From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Sat Sep 06 2003 - 15:26:57 BST
Good Morning Scott,
I just finished my morning walk with the dog. It wasn't too productive, but I
did have one insight.
You mentioned Crick and Watson. I don't know if Darwin had any influece on
their work, perhaps you or someone else does. Regardless, you would have to
include their work as important evidence in support of Darwin, and thus
catagorize them under what we call Darwinism or what you would prefer to cal
evolution. The amazing thing about Darwin and all that he proposed is all the
evidence he did not have at the time of his work. When he proposed natural
selection, there was no known mechanism for natural selection to work with from
generation to generation. There was still and ongoing debate going on between
Lamarckism and Darwinism. Crick and Watson's double helix provided the
mechanism and Darwinism got the nod. I don't know what Darwin had to say on
chance, but chance mutations have to have been proposed after Crick and Watson
it would seem to me. Speciation does not have to be based solely on chance
mutations and natural selection. Many Darwinists have rejected this idea.
Ernst Mayr has done extensive work on speciation with Founder populations.
Under this theory, geographic boundaries result in new species. Chance and
natural selection do the rest and as a computer scientist you should appreciate
the relatively short number of generations needed to produce significant change
and vast diversity after programing a little chance and natural selection, i. e.
genetic algorithms.
That's it,
Andy
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