Greatest Show on Earth: Issues
The reason expositors of Darwinian theory like Dawkins cannot convince independent thinkers that the theory is believable is that they do not address the important questions. They prefer instead to demolish over and over again the straw man of the denial of evolution. Evolution is a fact, but the explanation of the how of evolution is, in my opinion, not. In Darwin's theory of evolution, natural selection is the explanation of the how of evolution. This theory within a theory leaves so many basic questions unanswered that it is not credible. The review, then, is about the gaps in the theory of natural selection, or what I refer to as important questions not addressed. A couple of points about this review. First, this book is as much a defense of Darwinian theory as it is of evolution. So there is much about that theory in this review. Second, the review is written as if evolutionary-developmental biology (evo-devo) does not exist. That omission is not something the reviewer can remedy.
Important question not addressed (IQNA) 1: the nature of variation: the size of variants. Although Darwin devotes three chapters in Origin to the subject of variation, Dawkins, like almost every other writer (an exception is Kirshchner and Gerhart with their Plausibility of life) has nothing to say about variation, other than that it is random. Variation and selection are the concepts that are the alpha and omega of Darwinian theory. This same theory that Dawkins touts as the most important in biology has one of its two pillars explained in one word, random. And in a word that has several dictionary definitions.
Consider the meaning of random: unpredictable, haphazard, yielding different outcomes under identical conditions. Chance is another term that is used in the present regard. But all of this tells us little. It tells us nothing about the size of variants or about the quantity of the variability. Let's consider size. Are variants itty bitty things, or are they or may they be "chunks." Darwin was steadfast that variants (what we today would call the phenotypic effects of mutation) are imperceptibly small. "Insensibly fine" was probably his favorite phraseology in the present regard. But to leave no doubt, he also (1st ed. Origin) used "infinitesimally small." It is important whether variation is small or large. Size affects the speed of evolution and its perceptibility. If variant size is small, this explains why we cannot see evolution unfolding before our eyes, why it may be like the hour hand of a clock. Small variants are convenient to the Darwinian theorist because they seem to deal with the issue of how new variants are formed. Who will be so uncharitable as to begrudge Darwin the sudden appearance of an insensibly fine variation that accretes something useful to what already exists in the organism? For it is another matter when variation is large. For example, if someone claimed that a full-blown wing or even a full blown feather had appeared suddenly as the result of mutation, the general reaction would be that of incredulity. "How is it possible for dumb molecules to do this?" people would wonder. There would be general disbelief. Insensibly fine variants are congruent with Darwin's thinking because the phenomenon seems consistent with a naturalistic explanation of phenomena, which kind of explanation was Darwin's goal. Large variants betoken guidance, direction, constraint, not a naturalistic process unless it is a most peculiar such process.
Dawkins goes along with Darwin's position that variants are always small, despite the fact that examples of mega-mutations pepper his book. Not to mention that everyone knows about large mutational leaps, even Darwin. Darwin and Dawkins tell us that the large change effected by artificial selection often come about not by the the tedious accumulation of insensibly fine variants over a long period of time, but by the sudden appearance of sports. What happens is that there is the sudden appearance of a "sport," maybe monstrous size or the opposite. The breeder uses the "monster" to breed the great dane. By taking advantage of these saltational changes, it was possible to create the basset hound. Dawkins tells the reader about the gene that is responsible for both the basset hound and dwarfism in humans. And tumbling in tumbler pigeons and pointing in pointers, these are mutant characteristics that suddenly appeared. No animal breeder, Darwin tells us would have ever thought of producing such characteristics if they were not already apparent in nature.
In the same vein, who doesn't by now know that if you expose fruit flies to a mutagen, you can cause a leg to grow out of the head instead of antenna? This, by the way, is a mutation also commonly found in nature. And there are numerous other examples of saltatory mutations in flies. There's an eyeless gene whose mutant form is the absence of eyes, a tinman gene whose mutant form is a highly anomalous heart. You can go on and on and on. Of course, there is blue eye color vs. brown in humans and as in Mendel's, research smooth vs. wrinkled seeds, and on and on. One wonders whether there are any micro mutations that we do know about?! So why this continued drum beat about variation being insensibly fine? Can it be that large, perceptible mutations, like antenna in the wrong place, are inexplicable and that they betoken, if not demonstrate, variation that is not random? One must wonder why he cannot get a straight answer about the size of variants (i.e., mutations) from biology. One must also wonder how Darwin can talk about the accumulation of insensibly small changes when he himself adduces so much evidence that nature produces huge amount of variation that is saltatory, large sudden changes in organisms. Does he not see the contradiction? Ditto for Dawkins. And not unimportantly, does not the huge evidence for saltatory variation, to use Darwin's own phraseology, "annihilate" his theory?
