has already stopped him. That my friends is Andrew Brown!

It is hard to believe isn’t it?

Not at all. It is a matter of record.

I hope you read this Andrew Brown. You are precious!

What’s Wrong With Darwinism?

by

John A. Davison

Every significant scientific advance can be framed as a question which has been or hopefully will be answered. Examples include – “what is the cause of disease?” and “what is the cause of gravity?” The former question has been largely answered, the latter remains largely unanswered . As I hope to demonstrate, the difficulty with Darwinism is that its proponents assume that its causes are already understood. My position is that the causes of evolution (phylogeny) remain shrouded in mystery just as do the causes of embryonic development (ontogeny). By cause I mean original cause which can be distilled down to mean the source of the information which makes those two processes possible now as in the past.

By asking the question – what’s wrong with Darwinism? – it is appropriate to begin with what is right with it which, I propose, is very little indeed. There is no question that Darwin will always remain a significant figure in the history of evolutionary science because he proposed a reasonable mechanism by which it proceeds. It is the reasonableness of the Darwinian model that has always been its greatest apparent strength but, as someone once said, – ”Hypotheses have to be reasonable, facts don’t.” Facts simply do not support the Darwinian explanation. So to what extent is the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection valid as an explanatory device?

The Darwinian model rests firmly on two demonstrable facts. The offspring of a species exhibit variation and, by selection for those variations, subspecies and varieties can be established. No scientist questions these facts, but I maintain that is all that the Darwinian model can now explain or ever has explained. Every aspect of neo-Darwinism that goes any further is dead wrong. While natural selection is very real I hope to demonstrate that is purely anti-evolutionary, serving only to maintain the status quo for as long as possible. Very little of what I present is original with me and I will let my sources speak for themselves, confident that in the end, Darwin’s Victorian fantasy will finally be abandoned once and for all.

My approach in this essay is historical, beginning with Darwin’s contemporary St. George Mivart and proceeding chronologically through the contributions of some of the finest minds of the post Darwinian era, not one of whom supported the Darwinian hypothesis.

How then is it possible for Darwinism to still survive? My answer is simple. The Darwinians have always pretended that they never had any credible critics. That is still their posture today on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” a book which I believe contains not a single word in support of its grandiose title.

St. George Mivart published “On the Genesis of Species” in 1871, only twelve years after Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.” His Chapter 2 bears the provocative title – “The incompetency of ‘natural selection’ to account for the incipient stages of useful structures. In other words, Mivart has asked the question – how can natural selection possibly have been involved in a structure which had not yet appeared? Try as I may I cannot find a single rational reply to Mivart’s challenge anywhere in the Darwinian literature. I am not surprised because there can be no reply. If Mivart had not written another word, he had destroyed in one fell swoop the entire fabric of Darwin’s dream. Thus it is no surprise that the Darwinians have pretended that Mivart never existed. Oddly enough, Darwin acknowledged Mivart but decided to “hold my ground” nevertheless, an absurd position for any scientist to take when so confronted.

I next go to the year 1909 which marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s masterpiece and incidentally the hundredth anniversary of his birth. The following book appeared that year -
“Darwin and paleontology. Fifty years of Darwinism.” In it Henry Fairfield Osborn, the Director of the American Museum of Natural History, offered his appraisal of Darwinism -

“In all the research since 1869 on the transformations observed in closely successive phyletic series no evidence whatever, to my knowledge, has been brought forward by any paleontologist, either of the vertebrated or invertebrated animals, that the fit originates by selection from the fortuitous.”
page 223. (my source is Leo Berg’s Nomogenesis, page 127.)

Notice that thus far Darwinism has only been criticized with no clear alternative suggestions being offered. That was about to change with the appearance of William Bateson, the father of modern genetics, when he presented The Inaugural Address to The Australian meeting of the British Association in 1914. Nature, vol. 93 pages 635-642.

“Finally, Bateson likewise (1914, p. 640) inclines to the view that the entire process of evolution may be regarded as ‘an unpacking of an original complex which contained within itself the whole range of diversity which living things present.’.”
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 359.

