We continue, from part 1, part 2, part 3, our consideration of Richard Dawkins’ review of Richard Milton’s book Shattering the Myth of Darwinism (New Statesman August 28, 1992 AD).
At one point, after a few one liners, Dawkins makes the utterly laughable statement that what he is stating, is “a more sophisticated criticism than Milton’s book deserves.”
At long last Dawkins offers to substantive statements yet, you will note that they are very generic. For example, he asserts, “Milton misunderstands the first thing about natural selection. He thinks the phrase refers to selection among species. In fact…natural selection chooses among individuals within species.” The problem with being generic is that you either have to read Milton’s entire book to see whether such is the case or take Dawkins’ word for it as be offers no quotations or citations.
At least Dawkins was more evenhanded in this particular case than the esteemed journal Nature which had John Maddox claiming that Milton holds that natural selection to be a pack of lies to which Milton replied with “I don’t.”
But what of Dawkins’ scientific criticism of Milton’s view on natural selection? Dawkins asserted that Milton “thinks the phrase refers to selection among species” but rather, it “chooses among individuals within species.” Here is what Milton states in his book “Natural selection means those animals and plants that are best fitted to their environment and way of life are the most successful” with “animals and plants” being individuals.
Moreover, Milton writes, “In the neo-Darwinist theory, species evolve into other forms by means of natural selection as Darwin had suggested. But they do so not because of the trivial variation that occurs between all individuals but because of chance mutations in their genetic makeup, most of which are neutral or lethal, but a few of which favor a change to a more advantageous form. Thus blind chance combines with necessity to shape the animal and plant kingdoms” (emphasis added for emphasis).
Milton also wrote, “Darwin borrowed the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ from Herbert Spencer, Darwin made it clear that he intended it to mean precisely the same thing as his own memorable phrase ‘natural selection.’ ‘This preservation of favorable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest,’ he wrote in The Origin of Species” (added emphasis). Dawkins seems to be confused with other statements such as Milton stating that natural selection is a “mechanism proposed to account for changes in form fitting a species” as a whole yet, as per above, due to individuals becoming the fittest and then, or so we are told, becoming a species. Milton also wrote, “Darwin also saw natural selection taking place in a hostile environment where the majority of offspring die before reaching maturity or breeding” with offspring referring to individuals: some offspring survive and some do not thus, the individual offspring who survive were selected. Milton noted, “Darwin conceived his idea of natural selection by analogy with artificial selection…He bred pigeons…He knew that it was possible for the stockbreeder to change the characteristics of an animal,” etc. which means that individuals could be un-naturally selected. Milton again, “‘natural selection,’ or ‘differential reproduction’ sheds no light on the mechanism of evolution and is only another way of saying that some animals” obviously individual “survive and prosper while others” obviously individual “die out-an observation of limited value.”
And again, “natural selection can be made to explain opposed and even mutually contradictory individual adaptations” (added emphasis).
Many more quotations could be offered but why keep beating a horse that was not selected for survival.
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