Next, Mr. Wallace's attempt is a fumbling of the fallacy that
“The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance.” —Back—
 

And in the next paragraph, Mr. Wallace shows us a perfect example of this misunderstanding and ignorance of evolution . If you randomly throw a ball into the air, it will land somewhere on the ground. Where it lands is up to chance. But there are factors involved: the weight of the ball, how high and what trajectory the ball was thrown, the force used to throw it, wind resistance, etc. If those variables were known to begin with, the odds of predicting where the ball lands would be very high. Although we know it was randomly thrown, and where it lands is by chance, we know by the law of gravity, that the ball would come back down to the ground. These are the same way randomness and chance work in evolution.

Mutations are random, yet we know that the environmental pressures will select organisms with mutations (or organisms without mutations) that allow them an advantage (or gave the other organism a disadvantage) to survive and reproduce. The conditions that allowed selection were by chance, but the selection itself was not. No matter what random mutations arise in a population, and what chance those populations come under selecting pressure, those organisms that have an advantage (or do not have a disadvantage) will be selected.
 

The peppered moth example that is scoffed at by creationists shows exactly how chance and natural selection play a part in evolution. It was by chance that pollution happened to darken the trees when peppered moths at that time had a light and mottled color. But it was not by chance that the darker moths were selected to survive predation better when resting on tree trunks. It was a natural consequence of the environment. It was natural selection, not supernatural selection and Mr. Wallace implies in his game of semantics.

Science History Speaks
 

This is just an ad homenim of Charles Darwin based on Mr. Wallace's misconception of science.  This is how science works, people build on the ideas of other people until finally somebody brings an explanation together that unifies the concepts of complementing theories.  It was done by Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Watson and Crick and almost every other scientist that has made a major breakthrough, just like Darwin.  Even if the Origin of Species was plagiarized by Darwin, it has nothing to do with the evidence of the fact of evolution that Mr. Wallace is supposedly trying to refute. Creationists would just have to attack somebody else instead of face their real enemy: empirical evidence and rationality. This is another example to show he doesn't know what he is talking about and is trying to distract the readers attention from the real issue.
 

It is obvious here that Mr. Wallace has never read Origin of Species. In that book, Darwin meticulously explains his speculations from careful observations. His approach is far from simplistic, and modern science advancements have only benefited from his contribution as the scientific literature shows. It would have been great if Mr. Wallace could provide some citations that show this "seriously questioned simplistic approach" that is "seriously questioned" and "under greater suspicion". He must then show what he considers as "modern science" and who would be the spokespersons. It is confusing because all of the quotes he provides in his essay would appear to be from modern science scientists, but they do not seem to support the views of creationists when we look at the quotes in context.

What do the Experts Say?
 

Let's first look at the abstract of this paper:

"Gradual evolutionary change by natural selection operates so slowly within established species that it cannot account for the major features of evolution.  Evolutionary change tends to be concentrated within speciation events.  The direction of transpecific evolution is determined by the process of species selection, which is analogous to natural selection but acts upon species within higher taxa rather than upon individuals within populations.  Species selection operates on variation provided by the largely random process of speciation and favors species that speciate at high rates or survive for long periods and therefore tend to leave many daughter species.  Rates of speciation can be estimated for living taxa by means of equation for exponential increase, and ar clearly higher for mammals than for bivalve mollusks."

Those "others" that Stanley talks about (for reference #2) are Eldredge & Gould, who were misquoted in the section on transitional fossils section by Mr. Wallace.

At this point I should first quote R.C. Lewontin as food for thought before we continue with Mr. Wallace's next quote (who just so happens to be R.C. Lewontin too!).

