The Death Of Darwin

nada · Post by **nada** » December 13th, 2009, 3:38 am

Something dawned on me today.

I don't watch much TV. Instead .. my mind entertains itself by a low level grappling with life's questions. Whenever I do not need to place my attention on some task I am doing .. my mind automatically goes back to the puzzles of life. I expect many of us here at this forum are like that.

I have always been uneasy with Darwin's theory. Not with the idea of evolution (change to biological systems over time) but with his hinge-pin of evolution being driven by random mutations and survival of the fittest. Such a basic biological drive at the core of our be-ing would produce a society in total and endless (and merciless) competition. This competition would justify many of the social ills that we, by nature, abhor. And nullify many of the moral that we, by nature, think of as heroic.

From a biological standpoint .. I just can not accept on faith that all life on earth arose from matter and chemicals and diversified into the many types of creatures we find. The idea that something happened to a chemical soup - that cause life to emerge - and then evolve through random chance into a breathing, eating, intelligent creature - just seems far to complicated an organism to ever happen. Hiding this impossibility within a time span of billions of years just does not make it more acceptable to me.

And so the thing I did was to take evolution and see its as an adaptation process. It seemed to me reasonable (more reasonable anyway) that a species find itself in an environment in which some biological adaptation would be called for .. and an intelligent search for a good adaptation would happen (the cells and organs would try out potential adaptations in order to fine an adaptation that worked well). And that would be passed on genetically to the next generation and so on down the line.

And so I was willing to accept evolution by means of adaptation to environment.

But today I had a though which stunned me. The though involves what I think some people call 'complexity' and it is coupled with some facts about Darwin and his times .. which I never put together before.

You see .. at the time of Darwin .. spontaneous generation - was assumed and accepted. They did not have powerful microscopes and biology has not yet become a science on its own. Partly for the reason that microscopes were rudimentary and under them .. cells .. appeared mostly as stains that moved. Only with 19th century electron microscopes did we finally see that a cell has a complex structure of internal organs very much like the function of our own organs.

Spontaneous generation - is the 'scientific fact' that if you left food to rot on the table .. little white worms would be generated into life from the rotting mass. If you left water soaking in a pot of simple earth .. fuzzy stuff (mold) would be generated and grow. Of course .... the little white worms were fly larva and the mold grows from tiny bacteria every present in the dirt of the earth.

Darwin also did not know about genes nor DNA. The accepted scientific fact (at the time) was that generational inheritance happened - through the blood. It was by way of being carried in the blood of the parents (in the case of animals and insects etc..) and the fluids of plants .. that inheritance was passed to off-spring.

In Darwin's mind - the initial origin was assumed to have already been answered in spontaneous generation. And the evolution of that simple life was by means of blood (the blood of plants were its fluids). Darwin only needed to determine why evolution takes the direction that it takes and is not simply random in all regards (producing deformed monstrosity after monstrosity).

Simple enough. The answer would either be adaptation or for reasons of best survival. How was what would be passed on .. selected?? Darwin went with the reason of best survival as proved by what random mutations survived and what random mutations did not survive.

There were enough random mutations evident in humans at the time of Darwin (deformed children at birth) and the cause for them was unknown and their variety seems more or less random (Siamese twins / six toes / over sized heads / random organs outside the body / blue birth marks / no arms / etc) because 'genes' and DNA was unknown.

In thinking on this stuff today .. I thought of the internal organs (organelles) which Darwin and his contemporaries did not know about. There is no one-organ cell (that I know about). Any cell is indeed a small 'animal' and its life depends upon all its organs working together as a system. It must eat, it must eliminate waste, it must sense its environment, it must breath, it has rudimentary sight in order to navigate obsticals when chasing its food, etc. In short - all the systems must be in place and functioning in concert - for the cell to live. And we know that its shell (much like our own skin) is its brain and nerve system - its intelligence.

Remove just a few of my organs (my heart, my lungs) and my system of life can not function as a system. I die. So too it is with a cell.

Modern biology knowing the organs of a cell and how they must function together .. for it to live.

Having that 'complexity' of life in mind .. it now seems impossible for me to accept that life began with one cell and its organs took time (even just years) to evolve into its several vital function. Under the microscope of Darwin's day where the internal organs of a cell did not exist (to our eyes) such a thing seems plausible. But not under the high power of a microscope today.

For the first cell to emerge into life from a primordial soup .. it would have to instantly have all organs in place and functioning as a system. It could not evolve into several organs from one rudimentary organ. Spontaneous generation of life at the cell level (accepted as fact by Darwin) just could not have happened.

There is no record of spontaneous generation of life - ever - in history. Not once in all the centuries man has kept records. What was one thought to be spontaneous generation by the ancients - has been proven not to be the case. We now can see what they could not see. We now know what they could not have known.

All life .. is generated by other life which is like it. Either by division (on the cell level) or by egg/nut/seed (still a form of cell division encased support system).

Genes and DNA are a necessity. Plant or animal or insect .. all life generated by means of this architectural template passed from parent to off-spring. Life comes from life and does not come from lifeless matter.

Be it by means of womb and umbilical chord - or by means of the fluids surround the yoke of an egg .. while the organs of a fetus develop to the stage where they can function .. the fetus needs what they will eventual do - supplied to it in another way. In what way was this done for the first cell to emerge from the primordial soup and supply its functions for it before it evolved enough over countless years to do all the functions with evolved organs?

