<物種起源> 讀後感
By T.C. Lo (盧天賜); November 28, 2012
Charles Darwin’s name has become synonymous with the word evolution, though theories of evolution predated his work and though there is no single, monolithic “theory” of evolution but multiple theories with various nuances. That is, the idea of evolution has itself evolved and undergone various changes, but Darwin’s name remains central to this development. This article narrowly focuses on the Darwinism based on his classic,whose Chinese translation is “物種起源” (Ref. 1). Darwin begun writing this book in 1839 and had basically finished it by 1844 and finally published it in 1859. He withheld it from publication for fifteen years; probably fearful of the outrage it might provoke. In the book he theorizes that all living organisms on earth have descended from a single primordial form. From a single source all varieties of life have evolved and continue to evolve. This is the essence of macroevolution. This differs from microevolution, which restricts evolution to changes and adaptations within a group (Ref.3, pages 189-290). However, in my opinion, all examples given in the book are examples of microevolution. Macroevolution is only an inference from these examples.
This article is not a book report nor is a book summary. This is my personal “reader’s comment”. I have been questioning the reasonableness of Darwinian Evolution a couple of times before (Ref. 2) but not until nearly a year ago I made up my mind to read Charles Darwin’s classic in an effort to “listen” to Darwin himself directly in addition to just reading the second-hand information from many other authors. At first, I began to find out that there were many editions to Darwin’s book. The first edition was published in 1859 entitled “On the Origin of Species”. The work went through six editions during Darwin’s lifetime; starting with the second edition, Darwin removed “On” from the title. The book I read was prepared by Barnes & Noble Classics from one of Darwin’s early editions.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an intelligent man. I admire his abilities to collect empirical, measureable, and observable data. Before we can discuss his bold extrapolations made from his collected data, we must first take a glimpse of his worldview. The editor of this book, George Levine, who wrote the Introduction, had these words:
Darwin was not a crusader against religion but a passionate lover of science, wanting to look at large questions and to track down the answers from the perspective of “second causes.” His theory itself was not concerned with ultimate “origins,” despite his book title. Its inception is not an attempt to explain absolute beginnings, but assumes that someone or few species were already in place (Reference 1, page xvii).
To my mind, each worldview (be it Christian worldview or evolution worldview) should have gone through a rigorous “Truth Test” before one should meaningfully embrace it. The Truth Test inevitably should include components such as origin (first cause), meaning, morality, and destiny (Endnote 1). The answers to these components should be coherent. Avoiding the “First Cause” and talking only about “Second Causes” is a very shaky starting point. Levine continues:
<The Origin of Species> never directly engages religious questions but rather repeatedly claims that a scientific explanation of natural processes by second causes is superior to explanations of natural processes by special creation. He is careful, to the end, to allow for a “Creator,” even as he disallows using the Creator as a way to explain natural phenomena (Reference 1, page xviii).
When Darwin said “second causes is superior”, was he making a scientific claim, or merely a philosophical opinion? Darwin never used the word “God” but he used something implying God such as “Authors of higher eminence” as he wrote on page 383 of Reference 1.
Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system (志留利亞紀的地質系統) was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.
Darwin seemed to dance around the existence of God but decided to “ennoble” his idea—descent by modification through natural selection— that God is not needed in his evolution framework. Again, he was making a philosophical pre-commitment rather than a scientific deduction when he ennobled his own idea. It seems to me that the idea of “God” had constantly troubled Darwin as I read the comments made by the editor when he referred to the last paragraph of the book on page 384:
The famous last paragraph speaks of the “several powers” that have “been originally breathed into a few forms or into one”. That re-evokes the breathing, animating God of Genesis; but in its passive form it leaves some ambiguity about Who is doing the breathing, or whether this is only a metaphor, after all. In the second edition, after “breathed,” Darwin added the word “by the Creator.” But even in the first edition, the “Creator” is a presence, although often invoked as a figure misguidedly used for other types of explanation of the natural world (Reference 1, page xviii).
Though he never explicitly denied the existence of a Creator, based on his other writings and commentaries made by others throughout his life time and the Darwin worshipers of the modern times, we are persuaded that Darwin was an atheist even before this book was written perhaps due to the influence of his grandfather Dr. Erasmus Darwin. Historians said that Darwin progressively moved away from Christianity as he entered into his advanced ages.
With this understanding of Darwin’s worldview, let me speculate why he embraced the Theory of Evolution: Just imagine if he had already pre-committed to the non- existence of God, the Creator, and yet felt the passion to explain the origin of life in scientific framework, what recourse he could get? He had to postulate that life must start from very simple things (primordial soup) and these simple things would gradually build themselves up to their present complex system against all odds. Because God was pre-supposedly not there in Darwin’s mind, the building up process had to be an outworking of a closed system with no outside intervention. In a closed system, by definition, there would be no injection of information from outside, things within had to happen spontaneously. Darwin realized it. This is why the concept of “information” which is so vital to any system appeared to be a design was nowhere to be explicitly found in his writings. Right here, he was facing a cardinal problem of how randomness could produce orderliness. To say that Darwin totally ignored information was not entirely true because, as interesting as it may seem, he mentioned in his book many laws, such as the laws summarized in the famous last graph of the book. I added the “law of” in the following paragraphs to make it read clearer without distorting Darwin’s points:
These laws, taken in the largest sense, being (law of) Growth with Reproduction; (law of) Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; (law of) Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from the use and disuse; (law of) Ration of Increase so high as to lead to a (law of) Struggle for life, and as a consequence to (law of) Natural Selection, entailing the (law of) Divergence of Character and the (law of) extinction of less-improved forms (Reference 1, page 384).
Without information and intervention from outside, evolution could not have happened based on the Second Law of Thermal Dynamics (endnote 2) but this fundamental principle was ignored. Furthermore, laws are one form of information. I encountered the “Theory of Information” during the last year of my undergrad study. I have to admit that I forgot most of it. But few axioms stuck in my mind. That is: (1) Information is not material; (2) Information carrier can be material; (3) Behind the information there is a mind. These are self-evident tenets. Another form of information is art. One cannot understand the art by analyzing the chemistry of the pigment, or the atomic structure of the material made up the canvas, one has to go into the mind of the artists or artisans in order to appreciate the beauty of his masterpieces. We also know that for every law there must be a lawgiver, and for every artwork there must be an artist—these too are self-evident. The questions: Who was the lawgiver in Darwin’s world? Who was the artist in the natural world? How could a mindless nature give rise to laws? Nor could the mindless paint produce an oil-painting? As I read this book, I discovered that if I mentally substituted the word “nature” with the word “Designer” or “God”, my mind became less strained and the arguments of the book sounded more tenable than as it is.
Supposing the Darwinian evolution was indeed true, the only mechanism he could conceived, I guessed, in his godless world had to be a spontaneous unguided random walk, namely, the things as we see them today is totally a random product of chance (endnote 3). To achieve the high order living beings (and intricately complex universe in modern evolution) through an unguided spontaneous process, the only agent is “time” —indeed, had to be a very long time– because in random walk, things would sometimes walk up a notch and sometimes would walk down a notch, canceling the previous beneficial action. To ensure the net result was a going upward, it had to have more walking-up than walking-down. So the random walk is not totally random. If so, the question becomes, “Who stacked the deck?” We see right here even the question itself is problematic because the word “who” in the question inevitably implies an outside agent. In order to avoid the question of the personal “who”, Darwin needed to introduce another term called “nature”. The “principle of natural selection” which says once life is promoted to a higher stage it must stay there without dropping down by the sustenance of natural force. A biased random walk is by definition, not natural because the word “biased” and “random” are contradictory terms. But nonetheless, this is the core of the Darwinian evolution: life is the random product of material-plus-chance-plus-time. One thing I should point out is that even the “time” parameter is problematic—Scientists had pointed out that the 4.5 billion years of earth history is way too short for the evolution into a single strip of gene from primordial substances through spontaneous random process, not to mention its encoding!
The book can best be described in my opinion as a “data book” because virtually the entire book are descriptions of life behaviors based on external observations of plant and animal worlds (endnote 4). To come up with a “theory” from these massive data, one must first have a set of premises. Darwin had not explicitly declared them. It was very difficult to deduct from such a data book. Incidentally, I recently came across R.C. Sproul’s book (Ref.3) by accident in which he cited a passage from another bookby Timothy Ferris. Ferris outlined three elements of the Darwinian premise which help me to perceive Darwin’s points in a more perceptive way. These premises are:
1. Each individual member of a given species is different.
2. All living creatures tend to produce more offspring than the environment can support.
3. Differences among individuals, combined with environmental pressures, affect the probability that a given individual will survive long enough to pass along its genetic traits.
From these basic principles, which had the benefit of empirical corroboration, a much more complex and far-reaching implications could develop. Let us examine them one by one with my own adaptations included:
1. The uniqueness of the individual is certainly affirmed today for the species Homo sapiens. Each individual has his or hers unique genetic code. Forensic pathology now prefers DNA over such techniques as fingerprinting. This individual uniqueness has importance implication in evolution. Say, for example, I want to buy five apples from the super market’s produce department, if all apples are exactly the same, I can just close my eyes and blindly pick five. But if they are individually unique, I must put some effort to select. But who is “I” in evolution? If there is no “I” to pick the apples, it ought to be the “nature”. Hence, the concept of “natural selection” is engendered.
