...licence for advancing as true i any theory which cannot be demonstrated to be actually impossible : — If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case. — p. 189. Another of these assumptions is not a little remarkable. It suits his argument...

..."Brain and mind are reacting upon bone and muscle and 1 "If," says Darwin ("Origin of Species," p. 174), "it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed,...modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Absence of transitions anywhere thus breaks the course of evolution. subduing and moulding them to...

...weed out "hopeless monsters" in favor of "hopeful monsters." Darwin was fully aware of this situation: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...absolutely break down. But I can find out no such cases" (p. 189). Yet the problem remains of how to push a structure over the threshold where it has...

...the book in June 1852 (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 2). 4 In Origin, p. 189, CD stated: 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.' 5 H. Holland 1852, pp. 2oo 38. The specific point to which Holland refers was marked by CD (p. 223)...

...that would pose difficulties for his theory if they were discovered (Darwin 1859: 189, 199, 201, 56): If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. . . . [Opponents of the utilitarian doctrine] believe that very many structures have been created for...

...slow steps." Darwin was so convinced of the validity of this principle that he was willing to assert: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...modifications, my theory would absolutely break down" (1859:189). He was at once challenged by TH Huxley and others of his friends who thought that they...

...Press, New York. 9 Testing the Theory of Descent DAVID PENNY, MICHAEL D. HENDY, AND MICHAEL A. STEEL If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...modifications, my theory would absolutely break down (Darwin, 1859: 189). The comment of Popper (1976:168) that "Darwinism is not a testable scientific...

...formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real ... If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But 1 can find out no such case. The evolution of the eye may be traced through a sequence of small structural,...

...forces; they are necessarily very delicate, and for this reason a large molecule is needed. Darwin says 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...modifications my theory would absolutely break down.' I know that haemoglobin is not an organ but the principle is the same; I do not see how the haemoglobin...

...reader both with his brutal honesty and with the resistance of his theory to a Popperian falsifiability: 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ...theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case' (p. 219). In a perhaps more ingenious sense, therefore, such as we find in the example...