'Design vs. Chance' by PZ Myers, AAI 2009

Darwinismo e dever reprodutor

[Lord Sacks é citado pelo Mats em “Civilizações religiosas sobrevivem; civilizações seculares morrem”]

Lord Sacks: «(1) Se tu és um darwinista, o que verdadeiramente interessa é o sucesso reprodutivo.»

"Origem das Espécies", Charles Darwin (III Luta pela existência - Progressão geométrica do aumento dos indivíduos, p.66):
«A luta pela existência resulta inevitavelmente da rapidez com que todos os seres organizados tendem a multiplicar-se. Todo o indivíduo que, durante o termo natural da vida, produz muitos ovos ou muitas sementes, deve ser destruído em qualquer período da sua existência, ou durante uma estação qualquer, porque de outro modo, dando-se o princípio do aumento geométrico, o número dos seus descendentes tornar-se-ia tão considerável, que nenhum país os poderia alimentar.» ...
«Se o animal tem poder para proteger de qualquer maneira os ovos ou os filhos, uma reprodução pouco considerável basta para manter no seu máximo o número de indivíduos da espécie; se, ao contrário, os ovos e os filhos são expostos a uma fácil destruição, a reprodução deve ser considerável para que a espécie não se extinga.» ...

"A evolução para todos - como a teoria de Darwin pode mudar a nossa forma de pensar na vida", David Sloan Wilson:[19. Divididos soçobranos, p.204]
«A evolução do cancro parece o cúmulo da estreiteza de vistas. Cada "avanço" mutacional que permite a uma linha celular evitar os seus "predadores" (o sistema imunitário), vencer os seus "competidores" (as células que funcionam normalmente) e colonizar outras zonas do corpo (metástases) fá-la aproximar-se mais da sua morte.»

"O Espectáculo da Vida - A Prova da Evolução", Richard Dawkins:[12. Corrida ao armamento e teodiceia evolutiva, pp.337-356]
«Se todas as árvores da floresta chegassem a um acordo - como os que os sindicatos fazem para concertar as suas acções - para não crescerem acima dos 3 metros, por exemplo, todas elas beneficiariam. A comunidade inteira - o ecossistema inteiro - ganharia com a poupança em madeira e em energia, consumidas na edificação de troncos enormes e dispendiosos.» ...
«Numa floresta madura característica, o dossel pode ser visto como um prado aéreo, como uma pradaria rolante em cima de ondas. O dossel captura a energia solar quase ao mesmo ritmo que uma pradaria, mas uma fracção substancial dessa energia é "desperdiçada" ao ser introduzida nas andas, que servem apenas para erguer a "pradaria" no ar, onde captura exactamente a mesma quantidade de fotões que ao nível do solo - e com muito maior custo.
E isto conduz-nos à diferença entre uma economia planificada e uma economia evolucionista. Numa economia planificada não haveria árvores - ou, pelo menos, não haveria árvores muito altas. Não haveria florestas em dossel. As árvores são um desperdício. São uma extravagância. Os troncos das árvores são monumentos a uma competição fútil - isto se pensarmos numa economia planificada.»
«A natureza não é bondosa nem maldosa. Não é pelo sofrimento, nem contra ele.» ... «A quantidade total de sofrimento por ano no mundo natural excede os limites do aceitável.»

--- 

Lord Sacks: «(2) A Europa é o lugar mais secular da Terra. Em todos os outros lugares a religião está em crescimento enquanto que na Europa está em queda.» ...

1. Desmitos > Religião na América
   
2. Gallup > What Alabamians and Iranians Have in Common:
   
3. University of Cambridge > Demographics of atheism: 
   «Surveys show that the nations with the highest degree of atheism 'include most of the nations of Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Israel', whereas 'it is virtually nonexistent in most of Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Asia'.There have been various attempts to explain this unequal distribution. As Zuckerman notes, Norris and Inglehart,[4] often regarded as offering the leading explanation, have argued that high levels of atheism in a society are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low poverty rates and strong gender equality. Societies with adequate food distribution, good public health care, and accessible housing generally show a waning of religiosity, while societies where there is inadequate food and shelter and life is less secure show much higher levels of religious belief.[5]» ... 
   «North America would seem to constitute something of an exception here.»
4. 
   
5. A Report Based on the American Religious Identification Survey 2008:
   «One of the most widely noted findings from the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 
   2008), which was released in March 2009, was the substantial increase in the No Religion segment of  
   the U.S. population, whom we designate as “Nones.” The Nones increased from 8.1% of the U.S. 
   adult population in 1990 to 15% in 2008 and from 14 to 34 million adults. Their numbers far exceed 
   the combined total of all the non-Christian religious groups in the U.S.»
6. "Why the Gods are not winning", Gregory Paul & Phil Zuckerman
   
7. Gallup > This Easter, Smaller Percentage of Americans Are Christian:
   
8. Gallup > Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism:
   «A small minority of Americans hold the "secular evolution" view that humans evolved with no influence from God -- but the number has risen from 9% in 1982 to 16% today. At the same time, the 40% of Americans who hold the "creationist" view that God created humans as is 10,000 years ago is the lowest in Gallup's history of asking this question, and down from a high point of 47% in 1993 and 1999.»

