Dr.
Isaac Asimov.(biochemist;
former Professor at Boston University School of Medicine; internationally
known author; in thinking about the efforts necessary to even begin comprehending
complexity in nature)."In
the game of energy and thermodynamics you can't even break
even".
Smithsonian.Institute
Journal.(si.edu/),
June, 1970, page 10.."And
in Man is a 3 pound brain
which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly
arrangement of matter in the universe."
James W. Kalnt, Department
of Psychology, North Carolina State University, believes the brain has
at least 14,000,000,000 nerve cells interconnected by 60 trillion synapses.
Many of these are small and apparently undeveloped as if they constituted
a
reserve stock not yet realized in the individual's cerebral activity.
At any one time only about 5% of the brain's neurons
are active, but there are no unused portions
of the brain, despite the 10% use only myth. What.possibly.could
they be used for?
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Stephen
Jay Gould.(Professor
of Geology and Paleontology {taught biology, geology and history of science},
Harvard University, deceased May, 2002),
'Is A New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?'.Paleobiology,
vol. 6(1), January 1980, page 127."The
absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions
in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct
functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging
problem for 'gradualistic'
accounts of evolution."
"This notion of species
as 'natural kinds' fit splendidly with creationist tenets of a pre-Darwinian
age. Louis
Agassiz even argued that species are God's individual thoughts, made
incarnate so that we might perceive both His majesty and His message. Species,
Agassiz wrote, are 'instituted by the Divine Intelligence as the categories
of his mode of thinking.' "
But how could a division
of the organic world into discrete entities be justified by an evolutionary
theory that proclaimed ceaseless change as the fundamental fact of nature?."
...A quahog.(clam).is
a quahog". ...Natural History, vol.
LXXXVIII (7), August-September, 1979, p.18.
"All paleontologists know
that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate
forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt."....'The
return of hopeful
monsters',.Natural
History, vol. LXXXVI (6), June-July 1977, p.24.
In.Punctuated
Equilibria: An Alternative To Phyletic.Gradualism
In Models In Paleobiology, Stephen
Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge,
1973, Freeman, Cooper and Company, San Francisco, pages 88-115 noted that
careful searches show only a smattering
of fossils of multi cellular creatures in rocks older than 600 million
years, yet in rocks a bit younger we see a profusion
of fossilized animals with a host of differing body plans. Stephen says
in "Evolution's erratic pace",.Natural
History, vol. LXXXVI (5), May, 1977, p.14.."The
extreme rarity of transitional forms persists as the trade secret of paleontology.
The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips
and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference,
however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded
to gradualism that he wagered his
entire theory on a denial of this literal record. The geological record
is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why
we do not find interminable
varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life
by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature
of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.
"Darwin's argument still
persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment
of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its
cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential
validity of gradualism.(for
all general views have similar roots).
I wish only to point out that it was never 'seen' in the rocks.
"Paleontologists have paid
an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only
true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of
evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never
see the very process we profess to study."
In.Natural
History, Stephen Jay Gould, volume 86, number 5 (1977), page 13."The
extreme rarity of transitional forms persists as the trade secret of paleontology."
Stephen's approach in his
many books and articles is forthright, honest and open minded, as is Eldredge's.