One can just imagine the response of the Darwinians to such an outrageous interpretation of the evolutionary scenario yet, as we will see, Bateson was far from alone with his suggestion that the information for phylogeny was prepared in advance. Isn’t all the information for ontogeny already present in the fertilized egg? Why then could this not be true for phylogeny as well?

The very next year, 1915, Reginald C. Punnett published “Mimicry in Butterflies.” in which he further promoted the notion of a preformed evolution -

“On this view natural selection is a real factor in connection with mimicry, but its function is to conserve and render preponderant an already existing likeness, not to build up that likeness through the accumulation of small variations as is so generally assumed.” page 152…..Nevertheless, the facts, so far as we at present know them, tell definitely against the views generally held as to the part played by natural selection in the process of evolution.” page 153. (my emphasis in italics)

My next source is Leo Berg who I already mentioned as a source. This remarkable Russian biologist, the author of over 480 articles, monographs and books, wrote only a single book on evolutionary science – “Nomogenesis or Evolution Determined by Law.” (1922). Unlike his Darwinian adversaries, who still pretend he never existed, Berg cited Darwin over 60 times, Mivart 6 times, Osborn 25 times, Bateson 7 times and Punnett 6 times. By way of contrast consider that Stephen Jay Gould, author of the 1392 page “On the Structure of Evolutionary Theory,” mentions Berg not at all and does not list Nomogenesis in his Bibliography. Gould’s Harvard colleague, Ernst Mayr lists Nomogenesis in the Biblliography of his so-called “Growth of Biological Thought” but makes no mention of it in the text, the height of arrogant, intellectual snobbery. I use these two examples only to demonstrate that all we many critics of Darwinism still fail to exist in the literature of their primary spokespersons.

Leo Berg calmly challenged every aspect of Darwin’s thesis and presented his conclusions in unmistakable language as the following examples illustrate.

“We may summarize the present section in the following words: the laws of the organic world are the same, whether we are dealing with the development of the individual (ontogeny) or that of a paleontological series (phylogeny). Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance.”
Nomogenesis, page 134, Berg’s italics.

At the end of his book Berg summarizes his differences with Darwinism with the following three statements which are especially important with respect to the thrust of this essay.

“Organisms have developed from tens of thousands of primary forms, i.e, polyphyletically.”
“The struggle for existence and natural selection are not progressive agencies, but being, on the contrary, conservative, maintain the standard.”
“Evolution is in a great measure an unfolding of pre-existing rudiments.”
Nomogenesis, page 406.

There is nothing in the fossil record fatal to these propositions and much to support them. The fossil record remains today what it has always been, filled with gaps which, it is my contention, will never be filled through gradual transformations. I will now cite others who reached exactly the same conclusion long ago.

My next two sources were contemporaries, the German/American geneticist Richard B. Goldschmidt and the German paleontologist Otto Schindewolf. The remarkable thing is that why I don’t believe they ever met, they reached virtually identical conclusions about phylogeny coming from entirely different scientific backgrounds.

Like Leo Berg, Goldschmidt published only one book dealing specifically with evolution – “The Material Basis of Evolution.” (1940). The book is divided into two major sections, Microevolution and Macroevolution. The first section ends with the following recapitulation -

“Microevolution by accumulation of micromutations – we might also say neo-Darwinism – is a process which leads to diversification strictly within the species, usually, if not exclusively, for the sake of adaptation of the species to specific conditions within the area which it is able to occupy. This is the case for microevolution on the subspecific level of formation of geographical races or ecotypes. Below this level, microevolution has even less significance for evolution (local mutants, polymorphism, etc.) Subspecies are actually, therefore, neither incipient speceis nor models for the origin of species. They are more or less diversified blind alleys within the species. The decisive step in evolution, the first step toward macroevolution, the step from one species to another, requires another evolutionary method than that of sheer accumulation of microevmutations.Page 183, Goldschmidt’s italics.