---

Lord Sacks: «A taxa de fertilidade para uma população estável é 2,1 (maior do que 2 porque algumas crianças morrem antes de chegar à idade adulta).» ... 

1. University of Michigan > Population growth over Human History:
   «The population/age structure of the developed world represents that of a stable (or nearly stable) population. Here, the pyramid is more rectangular than for a rapidly growing population (bottom) where there is a much larger number of young people. The bottom figure (typical for countries like Mexico, Malaysia, India, etc.) is more triangular and shows how a rapidly growing population is dominated by young people. The female side of the diagram is particularly important in understanding future growth. This is because fertility is largely controlled by the number of females in their reproductive years (roughly ages 15 - 40).» ... «It takes many tens (perhaps hundreds) of years to steepen the slopes of the population-age pyramid. Such a steepening is essential before populations can become stable. Intensive efforts to control population have been implemented in various countries.»
   
   Figure 6: The Demographic Transition
   [Demographic transition] «This is the name given to the process that has occurred during the past century, leading to a stabilization of population growth in the more highly developed countries. The Demographic Transition is shown schematically in Figure 6. It is generally characterized as having four separate phases or stages.» ... «Stage 1. In this early stage of the demographic transition in Europe, birth rates and death rates are both high.» ... «Stage 4. The last stage of the demographic transition in Europe was characterized by a higher, but stable, population size. Birth and death rates were both relatively low and the standard of living became much higher than during the earlier periods.»
2. "O gene egoísta", de Richard Dawkins:
   [7. Planeamento familiar, pp.159-175]
   «O tamanho de uma população depende de quatro parâmetros: nascimentos, mortes, imigrações e emigrações. Se tomarmos a população mundial como um todo, podemos eliminar os dois últimos parâmetros, restando-nos apenas o número de nascimentos e o número de mortes. Enquanto o número médio de filhos que sobrevivem para se reproduzir, por casal, for maior do que dois, o número de nascimentos tenderá a aumentar ao longo dos anos, numa taxa sempre crescente. Em cada geração, a população, em vez de crescer a um ritmo constante, aumenta de acordo com uma proporção fixa sobre o tamanho que previamente atingira. Como este valor está, ele próprio, sempre a aumentar, o valor de crescimento da população também aumenta permanentemente. Se se permitisse que este crescimento continuasse descontroladamente, a população atingiria proporções astronómicas surpreendentemente depressa.» ... «Os seres humanos (alguns) têm a capacidade de previsão consciente necessária para ver de antemão as consequências desastrosas da superpopulação.» ... «Os animais selvagens raramente morrem de velhice: a fome, a doença ou os predadores apanham-nos muito antes de se tornarem verdadeiramente senis. Num passado próximo, isto também acontecia com o homem. A grande maioria dos animais morre na infância e muitos não passam sequer da fase de ovo.»

---

Lord Sacks: «(3) A Europa está a falhar no propósito de se reproduzir.» ... «(4) Em quase todo o mundo, quanto mais religiosa for uma população, mais filhos ela vai produzir.» ... «A revolução demográfica a ocorrer actualmente é detalhada no recente livro de Eric Kaufmann “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?” (“Irão os Religiosos Herdar a Terra?”)» ... «(5) A maior ameaça à crença religiosa nos dias de hoje é o ateísmo baseado no neo-Darwinismo.»

Mats: «Se tu és um ateu neo-Darwinista consistente, irás desejar que haja o menor número de pessoas possível que partilhem as tuas crenças.»

nota: ainda não li "Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?"

1. FORA.tv > Eric Kaufmann: Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?
2. Eric Kaufmann on How Demography Is Enhancing Religious Fundamentalism
3. Eric Kaufmann - Religion, Demography and Politics in the 21st Century
4. The New York Times > U.N. Forecasts 10.1 Billion People by Century’s End:
   
5. Daily Mail > A whole new world: The amazing map based on population that shows Britain is still a big player:
   «The map below shows the distribution of the Earth's population, with the size of each territory showing the relative proportion of people living there. India, China and Japan loom large as they have the largest populations.»
   
6. Worldometers > Current world population:
   
7. Geohive > The 50 largest (population) countries in the world
   
8. British Social Attitudes > A snapshot of changing attitudes over the last 25 years:
   «There has been a sharp decline in religious faith over the last two decades. For the first time in the history of the series more people say they are not religious than say they are. In 2009 51% of respondents said they did not belong to any religion, up from a third (34%) in 1983.
   These changes reflect deep-rooted differences between the generations, with older generations (who are the most religious) dying out and being replaced by younger (less religious) ones.»
   Wikipedia:
   
9. CathNews > Decline in number of religious across the world (2011):
   «The number of religious in the world has dropped over the past year, said Rome Reports.» ... «Europe is the continent in which religious vocations has decreased the most.»
10. Cornell University Library > A mathematical model of social group competition with application to the growth of religious non-affiliation:
    «The model indicates that in these societies the perceived utility of religious non-affiliation is greater than that of adhering to a religion, and therefore predicts continued growth of non-affiliation, tending toward the disappearance of religion. According to our calculations, the steady-state predictions should remain valid under small perturbations to the all-to-all network structure that the model assumes, and, in fact, the all-to-all analysis remains applicable to networks very different from all-to-all. Even an idealized highly polarized society with a two-clique network structure follows the dynamics of our all-to-all model closely, albeit with the introduction of a time delay. This perturbation analysis suggests why the simple all-to-all model fits data from societies that undoubtedly have more complex network structures.»
    

