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Author
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Topic: John A. Davison: Correspondence - Do We Have an Evolutionary Theory?
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Kazmer Ujvarosy
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Member # 941
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posted 11. March 2006 19:20
John, I am aware of the fact that you are not in any sense attempting to suppress the truth, but there are lots of evolutionists who are doing their best to do just that. Otherwise your works would be on the cover of SCIENCE or NATURE.
In your opinion the finding that "the first forms of life on the planet were simpler than the later forms" is what evolution is all about. If you don't mind, I take issue with that opinion.
You seem to assume that "the first forms of life" on this planet came into being as a result of abiogenesis. If this is not what you believe, please explain how they came into being. In any case to the best of my knowledge the abiogenesis speculation is based on zero evidence, it is not amenable to observation or experimentation by anything living. But if the principle of biogenesis has been falsified, I'd like to know about that major discovery.
Even if we assume for the sake of argument that the first primitive forms of life existed from eternity, we still have a problem, because the evolution of any kind of simple beginning into the richness and complexity of life violates the principle of causality.
The principle of causality stipulates that an initial cause cannot produce anything greater than itself. Otherwise the extra part of the effect would be without a cause, but that is contrary to reason.
In light of this unfalsified and solid scientific foundation it becomes clear that we are violating the principle of causality if we argue that nonlife generated life, or that primitive life evolved into the complexity and diversity of life, on its own strength.
Put simply, where did the difference from the simple initial cause and its alleged complex effect come from? The extra complexity could come only from absolutely nothing. I guess Darwin had to invent his supernatural "natural selection" to fill the vacuum between the assumed simple beginning and its alleged complex effect.
But contrary to what evolutionists believe, in nature invariably we find that no initial cause ever gives rise to an effect greater than itself. Nature does not violate the principle of causality.
In short, there is hardly anything more evident in my mind than the fact that the paradigm of evolution from a simple beginning to life’s complexity is in violation of the principle of causality, of the cause-and-effect relationship, which is the cornerstone of science.
Because complexity’s evolution from inferior causes is irrational, we have no choice but to postulate that the initial cause of the universe can be no lesser in qualities than what we find in the universe.
Finally, it indeed appears that "the first forms of life on the planet were simpler than the later forms," but it does not follow that life's complexity is unfolding from a simple beginning. When a tree is unfolding from its parent seed, the first forms of the developmental process are simpler than the tree's flowers, fruits and seeds, yet it would be foolish to insist that the tree system itself is unfolding from a simple beginning. Also, when we build a house, first comes the simple foundation, and we build on that simple beginning increasingly more complex structures. Again, it would be foolish to insist that the foundation managed to evolve over time into the first floor for no purpose, the first floor into the walls of the house, the walls into the roof system, and these systems in turn into the plumbing system, the plumbing system into the house's electric system, and so forth.
Thus my point is that even if "the first forms of life on the planet were simpler than the later forms," in no way follows from that finding that a simple beginning managed to evolve into the present complexity of life.
It is your hope that the mechanism driving what you believe to be evolution from a simple beginning is going to be undisclosed soon. In my opinion the mechanism is developmental. The same mechanism operates when a seed develops into a tree, or when we design and build a house. Under no circumstances does a leaf evolve into a flower, or a plumbing system into an electric system. Case closed.
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John A. Davison
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posted 12. March 2006 00:32
I love that "case closed." So be it.
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Christopher D. Beling
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Member # 723
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posted 14. March 2006 04:21
Hi John,
I have been fortunate to obtain copies of two books you recommend in your Evolutionary Manifesto. The first is:
Nomogenesis, or evolution determined by law by L.S. Berg
The second is Basic Questions in Paleontology by Otto Schindewolf.
These are indeed fascinating books produced by a generation of scientists that took pleasure in observing nature and recording what they saw; a generation that seems to have been squashed and obliterated by the 2nd world war (through the "Anglophonic" dominance of science). I am finding this realization highly disturbing - something hidden and as it seems totally deleted from the science history books. [Perhaps the reason that I cannot find any pictures of Schindewolf or Berg on the web is not by chance!]
I am also disturbed by the fact that the edition of Schindewolf's book that I have (Chicago press, 1993) has
(i) a Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould
(ii) an Afterword by Wolf-Ernst Reif
and that (iii) the book has been "edited" by Wolf-Ernst Reif and no mention anywhere as to what this "editing" has involved - although there are many foot-notes that have been added by Reif.