Then, in the second half of his book, the half dealing with macroevolution, Goldschmidt correctly identifies the other “evolutionary method” as the restructuring of the chromosome which can take place without any change in alleles whatsoever. According to Goldschmidt, and I agree, the Mendelian gene is not the unit of evolutionary change. Rather it is the chromosome that is the unit which when reorganized can lead to the formation of a new species without any further genetic change required. This can immediately explain how our DNA can be so very nearly identical with that of our nearest living relative, the chimpanzee. Indeed, today it seems that the entire radiation of the species that comprise the Order Primates to which we belong can be explained perhaps entirely by the reorganization of a common ancestral chromosomal karyotype. In other words, Mendelian mutation of alleles (micromutation) played no role in phylogeny whatsoever. That is my conclusion based on the present state of our knowledge as it was Goldschmidt’s 69 years ago. Nothing has transpired in the interim to alter that interpretation and we have learned much more to support it.

“…the fact remains that an unbiased analysis of a huge body of pertinent facts shows that macroevolution is linked to chromosomal repatterning and that the latter is a method of producing new organic reaction systems, a method which overcomes the great difficulties which the actual facts raise for the neo-Darwinian conception as applied to macroevolution.”Richard B. Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution, page 249, the entire statement in his italics.

It is important to recognize that, when a chomosome is reorganized, several factors will simultaneously be affected as genic expression will be subject to new chromosomal environments, a phenomenon known as position effect.

Before leaving Goldschmidt I will introduce Otto Schindewolf’s influence on Goldschmidt’s thinking and vice versa. In 1936 Schindewolf had published a small book “Palaontologie, Entwicklungslehre und Genetik” – “Paleontology, Development and Genetics.” Unfortunately this book has never been translated into English and I have been unable to obtain a copy of it. Goldschmidt referred to Schindewolf as follows:

“The younger generation of paleontologists has tried to bring its reasoning in line with the facts of genetics and development. I need only quote Schindewolf (1936), the most progressive investigator known to me, who showed that the material presented by paleontology leads to exactly the same conclusions as derived in my writings, to which he refers. He elaborates the thesis that macroevolution on a higher level takes place in an explosive way within a short geological time, followed by a slower series of orthogenetic perfections, as exemplified in the oft-quoted evolutionary series. He realizes that the concept of preadaptation accounts completely for this type of evolution. He shows by examples from fossil material that the major evolutionary advances must have taken place in single large steps, which affected early embryonic stages with the automatic consequence of reconstruction of all the later phases of development. He shows that the many missing links in the paleontological record are sought for in vain because they have never existed: ‘The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg’.”
Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution, page 395.

to be continued as message # 233

And so, encouraged by my recent successes, I am prepared to once again predict the future. I predict in the near future that Hillary Clinton will resign as Secretary of State as a reaction to her disapproval of Obama’s foreign policy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see other cabinet members quit as well as Obama relies more and more on the shadow cabinet (Czars) with which he surrounds himself. The man has no respect for the separation of powers as required by the Constitution. He is a tyrant as proved by his intimate associates. He always has been.

The C in Chicago stands for corruption.
anonymous?

It is hard to believe isn’t it?

“I was born a liberal. I’ll be a liberal ’til I die”

“Everything is determined…by forces over which we have no control… Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion.”
Albert Einstein

“Every boy and every girl,
That is born into the world alive,
Is either a little liberal,
Or else a little conservative”
Gilbert and Sullivan, Iolanthe, 1882

It is hard to believe isn’t it?

Like HELL it is!

Paul Zachary Myers, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins were born atheists and will be atheists until they die. David Springer was born a bully and will be a bully until he dies, etc, etc. We are each a victim in the lotttery of life. Some of us have been luckier than others.

Our fates were determined long ago and there is nothing that can be done for us. Get used to it as I have. Free Will is an illusion. If Free Will were real, atheism would be inconceivable, Darwinism would have disappeared long ago, the world would be free of strife, wars would not occur, and we would never have destroyed our planet. Reason would have prevailed.

It is hard to believe isn’t it?

Like HELL it is!

I hate being right!

It is hard to believe isn’t it?

Like HELL it is!

Russia is becoming a powder keg.