Was Darwin Right To Be Worried?

Question

In his book The Origin of Species, he wrote:

"Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me".

- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, London: Senate Press, 1995, p. 134.

Answer 1

Darwin was just a man. I'm not concerned with anything that has to do with evolution.

Answer 2

You're missing the best part of that quote where you put the second '...' Hmmm...why did you leave that one out?

Let me help! The second "..." goes as follows (Qote from Origin of Species Chapter 6):

"It will be much more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the geological record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed; the imperfection of the record being chiefly due to organic beings not inhabiting profound depths of the sea, and to their remains being embedded and preserved to a future age only in masses of sediment sufficiently thick and extensive to withstand an enormous amount of future degradation; and such fossiliferous masses can be accumulated only where much sediment is deposited on the shallow bed of the sea, whilst it slowly subsides. These contingencies will concur only rarely, and after enormously long intervals. Whilst the bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or when very little sediment is being deposited, there will be blanks in our geological history. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made only at intervals of time immensely remote."

Worried? Read the book. He was discussing the reader's probable questions about the implications of his theory.

File this under C.C.C. - Classic Creationist Crap
No god. No worries.

Answer 3

No. Most of the creatures that evolve die. We evolve if a mutation is favorable to a species in a certain area. The climate/environment shifts often causing most species to die off. Darwin was one man, and could only explain so much before he died. Even if he made a few wrong conclusions, that does not disprove evolution. Galileo made a model showing the earth revolving around the sun, but a few planets were slightly off, yet that did not mean the earth did not revolve around the sun. Evolution is correct, even if a few of Darwin's details were wrong.

Answer 4

Darwin's book, The Origin Of The Species, was published in 1859.

Of course, he spent years before publication formulating his controversial theory.

Technology during his time (and his available resources) were quite "primitive" compaired to our modern days, which is far more advanced than the mid 1850's.

Since Darwin's time, science has been able to discover these so-called "transitional forms." In Man, for example, there is EVIDENCE of "early Man" called Cro-Magnum, and Neandethals, plus many others before those....

Darwin may have appeared "worried" - as you put it, due to lack of proper research for his time....but I'm not!

It's 2006....we may not have all the answers yet, but at least we've proven that Darwin was right!

No more need for "worry," pal....you can relax now.

Answer 5

No.

When you're trying to argue something (in Darwin's case, the theory of evolution) you'll often come up with questions like that, that make the argument weaker. Only by confronting those questions and trying to answer them will you be able to make your argument that much stronger. Whenever I have to write a paper, I find contradictions to my argument, and thinking them through usually makes my paper stronger.

That said, Darwin was from a time when almost everyone believed in God. His theory was completely radical, and it was only natural for him to worry that he might be wrong, with the things everyone around him said. And, for that matter, he might have written that to show everyone who read "The Origin of Species" that it was only his theory, so as not to be stoned to death by all of the crazy believers.

Answer 6

Funny thing, since he wrote that book over a hundred years ago, the sciences of biology and evolution have advanced a little. In fact we have found many thousands of transitional fossils. Ironically enough, Darwin did too, but he did'nt realize at the time what he was looking at.
Isn't it interesting what you'll find when you crack a book that isn't an outdated compilation of bronze-age jewish mythology?

Answer 7

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/

Check out this site. In fact we see transistional evolutionary steps all the time. What about the leg bones in a whale or the lungs of all the Ceti species. The mutation of a virus so that our anti-bodies become useless. Dinosaurs being giant featherless birds to name a few.

Jules, lecturer. Australia.

Answer 8

At least he was thinking, that's farther than most creationists get. Darwin wasn't worried.... he was questioning the world around him in light of what he was learning. Darwin's resolve on his theories only grew stronger as he continued to research it.

Answer 9

I though we had found evidence of 'transitional forms', take the evolution of man for example. There have been numerous sets of remain in various stages of development

Answer 10

No.

Why do theists think whether Darwin accepts or rejects his own theory that has ANY bearing on the validity of the theory?