IQNA 2: Where does variation come from, especially the insensibly fine variation? And how does successive variation accumulate to change an organ or organism? The Darwinian idea or ideal is that there is a pool of insensibly fine variants in an interbreeding group that provides the raw material for natural selection. Darwin referred to this variation as individual differences. Suppose the finches with large beaks are more successful in producing progeny than those with smaller beaks. The next generation will have on the average larger beaks than the previous one. Not only that, but the variants that are produced by the next generation will be on the average larger. The distribution of differences will have been moved upwards. If living conditions remain unchanged, the larger beaks of the new generation will produce an increased number of progeny. In this way, the beak will get larger over successive generations. This is the main way, for Darwin, for evolution to occur--small modifications over many successive generations accumulating to produce large change.
But where do these important variants that differ insensibly from that of the parent's come from. You read a lot about mutations that produce large, saltatory change (e.g., the gene for PKU, for hemophilia, etc.), but not about those that produce the insensibly fine change. Dawkins credits all variation to mutation, but he furnishes no detail--does he mean the insensibly fine modifications are mutations, too?. Without an explanation of the origin of insensibly fine modifications, the theory is (as Darwin would say) "fatally" incomplete.
And just how do slight modifications accumulate? There are so many scenarios one can imagine, it is bewildering. I'll illustrate with one. Simultaneously, 100 (or any number of members of the same species pass the same mutation on to an offspring. This can go on day after day even hour after hour. You instantly have, after only the first round, 100 strains of the species. At the same time, a second mutation is being passed on to a different 100 offspring. I ask the question that Darwin himself asked (Origin): "Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being as we see them, well defined?" In another place, he asks: "Why are not all organic beings blended into an inextricable chaos?" I am unpersuaded by Darwin's answer, and Dawkins does not address the matter.
And finally on this matter of how mutations accumulate. Take the creature that is an incipient giraffe. It passes a mutation for (insensibly fine) elongated neck to an offspring. This same kind of thing is going to happen for myriad successive generations, each time the neck being lengthened a bit. Question: Is the mutation for the myriad lengthenings the same, or is each mutation distinct? I don't know the answer. This is the most basic of questions; but it is not addressed by Darwin or Dawkins or in any book of the same genre as Dawkins'. I don't know about the textbooks
IQNA 3: Can imperceptibly small variants make a difference in fitness? Fitness, in the present context, means reproductive prowess or ability to pass one's genes to the next generations. We have seen that many variants (mutations) are quite large, anything but insensibly fine. But there may be cases where variants are insensibly fine. The question is whether such small changes can make a difference for the organism's fitness. The question here is not whether insensibly fine changes can accumulate to somerthing perceptible. It is whether such small change can increase fitness. I don't think this has been empirically demonstrated. And I think there are good reasons for believing this is not probable, if even possible. Consider the noise background consisting of all the changes simultaneously taking place. When writers like Dawkins talk about some selection pressure, such as drought or predation, they act as if no other selection pressures are operating at the same time. But that is the furthest thing from the truth. Finally, there is the intelligence of the organism that is going to overwhelm any effect of an insensibly fine variant. Weiner, in his account of the research of the Grants on Darwin's finches, tells of birds that wedge seeds into crevices and apply outside pressure when it becomes too hard to crack seed with the beak. Since the effect of intelligence is unlikely to correlate with some random variant, its likely large effect on fitness will drown out any effect from the variant, in this case, size of beak.
