This new critique intends to rebut Darwin’s ideas but seems largely to misunderstand evolutionary theory
By Michael Ruse
Globe Correspondent / February 14, 2010
“What Darwin Got Wrong’’ is an intensely irritating book. Jerry Fodor, a well-known philosopher, with coauthor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a cognitive scientist, has written a whole book trashing Darwinian evolutionary theory - the theory that makes natural selection the main force of change in organisms through the ages.
Why write such a book? The authors would respond in two ways. First, in a section that would be better described as “What Darwin Didn’t Know,” rather than “What Darwin Got Wrong,” they tell us that today’s cutting-edge biology has all sorts of explanations of organic origins that make Darwinism otiose. We learn that life is constrained by the laws of physics and chemistry, and that something like natural selection, which supposedly molds organic life into sophisticated bundles of adaptations, simply cannot get off the ground. To the contrary, evolution is all a matter of molecular development, guided by the self-organizing laws of the physical sciences.
To which Darwinians can only respond, wearily again, that they have known about constraints since “The Origin of Species.’’ Because body weight cubes as length increases, you cannot build a cat the size of an elephant. The elegant feline legs needed for jumping must be replaced by tree trunks able to carry many pounds. And examples of plausible self organization have been fitted into the Darwinian picture for many years. A favorite example is the way that many flowers and fruits (like pine cones) exhibit patterns following the Fibonacci series, made famous by “The Da Vinci Code.’’ Chauncey Wright, a 19th century pragmatist, discussed these patterns in detail, showing how formal rules of mathematics can nevertheless yield organisms that are highly adapted and that natural selection is the vital causal element. The rules give the skeleton, and then selection fills in the details. The order of a plant’s leaves may be fixed, but how those leaves stand up or lie down is selection-driven all of the way.
The second half of the book is a frontal attack on natural selection itself. The main argument is very odd. It is allowed that there is differential reproduction. Some organisms have many offspring, and some have just a few. It is even allowed that the reason why some succeed and others don’t might have to do with the superior features possessed by the winners and not the losers. At which point you might think: Darwinism wins, because what else is there to natural selection?
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NOTA IMPERTINENTE DESTE BLOGGER:
Eu 'adoro' o Michael Ruse -- ele sabe que Darwin está errado há tempo, mas defende com unhas e dentes o fato, Fato, FATO da evolução [a ênfase é dele quando fala sobre o fato, Fato, FATO da evolução] ter ocorrido através da seleção natural -- uma égua baia epistêmica trôpega que as evidências se negam confirmar vitoriosa no contexto de justificação teórica desde 1859.
Michael Ruse, você 'rodou a baiana' cara! contra o Fodor [que nome!] e o Piattelli-Palmarini, e aqui no Brasil nós estamos em pleno carnaval, ziriguidum, tum-tum-tum, ziriguidum, tum-tum-tum pra você, Darwin, mesmo que você esteja refestelando confortavelmente em campo santo da Abadia de Westmisnter, um terrível e imperdoável sacrilégio cometido contra o homem que teve a maior ideia que toda a humanidade já teve. Eu, se fosse o Dawkins, faria uma petição mundial para exumar o cadáver de Darwin e sepultá-lo-ia em local mais digno para um agnóstico!!!
Michael Ruse, o Darwin já 'rodou a baiana' epistêmica há muito tempo meu nego. Agora é SÍNTESE EVOLUTIVA AMPLIADA que, pelo rigor das evidências encontradas na natureza, não pode e nem deve ser uma teoria evolutiva selecionista.
Ma quando si tratta de Darwin, la Nomenklatura scientifica è tutti cosa nostra, capice?