Notas

1. O Mats remove e não aprova os meus comentários nos seus blogs.
2. Este blog é  um espaço temporário com várias anotações para um futuro site criado de raiz.
3. Indiquem mais dados relevantes nos comentários.
4. Apresentem sugestões para o futuro site.
5. Criacionistas: dêem a vossa opinião.

Haeckel e embriões

"Haeckel: mentiroso, ateu e evolucionista", Mats:
«Provavelmente muitos já viram fotos como esta.
 

O que muitos não sabem é que estas fotos são FALSAS. O evolucionista Haeckel usou-as como “evidência”para a evolução.» ...

Observações

1. As imagens não são fotos - são de desenhos: The History of Creation, Pl.III.
2. Mats insinua que os cientistas evolucionistas são mentirosos, cometendo falácias:
1. Guilt by association: «Guilt by Association is the attempt to discredit an idea based upon disfavored people or groups associated with it.»;
2. Genetic fallacy: «The Genetic Fallacy is the most general fallacy of irrelevancy involving the origins or history of an idea.» ... «In contrast, the value of many scientific ideas can be objectively evaluated by established techniques, so that the origin or history of the idea is irrelevant to its value.»

Ateu

"Monism as Connecting Religion and Science", Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel:«The monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. It can never recognise in God a "personal being," or, in other words, an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. God is everywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: "There is one spirit in all things, and nobody is so small that it does not contain a part of the divine substance whereby it is animated."» ...
«In the hope that the defence and promotion of these may still be continued, I conclude my monistic Confession of Faith with the words: "May God, the Spirit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, be with us."»

A "foto"

"Haeckel's ABC of evolution and development", Michael K. Richardson and Gerhard Keuck:«Haeckel’s comparative embryology was evolutionary but non-quantitative. It was based on developmental sequences, and treated heterochrony as a sequence change. It is not always clear whether he believed in recapitulation of single characters or entire stages. The Biogenetic Law is supported by several recent studies – if applied to single characters only.» ... «While some criticisms of the drawings are legitimate, others are more tendentious.» ...
«The idea that new adult stages are added terminally, then telescoped or pushed-back into the embryonic stages of descendants, is assumed to be part of the Haeckelian package» ... «and can reasonably be inferred from his alphabetical analogy and some of his writings.» ...
«Haeckel’s drawings, like some of his ideas, change through subsequent editions of his works. In later editions of Anthropogenie, Haeckel modifies and elaborates the set of eight species from 1874 – presumably in response to criticisms, and to accommodate new data. He takes more trouble to acknowledge, in text and pictures, that there are differences among embryos of different species.» ...
«As in some other cases, Haeckel admitted his mistake. In his ‘ Apologetisches Schlußwort ’ to Anthropogenie (Haeckel, 1891) he acknowledged the truth of this ‘ story of the three woodcuttings ’ saying that it was ‘ an imprudent folly ’ due to lack of time when preparing the few illustrations for the NaturlicheSchoW pfungsgeschichte» ...
«we have noted (Richardson & Keuck, 2001) that the embryos His shows are late ones, and have already started to develop the differences illustrated by Haeckel in the bottom two rows of his plate (Fig. 3). In addition to these staging problems (see Fig. 7) His’s drawings may contain tendentious errors (Richardson and Keuck, 2001)» ...
«There are other illustrations of human embryos in the Ecker plates which more closely match the Haeckel picture. We think it possible that Haeckel’s ‘ distorted ’ human embryo may in fact be a rather faithful copy of one of these other pictures» 

«His claimed that Haeckel had copied the human embryo badly from Ecker (B) and that the eyes were enlarged and the tail lengthened in the process. But note that embryo D, from the same Ecker publication, is a more plausible source (its tail is longer, and its eyes larger, than those in B ; furthermore, unlike B, it is the same size as the Haeckel copy, according to the measurements given in the legend). If this is the case, then at least some of His’s objections to these particular Haeckel drawings are removed.» 

(A) o desenho feito por Haeckel usado pela AnswerInGenesis (fonte do Mats);
(C) um desenho feito por Bischoff;
(B) e (D) desenhos feitos por Ecker;


Recapitulação

"The riddle of the universe at the close of the nineteenth century", Erns Haeckel:
«Until that time the term "evolution" had been taken to mean exclusively, both in zoology and botany, the development of individual organisms embryology, or metamorphic science. I established the opposite view, that this history of the embryo (ontogeny) must be completed by a second, equally valuable, and closely connected branch of thought the history of the race (phylogeny). Both these branches of evolutionary science are, in my opinion, in the closest causal connection ; this arises from the reciprocal action of the laws of heredity and adaptation ; it has a precise and comprehensive expression in my * fundamental law of biogeny."» ... «That theory makes it possible to follow nature's law of unity in the innumerable variations of animal embryology ; it gives us for their ancestral history a common derivation from a simple primitive stem form.» ...