My main point is that the Foreword and Afterword seem to have been written for the sole purpose of bringing into disrepute this major work of Schindewolf that lies between them. They portray Schindewolf as a close-minded "powerful man" who wielded an authoritarian dictatorship over German paleontology. On the other hand the Darwinian evolutionists (disciples of the modern synthesis) are portrayed as the rational objective free-thinkers. Schindewolf's work and those of his school of thinking are explained away as some kind of "social phenomenon" - the result of some peculiar historic-political system that has long since been discarded by mainstream science. True Schindewolf may have exercised some authority over German paleontology but that does not mean that what he said was wrong - Einstein has had a huge authority over western science but this was because what he said made sense and tied up with observables.
I have some questions for you -
(i) what form has Reif's editing taken? I don't think he has changed or deleted anything in the basic text (translated by Judith Schaeffer) but would like to be 100% sure. I am worried that one so deeply set against Schindewolf's work should have chosen to edit this work. Do you have my edition? Do please make comment.
(ii) The third Reich was very pro-Darwinian (socially Darwinian) - how was it that an anti-Darwinian professor such a Schindewolf managed to survive the 2nd world war while staying in Germany? Does this surprise you?
(iii) As mentioned I cannot find any pictures of Schindewolf or Berg on the web - do you have any picture of them or know where I could find a picture? - I would like to prepare a talk on this subject.
Sincerely, Chris
[ 14. March 2006, 04:56: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 14. March 2006 10:58
Chris
The treatment of Schindewolf, Berg, Bateson, Osborn, Grasse, Broom, Goldschmidt, Punnett, and all the other great scholars of the past is the greatest and most hideous scandal in the history of science. It has been my openly stated purpose to resurrect these minds from the obscurity that the evolutionary establishemnt continues cynically and viciously to contain them.
We are dealing here with the age old battle for how man is to regard his position in the universe. Is he an accident as Gould, Dawkins, Provine, Mayr and all the other Darwinians insist or is he the result of a Plan. There is no question my mind that man was designed and planned in advance and that his emergence has been fully realized.
As for any editing of the text proper by Wolf-Ernst Reif I don't know of any. I believe Judith Schaefer's translation is exact and has not been tampered with. Of course both Gould and Reif have done everything at the beginning and the end to discredit everything that Schindewolf stood for and believed. If there has been any editing of the main text, it will ultimately be disclosed. I had read a great deal of Schindewolf in the original German and I think he was fairly treated except for the Foreward and the Afterword which were both scandalous demonstrations of pure ideological bigotry of the most hideous variety.
Thank you for your interest.
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Christopher D. Beling
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Member # 723
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posted 14. March 2006 22:10
quote:
The treatment of Schindewolf, Berg, Bateson, Osborn, Grasse, Broom, Goldschmidt, Punnett, and all the other great scholars of the past is the greatest and most hideous scandal in the history of science.
John, could you say something about the work of Osborn and Punnett? Did they write any books?
Do you know where I could find a photograph of Berg and Schindewolf? Have you yourself seen one?
Chris
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Christopher D. Beling
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Member # 723
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posted 14. March 2006 22:29
Dear Kazmer, you say:
quote:
But contrary to what evolutionists believe, in nature invariably we find that no initial cause ever gives rise to an effect greater than itself. Nature does not violate the principle of causality.
I think here you should be careful to say "Darwinian Evolutionists". I think this qualification of "Darwinian" is SO important because John and the school of prescribed evolutionists he reminds the world of, are in the broader sense evolutionists.
Darwinian Evolutionists believe that natural selection can produce new features and speciation in living organisms. In this supposition they have no theoretical grounding. Observations on the whole have been misconstrued to support their view - but in reality both paleontological and genetic data are much more neatly explained by the prescribed evolutionary hypothesis. What drives prescribed evolution? Well in short it is inbuilt bio-information - information that was "downloaded" at the genesis of life (whether in a single shot of multiple shots is unclear - although I personally think that data points towards multiple).
When you talk about causality being responsible for the whole show - I think you are correct but too unspecific. It is the implementation of bio-information (or Specified Complex Information CSI in more general terms) that is doing the causation. [Just like the building of a house requires more than just energy - it requires the builders to have access to the architects plan].
