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...bones are far too few and fragmentary and dubious to fill up the whole of the vast void that does in reason and in reality lie between man and his bestial ancestors, if they were his ancestors. On the assumption of that evolutionary connection (a connection which I am not in the least concerned to deny), the really arresting and remarkable fact is the comparative absence of any such remains recording that connection at that point. The sincerity of Darwin really admitted this; and that is how we came to use such a term as the Missing Link. But the dogmatism of Darwinian has been too strong for agnosticism of Darwin; and men have fallen into turning this entirely negative term into a positive image. They talk of searching for the habits and habitat of the Missing Link; as if one were to talk of being on friendly terms with the gap in a narrative or the hole in an argument, of taking a walk with a nonsequitur or dining with an undistributed middle. In this sketch, therefore, of man in his relation to certain religious and historical problems, I shall waste no further space on these speculations on the nature of man before he became man. His body may have been evolved from the brutes; but we know nothing of any such transition that throws the smallest light upon his soul as it has shown itself in history.

Thanks so much, grey_whiskers, for the link to Chesterton's Everlasting Man. I haven't read Chesterton in years; probably it's time to reread him, he is so penetrating and wise. I especially appreciate his remark that modern man cannot stand agnosticism; and that this word came into currency about the time of Darwin's theory. You've heard the old saw: Who ceases to believe in God does not then believe in nothing; He'll believe in anything.

BTW, I think Chesterton's argument is just as cogent as ever, notwithstanding the advent of molecular biology and genetics, which "in principle" give us access to universals that may apply to govern "some aspects" of behavior we are attempting to model. It seems the point is we can't model any system completely because we don't and can't know everything about it as it evolves in space and time. All we can do is model some aspects of its behavior occurring at the space/time point of observation. There is no way we can say we know the whole system, only this or that aspect of it.

The other thing I wonder about is experimental tests require us to isolate the object of study out of its context. So we lose all sense that the object is a contingent object -- i.e., it does not stand alone in nature, it is not self-given or independent, but part of a greater dynamic whole. Though we seek "certainty," it is always completely beyond our grasp. So agnosticism creeps in -- which humans apparently cannot abide. Sometimes they'll concoct "just-so stories" to relieve themselves of it. Chesterton traces the route from agnosticism to dogma in Everlasting Man....

Thank you ever so much for writing, grey-whiskers! And again, for the great link!

[ Though we seek "certainty," it is always completely beyond our grasp. So agnosticism creeps in -- which humans apparently cannot abide. Sometimes they'll concoct "just-so stories" to relieve themselves of it. Chesterton traces the route from agnosticism to dogma in Everlasting Man.... ]

Bingo.. Humans do love a good story.. And if nothing, evolution, as presented in its iterations, is a good story..

"It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything."-G.K. Chesterton

"Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves."-G.K. Chesterton

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."-G.K. Chesterton

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."-G.K. Chesterton

"I say you cannot really understand any myths till you have found that one of them is not a myth. Forged bank-notes mean nothing if there are no real bank-notes.-G.K. Chesterton

"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can't see things as they are."-G.K. Chesterton

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance." - The Speaker, 12/15/00 -G.K. Chesterton

"All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing." -G.K. Chesterton

-and-

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."-G.K. Chesterton