Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….......3
1. Basic provisions of the theory of biological evolution of Charles Darwin……....…4
2. Criticism of the theory of biological evolution by creationists………….….…...7
3. Naturalists against the theory of natural selection………….………..9
4. Critical analysis of Darwinism by the Russian thinker N.Ya. Danilevsky...10
5. Criticism of Darwinism by conservatives……………………………...11
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….....13
List of sources used………………………………………………………...14
Introduction
The nature of life, its origin, the diversity of living beings and the structural and functional proximity that unites them occupies one of the central places in biological problems.
The theory of evolution occupies a special place in the study of the history of life. Evolution implies universal gradual development, orderly and consistent. When applied to living organisms, evolution can be defined as the development of complex organisms from previous, simpler organisms over time.
The development of evolutionary ideas in biology has a fairly long history. It has evolved from a scientific idea to a scientific theory. The main content of this period is the collection of information about the organic world, as well as the formation of two points of view that explain the diversity of species in living nature. The first of them arose on the basis of ancient dialectics, which affirmed the idea of development and change in the surrounding world. The second appeared along with the Christian worldview, based on the ideas of creationism.
The term “evolution” (from Latin evolutio - deployment) was first used in one of the embryological works by the Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet in 1762.
Currently, evolution is understood as an irreversible process of change in a system that occurs over time, due to which something new, heterogeneous, and standing at a higher stage of development arises.
The concept of evolution takes on special meaning in natural science, where biological evolution is studied primarily. Biological evolution is the irreversible and to a certain extent directed historical development of living nature, accompanied by changes in the genetic composition of populations, the formation of adaptations, the formation and extinction of species, transformations of biogeocenoses and the biosphere as a whole. In other words, biological evolution should be understood as the process of adaptive historical development of living forms at all levels of organization of living things. The first evolutionary ideas were put forward in antiquity, but only the works of Charles Darwin made evolutionism a fundamental concept in biology.
In 1859, Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) published his work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. In this monograph, Darwin argued that life forms are the result not of the creative activity of an intelligent Creator, but of hereditary variability and the struggle for existence. With the advent of evolutionary theory, the gap that had previously been filled by belief in a Creator could be filled by scientific explanations. The main driving force of evolution according to Darwin is natural selection.
The theory of evolution captured the minds of many scientists who began to apply it to all branches of knowledge, including history (K. Marx) and psychology (S. Freud). But not everyone accepted Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species” unconditionally. There was a sharp and lengthy struggle over the role, content, and interpretation of the principles of Darwinian theory, especially around the principle of natural selection. Almost a century and a half has passed since the appearance of the theory of evolution, and during this time the discussion has evolved, adapted, modified, but still did not stop.
We consider this topic to be relevant and therefore the purpose of the work is to substantiate critical views on the theory of biological evolution of Charles Darwin.
Based on the set goal, we identified the tasks for achieving it:
1) reveal the main provisions of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution;
2) consider the views of opponents of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory;
3) analyze the results of the study.
1. Basic provisions of the theory of biological evolution of Charles Darwin
Darwin's evolutionary theory is a holistic doctrine of the historical development of the organic world. It covers a wide range of problems, the most important of which are evidence of evolution, identifying the driving forces of evolution, determining the paths and patterns of the evolutionary process, etc.
The theory of biological evolution is a remarkable piece of scientific research. Based on a huge number of reliable scientific facts, the analysis of which led Darwin to a coherent system of proportionate conclusions:
Variability of organisms in the domesticated state
According to Darwin, the stimulus for changes in animals and plants is the effect on organisms of new conditions to which they are exposed in the hands of man. At the same time, Darwin emphasized that the nature of the organism in the phenomena of variability is more important than the nature of the conditions, since the same conditions often lead to different changes in different individuals, and similar changes in the latter can occur under completely different conditions. In this regard, Darwin identified two main forms of variability of organisms under the influence of changing environmental conditions: indefinite and definite.
Artificial selection
Since the main form of variability, according to Darwin, is indefinite, it is obvious that the recognition of hereditary variability of organisms was not yet enough to explain the process of developing new breeds of animals or varieties of agricultural plants. It was also necessary to indicate the force that, on the basis of minor differences between individuals, forms stable and important breed characteristics.
Darwin found the answer to this question in the practice of breeders, who artificially select for a tribe only those individuals who possess traits of interest to humans. As a result of such selection, from generation to generation these characteristics become more and more pronounced. Selection is a creative force that transforms the particular differences of individual individuals into characteristics characteristic of a given breed or variety.
If artificial selection was the main force by which man was able, in a relatively short time, to create numerous breeds of domestic animals and varieties of plants that differed significantly from their wild ancestors, it is logical to assume that similar processes can determine evolutionary transformations in nature as well.
Variability of organisms in nature
Darwin collected numerous data indicating that the variability of the most diverse types of organisms in nature is very great, and its forms are fundamentally similar to the forms of variability of domestic animals and plants.
