“We are all victims.” determined “by forces over which we have no control.”

Does anyone think that J.S. Bach had any control over his genius? He was “prescribed” to be to music what Gauss and so many others were to mathematics. They all only discovered what was always there.

A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”

Unfortunately I am uncertain about what you are trying to say. Perhaps you should be more specific.

I have quoted Einstein. What is OK with big Al is just fine with me.

I am not jealous of anything, never have been, and I laugh at your suggestion. I am immune to such innuendo and will remain so to the end. I at least know what I am not which is a hypocrit! I hope others have the same self confidence.

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
George Bernard Shaw

My heresies are published and I have yet to recant anything I ever committed to hard copy.

“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison

I know what you didn’t say but I felt compelled to explain I was referring to mammals and cichlids are not mammals. Most of those cichlids are now extinct by the way so we really don’t even know what their relationships are or were to each other do we? The Darwinians have been very careful never to test their convictions and when Dobzhansky did and discovered selection was impotent they promptly forgot about it. The history of Darwinism is its most devastating testimony. Its critics are not permitted to exist. My several papers have elicited not a single response in the professional literature except one shortly after I published my original evolutionary paper in 1984. That was only as a letter to the editor to which I responded in the same journal – the Journal of Theoretical Biology. I am not alone in being ignored. Try to find references to the books by Otto Schindewolf, Richard B. Goldschmidt, Leo Berg, Reginald C. Punnett, Robert Broom. Pierre Grasse, Soren Lovtrup and Henry Fairfield Osborn, each a distinguished leader in his field, all convinced evolutionists, and not one a Darwinian by the wildest stretch of the imagination.

The whole business is a manifestaion of how man regards himself in the universe. The Darwinians are convinced we are accidents. My God, Gould actually put that in words -”Intelligence was an evolutionary accident.” He even wrote a book with the title “Full House!” It is hard to believe isn’t it?

I am convinced this is a genetic predisposition just as has been out preferences for political parties, brands of beer, tooth paste, clothing, pets, jewelry and mates. Those have already been established. The question we should be asking is what HASN’T been “prescribed” if I may be so bold: not much in my opinion.

We are all victims just as Einstein claimed and I won’t quote him again here. I am certain it grows tiresome, even unacceptable, to those genetically predisposed not to accept the convictions of one whom I regard as the greatest and most penetrating intellect of all time. Some of us have been luckier than others and I am certain that every person sees himself as one of the lucky ones!

A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison

Firstly, I didn’t say that there are any mammalian species younger than Homo sapiens — only that there are species younger than we are. I was thinking of the cichlid radiation in Lake Victoria, which has been dated to a few thousand years ago.

Regarding species and genera: here I’m speaking for myself, not for any other evolutionist. Recall, for a moment, the scholastic distinction between the real and the nominal. A real distinction is one that tracks how things are. A nominal distinction is a classification that we introduce as a bit of clarification and tidying-up.

Under a neo-Darwinian picture, species are real, as a distribution of features over a reproductively isolated population. A species is reproductively isolated if any of the following conditions apply: (a) it does not mate with members of any other species; (b) it mates with members of other species, but fertilization does not occur; (c) cross-specific mating and fertilization occur, but the offspring are non-viable; (d) the offspring are viable but sterile.

But as for higher taxa — these, it seems to me, are terms that we introduce in order to better understand the similarities and differences between species.

Linnaeus, I would assume, thought of these as “real” — as picking out, or referring to, How the World Really Is. But I don’t think that it’s possible to retain a realist interpretation of higher taxa under the terms of the neo-Darwinian picture.

By the way: I do think that Spinozism and Darwinism are incompatible. I feel the appeal of both. In this respect you are more consistent than I am.

Which mammalian species are younger than Homo sapiens and which genus younger than Homo? Saying so does not make it so. That is another of my many unanswered challenges to the Darwinian fable. You will be the first to prove I am wrong which I am always prepared to admit.

Where did you get the notion that genus has no meaning from a neoDarwinian point of view? Who are these people? Come to think of it, you may be right, because nothing makes any sense from a neoDarwinian point of view. It is the biggest and most long lasting hoax in the history of science.

My feelings about a personal God are like Einstein’s – agnostic. I see no need for a personal God and I see no evidence for one so I can hardly regard it as having scientific value. I also know of not a single scientific achievement that ever involved a personal God. Does anyone? Nevertheless, I am definitely a creationist but not of a sectarian variety. I, again with Einstein, don’t believe in an after life and am even looking forward to the end of this one, one of the very few virtues of growing old.

“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison

Well, there certainly are species younger than Homo sapiens. I don’t know about genera. But, from a neo-Darwinian perspective, genera aren’t real — they have a merely nominal existence, ways of classifying species. The species alone are real, as populations of reproductively isolated organisms. So that’s one answer, perhaps not the most satisfying one.

I interpret your quoting of Einstein as an indication that you don’t think that the concept of a personal God has any scientific status. Is that a fair interpretation of your view?

Carlos

Robert Broom was very much aware of the ups and downs of the evolutionary sequence yet he also insisted that there had been a Plan, a word he capitalized and, as far as I know, his only reference to a higher power. He explained in one of his books, and I can’t find it right now, that the reason for all the various ages with all their bizarre plants and animals was to maintain the balance of nature so the evolutionary process could continue. I like that too of course. It is only natural for me to be anthropocentric since I have openly challenged the establishment to document a younger mammal than Homo sapiens or for that matter a younger genus than Homo. Robert Broom claimed that a new genus had not appeared in two million years. So did Julian Huxley as I have fully documented in my Manifesto and elsewhere in hard copy. I regard a universe with man as the ultimate product as indicated by the fossil record so I can hardly regard anthropocentricity as a defect in my reasoning. Quite the contrary, I feel it supports a goal-directed evolution. I am not the first to present an anthropic view of the universe in any event. It is even known as the “Anthropic Principle” by folks like Hugh Ross. I like that too as it remains in concert with the PEH, although I hesitate to identify it with the Christian ethic as some insist on doing. Christianity is a wonderful ethic but it should not influence our science. Indeed, insistence that it does has caused many problems.

I hope I can quote Einstein wthout fear of bannishment or deletion.

“The main sourse of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and science lies in the concept of a personal God.”
Alice Calaprice, The New Quotable Einstein, page 203

I hope that further explains my position.

“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
John A. Davison