"Creationists have capitalized on scientific disputes among biologists on the details of the evolutionary process by pretending that serious students of the subject are themselves in doubt about evolution. Evolutionary study is a living science; as such it is rich with controversy about particular issues of detail and mechanism.  Creationists have extracted published statements in these controversies and used them dishonestly to suggest that biologists are in doubt about the fact of organic evolution."
[Richard C. Lewontin, "Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time For Truth", BioScience, Vol. 31, No. 8, September 1981, p. 559 (my bold)]

 

[the part Wallace quotes in black, his omissions or discrepancies in red] "Van Valen's theory [Red Queen Hypothesis] is that the environment is constantly decaying with respect to existing organism, so that natural selection operates essentially to enable the organisms to maintain their state of adaptation rather than to improve it.  Evidence from the Red Queen hypothesis comes from an examination of extinction rates in a large number of evolutionary lines.  If natural selection were actually improving the fit of organisms to their environments, Then we might expect the probability that a species will become extinct in the next time period to be less for species that have already been in existence for a long time, science the long-lived species are presumably the ones that have been improved by natural selection.  The data show, however, that the probability of extinction of a species appears to be a constant, characteristic of the group to which it belongs but independent of whether that species has been in existence for a long time or a short one.  In other words, natural selection over the long run does not seem to improve a species chance of survival but simply enables it to 'track,' or keep up with, the constantly changing environment...There is no way to explain and predict such evolutionary adaptations unless a priori niches can be described on the basis of some physical principles before organisms come to occupy them.[p. 215] ...[four full pages of text]... When adaptation is considered to be the result of natural selection under the pressure of the struggle for existence, it is seen to be a relative condition rather than an absolute one.  Even though a species may be surviving and numerous and therefore may be adapted in an absolute sense, a new form may arise that has a greater reproductive rate on the same resources, and it may cause the extinction of the older form. The concept of relative adaptation removes the apparent tautology in the theory of natural selection.  Without it the theory of natural selection states that fitter individuals have more offspring and then defines the fitter as being those that leave more offspring; since some individuals will always have more offspring than others by sheer chance, nothing is explained.  An analysis in which problems of design are posed and characters are understood as being design solutions breaks through this tautology by predicting in advance which individuals will be fitter. The relation between adaptation and natural selection does not go both ways. Whereas greater relative adaptation leads to natural selection, natural selection does not necessarily lead to greater adaptation...Hence there is no way we can predict whether a change due to natural selection will increases or decrease the adaptation in general.  Nor can we argue that the population as a whole is better off in one case than in another.  Neither population continues to grow or is necessarily less subject to extinction, since the larger number of immature or adult states presents the same risks for the population as a whole as it does for individual families.” [p. 222] [Richard C. Lewontin, "Adaptation”, Scientific American, Vol. 239, No. 3, Sept. 1978, pp. 215 & 222]

This whole article is basically about the problems in defining "adaptation" and "niche".  The section where the second and third quotes are taken by Wallace, discusses problems about specifying niches to organisms while trying to describe the process of adaptation. Lewontin says problem is trying to describe a niche before an organism occupies it, specifying an empty niche when an organism makes it. He goes on discussing this using examples of certain organisms such as Stegosaurus, mussels, and a  marine turtle.

Since Mr. Wallace finds Lewontin an authority worth appealing to, I thought it would noteworthy to consider another quote I found in regard to the above misquote, in a resource that Mr. Wallace uses in his thermodynamics section:

"Partly through honest confusion, but also partly through a conscious attempt to confuse others, creationists have muddled the disputes about evolutionary theory with the accepted fact of evolution to claim that even scientists call evolution into question.  By melding our knowledge of what has happened in evolution with our doubts about how this has happened into a single ‘theory of evolution,' creationists hope to challenge evolution with evolutionists' own words.  Sometimes creationists plunge more deeply into dishonesty by taking statements of evolutionists out of context to make them say the opposite of what was intended.  For example, when in an article on adaptation, I described the outmoded nineteenth-century belief that the perfection of creation was the best evidence of a creator, this description was taken into creationist literature as evidence of my own rejection of evolution.  Such deliberate misuse of the literature of evolutionary biology, and the transparent subterfuge of passing off the Old Testament myth of creation as if it were creation ‘science' rather than the belief of a particular religion, ill-willed attempt to suppress truth in the interest of propping up a failing institution. But such a view badly oversimplifies the situation and misses the deep social and political roots of creationism.” [Richard C. Lewontin, "Introduction”, Scientists Confront Creationism, L. R. Godfrey, Ed., W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1983, pp. xxiv-xxv (my emphasis)].

