Charles Darwin Quotes to Check

• Darwin
• Darwin
• Darwin
• Darwin

 
Date:   Sat Mar 13 1993  18:28:16
From:   Barbara Brasfield
To:     David Myers
Subj:   Punctuated Equilibrium..

Darwin:
    "Natural selection can act only by the preservation and accumulation
    of infinitesimally small inherited modifications, each profitable to
    the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such
    views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave,
    SO WILL NATURAL SELECTION, IF IT BE A TRUE PRINCIPLE, banish the
    belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, OR OF ANY
    GREAT AND SUDDEN MODIFICATION IN THEIR STRUCTURE."

Darwin rejected the sudden appearance of a single comple\
x organ (like an
eye or wing) as part of his theory because it could be attributable to a
supernatural intervention.   In this context he stated:

    "If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of
    natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish...I would give
    nothing for the theory of natural selection, if it requires
    miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."  (Letter to
    Charles Lyell)

As I understand it Darwin insisted that his theory of ev\
olution was a
gradualistic change which the fossil record would show and that if the
gradual changes could not be proven then his theory should be rejected
"as rubbish"...



In a msg on , Barbara Brasfield of 1:3606/2 writes:

 
 BB> I think your above comment of "each living creature is
 BB> transtional,etc"
 BB> is somewhat disingenuous.  Darwin was obviously loo\
king for
 BB> something
 BB> other than what you define as transitional when he explained
 BB> that evolutionary processes would produce numerous gradual
 BB> transmutations.  "As natural selection acts solely by
 BB> accumulating
 BB> slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no
 BB> great or
 BB> sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps."