Sandwalk: The Genius of Charles Darwin

Friday, August 08, 2008

The Genius of Charles Darwin

This is a really excellent TV series narrated by Richard Dawkins. I'm very impressed with Dawkins as a TV personality and I agree completely with his view of Darwin as an extraordinary genius. The one thing that bothers me is the adaptationist bias of Dawkins—the same thing I've been complaining about in several other postings.

At the beginning of Part 1, Dawkins says ...

This series is about perhaps the most powerful idea ever to occur to a human mind. The idea is evolution by natural selection and the genius who thought of it was Charles Darwin.... What Darwin achieved was nothing less than the complete explanation of the complexity and diversity of all life. And yet it's one of the simplest ideas that anyone ever had.

This is not correct. The complete explanation requires knowledge of genes, genetics, population genetics, random genetic drift, speciation, horizontal gene transfer, biochemistry, physiology, embryology, developmental biology, molecular drive, mutation, recombination, punctuated equilibria, species selection (possibly), cladistics, mass extinctions, plate tectonics, and much more. Even with all that there are still some things we're unsure about, like how to explain the Cambrian explosion

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

4 comments :

Sigmund said...: A couple of times during the program (particularly at the beginning) he says that he is an atheist, and links this to his knowledge of Darwinian evolutionary theory. These statements don't quite flow and a few people remarked on this on Dawkins site - to which he posted the following, somewhat surprising statement.
"I have to admit that this, and other honest statements of atheism, were thrust upon me, against my will (especially right at the beginning of Episode 1), not by the Director or the television company, but by the LAWYER! That sounds weird. It isn't strictly a legal worry, but a worry about satisfying Ofcom, the regulatory body that controls British television. I don't fully understand it, but I THINK it has something to do with the need to 'respect' creationists. The lawyer thought that Ofcom would have preferred me to present 'both sides'. Because I obviously wasn't going to do that, he thought the next best thing was to be completely up front and announce, in advance, that the reason I took the line I did was that I was an atheist.
Of course, I don't like the sound of that at all. I'd prefer to say I'm an evolutionist because the evidence is so convincing. It is as though the lawyer has been infected by the 'all opinions are equally valid' viewpoint. So it's OK to promote evolution rather than creation, so long as I announce, IN ADVANCE that I am an atheist."; Friday, August 08, 2008 4:50:00 PM
Lucas said...: Good that CLinton Dawkins conectes atheism with evolution.; Friday, August 08, 2008 7:17:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Is the Origin of Species doctrine?

"I believe in one, indivisible origin of all living things, creator of all species...."

If the Origin is doctrine, is Darwin a Prophet?; Monday, August 11, 2008 10:10:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Please let us know when episode 2 comes out.; Monday, August 11, 2008 6:35:00 PM

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Peter Atkins

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake. Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

I once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000

It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick

There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins

Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod

The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.

Richard Lewontin

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Friday, August 08, 2008

The Genius of Charles Darwin

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