It looks as if Lou is right about gene-centricity, even though it goes against Darwin’s model of Variation and Natural Selection.
It looks as if my ecological view of Natural Selection is the only real alternative. Form does follow function, rather than the other way around. Sorry about that.
I agree that passion for evolution can often be misplaced, such as mistaking a pig’s tooth for a human tooth, or assuming that bones more than a mile apart must have been from the same skeleton, or thinking that hippos evolved into whales, etc., etc. But this does not make passion for your work wrong, as you said.
Although I don’t necessarily accept your definition of evolution (and there seem to be several definitions…) I do appreciate many points in this post, Roger. What I really like is that for once you didn’t mention “ecology” as the solution to everything… 
Seriously, though, the concept that evolution is a designed process… well that mixes it up, doesn’t it. (Even though I do not accept macro-evolution…).
But Eddie, you didn’t read it either! Yet you make it sound like the book has fundamental implications about the inadequacy of mainstream evolutionary theory.
Thank you for your comment.
At the time of Darwin and indeed until very recently we did not have computers that we could program to do work for us. However now we do. Now we are able to write programs that will do the work what we want our computers to do for us.
If humans can do this, God certainly can program nature to do the same, and clearly does. God created the water cycle, the carbon cycle, etc. Certainly God can do the same with evolution.
It should be recognized that the genetic code is a computer code that tells the life form its structure and form. All living things are made of the same chemical, DNA. We are all the same chemically, but differ in our DNA, the instructions on how to assemble our DNA.
Our design is in our DNA. Our design is rational and relational, rather than physically based. Therefore we are clearly intelligently designed, and to insist upon the opposite is to do violence to our scientific tradition which says that science is based on experience, rather than through ideology.
Questions: Where do you divide macroevolution from microevolution? Why do you reject one and not the other?
Eddie, if I rushed out to read every new book involving evolution from scholarly presses, I would be broke and never have time for anything else. My admittedly quick assessment seems entirely accurate. In my view, yours is the partisan one, frequently implying that Shapiro, etc are major players in evolutionary theory. That is just not true. How about applying your professional standards to my field? Look at what is really happening in evolutionary biology. Look at whether your heroes are really contributing something novel that shakes the foundations of evolutionary theory.
And above all, if you think my assessment of Wagner was inaccurate, tell me what was inaccurate about it. That would be the scholarly approach.
“…the scholarly approach would be for me to refuse to discuss Wagner’s
book with you until I’m convinced you’ve read it thoroughly.”
Eddie, that’s what you should have done at the start. You should not have brought it up as evidence without yourself reading it thoroughly. You must be able to recognize your double standard here. You brought this up, not me, and you did this without thoroughly reading it.
If, after you’ve thoroughly read the book, you can convince me that my assessment is wrong, then I’ll read it for sure. Otherwise I will continue to nibble at it to double-check my assessment. I have to choose books carefully.
What I would like to see from you here are genuine arguments, or at least argument-summaries, of the kind that people give in graduate seminars. Not name dropping or appeals to authority. Real arguments would not be out of place here, I think.
@Eddie @loujost This is getting absolutely ridiculous. I’m going to close this topic tomorrow. Make any closing remarks before then, and/or create a new topic to discuss how many books you have read or not read. Because that’s all that remains of this conversation.
This is an approach that can be informative while avoiding the “you are wrong I am right” nonsense that often occurs in these type of discussions. Serious workers in the bio-sciences have argued and debated various aspects of their paradigm, and will continue to do so; it is unhealthy to turn a scientific outlook into a belief system, by whoever and whatever their position theologically speaking.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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