"Iconoclasts of Evolution: Haeckel, Behe, Wells & the Ontogeny of a Fraud":
«Millipedes have one pair of legs per segment as adults, but as larvae have only six legs (far left figure labeled 19), like their more derived relatives, the insects. That insects would, in their adult stage, take the embryological form of a “lower” animal is contrary to recapitulationism.» ... «Haeckel thought he found the mechanism of evolution: “Phylogenesis is the mechanical cause of ontogenesis” (Haeckel, 1874, 5; cited in Gould, 1977, 1978).» ... «Haeckel promoted recapitulationism as intrinsically tied to evolution. In his 1874 treatise he proposed that all embryological innovations are added to the developmental sequence terminally» ... «In order for this sequence of events to remain in the proper order, there could be no shuffling of the sequence. Accordingly, Haeckel believed the embryo was immune to selection. If this were true, then closely related animals would pass through an identical, identifiable stage of development, the phylotypic stage, which corresponded to the strict recapitulation of their most recent common ancestor. Haeckel pointed to the existence of this stage in his suspect drawings of vertebrate embryos.»

"Berkely University of California", Early Evolution and Development: Ernst Haeckel:«Haeckel believed that, over the course of time, evolution added new stages to produce new life forms. Thus, embryonic development was actually a record of evolutionary history.» ... «Haeckel was so convinced of his Biogenetic Law that he was willing to bend evidence to support it. The truth is that the development of embryos does not fit into the strict progression that Haeckel claimed.» ... «Haeckel's final downfall came with the rise of genetics and the modern synthesis. Haeckel, after all, was promoting a basically Lamarckian notion that evolution had a built-in direction towards "higher" forms. But genes, it was soon discovered, controlled the rate and direction of embryonic development. Individual genes can mutate and cause different changes to the way embryos grow — either adding new stages at any point along their path, or taking them away, speeding up development or slowing it down.»

"Heterochrony and the Phylotypic Period", Michael K. Richardson:
«Haeckel’s ‘‘stage 1’’ is described as having visceral clefts but no limb anlagen (the plate for mammals is reproduced here in Fig. 2, top row). However, his stage 1 embryos are not consistent with other data on the development of these species. The condition of the limb fields, somites, and visceral clefts indicates that his drawings are a mixture of criteria from different stages.» ...

«Much of the controversy relating to developmental timing has arisen from confusing the putative phylotypic stage with Haeckel’s idea of a conserved stage. There is certainly a time in development when the main organ primordia appear and there appears to be striking conservation in the patterns of gene expression at this time. However, this stage shows rather poor conservation of morphology because structures appear at different times in different species»

Embriões - Fotos

Golfinho:

Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy > Digital Library of Dolphin Development > Hindlimb Development in a Dolphin: «Modern dolphins, newborns as well as adults, lack any external signs of hindlimbs. However, in dolphin embryos, a small hindlimb bud does develop and grow (circled in the embryos above), but then (in a later embryonic stage, on the right) the hindlimb bud reduces again.»

Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy > Digital Library of Dolphin Development > Nose to blowhole: «In development, the nose opening shifts from the tip of the snout (arrow in left embryo) to its position on top of the head.»

Evidence Of Common Ancestry of Cetaceans and Certain Species of Land Mammals: «It would appear from these two specimens that the position of the nostril has changed over time and thus we would expect to see intermediate forms.»

Galinha:

Scientific American > Mutant Chicken Grows Alligator Like Teeth: «Working late in the developmental biology lab one night, Matthew Harris of the University of Wisconsin noticed that the beak of a mutant chicken embryo he was examining had fallen off. Upon closer examination of the snubbed beak, he found tiny bumps and protuberances along its edge that looked like teeth--alligator teeth to be specific. The accidental discovery revealed that chickens retain the ability to grow teeth, even though birds lost this feature long ago.» ... «In the early 19th century, Saint-Hillaire observed that developing parrots have tiny bumps on their beaks that resemble teeth, something he ascribed to modern animals deriving from more basic primitive forms.»

Notas

1. O Mats remove e não aprova os meus comentários nos seus blogs.
2. Este blog é  um espaço temporário com várias anotações para um futuro site criado de raiz.
3. Indiquem mais dados relevantes nos comentários.
4. Apresentem sugestões para o futuro site.
5. Criacionistas: dêem a vossa opinião.

Mendelismo e Darwinismo

Mendel vs Darwin: Ciência vs Naturalismo (Mats):«Um dos grandes mitos darwinistas fortemente propagado pelos discípulos de Darwin é a de que as descobertas científicas do monge cristão Gregor Mendel estão em pleno acordo com a mitologia evolucionista. 

A sua lógica deve-se muito à crença de que evolução nada mais é que a "variação" . Como os genes de facto variam, então Mendel e Darwin tem que estar de acordo.

O problema é que o trabalho de Mendel foi largamente ignorado pelos darwinistas. Isso deve-se a dois factos importantes:
1. Darwin acreditava que as formas de vida poderiam variar de um modo quase infindável, desde que houvesse necessidade disso.
2. Mendel, com as suas experiências descobriu que, sim, há variações mas que essas variações ocorrem dentro de um campo genético limitado, tal como esta descrito neste site: (Ênfase adicionado)

Mendel's ideas on heredity and evolution were diametrically opposed to those of Darwin and his followers. Darwin believed in the inheritance of acquired characters (and tried to back up his ideas with his pangenesis hypothesis, which even Stebbins called an "unfortunate anomaly") and, most important of course, continuous evolution. Mendel, in contrast, rejected both, the inheritance of acquired characters as well as evolution. The laws discovered by him were understood to be the laws of constant elements for a great but finite variation, not only for culture varieties but also for species in the wild (Mendel 1866, pp. 36, 46, 47). 

In his short treatise EXPERIMENTS IN PLANT HYBRIDIZATION mentioned above Mendel incessantly speaks of "constant characters", "constant offspring", "constant combinations", "constant forms", "constant law", "a constant species" etc. (in such combinations the adjective "constant" occurs altogether 67 times in the German original paper). 

He was convinced that the laws of heredity he had discovered corroborated Gärtner's conclusion "that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change"» ...

«Não contentes em ignorar a ciência, os darwinistas fizeram outra coisa que lhes é tão característica:

"Fisher's claims of fraud in Mendel's data have already been disproved by several geneticists and historians of biology (Lamprecht 1968, Pilgrim 1986, Weiling 1995, Vollmann and Ruckenbauer 1997, and many other authors, see below)"

Por outras palavras, perturbados pelo que a ciência tinha descoberto em relação ao limitado numero de variações que podem ocorrer num ser vivo, o darwinista Ronald Fisher atacou o carácter de Mendel. (Faz-vos lembrar alguma coisa?)» ...

Fonte primária traduzida para inglês

Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1865), Gregor Mendel:«Gärtner especially in his work Die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreiche , has recorded very valuable observations; and quite recently Wichura published the results of some profound investigations into the hybrids of the Willow.» 

«The value and utility of any experiment are determined by the fitness of the material to the purpose for which it is used, and thus in the case before us it cannot be immaterial what plants are subjected to experiment and in what manner such experiment is conducted.» ... «The experimental plants must necessarily: 1. Possess constant differentiating characteristics» ... «The first includes those with the signs AB, Ab, aB, and ab: they possess only constant characters and do not vary again in the next generation.» 

«It requires indeed some courage to undertake a labor of such far-reaching extent; this appears, however, to be the only right way by which we can finally reach the solution of a question the importance of which cannot be overestimated in connection with the history of the evolution of organic forms.»  ... «We meet with an essential difference in those hybrids which remain constant in their progeny and propagate themselves as truly as the pure species.» ... «For the history of the evolution of plants this circumstance is of special importance, since constant hybrids acquire the status of new species.» 

«So far as experience goes, we find it in every case confirmed that constant progeny can only be formed when the egg cells and the fertilizing pollen are of like character, so that both are provided with the material for creating quite similar individuals»

«Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change. Although this opinion cannot be unconditionally accepted we find on the other hand in Gärtner's experiments a noteworthy confirmation of that supposition regarding variability of cultivated plants which has already been expressed.»

---

1. MendelWeb : Note: Concluding remarks: «This section, and thus Mendel's paper, ends on an almost hurried, somewhat ambiguous note. It is not clear whether Mendel is claiming that Gärtner's experiments confirm Gärtner's view about the natural fixity of species, or whether his experiments merely confirm the extensive variability of hybrids described in the opening paragraphs. Clearly, Mendel was not as interested in taking a position on the fixity of species question as he was in offering an explanation for the variability of the hybrids.»
2. MendelWeb : Glossary : constant combinations: «Mendel uses this phrase to refer both to the individual terms of the combination series (ignoring their coefficients), and to the combination of different characters within a particular organism. For example, in a single-character cross between two hybrids, Aa, we have seen that the experimental outcome can be represented by the combination series A + 2Aa + a. Here there are three constant combinations: A (the pure dominant), Aa (the hybrid), and a (the recessive).»
3. MendelWeb : Glossary : continuous evolution: «Although Gärtner was certainly opposed to at least elements of an evolutionary theory, Bateson's translation of Fortbildung as "continuous evolution" is not particularly accurate; the German term implies both development and improvement (here it probably should be translated as "progressive development"), and one can certainly oppose a directional notion of development, without being opposed to evolution. When Mendel appears to be referring to a theory of evolution, elsewhere in the paper, he consistently uses the term Entwicklung. Whether the latter ought to be translated as "evolution" or "development", given Mendel's knowledge of Darwin and other evolutionists, is a debatable question.»