Various and fluctuating differences between individuals of the same species form, as it were, a smooth transition to more stable differences between the varieties of this species; in turn, the latter just as gradually transform into clearer differences between even larger groups - subspecies, and the differences between subspecies into well-defined interspecific differences. Thus, individual variability smoothly turns into group differences. From this Darwin concluded that individual differences between individuals constitute the basis for the emergence of varieties. Varieties, with the accumulation of differences between them, turn into subspecies, and those, in turn, into separate species. Consequently, clearly defined variety may be considered as the first step towards the isolation of a new species.
We emphasize that Darwin for the first time put the focus of evolutionary theory not on individual organisms (as was typical of his transformist predecessors, including Lamarck), but on biological species, i.e., in modern terms, populations of organisms. Only a population approach allows one to correctly assess the scale and forms of variability in organisms and come to an understanding of the mechanism of natural selection.
The struggle for existence and natural selection
Comparing all the information collected about the variability of organisms in the wild and domesticated state and about the role of artificial selection for breeding breeds and varieties of domesticated animals and plants, Darwin came to the discovery of the creative force that drives and directs the evolutionary process in nature - natural selection. It represents the preservation of beneficial individual differences or changes and the elimination of harmful ones. Changes that are neutral in their value (non-useful and harmless) are not subject to selection, but represent an unstable, fluctuating element of variability.
Of course, individual individuals possessing some new useful trait may die without leaving offspring, for purely random reasons. However, the influence of random factors decreases if a useful trait appears in a larger number of individuals of a given species - then the probability increases that at least for some of these individuals the merits of a new useful trait will play a role in achieving success in the struggle for existence. It follows that natural selection is a factor of evolutionary changes not for individual organisms considered in isolation from each other, but only for their aggregates, i.e. populations.
Results of natural selection
The emergence of adaptations (adaptation) of organisms to the conditions of their existence, which gives the structure of living beings the features of “expediency”, is a direct result of natural selection, since its very essence is differentiated survival and the preferential leaving of offspring by precisely those individuals who, due to their individual characteristics, are better adapted than others to environmental conditions. The accumulation by selection from generation to generation of those characteristics that provide an advantage in the struggle for existence gradually leads to the formation of specific adaptations.
As for the first principle of Darwinism, “Struggle for existence,” it, like the second principle (“natural selection”), says that in the struggle of animals for existence, the weak die, and the stronger or simply more suitable to their environment and its conditions organisms survive. This survival is “natural” selection, which leads to the fact that the totality of those properties of these animals that help them in a given situation to survive in the struggle for existence is purely random, that is, animals possess them not by way of adaptation or creative activity, but simply by chance. These accidental advantages of individual animals are the reason that they can survive in the struggle for existence, so that their offspring have enough chances that, thanks to the inheritance of the properties acquired by their parents through the struggle for existence, these valuable properties could to gain a foothold and could develop further. It is in this way, according to Darwin, that new properties of animals arise and old ones are strengthened.
There is a lot of truth in this entire construction, but this construction still does not cover the entirety of the facts that relate to this. First of all, we must keep in mind the undoubted fact of “mutual assistance” in the animal world, which limits and weakens the struggle for existence. In other words, the struggle for existence is not such a universal fact as Darwin puts forward. On the other hand, the struggle for existence very often leads not to progress, i.e., to the improvement of certain valuable properties of animals, but on the contrary leads to regression, i.e., a weakening of these valuable aspects. There is not only evolution leading to progress, but there is also a fact of “regressive evolution” .
On the other hand, reducing all changes to action random circumstances that put forward this or that function, fixed in its accidental correspondence with the new environment through heredity, makes the presence incomprehensible expediency in the emergence of new functions and new organs, and even more so of new species. Our famous Russian surgeon N. N. Pirogov rightly ridiculed this emphasis on chance as an effective factor in development, speaking of the “deification of chance.” That “chance” can have a positive meaning in the emergence or change of certain functions and even types of living being is, of course, true, but one cannot reduce the creative power of nature to a random combination of certain data! Therefore one cannot reject the meaning devices organisms as a manifestation of their creative activity, which Lamarck already insisted on and which modern neo-Lamarckism defends with such thoroughness. But the significance and richness of these creative movements cannot be reduced to one device. There is an undoubted “directing” force in organisms, in nature as a whole. This is manifested with full force in the so-called. “mutations” - those sudden and inexplicable (from the point of view of “causality”) creative changes that sometimes “break out” in organisms, creating a number of changes that are necessary and useful. The fact of mutation, although it cannot be interpreted very broadly, testifies to the presence of the “hidden energy of development”, which Aristotle so rightly spoke about, and at the same time very deeply undermines the foundations of orthodox Darwinism, which, apart from purely external chance, does not know any internal development factors.