 

[the part Wallace quotes in black, his omissions or discrepancies in red] "Mutations, in time, occur incoherently.  They are not complementary to one another, nor are they cumulative in successive generations toward a given direction.  They modify what preexists, but they do so in disorder, no matter how. Derivation obviously does not demand that variations be coherent and follow preferential paths.  Evolution, however, followed courses to which it faithfully adhered over very long periods of time.  Although everything is not as it should be, the living world is not at all chaotic and life results from a very well-defined order.” [Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, pp. 97-98.]

"Selection adjusts the genotype of the individual to its environment.  The mutants of a population provide it with some changes of adapting more precisely to the circumstances.  As mentioned above, mutations and natural selection act as a stabilizing mechanism.  But whereas in homeostasis the return to equilibrium results from a reaction of the organism, in this case, the genotypic stabilization occurs without involving any intervention of the living being: it undergoes mutation, then selection.
Thus, although submitted to the randomness of mutations, the living being, owing to an antichance factor having a precise orientation, preserves the right genotype or changes it in order to suit its needs.  From one genotypic state to the next, from on random mutation to the next, evolution follows its course (at no time does the living being intervene), thanks to the filtering role given by selection to ‘usefulness' and adequacy.'”
[Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 99.]

 

[the part Wallace quotes in black, his omissions or discrepancies in red] "I have quoted some voices of dissent coming form biologists in eminent academic positions.  There have been many others, just as critical of the orthodox doctrine, though not always as outspoken - and their number is steadily growing.  Although these criticisms have made numerous breaches in the walls, the citadel [neo-Darwinian Theory] still stands - mainly, as said before, because nobody has a satisfactory alternative to offer.  The history of science shows that  a well-established theory can take a lot of battering and get itself into a tangle of contradictions - the fourth phase of 'Crisis and Doubt' in the historic cycle* and yet still be upheld by the establishment until a breakthrough occurs, initiating a new departure, and the start of a new cycle. But that event is not yet in sight.  In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutation plus natural selection - quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection a tautology.” Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up, Random House, New York, 1978, pp. 184-185]

Here Wallace is correct. An example of circular reasoning would be: "The bible is the inerrant literal word of God, and all accounts of Genesis are true. We know this is true because it says so in the bible.”

 

[the part Wallace quotes in black, his omissions or discrepancies in red] “Evolution proceeds by elaboration and selection, rather than according to purpose (internal or transcendental).  The great accomplishment of neo-Darwinism is in providing a mechanistic explanation for evolution in terms of elaboration and selection by means of a generative principle (random mutation of genotype) and an evaluative principle (natural selection of phenotype).  The centrality of these two principles to evolution cannot be denied...In spite of the conceptual problems connected with natural selection as an evaluative principle, the most serious deficiencies in neo-Darwinism relate to its generative aspect.  As a generative principle, providing the raw material for natural selection, random mutation is inadequate both in scope and theoretical grounding. It provides little insight into the creative, anamorphic character of evolution or into the problem of ‘origins' alluded to previously.  To approach these problems, other, more powerful generative principles are needed; these can be derived from statistical thermodynamics via the formalism of information theory.  I will assert at this point that evolutionary anamorphosis has its primary source in the generative principles of thermodynamics, and is only secondarily connected with natural selection.  Information theory is ideally suited to a consideration of these principles.  It provides a formalism of sufficient power and generality to represent both the laws of thermodynamics (Brillouin, 1962) and the concepts of ‘complexity’ and ‘organization’ with which a theory of anamorphosis must deal.” [Jeffrey S. Wicken, “The Generation of Complexity in Evolution”, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 77, 1979, pp. 351-352.]

When we look at the quote in context it seems not only does the resource Mr. Wallace finds in Wicken disagrees that natural selection is not random, he also finds evolution quite consistent with the laws of thermodynamics too!
 

While they all are not prominent evolutionary authorities, the all DO NOT seem to share Mr. Wallace's belief about natural selection AND evolution. It is Mr. Wallace who is creating a word play and strawman argument saying that there are special mystical abilities, not Mr. Isaak. There ARE factors in evolution that are random (the occurrence of mutations), there ARE factors that change (caused by mutations), but natural selection is the non-random factor of evolution.
 