Ronald Fisher sobre o relatório de Mendel

"Has Mendel's work been rediscovered?", Ronald Fisher:
«The suggestion that Mendel was prompted by disagreement with Darwin's views to undertake his experiments is easily disproved. Mendel's experiments cannot have commenced later than 1857. Darwin's views on evolution were known only to a few friends prior to the papers which he communicated, jointly with Wallace, to the Linnean Society in 1858.» ... «More probably he knew nothing of Darwin's existence, and certainly nothing of the theory of Natural Selection, at this date. When, in 1865, Mendel reported his experiments, the situation had doubtless changed. Mendel now recognizes that the study of inheritance has a special importance in relation to evolutionary theory. He alludes to the subject, in his introductory remarks, in words which suggest not doubts, but rather a simple acceptance of the theory of evolution (p. 318)» ...
«It will be seen that Mendel expressly dissociates himself from Gartner's opposition to evolution, pointing out on the other hand that Gartner's own results are easily explained by the Mendelian theoryof factors» ... «It is seen from these, the only two allusions to evolution in Mendel's paper, that he did not regard his work as a direct contribution to that subject. What he does claim for the laws of inheritance he established is that they make sense of many of the results of the hybridists, and that they form a necessary basis for the understanding of the evolutionary process. On this point he shows himself fully aware of the importance of what he had done. Had he considered that his results were in any degree antagonistic to the theory of selection it would have been easy for him to say this also.» ... 

«Bateson notes :— "This statement of Mendel's in the light of present knowledge is open to some misconception. Though his work makes it evident that ' such varieties may exist, it is very unlikely that Mendel could have had seven pairs of varieties such that the members of each pair differed from each other in only one considerable character. The point is probably one of little theoretical or practical consequence, but a rather heavy stress is laid on the word wesentlich."» ... 

«In 1930, as a result of a study of the development of Darwin's ideas, I pointed out that the modern genetical system, apart from such special features as dominance and linkage, could have been inferred by any abstract thinker in the middle of the nineteenth century if he were led to postulate that inheritance was particulate, that the germinal material was structural, and that the contributions of the two parents were equivalent. I had at that time no suspicion that Mendel had arrived at his discovery in this way. From an examination of Mendel's work it now appears not improbable that he did so and that his ready assumption of the equivalence of the gametes was a potent factor in leading him to his theory. In this way his experimental programme becomes intelligible as a carefully planned demonstration of his conclusions.» ... 

«There can, I believe, now be no doubt whatever that his report is to be taken entirely literally, and that his experiments were carried out in just the way and much in the order that they are recounted. The detailed reconstruction of his programme on this assumption leads to no discrepancy whatever. A serious and almost inexplicable discrepancy has, however, appeared, in that in one series of results the numbers observed agree excellently with the two to one ratio, which Mendel himself expected, but differ significantly from what should have been expected had his theory been corrected to allow for the small size of his test progenies. To suppose that Mendel recognized this theoretical complication, and adjusted the frequencies supposedly observed to allow for it, would be to contravene the weight of the evidence supplied in detail by his paper as a whole. Although no explanation can be expected to be satisfactory, it remains a possibility among others that Mendel was deceived by some assistant who knew too well what was expected. This possibility is supported by independent evidence that the data of most, if not all, of the experiments have been falsified so as to agree closely with Mendel's expectations.»

«In view of the parallel failure of the biological world to appreciate and follow up Darwin's experiments, it is difficult to suppose that, had Mendel's paper been more widely read, there would have been many mentally prepared to appreciate its significance.» 

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1. American Scientist > CSI: Mendel: «Fisher dissected the 1866 article with a keen appreciation of Mendel's likely state of mind» ... «But Fisher also called attention to a troubling aspect of the reported data: They not only fit the Mendelian theory well, they fit it too well, as judged by the use of the chi-square test Karl Pearson had introduced in 1900. The chance of getting such a good fit under standard genetic models was judged to be less than 0.0001. And this was not just in one simple experiment; Fisher found the phenomenon to be systematically true» ... «The suggestion by Wright in 1966 that the classification of 3 percent of some 1,000 plants studied in this case might be off due to subconscious bias toward expected ratios passes William of Occam's test more easily, given the general agreement that something like this happened in Mendel's other experiments.» ... «Essentially because they believe that no further resolution can be reasonably expected, and the existence of the controversy in any case is partly based on misreading Fisher as accusing Mendel of fraud.»
2. A Publication of The Genetics Society of America > On Fisher's Criticism of Mendel's Results With the Garden Pea : «IT is generally agreed that the overall results from experiments with the garden pea reported by Gregor MENDEL 1866 conform more closely with the ratios theoretically expected (such as 3:1, 1:2:1, etc.) than one might reasonably expect to obtain on a chance basis.» ...

História sobre a aceitação do darwinismo na comunidade científica

"A heresia de Darwin - O Eterno Retorno do Criacionismo", Thomas Lepeltier (cap.3, "O evolucionismo antidarwinista" - "O eclipse do darwinismo", pp.102-111):
«Não era a ideia de evolução que constituía um problema: de uma forma geral, era muito bem recebida pelos eruditos, ao ponto de 1880, não haver praticamente um naturalista ou um biólogo que a recusasse (o que não era o caso da população). O que constituía um problema era a selecção natural. Darwin não pretendia que ela fosse o único mecanismo responsável pela evolução, mas era a esse que o seu nome estava associado.» ... «A hipótese concorrente mais popular em finais do século XIX e inícios do século XX foi a do mecanismo, dito lamarckiano, da hereditariedade de caracteres adquiridos» ... 

