I think that the concept of evolution probably works very well with probably some need to understand parts of it better rather than postulate some radical alternative go explain what we don't understand. Why? it is the simplest solution and I'd rather suspect that by trying to understand the simple we will find the answers we need and bot go running off after some new Lysenkoism.
It seems people are quite happy with the idea of small incremental changes over a very long time but far less happy with the idea of radical changes over a short time and into which concept they find it difficult to understand how complex organs can evolve.
There are some simple clues.
Awhile back, before the smoke free zones, smokeless fuels and gas fired central heating i.e. back when pollution was orders of magnitude higher than today, London buterflies were very dark but with the changes to smokeless fuels, tree bark lightened up and it didn't take very long before butterflies were light coloured.
Then too we have accounts of how the enormous quantities of agent orange and the various defoliants dumped on Vietnakm lead to a rapid evolution of the insects such that some where concentrating the toxins for their own use in their venom. Some postulated that the insects seemed almost pre-programmed.
So what I suggest is that under extremes of an environment that threatens a significant impact on a population in some way evolutionary forces are equal to the challenge.
It is a it like suggesting that modern computers still lack the ability to perform some calculations or test out some models. There is always some one who points out that if you ran every combination, even with the best computer speed available, you'd still need a hundred years or a thousand years to run them all.
Except.
Except if you use the idle computing power of millions of PCs in screen saving mode to run a different solution on each of them.
So it might be with evolution, that it works slowly and incrementally where there are small forces in the environment but where there are major pressures, it "forces" large and rapid changes. Don't forget that some species may disappear if they can't respond but where a species shows any response, it does well.
That too is a survival trait and what we see today, like in a knock-out league, are all the species that survived past high pressure events.
Incidentally, notice ho simple environmental factors can lead to significant changes. A small temperature change is all that is required to change the sex of the unborn crocodile in its egg.
After the Great War the number of male children born was significantly higher than normally experienced.
Myxametosis nearly wiped out rabbits but the ones that survived were those that spent most time above ground. Small thing but critical and however few or however many there were that liked it above ground, they won that round. It just takes two of them to survive and, well you know rabbits.
It may be that the species was almost wiped out by the change but so what.
In other words, we can see some rather fleeting events that threaten dire consequences for a species and which produce significant outcomes.
We are talking here about relatively simple changes in response to exceedingly short term pressures. So, who is to say that with the right sort of extreme pressures sustained over longer periods and perhaps with a mix of other factors that evolution isn't capable of accounting for it all? Given that I'd pursue the possibilities of a simple single solution rather than looking for something more dramatic and complicated to explain it all away.
I don't see that it is a case that modern concerns about the evolution of highly sophisticated organs is necessarily a problem. Evolution has not been proven wrong, it is just a lack of understanding how it works that is the problem.
The problem with Dawkins is he has as much belief that there is no god as there is belief amongst others that there is a God.
OIt doesn't matter how much more complicated the world becomes or nature or the age of the universe. To those who believe it just means God was cleverer and more subtle than previously given credit for.
Dawkins should know he can't prove the non-existence of something which can't be proved and should recognise that in the end, belief in or belief not in has no relevance to science.
When you come down to it, it is as easy to believe in God as not believe, but proof is equally as difficult on either side. The winners are those who don't ask for proof.
He should set it aside and get on with life.
JMW
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