In general, Darwinism, as a general doctrine about changes in nature, in particular about the emergence of new types of living beings, cannot be defended at the present time. If he gives an explanation some facts, it cannot be recognized as the only and all-encompassing system on the issue of the emergence of new species. Let us note right away that historically the greatest blow to Darwinism was the indication of Weissmann and a whole galaxy of scientists who dealt with the question of the nature of “heredity” - that heredity cannot be attributed to newly acquired properties, which arose as Darwin described it. True, the question of the nature of heredity remains a mystery to this day, but Weisman’s instructions were still right, as were Mendel’s detailed studies. The notorious statements of the Soviet scientist Michurin, which were officially announced as an indisputable achievement of Soviet science, did not meet with any support even in the Soviet Union. Russia, not to mention Western science. The essence of the Michurin hypothesis was precisely the assertion that random or artificially caused changes (“new acquisitions”) are fixed in heredity. The Michurin hypothesis is, of course, a scientific fiction, but it is completely in the spirit of true Darwinism.
In 1859, the work of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species,” was published. Since then, evolutionary theory has been key in explaining the laws of development of the organic world. It is taught in schools in biology classes, and even some churches have recognized its validity.
What is Darwin's theory?
Darwin's theory of evolution is the concept that all organisms are descended from a common ancestor. She emphasizes the naturalistic origin of life with change. Complex creatures evolve from simpler ones, this takes time. Random mutations occur in the genetic code of the body; beneficial mutations are retained, helping to survive. Over time they accumulate, and the result is a different species, not just a variation of the original, but a completely new creature.
Basic principles of Darwin's theory
Darwin's theory about the origin of man is included in the general theory about the evolutionary development of living nature. Darwin believed that Homo Sapiens evolved from an inferior form of life and shared a common ancestor with the ape. The same laws that gave rise to other organisms led to its appearance. The evolutionary concept is based on the following principles:
- Overproduction. Species populations remain stable because a small proportion of the offspring survive and reproduce.
- Fight for survival. Children of every generation must compete to survive.
- Device. Adaptation is an inherited trait that increases the likelihood of surviving and reproducing in a particular environment.
- Natural selection. The environment "selects" living organisms with more suitable traits. The offspring inherits the best, and the species is improved for a specific habitat.
- Speciation. Over generations, beneficial mutations gradually increase, and bad ones disappear. Over time, the accumulated changes become so great that a new species results.
Darwin's theory - fact or fiction?
Darwin's theory of evolution has been the subject of much debate for many centuries. On the one hand, scientists can tell what ancient whales were like, but on the other hand, they lack fossil evidence. Creationists (adherents of the divine origin of the world) take this as proof that evolution did not happen. They scoff at the idea that a land whale ever existed.
Ambulocetus
Evidence for Darwin's theory
To the delight of Darwinians, in 1994 paleontologists found the fossil remains of Ambulocetus, a walking whale. Its webbed front paws helped it move on land, and its powerful hind paws and tail helped it swim deftly. In recent years, more and more remains of transitional species, the so-called “missing links,” have been found. Thus, Charles Darwin's theory about the origin of man was supported by the discovery of the remains of Pithecanthropus, an intermediate species between ape and man. In addition to paleontological evidence, there is other evidence of evolutionary theory:
- Morphological– according to Darwinian theory, each new organism is not created by nature from scratch, everything comes from a common ancestor. For example, the similar structure of the paws of a mole and the wings of a bat is not explained in terms of utility; they probably received it from a common ancestor. This also includes five-fingered limbs, similar oral structures in different insects, atavisms, rudiments (organs that have lost their significance in the process of evolution).
- Embryological– all vertebrates have a great similarity in their embryos. A human baby that has been in the womb for one month has gill sacs. This indicates that the ancestors were aquatic inhabitants.
- Molecular genetic and biochemical– unity of life at the level of biochemistry. If all organisms did not descend from one ancestor, they would have their own genetic code, but the DNA of all creatures consists of 4 nucleotides, and there are over 100 of them in nature.
Refutation of Darwin's theory
Darwin's theory is unprovable - this alone is enough for critics to question its entire validity. No one has ever observed macroevolution - seen how one species transformed into another. And in general, when will at least one monkey turn into a human? This question is asked by all those who doubt the correctness of Darwin's arguments.
Facts refuting Darwin's theory:
- Research has shown that planet Earth is approximately 20-30 thousand years old. Many geologists have been talking about this recently, studying the amount of cosmic dust on our planet and the age of rivers and mountains. Darwinian evolution took billions of years.
- Humans have 46 chromosomes, and apes have 48. This does not fit into the idea that humans and apes had a common ancestor. Having “lost” the chromosomes along the way from the ape, the species could not evolve into a reasonable one. Over the past few thousand years, not a single whale has come onto land, and not a single monkey has turned into a human.
- Natural beauty, which, for example, anti-Darwinists include a peacock's tail, has nothing to do with usefulness. If there were evolution, the world would be inhabited by monsters.
