Joe Felsenstein:   John Wilkins has given a very well-thought-out response
about the importance or unimportance of individual scientists' contributions
to the long-term progress of science.  Yes, someone else, or some other
people, would have done what Darwin did rather soon after.  But it was an
important thing to do, whoever would do it.  Darwin also did it (discovering
natural selection's role in evolution) extremely well, and made lots of
other discoveries as well.

John Edser:   I think that many sbe readers have trouble understanding how
Darwin's original view was changed over the years to become the modern, Neo
Darwinian view.   Do you distinguish between models and theories? If so, was
Darwin's view a model or a theory? If you suggest it was a theory how are
the more modern, complex,  Neo Darwinian models connected to the Darwinian
theory?

Brett Aubrey:   As an sbe reader but very much a non-expert, I'll take a
shot at John's points, if only to have someone educate me where I'm
off-track.  My understanding is that Darwin's original view was incomplete,
and very much recognized by Darwin as incomplete.  What has largely changed
("added", I think is more appropriate) over the years is the profound,
though still incomplete, understanding of the mechanism behind mutation -
genetics, DNA, etc.  Darwin, IIRC, pointed out the lack of this mechanism as
well as other potential flaws, such as, for example, the imperfection of the
geological record and huge amounts of species which he expected to be
discover if his theory was to survive.  Well, the mechanism's there and as
far as I can see,  Darwin himself couldn't have asked for a better physical
mechanism; and we're still finding new species on a weekly or better
schedule, again, IIRC, which has closed many of the large gaps for
transients or intermediate species.  He had some flaws, but in a few
conjectures (Bears trapping surface insects in their mouth evolving to
whales always sticks out), rather than in the meat of the theory.  Darwin
described "On The Evolution of Species" as one long argument, and
in that he
did a truly amazing job, I think.

I'll be even fuzzier on theories and models.  As a theory, it seems superb,
first defining the traits of mutation and natural selection, the explaining
much of how both would work.  What we've learned with genetics has, it seems
to me, slipped nicely into his puzzle.  There were also many predictions,
such as a more complete geological record and a defined or definable
mechanism for mutation.

While I use models for all sorts of computing purposes, I think I need more
data on details of "the more modern, complex,  Neo Darwinian models" to
appropriately answer this question.  My short answer without knowing more is
that the Darwinian theory is largely a healthy subset of what I understand
the newer models to be, so the connections would be wherever sub- and
super-sets overlap.

And a final word on the subject line...  Darwin's book is a good read and
I'd recommend anyone interested in sbe, etc., should read it.  Maybe even
twice.  I suggest this partly for the initial poster's discussions with his
Ph.D's, who sound quite dubious to me.  Darwin, along with a smattering of
Gould and Dawkins, make evolution pretty easy to follow, and this group
(sbe) often helps immensely in areas where you're amiss.  And while I agree
with Joes' statements, Darwin's importance is he was also the first to
publish a well-thought-out and documented theory, largely correct and with
many or most flaws noted, in a way the could and did convince the masses,
including his peers and many initial adversaries.
Regards,  Brett Aubrey.  (Independent Non-Researcher).
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 4/2/03 12:05:55 PM