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Today at the Post-Darwinist: Another ex-dhimmi for Darwin

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Jonathan Wells reflects on how almost everything Darwin believed is being disconfirmed:

There was a time when I would half-heartedly join in the chorus that praises Darwin as a great scientist, even though some of his ideas were mistaken. Now, when I look for Darwin’s positive contributions to biology, I see only that he made a persuasive case that something analogous to artificial selection operates in natural populations (a case also made by others, including A.R. Wallace). That and a few minor studies on barnacles, orchids, and such. But natural selection has never been shown to accomplish anything more than its artificial counterpart — which is to say minor changes within existing species.

All of Darwin’s Big Ideas — universal common ancestry, the origin of species by natural selection, inheritance by pangenesis — are dead or dying.

Go here for more.

Also: Today at The Mindful Hack:

Is the institutional church really dead? Naw!

Neurolaw: Why you are not responsible for your life (but your minders are)

And so what if Grandma was an ape?

PS: PannenbergOmega makes an interesting point in the comment below:

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But natural selection has never been shown to accomplish anything more than its artificial counterpart — which is to say minor changes within existing species.”

This says so much.

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Well, PannenbergOmega, artificial selection differs from natural selection in a fundamental way: It leaves out of account any need for the creature to support and protect itself.

So artificial selection can probably do MORE than natural selection and much more quickly too, because it bypasses nature’s enormous constraint: The need for the creature to actually work independently in a given environment. Every time we breed a dog or horse that couldn’t look after itself in the wilderness or on the open prairie, we enable selection to happen faster, because nature always requires independent survival.

When considering what natural selection might do, we need to slow down our expectations very considerably.

Comments
PannenbergOmega, when I said that “artificial selection differs from natural selection in a fundamental way: It leaves out of account any need for the creature to support and protect itself”, I meant that many exotic traits are encouraged by breeders that would never survive in nature. Consider the Bassett Hound, for example. Natural selection, whatever powers it, requires that the creature survive and breed in whatever ecology it is born into. If artificial selection is done by other than humans, presumably the agency is detectible.O'Leary
February 21, 2008
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"artificial selection differs from natural selection in a fundamental way: It leaves out of account any need for the creature to support and protect itself." Does artificial selection before humans require intelligent agency? Or does artificial selection only occur because humans are around?PannenbergOmega
February 21, 2008
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This is kinda cool, to be mentioned in the blog. :) PS: Thank you for producing good articles on almost daily basis for both this website and postdarwinist. I for one, appreciate all your hardwork.PannenbergOmega
February 21, 2008
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"But natural selection has never been shown to accomplish anything more than its artificial counterpart -- which is to say minor changes within existing species." This says so much.PannenbergOmega
February 21, 2008
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