Wallace's is using the logical fallacy of the strawman. Isaak did not present chance vs. natural selection. While random chance is a fundamental aspect of evolutionary theory, but it is not the only aspect! He said they go together. Wallace with his misunderstanding is the one who has to see everything have a supernatural purpose and have a mind of his own.

Science or Wishful Thinking?
 

At this point it is Mr. Wallace who we see purposefully redefining roles and definitions of chance and natural selection as they occur in evolution for his own liking.
 
 

Actually it is Mr. Wallace’s willful ignorance betrays his failure to see there is no difference:

• Evolution occurs by heritable changes (a fact of science),
• which occur by mutations (causes genetic variation),
• which are naturally selected for in populations (the ever changing gene pool)

The answer is simple: It cant. But Mr. Wallace’s is begging the question: What does he think a beneficial mutation is? This is another play on the meaning of words here.  Creationists have the notion that any mutation is a mistake. A mistake in what was originally the perfectly designed DNA of a "created kind". So they make the presumption that mutations cannot possibly be beneficial for any reason.

The Origin of Life
 
 

Mr. Wallace is confusing "age-old spontaneous generation”, which is the formation of fully formed organisms from inorganic matter, with abiogenesis for the purpose of building his strawman again. Mr. Wallace's argument seems to imply "This is too big for you to comprehend, so just reject it.”

Biological evolution and abiogenesis are two different things. Biological evolution deals with living organisms. Abiogenesis deals with the beginnings of life from non-life. Mr. Wallace’s wants to confuse the two. He wants to suggest that since abiogenesis cannot be unequivocally proven and demonstrated, then it makes biological evolution false. There is more support for abiogenesis than he thinks.

The Origin of Life: Abiotic Synthesis of Organic Molecules - By Dr. John Kimball
 

Then why in this whole section do we find that the most recent resource that Mr. Wallace offers us is from 1982? Which is about 17 years (almost two decades) before he wrote his rebuttal. Perhaps recent advancements in biochemistry might have happened in that time and Mr. Wallace should have checked before he made that statement on based on his own "simplistic, leap of faith approach to this issue.”

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology links: Harvard Dept of MCB - More Biology Links
 99 Publications - 1997-1999 Cumulative NSCORT/Exobiology Publications
 http://www.biochem.abdn.ac.uk/
 http://www.biochem.ualberta.ca/
 Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, UCLA Homepage
 http://www.bio.cam.ac.uk
 http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/gsas/biochem/
 http://panda.uchc.edu/~mbb/mbb.html
 http://www.udel.edu/chem/chem.html
http//www.du.edu/~jgilbert/chemhome.html Biochemistry
 http://www.biochem.ucl.ac.uk/
 http://www.kumc.edu/biochemistry/
 http://www.mbb.ki.se/
 http://arlo.medcor.mcgill.ca
  http://grimwade.biochem.unimelb.edu.au/sigtrans.htm
 http://www.med.nyu.edu/Biochem/HomePage.html
 http://x.biochem.nwu.edu/
Biochemistry/Biophysics http://www.orst.edu/dept/biochem/
 http://www.rit.edu/~wwwchem/biochemistry
 http://drnelson.utmem.edu/homepage.html
 http://isnet.is.wfu.edu/bgsm/biochem/home.html
 http://www.biochem.com/
 
 

 

An attempt to address the issue by describing some organic molecules as “not really all that complex (as organic molecules go)” betrays a severely limited perception of the problem: "Modern views amplify but do not contradict Darwin's early speculations. [about why we won't find abiogenesis happening in nature today] Recent studies of extremely old sedimentary rocks in Australia make it very probable that single-celled organism, perhaps similar to blue-green algae, were already present on the Earth about 3.6 billion (thousand million) years ago.  We know that the Earth accreted from lifeless dust and gases about 4.6 billion years ago.  It seems, therefore, that life must have appeared on the Earth at some time during the first billion or so years of its history...The demonstration that a prebiotic soup could have formed in much the way that Oparin suggested is the major achievement of origins of life studies...Stanley Miller and Harold Urey carried out the first modern experimental studies of the origins of life by demonstrating that amino acids could be synthesized by a non-living system...These successful experiments were followed by many other syntheses of important biochemicals from simple starting materials under prebiotic conditions, and also studies designed to discover the mechanisms by which the biochemicals had formed...The relevance of this work received strong support from an apparently unrelated area of science. Prebiotic soup is easy to obtain.  We must next explain how a prebiotic soup of organic molecules, including amino acids and the organic constituents of nucleotides evolved into a self replication organism.  While some suggestive evidence has been obtained, I must admit that attempts to reconstruct this evolutionary process are extremely tentative.” [Leslie Orgel, "Darwinism at the Very Beginning of Life”, New Scientist, April 15, 1982, p. 150.]

