Evolution theorist Alfred Russel Wallace goes online

BBC ^ | 9/28/2012 | Jonathan Amos

[Natufian]

The Wallace Line is a term still in use today and refers to the sharp division between the types of animals in Australia and those on the Asian archipelago.

Wallace identified this abrupt transition, but could not satisfactorily explain it. Nor would he have been able to.

It is only with the 20th Century theory of plate tectonics that scientists can now describe how Australia, with its unique flora and fauna, was delivered from another part of the globe and abutted to South East Asia.

[Natufian]

Cool

[techcor]

Wallace identified this abrupt transition, but could not satisfactorily explain it.

Maybe some group promised to make huge campaign donations if they evolved quickly enough. Apparently that's the biggest cause of evolution these days. /s

[Gay State Conservative]

I have no problem with the theory of evolution as it currently stands,at least up to a degree.Unless I'm mistaken most proponents of this theory claim that everything happened in a random fashion and that may well appear to be the case,given our still *very* limited knowledge of life and the universe.However,it's been said by some that “if there's a clock there's a clockmaker” and that,to me,is a very effective rebuff to the “randomness” crowd.

[Natufian]

Evolution doesn’t concern itself with how life began and I think most scientists would be honest enough to say that science can’t say how it did so. There are hypotheses but none with enough evidence to give make them very robust.

[stormer]

Randomness in evolution is misunderstood. For example, let’s say we have 10 random mutations in a population, one of those random mutations makes it possible for those mutants to increase the likelihood of their offspring surviving by some degree. Rinse and repeat a couple of million times. Mutations may be random, but the conditions in which a mutation provides favor are not.

[James C. Bennett]

Except that in a clock, its functional parts are relatively inactive by themselves, among themselves before assembly, whereas in living things, the functional parts are largely at the molecular level, where the orders of interaction with one-another are not only astronomically high, but the interactions themselves are largely spontaneous (molecular interactions do not need physical guidance to the extent that clock parts do, when putting the clock together).