And yet AFAIK, there has never been a direct observation of one species "evolving" into another. Nor am I aware of any experimental design that has demonstrated this directly, under controlled conditions. As Darwin himself noted, his theory rises or falls based on the evidence of the fossil record. That is, it depends on historical data, and not on the application of the scientific method. And strangely enough, it seems few paleontologists are Darwinists.... Go figure!
Darwin himself said that his theory predicts that innumerable transitional forms will be found in the fossil record. But that is precisely what we do not find. To quote Darwin:
...Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined? But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ... Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory."As Stephen Jay Gould describes it, there is an apparent inconsistency between the fossil record and the theory of evolution:
"The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: (1) Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. (2) Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed.'"exDemMom, you wrote that "I've never started off with making observations; I need to have a hypothesis in place first, or I won't even know what observations to make." But where does the hypothesis come from? If you don't make observations first, how can you tell whether the hypothesis is suitable to your investigation? If hypotheses are something you can just pick up, ready-made, off the shelf — presumably because they have been blessed by one's peers as acceptably orthodox — then is this even science? Where are the new, breakthrough ideas to come from, if you're effectively locked into the defense of an orthodoxy? How do you avoid the problem of, "if all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?"
You speak of "signals," and "feedback mechanisms" as sufficient to account for the global coordination of the countless myriads of biological "reactions" (you call them that, not "functions") absolutely necessary to the existence and sustenance of the biological organism. Consciousness has no role to play whatever.
And yet studies appear to show that even such humble critturs as bacteria and amoebae possess a form of consciousness, demonstrated in responsiveness and learning behaviors, and also social behavior.
BTW, you do not say where the "signals" emanate from; nor do you indicate how the myriads of reactions are coordinated, dynamically, instantaneously, simultaneously utterly collaboratively from moment-to-moment for the purpose of maintaining the life of the organism. It seems you are looking at the "level" of the discrete reactions; I am asking how the myriads are all "harnessed up" to maintain the existence of the being at the global "level"; i.e., as it expresses what looks very much to me like an ordered unity. In effect, you are merely postulating that all this is effectively a totally random process — disciplined by physical laws — and "stuff just happens." But I want to know how this "stuff happens."
You wrote: "Because I'm attuned to the world around me, and I want to know everything about it — abstract thought just does not have a lot of interest to me." Well, that's fine. We're just different, I guess. Yet I too am attuned to, and want to understand the world around me; but I do not know how to do that without abstract reasoning. It takes the latter to transform "data" into "information."
Or so it seems to me. Whatever the case, my critique of Darwinism and science more generally has been advanced on epistemological grounds — which involves a good deal of abstract thinking, for sure.
Thank you so very much for writing, exDemMom!
“it seems few paleontologists are Darwinists”
Got a source for that contention?
The more educated someone is the less likely they are to be a creationist.
Moreover there is direct observation of one species evolving into another. A fruit fly speciation event took place in the lab such that the new population was absolutely infertile with any other fruit flies.
Yes, they are absolutely “still fruit flies” - but that isn't what you asked - because they are ABSOLUTELY not the same species by the ‘hardest’ criteria of species - not being able to reproduce together.
Evolution takes place every time a population is observed under controlled conditions - not necessarily speciation - but certainly evolution through natural selection of genetic variation.
Because DNA cannot be copied with 100% fidelity variation will accumulate. Variations are subject to selective pressures such that some variations will predominate in subsequent generations.
What is going to stop that process such that a 2% genetic DNA difference will accumulate over a several million years between two separate populations?
As Stephen Jay Gould describes it, there is an apparent inconsistency between the fossil record and the theory of evolution:
I do not know in what context the quotes (which I have omitted for space) were made. However, there are a few considerations here. Fossils are only formed under fairly unusual conditions. So, out of the vast numbers of various organisms, only a minuscule number became fossilized. Furthermore, since a "transitional form" could be taken to be any individual of a species, it is impossible to have an example of every single "transitional form." Perhaps if conditions are favorable for fossilization to occur, an unusual number of organisms from a single species might be preserved, which could have the appearance of a species springing up "fully formed", but that just isn't the case. The mechanisms of evolution are well-characterized; we can see those mechanisms occurring in modern living species.
exDemMom, you wrote that "I've never started off with making observations; I need to have a hypothesis in place first, or I won't even know what observations to make." But where does the hypothesis come from? If you don't make observations first, how can you tell whether the hypothesis is suitable to your investigation? If hypotheses are something you can just pick up, ready-made, off the shelf — presumably because they have been blessed by one's peers as acceptably orthodox — then is this even science?
I guess I wasn't quite clear above on the process I use to formulate a hypothesis. I was about to say that in no case is a hypothesis picked up ready-made--but that's not true, since during the entire period of my graduate studies, I used a single "big" hypothesis to guide my research, and I believe the hypothesis is still being used. But "small" hypotheses guide specific sets of experiments, and undergo frequent revision as the experimental results are gathered.
Getting back to where I said that I don't make an observation and then make a hypothesis, that's because research (observations) is hypothesis driven. I formulate the hypothesis based on where gaps in the current knowledge are, which does not require observation, but requires a very detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. I consider different possibilities about what knowledge might fill the gap--those are my hypotheses--and then I make my observations. I rarely find that the observations fit the hypothesis exactly, but they inform me as to how I should revise my hypothesis. For example: I know that exposure to a poison causes symptoms after a week, with death occurring in two weeks (on average). The symptoms might include thymic damage. So I hypothesize that the poison attacks thymus cells and kills them. I put thymus cells into several flasks, and expose some to the poison. I see no difference between the flasks; all cells remain healthy. So, I can reject the hypothesis that the poison attacks thymus cells, and develop a new hypothesis. And so on.
BTW, you do not say where the "signals" emanate from; nor do you indicate how the myriads of reactions are coordinated, dynamically, instantaneously, simultaneously utterly collaboratively from moment-to-moment for the purpose of maintaining the life of the organism.
That's because there are so many signals, from so many sources, that it is impossible to state where they all come from, or what all the feedback mechanisms are. Signals can be passed between components of a single cells; they can be secreted into the bloodstream by glands and picked up by target cells; they can come from externally; they can be chemical, light, or heat. A typical pathway might consist of a cell encountering a sugar, and activating a pathway to metabolize the sugar, possibly through the sugar binding an enzyme necessary to the pathway and "turning on" the enzyme. The metabolism continues until the sugar concentration is so low that it doesn't bind the activating enzyme any more; that feedback shuts down the pathway. Each pathway, taken alone, is fairly straightforward and amenable to understanding; the thousands of pathways all competing with each other and yet enabling life to continue is really where the wonder is.