I believe we can legitimately talk about causality being at the root - albeit in a more indirect way. Causality is now believed to be at the root of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and the 2nd law can be shown to lead to the 4th law of thermodynamics - which states that bio-information (CSI) can be REDUCED by physico-chemical processes - BUT NEVER INCREASED (See William Dembski's book No Free Lunch ). So in this indirect sense causality I believe is fundamentally responsible. I would prefer though to talk in terms of ENERGY + bio-CSI being the immediate cause of prescribed evolution. Ultimately I think this solid formulation will provide the foundation of a full theory of prescribed evolution.
Sincerely; Chris
P.S. Have you read anything of the work of L.S. Berg? Do you know where I could find a picture of him?
[ 14. March 2006, 23:02: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 15. March 2006 07:16
Chris
I too have been looking for pictures of Schindewolf and Berg. I have pictures on my office wall of Bateson, Broom and Goldschmidt as well as a huge drawing of Albert Einstein on UV sensitive paper which glows in the dark when illuminated with a black light. It is a wonderful night light.
Osborn wrote several books and they are in Berg's Bibliography. His 1909 "Darwin and paleontology. 50 years of Darwinism," is a devastating critique of the Darwinian paradigm which is why the Darwinians don't like to even think about it.
Mayr (The Growth of Biological Thought) doesn't even mention Osborn and Gould (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory) carefully avoided any reference to Osborn's 1909 book but chose to dismiss him in other ways. Mayr listed Berg's Nomogenesis in his References section but made no mention of him in the text, apparently oblivious to what the word Reference means. Gould doesn't even mention Berg anywhere and his only reference to Schindewolf is to an obscure paper on catastrophism.
As I have repeatedly claimed, we many critics of the Darwinian paradigm have not been allowed to exist in a literature dominated by an atheist ideology as represented by such prolific writers as Gould, Provine, Dawkins and Mayr. There are sins of omission as well as those of commission and those four are past masters in the practice of both. Read the books that are missing from their "opera minima" and you will have a good basic background from which to view the great mystery of organic evolution. It is an intellectual scandal unprecedented in the history of science. One of my stated purposes is the resurrection of my many sources from the oblivion to which the atheist materialists have so cynically and effectively committed them.
Thanks for posting.
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John A. Davison
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posted 15. March 2006 07:32
Chris
Punnett wrote a deligtful book - "Mimicry in Butterflies" in which he properly identified the role of natural selection as purely conservative, having nothing to do with creative evolution, only with the maintenance of what is already there. His analysis is an important ingredient in my PEH. He also wrote an early text - "Mendelism" in which he with Bateson had played such an important part. Gould made no mention of Punnett either even though he had exposed Natural Selection, the sine qua non of the Darwinian model, as without foundation just as Osborn had done before him and Berg and Grasse were about to.
It is hard to believe isn't it?
"A past evolution is undeniable. A present evolution is undemonstrable."
Johh A. Davison
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John A. Davison
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posted 17. March 2006 10:51
I would like very much to have my original paper, published in 1984, presented here for discussion. Nearly all the others I have published are available either at the side bar at Uncommon Descent or elsewhere on internet forums. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to present it myself. It would make my response to certain questions much easier for me as well as establish the priority of some of my ideas.
The paper is:
Davison, J.A, (1984) Semi-meiosis as an evolutionary mechanism, Journal of Theoretical Biology 111: 725-735
It may be necessary to go to the library, scan it and then offer it as a thread for discussion, preferably here at brainstorms.
Thank you very much.
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John A. Davison
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posted 19. March 2006 12:13
crevo over at "Creation Bits" blog has scanned and presented my 1984 paper and introduced it as a thread there. I would still like to see it offered here at "brainstorms" where several other of my papers have been discussed.
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Christopher D. Beling
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Member # 723
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posted 19. March 2006 19:42
Hi John, I would like to see the SMH discussed here. I don't understand why it is difficult to start a new thread? I guess I would be happy to do so although life is a little hectic for me at present. Perhaps a little more time for others to offer? Chris
[ 19. March 2006, 19:49: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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Christopher D. Beling
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posted 19. March 2006 20:10
Professor Leo S. Berg (1876–1950) Distinguished Russian Evolutionary Biologist
Hi John and other supporters of the PEH (or PET - Prescribed Evolution Theory). Here finally a picture of L.S. Berg - famous Russian evolutionary scientist. It was obtained from this website: L.S. Berg {John much of the website is in German - any chance of a translation!!} The website contains other interesting links.