Darwin's theory and modern science
Darwin's theory of evolution came to light when scientists still knew nothing about genes. Darwin observed the pattern of evolution but was unaware of the mechanism. At the beginning of the 20th century, genetics began to develop - chromosomes and genes were discovered, and later the DNA molecule was deciphered. For some scientists, Darwin's theory has been refuted - the structure of organisms turned out to be more complex, and the number of chromosomes in humans and monkeys is different.
But supporters of Darwinism claim that Darwin never said that man descended from apes - they have a common ancestor. The discovery of genes for Darwinists gave impetus to the development of the synthetic theory of evolution (the inclusion of genetics in Darwin's theory). The physical and behavioral changes that make natural selection possible occur at the level of DNA and genes. Such changes are called mutations. Mutations are the raw material on which evolution operates.
Darwin's theory - interesting facts
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is the work of a man who, having abandoned the profession of a doctor because of, went to study theology. A few more interesting facts:
- The phrase “survival of the fittest” belongs to Darwin’s contemporary and like-minded person, Herbert Spencer.
- Charles Darwin not only studied exotic animal species, but also dined on them.
- The Anglican Church has officially apologized to the author of the theory of evolution, albeit 126 years after his death.
Darwin's theory and Christianity
At first glance, the essence of Darwin's theory contradicts the divine universe. At one time, the religious environment was hostile to new ideas. Darwin himself ceased to be a believer during his work. But now many representatives of Christianity have come to the conclusion that there can be real reconciliation - there are those who have religious beliefs and do not deny evolution. The Catholic and Anglican churches accepted Darwin's theory, explaining that God, as the creator, gave impetus to the beginning of life, and then it developed naturally. The Orthodox wing is still unfriendly to Darwinists.
From the time of Charles Darwin to the present day, evolutionary teaching has been the center of criticism from various sides, mainly from religion. In the United States, attacks on evolutionism have even taken the form of litigation. In Pennsylvania, the decision to read 4 paragraphs about the alternative origin of man from ape to schoolchildren in biology is made by a judge. The following are some arguments by opponents of the evolution of species.
1. Absence of transitional species between populations. According to the theory of evolution, between fish and frogs, antelopes and giraffes, bears and whales, etc. there were transitional species that were never found. Single fossils (coelicant, archeopteryx) have also been criticized as examples of transitional species.
The search for the link between man and ape caused the most excitement. Ernst Haeckel, in order to fill the intermediate link between man and animal, came up with ʼʼpithecanthropusʼʼ (ʼʼape-manʼʼ). But not only Pithecanthropus, but even their remains are not found in nature. And so in 1884, one young man named Eugene Dubois goes very far: to the Sunda Islands in the Pacific Ocean and digs the ground there to find this Pithecanthropus. Finally he comes across two human skulls, and 14 meters from them a piece of a monkey’s skull. These scattered bones were declared to be the remains of Pithecanthropus ("Javan Man"). In 1922, the Illustrated London News magazine printed an image of an adult ape-man (Nebraska man), with only one tooth restored. As it turned out later, it was a pig's tooth. In 1912, a human skull and jaw that resembled [?] a monkey's were found in a sand pit in Piltown. And only in 1953 it became known that this find was a clever fake, and all the bones were planted by an unknown hoaxer. But even if there were no doubt about these findings, they could not be considered evidence. After all, a lot is missing: all the transitional links, but “we found” - only one. Mammoths were found in whole herds, but here we have only one or two species.
There were also massive finds of bones of the so-called Ramapithecus and Australopithecus. But in 1982, it was proven that Ramapithecus was the ancestor of orangutans and did not make tools (and the very fact of the use of improvised tools by animals and birds has been repeatedly recorded, for example, birds can use stones to break eggs).
In 1974, Donald Johansen found the female skeleton of an Australopithecus and, based on a single knee joint, “proved” that this ape was upright. Moreover, 12 years later he admitted that this knee bone was found two miles from the skeleton and 60 meters deeper in the ground.
2. A study of the super-deep Kola well (12,260 m) showed that rocks 1.9-1.6 billion and over 2.8 billion years old, considered eternally “dead,” were once formed with the active participation of biological processes. This confirmed V.I. Vernadsky’s idea about the presence of Precambrian biospheres on Earth.
3. Mutations are considered today as the engine of evolution. At the same time, only the detrimental effect of mutagenic effects on cells was experimentally proven: deformities, organ dysfunction, pathologies.
4. To implement the entire chain of accidents leading from a single-celled creature to a person would require a billion times longer period of time than 5 billion years. Over the 150 years of the existence of bacteriology, not a single transition of one bacterium to another has been recorded, which, as is known, are the fastest developing organisms (they form colonies in half an hour).
5. The idea of accumulation of random changes contradicts the concept of the struggle for survival. In order for an organism to evolve into another species, it is extremely important for it to accumulate characteristics for it. Moreover, these signs will only make sense when they are fully formed. But in order for them to form completely, time must pass. At the same time, it is known that new traits that do not yet work for the organism, according to the idea of evolution, should lead to the extinction of the species, because he has something that prevents him from surviving, which is superfluous. However, a living organism must arise immediately, random changes cannot accumulate, because in relation to an organism that functions differently, they do not have any function, any meaning and purpose.