«Um outro golpe sofrido pelo lamarckismo veio do desenvolvimento da Genética, na sequência da redescoberta, na década de 1900, das leis da hereditariedade do botânico austríaco Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Com efeito, o conceito de gene, concebido como uma espécie de "átomo do ser vivo", ao transmitir-se dos organismos progenitores aos seus descendentes desde o seu nascimento, e assim, em seguida, de geração em geração, deixava pouco espaço à ideia de transmissão dos caracteres adquiridos. Não dependendo já a hereditariedade do desenvolvimento individual, também já não havia qualquer razão para supor que este último recapitulasse a evolução. O único processo que poderia produzir a evolução seria a produção de novos caracteres por mutação. Esta teoria genética da hereditariedade não só trazia assim uma sentença para o lamarckismo, como permitia resolver certas dificuldades com que o darwinismo se confrontara, especialmente assinalada a Jenkin (se o novo carácter vantajoso era transmitido como uma unidade inalterada, não podia ser diluído, e as suas proporções na população poderiam, então, aumentar graças à selecção natural). No entanto, isto não provocou um renovado interesse pelo darwinismo. A grande beneficiária foi a teoria da evolução dita "saltacionista", que estipulava que a transmutação das espécies se fazia aos saltos e não de forma gradual. Esta ideia remontava aos trabalhos do anatomista francês Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaine, que, em inícios do século XIX, estabelecera uma analogia entre a transformação das espécies e o aparecimento de indivíduos "monstruosos". A Genética emergente trouxera-lhe o conceito de mutação. Com efeito, a primeira utilização deste termo dizia respeito a transformações tão drásticas que podiam corresponder à criação instantânea de novas espécies. Por exemplo, quando flores de uma mesma espécie apresentam um número de pétalas diferente, parecia improvável que uma pétala tivesse sido perdida ou adquirida de forma gradual.» ... 

«Portanto, na práctica, em inícios do século XX, a Genética era antidarwinista. Ao nível dos princípios, porém, nada a impedia de se tornar darwinista.» ... «Para que esta compatibilidade teórica entre Genética e darwinismo se transformasse em união, era preciso confirmar o afastamento dos opositores e que entre os dois se encontrassem pontos de aproximação - o que veio a acontecer entre as décadas de 1920 e 1940, sob o impulso da própria Genética, que se encarregou de dar o golpe de misericórdia aos seus rivais e de mostrar as virtudes da explicação darwinista. Primeiro, os darwinistas compreenderam que, de um modo geral, as mutações genéticas não implicam grandes variações anatómicas (o que, por exemplo, poderia parecer serem novas formas de plantas, devido a mutações genéticas, afinal surgia uma recombinação de caracteres já existentes).» ... «Por fim, no que dizia respeito à ortogénese, as experiências, nomeadamente com moscas, animais de predilecção dos geneticistas, não mostraram qualquer tendência particular na sucessão de mutações. Destas observações retirou-se um princípio que estipulava que as mutações eram aleatórias. Quanto à aproximação da Genética com o darwinismo, veio principalmente daquele ramo da Genética chamado "genética das populações", que demonstrou, graças aos modelos matemáticos, que, em grandes populações, a selecção natural poderia conduzir ao surgimento de novos caracteres ao acumular os efeitos das mutações genéticas aleatórias. Foram estes desenvolvimentos que permitiram o grande regresso do darwinismo. Sob o apelo da teoria sintética da evolução, tornou-se, a partir da década de 1950, no plano de trabalho de uma larga maioria dos biólogos, naturalistas e paleontólogos.»

A hipótese de Darwin e o modelo da Herança por Mistura

Review of The Origin of Species, Fleeming Jenkin ("North British Review", 1867): 

«We all believe that a breeder, starting business with a considerable stock of average horses, could, by selection, in a very few generations, obtain horses able to run much faster than any of their sires or dams; in time perhaps he would obtain descendants running twice as fast as their ancestors and possibly equal to our race-horses. But would not the difference in speed between each successive generation be less and less?» ... «Here is the analogy with our cannon-ball; the rate of variation in a given direction is not constant, is not erratic; it is a constantly diminishing rate, tending therefore to a limit.» ...

«Let us consider what will be its influence on the main stock when preserved. It will breed and have a progeny of say 100; now this progeny will, on the whole, be intermediate between the average individual and the sport.» ...
«As the numbers of the favoured variety diminish, so must its relative advantage increase, if the chance of its existence is to surpass the chance of its extinction, until hardly any conceivable advantage would enable the descendants of a single pair to exterminate the descendants of many thousands if they and their descendants are supposed to breed freely with the inferior variety, and so gradually lose their ascendancy» ...«If it is impossible that any sport or accidental variation in a single individual, however favourable to life, should be preserved and transmitted by natural selection, still less can slight an imperceptible variations, occurring in single individuals be garnered up and transmitted to continually increasing numbers; for if a very highly-favoured white cannot blanch a nation of negroes, it will hardly be contended that a comparatively very dull mulatto has a good chance of producing a tawny tribe; the idea, which seems almost absurd when presented in connexion with a practical case, rests on a fallacy of exceedingly common occurrence in mechanics and physics generally.» ...«The number of possible combinations of a given number of elements is limited, however numerous these elements may be. The limits to the possible number of combinations become more and more restricted, as we burden these combinations with laws more and more complicated»

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"The Origin of the Species", Charles Darwin (5th ed., pp.105,105):
«I saw, also, that the preservation in a state of nature of any occasional deviation of structure, such as a monstrosity, would be a rare event; and that, if preserved, it would generally be lost by subsequent intercrossing with ordinary individuals. Nevertheless, until reading an able and valuable article in the 'North British Review' (1867), I did not appreciate how rarely single variations, whether slight or strongly-marked, could be perpetuated.»

