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> http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/gould_tautology.html
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Where we find: quote--- <<<<The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies the raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of the evolutionary change. It preserves favorable variants and build fitness gradually. In fact, since artist fashion their creations from the raw material of notes, words, and stone, the metaphors to not strike me as inappropriate. Since Bethell does not accept a criterion of fitness independent of mere survival, he can hardly grant a creative role to natural selection>>> -end quote--
WS:
Why does he need the concept of natural selection to explain the concept of progress i.e. the emergence of the higher life forms?
Evolutionary change consists of two relatively independent processes: the appearance of new life forms, and disappearance of the old ones. Relative in this content means that one does not necessitate the other but may affect it. The appearance of new form is explained solely by genetic mutations and has nothing to do with teleology (survival of the fittest, perfection, etc.) - it is a natural propensity of living organisms.
Natural selection is only needed to explain *disappearance* of certain forms, but has nothing to do with the *appearance* of the new ones. To illustrate that, imagine a hypothetical environment in which there is no "natural selection." In that environment, new life forms emerge as a result of genetic mutations, but each such life form is not threatened by extinction but can survive by moving into a different niche. Let's assume there is an infinite or sufficiently large number of niches and sufficiently long period of time. Ceteris paribus, that hypothetical environment would be populated by all life forms that have ever walked on the surface of the earth - the long extinct ones as well primates and humans as well. Adding the natural selection to the picture would merely eliminate the extinct forms, not to create new ones - but we would still have a progression of life forms from less to more complex, albeit a bit more choppy, with a lot of missing links .
Therefore, the most objectionable to creationists element of evolution is the one that denies the need for a creator - that is, the appearance of new, more complex life forms through the natural process of genetic mutations. However, that part is firmly rooted in science, and the creationists would not stand a chance trying to undermine it. Therefore, they use a red herring by focusing on the non-essential and more controversial (because of its apparent teleology) element of the evolutionary theory: natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Basically the argument takes the following form: Naturalist claim: "Cars move because they are powered by an internal combustion engine and people use them as an efficient means of getting from point A to point B." Creationist refutation of the claim: "That cars are the most efficient means of getting from A to B is a tautology (which is probably a valid assertion), therefore cars do not move at all, they are planted in points A and B by the Supreme Mover.
With the following in mind, below is my favorite literary metaphor for evolution, coming from a collection of short stories _The Cinnamon Shops_ by Bruno Schulz (but it needs to be read in the context of the whole story to grasp its irony)
A Treatise on Mannequins or The Second Book of Genesis
http://www.schulzian.net/cinnamon/treatise1.htm
Quote---- -DEMIURGUS-said my father-did not possess a monopoly on creation; creation is the privilege of all souls. Matter is prone to infinite fecundity, an inexhaustible vital power and, at the same time, the beguiling strength of temptation that entices us to fashioning. Deep within matter indistinct smiles are shaped, tensions are constrained, congealing attempts at figurations. All matter ripples with infinite possibilities, which pass through it in sickly shudders. Awaiting the invigorating breath of the soul it overflows endlessly into itself; it entices us with a thousand sweet encirclements and a softness that it dreams up out of itself in its blind reveries.
Devoid of its own initiative, voluptuously pliant, malleable in the feminine fashion, compliant in the face of all impulses-open to every kind of charlatanism and dilettantism, it constitutes outlaw terrain, the domain of all abuses and dubious demiurgic manipulations. Matter is the most passive and defenceless essence in the cosmos. Any may knead and shape it, and to each it is submissive. All arrangements of matter are impermanent and loose, liable to retardation and dissolution. There is nothing evil in the reduction of life to other and new forms. Murder is not a sin. Many a time it is a necessary infringement, in the face of stubborn and ossified forms of being that have ceased to be remarkable. In the interests of an exciting and valuable experiment it might even constitute a service. Here is a point of departure for a new apologia for sadism.
My father was inexhaustible in his glorification of that uncanny element; such was matter.-There is no dead matter-he taught-lifelessness is merely a semblance behind which unidentified forms of life lay concealed. The range of those forms is infinite, their shades and nuances inexhaustible. Demiurgus was in possession of valuable and interesting creative recipes. Thanks to these he called a multitude of genera into being, renewing themselves by their own strength. It is not known whether those recipes will ever be reconstructed. But it is unnecessary, for even should those classical methods of creation prove once and for all to be inaccessible, there remain certain illegal methods, a whole host of heretical and illicit methods. --- end quote
Wojtek