Let’s look at what was left out of those ellipses here. \u00a0From the Origin of the Species link above.<\/p>\n
The several difficulties here discussed, namely our not finding in the successive formations infinitely numerous transitional links between the many species which now exist or have existed; the sudden manner in which whole groups of species appear in our European formations; the almost entire absence, as at present known, of fossiliferous formations beneath the Silurian strata, are all undoubtedly of the gravest nature. We see this in the plainest manner by the fact that all the most eminent palaeontologists, namely Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, &c., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species. But I have reason to believe that one great authority, Sir Charles Lyell, from further reflexion entertains grave doubts on this subject. I feel how rash it is to differ from these great authorities, to whom, with others, we owe all our knowledge. Those who think the natural geological record in any degree perfect, and who do not attach much weight to the facts and arguments of other kinds even in this volume, will undoubtedly at once reject my theory. For my part, following out Lyell’s metaphor, I look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines.<\/strong> Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which the history is supposed to be written, being more or less different in the interrupted succession of chapters, may represent the apparently abruptly changed forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but widely separated formations. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe bolding is mine to represent what Meyer wrote. \u00a0Now look at what Darwin is saying here.<\/p>\n
The great paleontologists and geologists (including Sedgwick, previously mentioned in\u00a0Darwin’s Doubt<\/em>) maintained support in the immutability of the species. \u00a0Darwin is rejecting the notions of these men and showing how his notions would actually be easily reconciled with the pieces of the fossil puzzle we had at that time and now.<\/p>\nFar from thinking that this was a problem, Darwin seems to be saying that this is what is expected in the fossil record. \u00a0And he, and Lyell, were right. \u00a0We don’t have a continuous record of every living thing from the earliest bit of life to present. \u00a0We’d have billions of tons of fossils if that were the case.<\/p>\n
But Meyer, not satisfied with taking pieces of text out of context also says that “Darwin himself was less than satisfied with this explanation”. \u00a0Reading the actual quote from Darwin, it doesn’t seem he’s less than satisfied. \u00a0And it’s still the correct argument. \u00a0Meyer doesn’t go to Darwin for this, but Stephen Gould, who is a great source of quote mines for the creationists. \u00a0Meyer refers this quote to Gould’s “Wonderful Life” pg 57. \u00a0But again, though\u00a0Darwin<\/strong> may have thought that his ‘incomplete fossil record’ was wearing a bit thin, it doesn’t mean he was wrong.<\/p>\nLater on that same page Gould states<\/p>\n
Darwin has been vindicated by a rich Precambrian record, all discovered in the last 30 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’ve pretty much ignored the information from Agassiz at this point. \u00a0He was a vocal opponent of Darwin’s theory. \u00a0I don’t know why Meyer keeps quoting him. \u00a0There’s no science in these quotes, just a further poisoning of the well against Darwin. We’ll talk some about Agassiz in the next section.<\/p>\n
Meyer closes this section with a cute little carefully worded section. \u00a0You remember how I mentioned at the beginning of this article Meyer’s failure to put “apparent appearance” in certain places. \u00a0Well, here at the end, he does insert that qualifier…<\/p>\n
The overwhelming preponderance of evidence that Darwin had marshaled\u00a0seemed<\/strong> to support his theory. (my emphasis)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis can’t be accident. \u00a0Again, Meyer is poisoning the well. \u00a0Using word choice to support his notions and reject the actual, testable, science.<\/p>\n
What’s the take away from this section?<\/p>\n
Darwin’s theory doesn’t live or die with Darwin’s thoughts on the matter. \u00a0Darwin could have rejected his notions totally. \u00a0It doesn’t matter because the science still works. \u00a0Things still evolve and Darwin’s ideas\u00a0started<\/strong> us on the path. \u00a0Darwin didn’t know anything about DNA, epigenetics, the Burgess Shale, population biology, or any of these things. \u00a0It just means that he had some good ideas that eventually became the science of modern evolutionary theory.<\/p>\nEven if Meyer totally discredits Darwin in this book, it doesn’t mean that the organisms of this world aren’t related. \u00a0It doesn’t mean that life stops evolving. \u00a0It doesn’t mean that evolution stops predicting future states of systems.<\/p>\n
The rest of the series<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Solution Unseen Meyer continues to poison the well against Darwin with his opening remarks. \u00a0Shockingly, Darwin did know about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,24,6],"tags":[939,467,938,937],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-creationism","category-science","tag-creationism","tag-darwins-doubt","tag-evolution","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}