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Carta de Darwin para Wallace de 6 de Fevereiro de 1866 (ditado em "O Espectáculo da Vida - A Prova da Evolução", Richard Dawkins; tradução de Isabel Mafra):
«Meu caro Wallace,
não me parece que tenha percebido o que eu queria dizer com a não-mistura de certas variedades. Não se refere à fertilidade. Vou exemplificar: cruzei as variedades de ervilhas-de-cheiro "Painted Lady" e "Purple", cujas cores são muito diferentes, e obtive, inclusive na mesma vagem, as duas variedades puras mas nenhuma intermédia. Suponho que algo do género possa suceder com as suas borboletas. [...] Embora estes casos pareçam maravilhosos, não vejo em que possam ser superiores ao fenómeno de uma fêmea produzir descendentes masculinos e femininos.»

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Letter 2166 — Darwin, C. R. to Huxley, T. H., [before 12 Nov 1857]:
«I have lately been inclined to speculate very crudely & indistinctly, that propagation by true fertilisation, will turn out to be a sort of mixture & not true fusion, of two distinct individuals, or rather of innumerable individuals, as each parent has its parents & ancestors:— I can understand on no other view the way in which crossed forms go back to so large an extent to ancestral forms.»

Notas

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Banana argument; aka: the argument from design

• Ray Comforts' "The atheist test"
• The Way of the Master: Atheism (wiki.ironchariots)

«It's funny how we equate atheism with intellectual. It's exactly the opposite. ... I have an intellectually stimulating theory.»

«It's my theory of where the soda can may have come from. Billions of years ago, there was a big bang in space. Nobody knows what caused the big bang, it just happened. And from this bang issued this huge rock, on top of the rock was found a sweet, brown bubbly substance. And over millions of years, aluminum crept up the side, formed itself with a can and a lid and then a tab. And then millions of years later, red paint, blue paint, white paint fell from the sky and formed itself into the words '12 fluid ounces - Do not litter'.»

«You're saying, 'What are you doing, you're insulting my intellect' - and so I am. Because we know, if the can is made there must be a maker. If it's designed there must be a designer. To believe the soda can happened by chance is to move into an intellectual-free zone... is to have an echo when you think... is to have brain liposuction"»

«Behold, the atheists' nightmare. Now if you study a well-made banana, you'll find, on the far side, there are 3 ridges. On the close side, two ridges. If you get your hand ready to grip a banana, you'll find on the far side there are three grooves, on the close side, two grooves. The banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other.» 

«You'll find the maker of the banana, Almighty God, has made it with a non-slip surface.»

«It has outward indicators of inward contents - green, too early - yellow, just right - black, too late.»

«Now if you go to the top of the banana, you'll find, as with the soda can makers have placed a tab at the top, so God has placed a tab at the top.»

«When you pull the tab, the contents don't squirt in your face. You'll find a wrapper which is biodegradable, has perforations.»

«Notice how gracefully it sits over the human hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry. It's just the right shape for the human mouth. It's chewy, easy to digest and its even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier. Seriously, Kirk, the whole of creation testifies to the genius of God's creation.»

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Behold, the wild banana!

• Wild banana: «These are some wild bananas that grow on our property. The plants themselves are huge − I would guess 20-25 feet tall (6-7.5 m.). They keep producing 'pups' (new plants from suckers) so the clumps keeps getting bigger and wider.» ... «These bananas are inedible, containing about 50% fruit and 50% seeds. Banana seeds are like rocks. I had a hard time cutting this one in half even with my brand new, very sharp chef's knife.» ... «Unripe bananas and plantains exude a sticky latex that is very difficult to remove from a knife or your hands.»
• Banana - extensive information about bananas - History of bananas :
• «The wild banana was not edible, but it was discovered that by crossing two inedible, wild species, one could grow a sterile plant that bore the banana as we know it today.»
• «1836 A.D. The yellow sweet banana is a mutant strain of the green and red cooking bananas, discovered in 1836 by Jamaican Jean Francois Poujot. He found that in his plantations, one plant was bearing yellow fruits rather than red or green. Upon tasting the new discovery, he found it to be sweet in its raw state, without the need for cooking. He quickly began cultivating this sweet variety.»
• Yes, We'll Have No Bananas - Thanks to Selective Breeding, our Favourite Fruit can Neither Reproduce nor Defend Itself from Disease (Robert Alison): «When humankind first encountered this fruit thousands of years ago we were probably not impressed by the almost inedible giant wild bananas. Historic mutations, rare and accidental, produced seedless bananas through chromosome triplication. Ancient humans focused on these seedless, pollen-less mutants to generate progressively more edible crops. Eventually, edible banana flesh retained only a few vague traces of the viable seeds once carried in the ancestral wild stock.»
  
• Genetic Diversity of the Wild Banana Musa acuminata Colla in Malaysia as Evidenced by AFLP

Again, the argument from design

It's a fallacious argument named weak analogy.