I managed to get through most of chapter 6, “Difficulties on Theory” of Darwin’s The Origin of Species last night. I finished it up a few minutes ago. I’m still reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, but it’s hard to really comment on it without giving away what’s going on in the story – I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t yet read it.
Anyway, back to Darwin. On page 206, he again defines “natural selection”: “As natural selection acts solely by the preservation of profitable modifications…” On page 229, he again states that, “Natural selection will never produce in a being anything injurious to itself, for natural selection acts solely by and for the good of each.” I put his definitions here again to question that if only “profitable modifications” are passed from generation to generation, why then are there hereditary diseases? Shouldn’t natural selection have weeded those out with each successive generation of human or animal? I mean, really, we should be a getting close to wiping out heart disease, cancer, any defective gene that could possibly be passed on to our children. Yet the number of hereditary cases grows.
Taking the second definition listed above, that natural selection will, and this is his word, never produce anything injurious to itself… if this were true, we wouldn’t have brains. I know that sounds silly, but think about it. Our brains control our bodies. It houses the mind (well, if they could find an actual physical thing called a mind) – our thought processes. Our brain can cause us all kinds of pain. It can keep us awake at night with stressful thoughts, nightmares, or in my case, due to a disease called fibromyalgia, by brain just won’t let me sleep at night unless I take medication.
Lack of sleep causes all kinds of injuries to the body. You don’t think straight; you get irritable, moody; you can even die if you don’t get REM sleep after a number of consecutive days.
I would consider that injurious to oneself.
What about those whose brains turn them into suicide victims?
Well, since brains can obviously be injurious to oneself, natural selection should have done away with them centuries ago.
Darwin goes on to discuss the origin and transitions of organic beings with peculiar habits and structure (i.e. how could a land animal have been converted into one with aquatic habits). He says that it would be easy to show that it is due to the struggle for life and that it adapted to its place in nature. I really don’t have a problem with that. I’ve stated before that I believe that animals, plants and even humans can and do adapt to their environments. Twenty years ago, people went to the library to do research; today we just Google or Wiki it. We’ve become a “fast food nation.” We’ve adapted to the boom in technology.
However, in the same paragraph, found on page 212, he says, “If a different case had been taken, (he gives an example), the question would have been far more difficult, and I could have given no answer. Yet I think such difficulties have very little weight.”
Think about what he just said. He could “easily” prove scenario one, but not scenario two… but it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t think scenario number two really matters.
Yes, this is how all scientific research should be done. I can prove A, but not B, but it doesn’t matter because B isn’t worth worrying about.
And Darwin’s “law” is what is taught in our schools? No wonder our society is messed up.
I digress.
In his very next sentence he reverts to his good ‘ole back up: “… out of the many striking cases which I have collected, I can give only one or two instances…” Okay, he went from no examples to one or two. I’ll give him that. But there are still no citations or actual facts to check it against.
I know I’ve been bashing him a lot for not using citations or documenting any of the research (I should say publish the results of his research), but the blame also rests on the scientific community of his time. I’ve stated before that if I presented a paper such as this, only using the same handful of “specialists” that he does, and not even citing their research, just mention that this person said that… well, I’d be laughed out of the community. He presented his paper and it was considered a breakthrough.
What is even more stunning is that if something didn’t agree with his theory, he simply dismissed it – and again, it was accepted by the scientific community. That just boggles my mind. Perhaps I’m just to cynical and curious. I love to question things. I always have. I want to know what’s right. I want to know the correct answer. Even if there is no answer, I want to know all I can find out about the topic in hand that has piqued my interest. You’d think the scientific community would want to do the same.
Happy reading!
