From: philjohn@garnet.berkeley.edu (Phillip Johnson)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Topic for Discussion?
Date: 22 Jan 1993 05:56:08 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

I am not sure that it is possible to hold a discussion in this
group, because the majority of participants seem to consider the
neo-Darwinian theory to be so obviously true that doubt is not
taken seriously.  On that basis, what is there to discuss?

If there is to be any hope to go beyond browbeating (a style of
argument that may silence dissenters but never convinces them),
the subject must be one about which there is a concededly a
reasonable basis for disagreement.  So I will try to state a question
that can be the subject of genuine discussion.  In his FAQ on evolutionary
biology, Chris Colby begins with the question: "What is
Evolution?"  He answers by citing as an example the familiar case
of the peppered moth:

"The kind of evolution documented above [in the peppered moth
example] is called "microevolution".  Larger changes (taking more
time) are termed "macroevolution".  Some biologists feel the
mechanisms of macroevolution are different from those of
microevolutionary change. Others, including  myself, feel the
distinction between the two is arbitrary.  Macroevolution is
cumulative microevolution."

This wording acknowledges that "some biologists" do not think
that the peppered moth example illustrates a creative process
that can produce new species, much less new complex organs. 
Indeed, that is true.  To give only a single example, the
doctrine that "macroevolution is cumulative microevolution" is
the theory that Stephen Jay Gould once pronounced to be
"effectively dead," in a paper in which he endorsed a modified
version of the macromutational views of Richard Goldschmidt. 
(See Darwin on Trial, Chapters Two and Three, esp. p. 40).  Of
course an adaptive macromutational mechanism -- in Gould's words
"a potential saltational origin for the essential features of key
adaptations" -- has yet to be demonstrated.

I would say that it is reasonable for a well-informed observer to
conclude that macroevolution (i.e. the creative process that
produced complex plants and animals in the first place) is not 
"cumulative microevolution" (i.e. the peppered moth example writ
large over geological time).  If so, it is also reasonable to
conclude that the mechanism of macroevolution is an unsolved
mystery.  This does not necessarily imply supernatural creation,
because it is possible that science will discover a naturalistic
mechanism at some time in the future.  It is also not "anti-
science."  Indeed, students with inquiring minds may be more
attracted to the field of evolutionary biology if they are told
that they have an opportunity to try to solve a big mystery,
rather than merely to fill in the details of the neo-Darwinian
picture.  Of course, there can be no guarantee that they will
succeed.  

My impression is that many participants in this group think that
the position stated in the preceding paragraph is unreasonable,
and even in some sense reprehensible.  Is that correct?  If so,
why?
-- 
Phillip E. Johnson
  School of Law, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720