猞猁
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加入时间: 2007/05/04
文章: 106
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作者：猞猁 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
In science there is even a whimsical term for a machine or structure or process that does something, but the actual mechanism by which it accomplishes its task is unknown: it is called a 'black box.' In Darwin's time all of biology was a black box: not only the cell, or the eye, or digestion, or immunity, but every biological structure and function because, ultimately, no one could explain how biological processes occurred.
Ernst Mayr, the prominent biologist, historian, and guiding force behind the neo-Darwinian synthesis, has pointed out that :
"Any scientific revolution has to accept all sorts of black boxes, for if one had to wait until all black boxes are opened, one would never have any conceptual advances."
That is true. But in earlier days when black boxes were finally opened science, and sometimes the whole world, appeared to change. Biology has progressed tremendously due to the model that Darwin put forth. But the black boxes Darwin accepted are now being opened, and our view of the world is again being shaken.
In concluding, it is important to realize that we are not inferring design from what we do not know, but from what we do know. We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box. A man from a primitive culture who sees an automobile might guess that it was powered by the wind or by an antelope hidden under the car, but when he opens up the hood and sees the engine he immediately realizes that it was designed. In the same way biochemistry has opened up the cell to examine what makes it run and we see that it, too, was designed.
Biologists who are working at the cellular level or above can continue their research without paying much attention to design, because above the cellular level organisms are black boxes, and design is difficult to prove. So those who labor in the fields of paleontology, comparative anatomy, population genetics, and biogeography should not invoke design until the molecular sciences show design has an effect at those higher levels.
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Pp 175-176: "... To explain that Darwinian evolution cannot explain everything in nature is not to say that evolution, random mutation, and natural selection do not occur; they have been observed (at least in cases of microevolution) many different times. Like the sequence analysis, I believe the evidence strongly supports common descent.... Darwinism is an inadequate framework for understanding the origin of complex biochemical systems."
Pp 227 - 231: "The irreducible complex biochemical systems that I have discussed in this book did not have to be produced recently, it is entirely possible, based simply on an examination of the systems themselves, that they were designed billions of years ago and that they have been passed down to the present by normal processes of cellular reproduction. Perhaps a speculative scenario will illustrate the point. Suppose that nearly four billion years ago the designer made the first cell, already containing all the irreducible complex biochemical systems discussed here and many others. (One can postulate that the designs for systems that were to be used later, such as blood clotting, were present but not "turned on". ... The cell containing the designed systems then was left on autopilot to reproduce, mutate, eat and be eaten, bump against rocks, and suffer the vagaries of life on earth."
Pp 229 - 230: "... evolutionary biologists have recognized that a number of factors might have affected the development of life: common descent, natural selection, migration, population size, founder effects, genetic drift, gene flow, linkage, meiotic drive, transposition (the transfer of gene between widely separated species by nonsexual means), and much more. The fact that some biochemical systems may have been designed by an intelligent agent does not mean that any of the other factors are not operative, common, or important."
p. 231: "Future research could take several directions. Work could be undertaken to determine whether information for designed systems could lie dormant for long periods of time, or whether the information would have to be added close to the time when the system became operational. Since the simplest possible design scenario posits a single cell formed billions of years ago which already contained all information to produce descendant organisms, other studies could test this scenario by attempting to calculate how much DNA would be required to code the information (keeping in mind that much of the information might be implicit.) If DNA alone is insufficient, studies could be initiated to see if information could be stored in the cell in other ways—for example, as positional information. Other work could focus on whether larger, compound systems, containing two or more irreducibly complex systems, could have developed gradually or whether there are compounded irreducibilities"
作者：猞猁 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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