2. In the example of human reproduction, though the egg of the female is fertilized by one sperm, a single male ejaculation may contain millions of sperm. What a waste? If 999,999 sperm are “wasted” to assure the fertilization of one egg, this indicates a powerful drive toward species survival and continuity. Hence, the concept of the “survival of the fittest” becomes necessary.
3. The third point is problematic: If a father-mouse saw another mouse caught by a mouse trap and died, the father-mouse (representing lower order animal than human) would teach the baby-mouse not to come closer to the trap in order to survive, but this has never been the case. If the mice could not pass the life-preserving trait to their next generation, it is hard to believe the living beings of much lower order than mice could. Another thing is that the term “genetic traits” is a contradiction in its own right because “gene” is a very complex information-filled substance. This take us back to the question of who was the information-giver mentioned earlier.
After listing all the aforementioned laws used by Darwin to “scientifically” build his case, the last paragraph continued:
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
The entire book ended with the word “evolved” on page 384. One last question: Did Darwin try to leave some room for the existence of God when he wrote “with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one”? I leave this to the readers to decide.
While I think I have finished what I could say, I was keeping the draft to myself. I kept reflecting on the subject for many weeks and felt that something was somehow still missing in expressing my “feeling” toward this laborious book. It came to pass that one day, I was flipping pages of a book I came across in Barnes and Noble and I saw an interesting metaphor (Reference 4, page 79):
Suppose, for example, you ask me how a car works. I responded by telling you how to turn on the ignition, step on the gas, and steer with the wheel. You might object that I am explaining how to drive a car is what you really need to know and that the question of how a car works is largely irrelevant. I could reinforce this view by demonstrating that turning on the ignition, stepping on the gas, and steering with the wheel is precisely how one drives a car. After a little thought (and perhaps some driving experience), you would have every right to complain that this explanation is of no value to you when the car breaks down. You would realize that knowledge of drive a car —“dash board knowledge” —is no substitute for “engine knowledge.”
Behind the visible dashboard and gas pedal and steering wheel and the experienced feeling of the track, there are some invisible principles governing how the Otto cycles of a four-stroke engine works, and behind this Otto cycle principle is an even higher principle of Thermal dynamics and motion theories. Unless we start from these abstract non-physical concepts, we have not yet known how a car runs.
The admirable data-collection process of Darwin was tarnished by his over-simplification in making bold extrapolation to the origin of lives from the “dash board” data. His based assumption that God was not needed was non-scientific enough to make scientific implications. I am not saying that Darwin’s data collection process was totally superficial but the lack of emphases on how the information born by the cells of living beings to guide the development of life was the absence of “engine knowledge” at the very minimum.
Here is a true story. The renowned physicist, Nobel Prize winner, Richard Feynman went out on one Saturday with a group of fathers and their sons for a walk in the wilderness to learn about nature. The next Monday when they were all back to work, all the kids were playing in the field and one boy talked to Dr. Feynman. Here was their conversation (Reference 5, page 4):
• Boy: “See that bird, what kind of a bird is that?”
• Feynman: “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.”
• Boy: “It’s is a brown throated thrush,” or something,
• Feynman: “Your father doesn’t tell you anything.”
• Boy: “But it was the opposite: my father had taught me. Looking at a bird he says, “Do you know what that bird is? It’s a brown throated thrush; but in Portuguese it’s …. In Italian a ….,” he says, “in Chinese it’s a …., in Japanese a ….,” etcetera. Feynman: “Now you know in all the languages you want to know what the name of that bird is.”
• Boy: “At least I know something about the bird.”
• Feynman: “You’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird.
• Feynman: “Now, let’s look at the bird.” (Reference 5, page 4)
The difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something is very big. Darwin knew all names of insects, reptiles, aquatic and land creatures, plants, flowers, fruits, and many more. He took pain to categorize the organic world into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Subfamily, Genus, and Species. I definitely cannot say “he knew nothing”. But he knew too little to enable him to theorize the origin of species. Hence, the idea of evolution should be viewed as a hypothesis at best. As Feynman said to the boy, “Now, let us look at the bird”, we can likewise say, “Now, let us look at an alternate idea — Creationism.”
References:
1. “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin; Barnes & Noble Classics.
2. Blog articles:
a. https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=258
b. https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=234
c. https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=205
3. “The Consequences of Ideas” by R.C. Sproul.
4. “Physics for the Rest of Us” by Roger S. Jones.
5. “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out” by Richard P. Feynman.