6. Archaeological anomalies, the number of which is many times greater than the so-called. ʼʼpithecanthropusʼʼ, indicate the existence of man on Earth millions of years ago.
7. Human rudiments: coccyx, appendix, partial hair, fangs, nail plates. If we imagine that we will continue to get rid of them, then we can imagine a physically weak, almost toothless, short body, a huge spherical bald head, no eyebrows, four fingers on the two lower limbs, and three on the upper two limbs.
8. F. Engels put forward the idea of the origin of man from the monkey as a result of labor activity. At the same time, the “labor” activity of ants and bees over millions of years does not lead to the transition of these insects to another species.
9. Ontogenesis does not repeat phylogeny. The structure of the human embryo does not correspond to the structure of its imaginary “tadpole ancestor,” and the “gills” are nothing more than folds. If the early stage of ontogenesis repeats phylogeny, then this principle should be universal, not only found in humans. The ontogeny of snakes must reproduce everything that preceded chordates, the ontogeny of mosquitoes - everything that preceded arthropods. However, this is not the case; in connection with this, human ontogenesis, in which the stages of development of fish, amphibians, etc. are supposedly reproduced. is superficial.
10. Processes of mutual assistance in nature are equal to processes of struggle for survival. C. Darwin exaggerated the importance of the struggle for survival. There are many facts about caring for the weak. All people go through stages in life when they are potentially weaker: childhood, illness, old age, etc. We cannot be consistent social Darwinists and reject all the weak, because... in the world, weakness and strength are very relative: for every strong there is a stronger one. Then, today you are strong, and tomorrow you are weak. For this reason, a person tries to live according to the formula: the strong take care of the weak.
The Russian geographer and traveler P. A. Kropotkin in his memoirs gives many examples of mutual assistance among animals and proposes to supplement the principle of the struggle for existence with the principle of mutual assistance as one of the most important factors in the evolutionary process. According to the theory of evolution, dolphins should not save people in any way. According to evolutionism, such human virtues as friendliness, respect, forgiveness, selfless help, mercy, compassion should have died long ago as rudiments. Moreover, despite the fact that these qualities are rare, they remain the highest bar on the scale of values.
11. Cambrian explosion. The main species of plants, insects, and some animal species appear simultaneously in one era, about 400 million years ago.
Perhaps biology has yet to make the same turn toward energy that physics has made. In physics, a quantum field picture of the world was positioned, which, from a macroscopic point of view, does not have mass. Life is also a quantum field concept. Life is a portion of energy, although we cannot study this energy now due to its mesoscopic characteristics.
Plan for a seminar lesson on topic No. 9
1. Hypotheses of the origin of life.
2. Stages of development of evolutionary teaching.
3. Synthetic theory of evolution.
4. Criticism of the evolutionary paradigm in explaining the phenomenon of life.
Quests
1. What forms of worldview do you know and how do they answer the question about the origin of man?
2. According to polls, less than 10% of Russians believe that man descended from a monkey. Why does the scientific worldview dominate in education?
3. Who are the predecessors of Charles Darwin and what was their contribution to the theory of the origin of species due to natural selection?
4. How does the synthetic theory of evolution differ from Darwinism?
Before Darwin, there was no generally accepted theory of the origin of species. There was every reason to consider such a theory meaningless, for the prevailing idea was the creation of species by God, popularly and dogmatically set forth in the Book of Genesis. Science, respecting and not challenging dogmatic biblical ideas, observed the creative acts of the Creator directly in the chronicle of geological deposits. They were repeated several times in the history of the Earth, had a massive and instantaneous character, and each time marked the emergence of a new biota (fauna and flora), characteristic of a new geological formation. There was no process here and there could not be. Firstly, life is ensured by the presence of a biotic cycle, which is possible only in a biocenosis that simultaneously includes many species organized in an ecosystem. Secondly, a species can only exist if it has a perfect organization, which can be created immediately, but not gradually, not through a slow process of improvement, because the ancestors of the species would not have been viable. Instantaneous creation was observed, but not a process, but because... the theory of creation is impossible in principle, which is why it was not required. There was a concept of creation, but there was no need for a theory describing the process of the origin of species, which did not exist either in fact or even theoretically. Darwin's theory of the origin of species did not appear as an organic need of science, but was imposed on it from the outside as a political doctrine of colonialism.
Darwin's theory is an attempt to imagine the spontaneous emergence of species through the process of natural selection. For brevity, it is called selectionism, or the theory of selectogenesis, the creative role of selection. The imaginary transformation of species is called transmutation.
