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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Sienes: Intelligent design vs Darwin's evolution theory
By Cris G. Sienes
Different strokes
"Actually it was not Darwin who first suggested the idea of evolution. The idea of evolution had earlier been urged by Anaximander in the sixth century BC, St. Augustine in the fourth century AD, and Jean Baptiste Lamarck at the beginning of the 19th century."
THE Dover School District near Harrisburg in Pennsylvania, USA, has introduced an alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Called "intelligent design," the theory holds that the natural world is so complex that it must have been made by an intelligent being, rather than occurring by chance, as held by Darwin's theory of evolution. Here it might be necessary to take a second look at Darwin's theory of evolution. Those who took "Modern Europe Since the 1870s" in college are no doubt conversant with Darwin's controversial theory.
Actually it was not Darwin who first suggested the idea of evolution. The idea of evolution had earlier been urged by Anaximander in the sixth century BC,
St. Augustine in the fourth century AD, and Jean Baptiste Lamarck at the beginning of the 19th century.
It was Lamarck who, in his work Natural History of Invertebrate Animals, first came up with a theory of evolution, which consisted of four laws, namely: life by its very nature tends continually to increase the size of every body possessing it up to a limit which life itself sets; a new need continually making itself felt in a body tends to produce a new organ in that body; the development of organs is in constant ratio to their use; whatever has been acquired or changed in the organization of a living body is conserved by generation and thus transmitted to its descendants. Lamarck's fourth and last law was later borrowed by Darwin in the latter's own theory of evolution.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), an English land surveyor and architect who served as naturalist for several scientific expeditions through the Amazon and the East Indies, lay ill with fever in the Moluccas in 1858. While he lay ill, the idea of the survival of the fittest flashed over him. He thought out the whole theory in two hours and spent three evenings writing it. He then mailed his theory to Darwin. Upon receiving the manuscript, Darwin presented it, together with an essay of his own, to a learned society in London.
Thus Darwin's hypothesis of evolution, as contained in his works, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Species in the Struggle for Life, published in 1859, and The Descent of Man published in 1871, was introduced to the world. Darwin's theory of evolution states: "Animal and vegetable species, in their present very diverse forms and aspects, are not immutably fixed as results of separate special acts of creation, but as different and changing natural outcomes of a common original source."
As to how the changes and differentiations took place, Darwin had three ideas: natural selection, sexual selection, and inheritance of acquired characteristics that he borrowed from Lamarck.
Lack of column space prevents us from expounding on Darwin's three ideas. We will instead go to the criticisms on Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin's doctrine of the hereditary transmission of acquired characteristics, as borrowed from Lamarck, was seriously questioned by biologists. His theory of sexual selection was dismissed as unimportant, and his hypothesis of natural selection was later refined and modified.
August Weismann (1834-1914), a zoology professor at Freiburg, Germany, pointed out that heredity consists of the transmission of pure germ plasm in germ cells, which have nothing to do with acquired characteristics. It was this theory of Weismann that triggered widespread dissent from that portion of Darwin's theory of acquired characteristics. Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), an Augustinian monk from Austrian Silesia, was among those not satisfied with Darwin's view of natural selection to explain the formation of new species. He undertook a series of experiments and came up with his Laws of Heredity where he strongly pointed out that in heredity certain characters may be treated as indivisible and apparently unalterable units.
It is interesting to note that, despite the many and obviously valid criticisms against Darwin's theory of evolution, even today a great many people subscribe to the theory. It is even more interesting to note that intelligent design, as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution, should emanate from a public school district in the United States where the US Supreme Court prohibits the teaching of creationism (the belief that the earth was created by God) on the ground that it violates the doctrine of the separation of the church and the state.
We foresee long-drawn debates, if not court battles, between members of the American Civil Liberties Union, who strongly oppose the teaching of creationism in public schools, and American Christian Conservatives, who have been pressing for decades for the teaching of creationism in public schools. Already the American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Dover School District in Pennsylvania for introducing the theory of intelligent design in its biology classes.
Point to ponder: "Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man." (H.L. Mencken: Chrestomathy 618) For Davao bisaya stories.Click here.
(January 19, 2005 issue)
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