The authors write the following:
quote:
The Nomogenesis is one of the anti-Darwinian theories of the first half of the 20th century articulated by a prominent Russian biologist and geographer Leo [Lew] S. Berg (1876–1950). Berg was one of the last encyclopaedic minds of the 20th century surprisingly survived under the Stalin’s regime. The core of the Berg’s theory was published in a book Nomogenesis or Evolution Determined by Law originally written in Russian (1922), but a few years later appeared in English (1926). Nomogenesis is arguably the strongest anti-Darwinian book ever published. The theory is based on an enormous volume of empirical data and incorporates the whole range of anti-Darwinian arguments of that time. Yet Berg revolted not only against Darwin himself, but first of all, against the contemporary form of Darwinism. For Berg Darwinism was personified in German zoologist Ludwig Plate (1862–1937), a pupil of the »German Darwin« Ernst Haeckel. Plate campaigned for the revival of the »original Darwinism«, which was for him unthinkable without a »moderate« Lamarckism. Berg, on the contrary, claimed that Neo-Lamarckism is a tautological teaching and incriminated Darwinism the inability to distance itself from the Lamarckian paradigm. In our contribution we sketch the history of the nomogenesis theory, which illustrates the complexities of evolutionary debates during the first third of the last century. Besides we briefly discuss the development of the nomogenetic approach through out the 20th century and define its place in the history of evolutionary ideas.
Plus much more.
There is also this website: PeriodicSystem {click on the blue "Periodic System of Arthropods"}
Sincerely, Chris
[ 22. March 2006, 05:43: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 19. March 2006 21:38
Thank you very much Chris. Berg with Bateson were the original Intelligent Design proponents and neither made any bones about it. That is what infuriated the Mendelian/Darwinian zealots so much. It became a battle of ideologies, one which persists to this very day. It is pathetic to have to realize how little control we have over the way we view the world. Neither Mendelism nor Darwinism ever had anything to do with organic evolution, the former dealing strictly with allelic mutations and the latter with natural selection.
Evolution as both Bateson and Berg realized was an emergent phenomenon which proceeded independently of the environment. Schindewolf reached the same conclusion as did Grasse to a large extent. I tried in my PEH paper to bring this to the attention of the evolutionary community but apparently to no avail.
It is all based on the faulty assumption that every phenomenon has an identifiable extrinsic causation. That is simply not so. Does mathematics have a cause? No. Mathematics exists independent of the human mind and has only been discovered, just as Godfrey Hardy insisted. I am now convinced that EVERYTHING in the universe has existed and needs only to be discovered. In that sense much of the real world is not subject to direct experimental analysis but must be accepted as a starting point for further elucidation.
Everything we are now learning pleads for an emergent internally regulated ontogeny and phylogeny in which chance played no role whatsoever.
"Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance."
Leo Berg
It should surprise no one that I regard Berg as the greatest evolutionist of all time.
That Darwinism still persists is one of the greatest mysteries in the history of science.
"When ideology encounters hard cold facts, ideology seems always to carry the day."
John A. Davison
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John A. Davison
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posted 21. March 2006 06:36
Chris
The SMH was throughly discussed here some time ago when my Manifesto was introduced. You can find it in the past threads. You will find it very revealing. At that time the board was largely dominated by Darwinian zealots who had little sympathy for any criticism of their position. Thankfully the present contributors, like yourself, are more tolerant to departures from orthodoxy.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconciousness."
George Orwell, 1984
Curiously, 1984 is the year of the publication of my first evolutionary paper, "Semi-meiosis as an evolutionary mechanism," J. Theor. Biol. 111: 725-735.
I hope it can be introduced here as it establishes precedence for the material that led, 22 years later, to the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.
"A past evolution is undeniable. A present evolution is undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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John A. Davison
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posted 21. March 2006 10:19
Chris
Thanks for the portrait of Berg. Can you find one of Schindewolf and Grasse as well? If you can it will complete my rogues gallery of those to whom I owe so very much. I'll then have all six to whom I dedicated my 2000 paper and my Manifesto!
Best wishes,
John
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