Since the time of Socrates, it has been known that the foundations of our ideas must be examined most carefully. As for Darwin's theory, there is not a sufficiently picky attitude towards its postulates, or it is deliberately suppressed. They still seem self-evident to the average person. This makes the criticism of Darwinism much less important. Each of the postulates, of course, was criticized somewhere; and although A. Wigand (1874-77) and N.Ya. Danilevsky (1885-88) did not leave a single one unattended, so it is apparently difficult to avoid repetition; I will present my criticism here, providing it with my own considerations based on modern data.
Darwin should not be classified as a natural scientist. If he had gone to the postulates of his theory by testing nature, he would have arrived at positions opposite to those that he accepted as undoubted truths. I borrow the presentation of the postulates of his theory, preserving their numbering, from L.S. Berg (Nomogenesis. The struggle for existence and natural selection). Postulates are underlined and their text is enclosed in quotation marks; and I recommend that the reader, if he finds it necessary, first read them in order to consider the foundations of the theory as a whole and thereby refresh it in his memory, and only then read my criticism.
PostulateI. “All organisms strive to reproduce in such numbers that the entire surface of the Earth could not accommodate the offspring of one pair.”
This postulate is a priori, not confirmed by experience, because each species has internal population control factors (CN), which limit the number of the species providentially, long before, as a result of its reproduction, the habitat of the species could be destroyed. Population density itself can cause internal limiting factors, even if all other CC agents favor the reproduction of the species. Malthus was completely misunderstood by Darwin. With his model of progressions, T. Malthus showed that even assuming the most favorable conditions (an increase in means of subsistence in an arithmetic progression, i.e., proportional to time), there is not and cannot be exponential reproduction of organisms in nature, i.e. refuted the actual existence of a geometric progression of reproduction, and thereby discovered the constancy of the species’ CN. The most important thing for us is that Malthus indicated vices (social pathologies) as an internal factor of CC in humans. Examples of internal CN factors: in plants - B chromosomes, which ensure self-thinning (term by T.D. Lysenko) at high population density; in the fruit fly Drosophila - the so-called. mutator genes, the destructive mutational activity of which increases with increasing population density, limiting reproduction; and many others.
PostulateII. “The result of this [p. I] is the struggle for existence: the strongest eventually gains the upper hand, the weakest is defeated.”
PostulateIII. “All organisms are at least slightly variable, whether due to changes in environmental conditions or for other reasons.”
This postulate is exceptional due to its undoubted correctness, which is absent from other postulates. Then again there are misconceptions.
PostulateIV. “Over a long series of centuries, inherited deviations may randomly arise. By chance, it may turn out that these hereditary changes will be somehow beneficial for their owner. It would be strange if deviations useful for organisms never arose: after all, many deviations arose in domestic animals and plants, which man used for his own benefit and pleasure.”
It does not take many centuries for potentially heritable changes to arise: all mutations are like that. In the fruit fly Drosophila, spontaneous mutations occur in 3-4% of gametes. Most of them (68%) are dominant lethals, which are not inherited immediately, causing immediate death; the rest, recessive lethals (29%) and visible mutations (3%), are less destructive, so a limited number of generations are inherited, i.e. eventually they are also eliminated. There are no mutations that are beneficial for an individual and that are actually inherited indefinitely. Deviations of cultivated species of animals and plants, useful for humans, have always existed, since their creation. Only a few of them, like the short-legged Ancona sheep, reduction of the brooding instinct in chickens and ducks for egg production, double flowers, etc. deviations from the norm, which turned out to be useful for humans, arose as a result of mutations, but they are harmful to the species and can only be maintained artificially.
PostulateV. “If these accidents [p. IV] can be observed, then those changes that are favorable (no matter how insignificant they may be) will be preserved, and the unfavorable ones will be destroyed. A huge number of individuals will die in the struggle for existence, but only those lucky few who show a deviation in a direction that is beneficial for the body will have a chance of survival. Due to heredity, surviving individuals will pass on their more perfect organization to their descendants.”
The condition of postulate V, formulated in paragraph IV, is not satisfied, therefore this postulate V is incorrect. All mutations are destructive and therefore are not fixed (not perpetuated) in the species; therefore, transmutation by selectogenesis is impossible.
PostulateVI. “This is the preservation in the struggle for life of those varieties that have some advantage in structure, physiological properties or instinct, let’s call it natural selection, or, according to Spencer, the survival of the fittest.”
The postulate is incorrect, because experience shows that there is no driving selection necessary for transmutation and it is incorrect to call it natural: natural selection preserves the norm and is stabilizing, and does not lead to transmutation by displacing the less fit by the more fit. The existence of allocentric traits shows that survival of the fittest is limited by the framework of allocentrism and is possible only within it. Selection cannot destroy allocentric characters. Without this qualification, G. Spencer's statement is incorrect. Not only could allocentric characters not be developed by selection: selection had to destroy them. Therefore, their existence refutes the possibility of selectogenesis.