IQNA 4: What about the qualitative nature of variation? We have considered size variation, like the size of a beak. But what about qualitative variation? Birds uniquely have feathers and beaks; mammals, hair, mammary glands. There are qualitative differences within the individual organisms. The eye is not an ear, which is not a heart, which is not limb, and so on. There are innumerable qualitative differences in behavior. There are intraorgan differences that are qualitative. There are different parts of the eye. There are intratrait qualitative differences, such as differences in eye color, blood type, flower color, seed texture, melanin. Amazingly, Dawkins has written a tome about evolution without using the term allele. Let's talk about one qualitative variant, the angle the contour feather shaft on a bird makes with the surface of the body - call it the feather angle. There are easily infinitely many possibilities, since even one degree may be divided into infinitely many divisions. How fortunate for the bird that it mutated a feather angle that improved fitness. If the feather shaft stuck straight out from the body at a 90 degree angle, that would not have been useful as a contour feather that has to lie close to the body to give the body a sleek, aerodynamic form. By far, the greatest number of possible angles would not be useful to the organism. Yet just the right angle appeared. Or possibly the mutation that puts the tinniest feather or an incipient feather on a featherless creature occurred myriad times, improving the probability that in at least one case the angle would be beneficial. It is issues like this that should be carefully explicated by Dawkins, not seemingly hidden under the rug.
IQNA 5. In what way is variation random? Dawkins tells us that variation is random; yet it is obviously the case that variation is not random in important respects. Mutation repeats itself in nature and in the lab. How can this be random? Alleles are greatly limited in number and kind. If there are two possible alleles, one a beneficial one and the other not; in what meaningful way is variation random? Feathers do not grow on pigs, but only on birds. Obviously not random. It is so obviously the case that variation is constrained. How does this constraint come about? Dawkins will not acknowledge that there an issue here.
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The notion that random mutation, mutation that is not biased or constrained so that it is relevant and/or useful to the the individual's life situation can get the job done requires an act of faith incongruous in empirical science. Or is there magic in the world after all? That anything, however simple, could evolve if dependent on purely random variation, I don't think, is credible. Let's talk about eyes, all sorts of them. Why would an eyespot ever spontaneously spring into existence, say on a flatworm, as the result of a random event. And why would this be followed by the appearance of a nerve that attaches itself to the eyespot, and this a random event, too? This is more improbable than the appearance of the eyespot. And why on descendents of this flatworm, would there be the recessing of the tissue containing it into a pocket containing the eyespot? And why would the eyspot move till it is centered perfectly at the back of the pocket? And on and on and on. Do such things occur indiscriminately? For example, do eyespots spring up in guts or anuses or nostrils or on tails, etc.? Or are they reserved for eye-appropriate places, like the anterior surface of the organism? Can light-sensitivity, for example, appear anywhere on or in the organism, like in the gut, on the tail, in a nostril? If not,why not? But back to the main point, things do not spontaneously happen. Consider that life has originated one time in 4.6 billion years on this planet.
On the matter of characteristics spontaneously appearing, evolutionary biologists are quick to point out that nothing appears de novo, that everything originates from a precursor. Which explains why there are not feathers on pigs. This posture gets the biologist off the hook for explaining beginnings, something not easy to do. Darwin would not discuss beginnings, either of life or of an organ, like an eye.
No one, not Darwin, not Dawkins, would deny that variation is constrained by the nature of the organism in question. Which is why there are feathers only on birds. The big question is the nature of the constraint. So what is it about the peahen that causes it to be inflamed sexually by eyespots on the tail of the peacock, but not by squares, triangles, or crescent moons, which do not, in fact, embellish peacocks?
IQNA 6. What is the role of behavior, intelligence, and adaptability in Darwin's theory. Behavior is what the theory is really all about. Organs, like feathers, wings, eyes, limbs, enable organisms to behave, to hunt, to defend, to love, to enjoy, to reason etc. Yet hardly anything is said about behavior by Darwin. Dawkins says nothing. Darwin talks expressly about instinct, but instinct is a small part of behavior, especially in primates. But Darwin give a great many examples of intelligent, adaptable behavior in his making of various points. In fact, Darwin's examples of adaptability (flexibility, resourcefulness, etc.) make one wonder if adaptability won't preempt or make unnecessary natural selection. For if an organism can deal with any crisis (famine, predation, disease, etc.) by the use of its wits, why does it need to change physically. This last is a very old idea.
In conclusion, The greatest show on earth, does not help the cause of Darwinism.
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Top reviews from other countries
Mr. J. Hastings
Full of information but can Dawkins' judgement be trusted?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 30, 2021
A. COLEMAN
Does not give any examples of the evidence of Evolution
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 26, 2021Dr Owen
A very stimulating and interesting book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 27, 2019
