                           20020330.00

     Darwin's theory of evolution, - I reflect on it in
anticipation of supper with Ernst Mayr on Monday next, - is a
cosmogony from chance, the induction of Gestalt from the
amorphous, the induction of function from randomness, is creation
from nothingness, is spontaneous generation by virtue of a
virtually infinite expanse of time.

     The question which presents itself: whether experience is
elastic enough to make natural selection plausible as being
intuitively persuasive: or whether the acceptance of the theory
requires a leap of faith.  But if it is not intuitively
persuasive, as much of physical theory is _not_, whether it is,
or in what way it is, functionally effective.  What, if anything,
aside from Social Darwinism, are the functional, practical
consequences of Darwins theory?

     To the extent that the theory of natural selection is an
intellectually unpersuasive tour de force which demands belief,
how does that belief differ from the belief demanded by any
(other) myth?  I am reminded of Raphael Demos' discussion of a
statistical theory purporting to prove that a mindless monkey at
a typewriter provided with a sufficient large period of time,
would compose the works of Shakespeare by randomly hitting the
keys.

     I could be persuaded that random mutation could generate
inferior specimens which would be eliminated by natural
selection, or might generate a superior specimen which could
survive, for example, in an altered environment, a disease
resistant specimen; what I do not understand is how natural
selection could account for the synthesis of a complex organism,
the existence of which, would require numerous simultaneous
mutations to make it viable.


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