More examples of allocentric characteristics: in animals - territoriality, or xenophobia in relation to individuals of their own species, limiting the population density of the species long before it reaches limits that threaten to decimate the environment; stress that stops reproduction in conditions of high population density; in plants - dioecy (dioeciousness), which makes reproduction dependent on the possibility of pollen transfer; in all animal and plant species - lower fertility than its most productive value in terms of the number of surviving offspring; the absence of adaptive modifications of fertility, so that its variations serve not to increase, but to regulate the number of the species; etc. etc.
Allocentric characters were known to the fathers of selectionism, Darwin and A. Wallace, but, blinkered by their theory, they did not understand their significance and did not see in them the principles that restrained the expansion of the species, devastating the environment. Darwin considered allocentric characters to be imperfections in the adaptation of a species, because, due to his lack of understanding of the essence of life, he did not see in them a real, generally useful meaning for the ecosystem. Their existence contradicted his theory. After all, “universal, tireless and omnipotent selection” should eliminate them, but they are steadily preserved. If, as Darwin assumed, they are correlative companions of other, adaptive characters, the benefits of which outweigh the harm of allocentric ones, then how could such an unfavorable correlation be developed by selection? And why doesn’t selection, given its omnipotence, destroy it as non-adaptive?
Postulate (VII) the incompleteness of the geological record, not mentioned by Berg, but accepted in Darwin's theory to explain the absence of transitional forms between species or between fossil faunas, has long been outdated. After a more complete study of the geology of other continents, except Europe, it turned out that the faunas of geological formations identified in Europe have a worldwide distribution, the sequence of their deposits is the same everywhere, and they are discrete, because no faunas of intermediate composition were found. Darwin's hopes of finding transitional forms between species or intermediate between fauna formations on other continents did not materialize. Each species exists only as part of a certain community of species and is not found outside it at all. Therefore, species are not created separately from each other, but in groups, integral biotas, or communities of certain ecosystems, participating in which, each species is included in the global biological cycle of matter and energy and thereby contributes to ensuring the conditions of organic life on the entire planet. Paleontology confirms ecological ideas.
Contrary to what evolutionists claim, the history of life on Earth as a whole contradicts evolutionism. Evolutionism is seduced by its general character, namely, the fact that the older the era under consideration, the less similar its biota in the structure of its constituent species is to the modern one, and vice versa, the closer the era is to modern times, the more similar its species are to modern ones. From this completely unfounded ideas are derived about transmutation and the gradual transformation of fossil biotas, directed towards our modern biota.
However, a detailed examination of the history of the Earth according to paleontology invariably shows us 1) the discreteness and constancy of species and 2) the change of biotas not as their gradual transformation, but as the disappearance of a biota of one species composition and the creation in its place of a new biota of a different species composition. Therefore, there is a qualitative difference between the biotas, of which one replaces the other, i.e. discreteness. Why is it more correct to talk about the creation, or creation, of a new biota, and not about its emergence? The emergence of a new biota is not a gradual spontaneous process, but a creative act with all its characteristics: 1) novelty, 2) instantaneousness and 3) expediency.
Apologists consider evolutionism to be the concept of the natural development of the world, and creationism to be the assumption of a miracle. The situation is the other way around: the ideas of evolutionism are refuted, and creationism is confirmed by facts and logic. Facts and logic are suppressed by evolutionists, and this led to the death of science, which occurred as a result of the inculcation of evolutionism. Without metaphysics (the supernatural), science degenerates into unnatural fantasies.
All the postulates of selectionism, except for point III, which states the presence of variability in organisms, are not fulfilled; they were accepted a priori by Darwin and are delusions. However, his doctrine is presented as an outstanding achievement of science, whereas it is a revolution that turned science upside down and perverted the scientific method in favor of apriorism - the separation of theory from facts. Concepts in science received priority over facts, which began to be falsified for the sake of theory. Uncontrolled theorizing became widespread and actually destroyed science even in its ideal conception. Deceptions spread, so-called pseudosciences and the same false fighters against them. Faith in the quality of science has been greatly shaken. The perversion of science and the artificial implantation of Darwinism, paradoxically, occurred as a result of the interest in this of a sinful person, struck by social pathologies - the main agents of CC in the elimination of its other factors in the course of scientific and technical progress. Darwin was the need of the hour for capitalism and colonialism.
Neither Darwin nor Wallace had sufficient biological knowledge by the standards of their time, inferior in this even to the geologist Charles Lyell. They were only collectors, good writers and became famous for their geographical descriptions and zoogeographical (Wallace) discoveries. They did not assimilate the concepts of species developed by C. Linnaeus, and easily crossed them out, which led to gross mistakes. They knew neither chemistry nor physics, otherwise they would have been aware of the development of ideas about biological circulation and the principles of thermodynamics, from which they were surprisingly far, despite the fact that critics (F. Jenkin, Lord Kelvin, S. Houghton, and later A. Wigand) tried to attract their attention to the data of other sciences. Darwin's disinterest in truth is evident from his fear of criticism: he called Jenkin's criticism "Jenkin's nightmare" and Lord Kelvin a "disgusting vision." Along with Darwinism, a dense ignorance invaded science, which is cultivated to this day.