1) How did molecular replication begin?
2) How did the genetic code evolve?
3) Where the first replicating systems surrounded by a membrane? If so, what was it made of?

Unanswered questions are not evidence for questions that can't be answered. This article seems to support Isaak on self-replicating molecules. Orgel then goes on to explain theories and developments currently being used to try and answer those questions. It seems that Wallace willfully ignores all of this. The article ends with this quote:

"In fact, a major conceptual advance of the past several decades is the realization that natural selection in the Darwinian sense must have begun at the period of molecular evolution long before the appearance of the first "modern" organism.  Had Darwin had access to present-day knowledge of the chemical nature of the genetic system, I suspect he would have considered this conclusion obvious.” [Orgel, 1982, p. 151]

In Figure 16.2 an evolutionary scheme is shown. It is a very general scheme, intended to show merely the increasing organizational complexity that the evolutionary process produced.  Although seven steps are shown, leading from atoms to ecosystems, there is one step that far outweighs the others in enormity The step from macromolecules to cells.  All the other steps can be accounted for on theoretical grounds-if not correctly, at least elegantly. However, the macromolecule-to-cell transition is a jump of fantastic dimensions, which lies beyond the range of testable hypothesis. In this area all is conjecture.  The available facts do not provide a basis for postulating that cells arose on this planet.*  This is not to say that some paraphysical forces were at work.  We simply wish to point out that fact that there is no scientific evidence. The physicist has learned to avoid trying to specify when time began and when matter was created, except within the framework of frank speculation.  The origin of the precursor cell appears to fall into the same category of unknowables.  It is an area with fascinating conceptual challenges, but at the present time, and perhaps forever, the facts cannot be known.” [David E. Green and Robert F. Goldberger, Molecular Insights into the Living Process, Academic Press Inc., New York, 1967, pp. 406-407.]

"What conclusions, then, can one come to concerning the validity of the various implications of the theory of evolution?  If we go back to our initial assumptions it will be seen that the evidence is still lacking for most of them. (1) The first assumption was that non-living things gave rise to living material...There are many schemes by which biogenesis could have occurred but these are still suggestive schemes and nothing more. They may indicate experiments that can be performed, but they tell us nothing about what actually happened some 1,000 million years ago. It is therefore a matter of faith on the part of the biologist that biogenesis happens to suit him personally; the evidence for what did happen is not available. (2) The second assumption was that biogenesis occurred only once...It is possible that some aspects of cell structure such as the mitochondria and the microsomes might have arisen independently on several distinct occasions.  It is also probable that two or more independent systems have evolved for the separation of chromosomes during cell division. It is a convenient assumption that life arose only once and that all present-day living thinks are derived from this unique experience, but because a theory is convenient or simple it does not mean that it is necessarily correct.  If the simplest theory was always correct we should still be with the four basic elements—earth, air, fire and water!  The simplest explanation is not always the right one even in biology...[Kerkut goes on similarly with assumptions 3-7]” [G. A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution, Pergamon Press, London, 1960, p. 150]

In addition to the corrected misquotes above, let me offer these links to show who is in denial here:

 Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere - The Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life
 RNA and the Origins of Life - Hitherto unrecognized properties of RNA add further support to the idea that RNA was the central molecule in the origin of life.
 More Clues to Origin of Life - Two recent studies provide additional support for the presence of RNA as an essential ingredient in the primordial soup of pre-biotic Earth.
 EXOBIOLOGY: An Interview with Stanley L. Miller

We see in this section, that Isaak's first statement "There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution.” still holds true and is exemplified with Mr. Wallace who seems to be the one with "a severely limited perception of the problem.”