This would seem to point to a conclusion that our search for how the first life came to be .. is barking up the wrong tree. And with the mention of 'tree' .. the idea that this first cell born fully developed from a primordial soup - came to divided into the countless plant, insect, and animal, fish and fowl, bacterial, fungus, and you name it ... which populate our planet .. even further makes no senses under the concept of random mutation and survival of the fittest. Especially under the knowledge we have of the cycles of ecology where all these life form depend upon each other.

So for me .. Darwin is dead.

This does not in away way mean I now accept a literal interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve and creation of all creatures in seven days. It seems to me useless to look back in time to a beginning which we simply can not know - and speculate a theory by which we interpret meaning of the present. Spontaneous generation or seven days .. both seem to me as fiction. Aliens, a bolt of lightening in primordial soup, or seven days work by God .. when shall we admit that we humans have our limitations and there are some thing which we shall never know for sure to be fact.

Theories have their use - and they have their misuse.

Does anyone agree? or do I remain a lone heretic to both science and fundamentalist religion.

Its now late and I will proof read this tomorrow and perhaps regret I wrote it

lifegazer · Post by **lifegazer** » December 13th, 2009, 7:02 am

nada wrote:I have always been uneasy with Darwin's theory. Not with the idea of evolution (change to biological systems over time) but with his hinge-pin of evolution being driven by random mutations and survival of the fittest. Such a basic biological drive at the core of our be-ing would produce a society in total and endless (and merciless) competition.

The theory goes that most species of complex organisms have evolved the trait of altruism to some degree, because it has been beneficial for them to have done so. Parental behaviour is the obvious example - if individuals were absolutely selfish, few offspring would survive. But nature exhibits numerous examples of cooperative behaviour.

The fact is that natural selection should have favoured altruistic tendencies, so I have to disagree with you when you say that NS should have yielded a completely selfish society.

The problem I have with the theory of evolution, is that those trying to explain particular adaptations always do so within the context of their practicalities. Hence, when asked how 'altruism' evolved, the answer is given in terms of its usefulness to the species. But that doesn't answer the question that was asked - it answers a different question: why would altruism have evolved? (As opposed to how).

Darwin's theory was really just a slap in the face for biblical literalists, who actually believe that everything was created in a week. As an idealist, I have no problems with the general outline of the theory. But for me, it is the essence of change that is the issue. And science simply does not answer that question.

nada · Post by **nada** » December 13th, 2009, 11:34 am

Dear lifegazer ...

Thank you for your comments. I know you have a strong belief system and so I value your opinions.

I agree with what you wrote. I have owned several dogs and experience that they would (in order to protect our safety) willingly charge into situations of threat to my families safety - despite odds which even an animal can know are hopeless for it to come out alive. One would expect at these moments of ultimate stress that the most basic and fundamental instincts that drive the organism that is the animal - would be primary drivers at such moments. I am not even their own species! One would have to say something about the immediacy of the situation and say that a long term consideration (if someone was killed in my family the dogs own ability to survive would be diminished) is not something the dog is thinking about at the time. It is very clear the dogs motivation is solely the protection of members of the family irregardless of his own safety and survival.

Now what would your thoughts be on the part of my post where I say that the independent evolution and development of cell organs (which Darwin could not have known about) completely deletes any idea of spontaneous generation (which I must assume Darwin held as an accepted fact).

If I have not made that part of my post clear I would gladly try to sharpen my stance.

For cell life to be viable .. all of its organs must be fully developed and fully functioning as systems - all at the same time. For just one example: assimulation/eating MUST be accompanied by waste elimination - it is one process accomplished by the cooperation of two organs.

Thus .. the organs are duplicated in the parent cell before division takes place. The daughter cell receives a fully functioning organelle structure in working order (required for life).

While this does account for later cell division (life from life) it does not address in anyway - the origin of life (the first life).

This was not a problem for Darwin who did not know about cells having organs .. and who believed as the science of his time believed - in spontaneous generation (life generated from rotting matter and wet earth such as mud).

To boot .. Darwin knew nothing about cell genes and DNA (which also must be duplicated in the parent cell before division takes place) and assumed inheritance was done by way of the parents blood and fluids passed to the child. Such a method (by way of blood) would makes the traits of one species seemingly more readily transferable to another species (dense the ancient ban on eating the blood of unclean animals) .. but we now know that genes and DNA is the real method (like-life produces like-life).

Your thoughts please.

lifegazer · Post by **lifegazer** » December 13th, 2009, 8:10 pm

nada wrote:Now what would your thoughts be on the part of my post where I say that the independent evolution and development of cell organs (which Darwin could not have known about) completely deletes any idea of spontaneous generation (which I must assume Darwin held as an accepted fact).

Each 'component' of the body forms part of a complex mechanism. Moreover, each component of the body is reliant upon the rest of the bodily mechanism.

It seems to me that any new adaptation has to be integrated with the rest of the organism. For example, the evolution of light receptor cells is worthless unless a recognition and response system also evolves.

For me, I don't see how small worthless steps can work. Natural selection doesn't favour worthless adaptations, meaning that new adaptations have to be instantly worthwhile to be selected for in future generations.
So, of what use is a heart without blood? What use is blood without blood vessels? None. Meaning that the whole system has to evolve at once, or not at all. And they're trying to tell us that such complex mechanisms can be produced by 'accident'?

I don't buy into it at all. That is, I do buy into evolution in that I think it happens, but I don't believe it ALL happens via small incremental accidents that are all useful in their own right.