All the defects of eugenic formal genetics are due to Darwinism, for the salvation of which it was created at the cost of distorting the foundations of heredity and reducing them to genes. Therefore, the struggle for its establishment in Soviet science (anti-Lysenkoism) was a struggle for Darwinism and social Darwinism. It was headed by formal (“classical”) geneticists (eugenicist N.K. Koltsov, F.G. Dobzhansky, who left for the USA, repressed N.I. Vavilov, N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky, V.P. Efroimson, etc.) . Their followers continued the fight against Lysenko using methods of denigrating him and took a leading position in science only after the death of Stalin, who understood the incompatibility of social Darwinism and socialism.
Lysenko, although he positioned himself as a Darwinist (due to the materialism eclectically attached to the ideology of socialism by his theorists), actually moved away from the selectionism that underlies the early, original Darwinism, and went into a reduced (devoid of a metaphysical basis) Lamarckism. This kind of Lamarckism was adopted by Darwin at the end of his life in order to save evolutionism from complete defeat when critics convinced him of the failure of selectogenesis. Lysenko's fundamental departure from Darwinism, which was individualistic in nature, is demonstrated by his agricultural activities. Despite a number of gross theoretical errors caused by evolutionism, Lysenko, unlike formal geneticists, suffered less from Darwinian apriorism, because was an outstanding practitioner. It relied on holistic, in the long term socialist, management of the economy, based on the biological cycle and harmoniously including agriculture, animal husbandry and soil science. The anti-Lysenkoites relied exclusively on selection, on altering the heredity of individual species by mutagenesis and transgenation (genetic “engineering”), without attention to the ecological interaction of species and to soil fertility, which they supposed to maintain by introducing chemical fertilizers. They developed aggregate, capitalist agriculture aimed at private profit even at the cost of general degradation of soils and the natural environment as a whole. The ideals of the fighting parties were different: agrobiological, social - for Lysenko and genetic-selectionist, antisocial - for the anti-Lysenkoites.
As the example of Darwin shows, a doctrinaire scientist can write his fantastic nonsense in the best, most beautiful, accessible and convincing style in its simplicity, but this does not make it the truth. The truth is by no means simple, it is very difficult to understand, and only those who conscientiously comprehend it are able to appreciate its discreet harmony and beauty. “It is easier to create a world than to understand it” (A. France), and Darwin followed the line of least resistance: he created an imaginary world.
Darwinism did not appear by chance or purely by the will of its creators, but is a natural social phenomenon. Like all social pathologies, this doctrine is a manifestation of the allocentrism of man as a species: it increases competition to limit its numbers in conditions of overpopulation. The ineradicability of Darwinism, which was already stated by Danilevsky (1885), is explained by its necessity in the ecosystem. Therefore, there is really no reason to be surprised at the spread of social Darwinism and the fact that criticism of Darwinism remains unheard.
“What is in the air and what time requires can arise simultaneously in a hundred heads without any borrowing” (J.V. Goethe). In contrast, Darwin wrote: “It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin of Species proved that “an idea was in the air” or “that minds were prepared for it.” I do not think that this is entirely true, for I have repeatedly sought the opinion of a considerable number of naturalists and have not met a single one who seems to doubt the constancy of species.” Transmutation was not recognized by scientists.
Darwin's book was a success not at all in scientific circles, but among a public ignorant of natural science. Scientists recognized natural selection as a stabilizing, but not a driving principle, and therefore did not accept Darwin's concept. Selection as a species stabilizer was unacceptable as a factor of transmutation in any evolutionary theory. Later scientists, brought up in the spirit of the scientific method perverted by Darwin's theory, accepted his theory uncritically, forcibly, as a result of organized social pressure.
Isn’t it more correct to consider that the “idea floating in the air” was social Darwinism, which was born before Darwinism? And was Darwinism not accepted by the British public precisely because it served as an ideological justification for the racial policies of colonialism? It is quite natural that the decay of morals preceded the appearance of a doctrine that justified it. This explains 1) numerous social-Darwinist statements by the British writing public even before the appearance of Darwin’s works and 2) the persistent spread of selectionism, despite its complete defeat by scientific criticism. In the 20th century after a new refutation of selectionism by developing genetics (W. Batson, V. Johannsen), the latter suffered greatly for this: to neutralize it, it was subjected to a formalistic distortion in the spirit of selectionism, and it was reanimated in the form of STE (synthetic theory of evolution), against the criticism of which harsh measures were taken measures in force in science and education. Modern Darwinism is a galvanized corpse.
The means of defending STE in Soviet and post-Soviet perverted biology was anti-Lysenkoism - the fight against the agrobiological school of T.D. Lysenko through innuendo, slander and intrigue. Anti-Lysenkoism was also a means to discredit Stalin, and its propaganda formed a powerful “fifth column” that helped the capitalist West in the collapse of the USSR by planting the anti-socialist, social Darwinist STE.