Endnotes:
1. Ravi Zacharias’ apologetic framework. (Readers may Google it)
2. Second law of thermal dynamics can be traced to French Scientist Sadi Carnot in 1824. It states that randomness cannot produce orderliness unless external information is introduced into the otherwise close-system.
3. We speak of “chance events” not because the events have no cause, but because we either did not intend to cause the actual results that occurred or because we don’t know what the actual causes of the events are. In this sense the word chance functions as a substitute for the word ignorance (R.C. Sproul).
4. This is why I rarely quote from the bulk of this book in this article.
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《物种起源》读后感
作者：盧天賜 翻译：高玲
查尔斯·达尔文的名字已经变成了进化论的同义词，尽管在达尔文以前就出现了各种各样的进化学说。而且直到今天也没有一个标准版的进化“论”，而是几个有着细微差异的进化理论同时并存。这就是说进化这个概念本身也在不断地进化，不断地演变，但是达尔文的名字却始终是进化论的中心。本文将基于达尔文的经典之作《物种起源》（参1），重点讨论达尔文学说。达尔文于1839年着手写此书，1844年基本完稿，直到1859年才终于出版。也许害怕这本书会触犯众怒，他克制了15年才将其出版。书中他得出结论，认为地球上所有的有机生物都源于某一种简单原始体。所有的生物都是从这种简单原始体进化而来，而且至今仍在不断地进化着。这就是宏观进化论的精华，它与微观进化论的不同点在于，微观进化论把进化局限于同类物种中的改变和适应（参3，189-290页）。然而，依我所见，他书中的所有例子都是微观进化，宏观进化论只是这些例子的推论而已。
本文不是读书报告，也不是该书的简介，而是我个人的“评论”。我在过去已经对达尔文进化论的合理性进行了多次评论（参2），但是一年前我下定决心，要在读其他作者的二手资料的同时，研读这本经典著作，这样可以直接“听听”达尔文自己怎样说。首先，我发现达尔文的书再版了很多次。第一版于1859年出版，书名叫《论物种起源》。其后在达尔文的一生中改编了六次。从第二版开始达尔文从书名中去掉了“论”字。我所读的是由 Barnes & Noble书店发行的经典系列，是达尔文的早期作品。
查尔斯·达尔文（1809-1882）是个很聪明的人，我欣赏他收集可测量和可观察的实验数据的能力。在讨论他是怎样从这些数据中得出大胆推论之先，我们必须先来一睹他的世界观。本书的编辑乔治·利维在序言中写道:
“达尔文不是一个反对宗教的鬥士，而是一位狂热的科学爱好者，他试图从“第二因”的角度来思考重大问题并且找到答案。他的理论并不像他书名所说那样涉及终极“起源”，本书并不想设法解释天地伊始，而是假设某种或某些生物已经存在了。”（参1，xvii页）
依我所见，每个世界观（不论是基督教世界观或进化论世界观）都必须经过严格的“真理测试”才能被人有意义地接受。这种“真理测试”不可避免地要包含起源（第一因）、意义、道德和命运这些方面，对这些方面的答案必须连贯一致。避开“第一因”而直接讨论“第二因”就是非常不稳固的开端。利维接着写道：
“《物种起源》始终没有直接触及宗教问题，而是重复地宣称，用第二因科学地解释自然进程比用特殊创造论解释更加优越。他从头到尾非常小心地不让“创造着”出现，甚至不允许用“创造者”来解释自然现象。”（参1，xviii页）
当达尔文说“第二因比第一因更加优越”时，他是在做科学的论断吗，还是只做哲学见解？达尔文从来没有用过“上帝”一词，但是他有时却用“至高至上的创作者”来隐含上帝，书中383页这样写道：
“至高至上的创作者似乎对于每种生物曾经被独立创造这样的观点感到十分满足。我认为，就像个体的出生和死亡一样，过去和现在，世界上物种的出现和绝灭是由第二因决定的。这与我们所知道的“造物主”在物质上打下印记的法则更相符合。当我不把一切生物看作是特别的创造物，而看作是远古某些少数生物的直系后代，依我看来，它们变得高贵了，这些少数生物远在志留利亚地质系统第一层沉积下来以前就生活着。”
达尔文似乎对上帝的存在不愿提及，而更愿意使他自己的观点“变得高贵”，他的观点就是上帝不需要出现在进化的框架中，一切的遗传和演变都是自然选择的结果。再说一次，当他使自己的观点变高贵时，他用的是哲学的预先假设，而不是科学推论。当我读到编辑对书中384页最后一段的评论时，我似乎感觉到“上帝”这个概念很困扰达尔文。编辑这样写道：
“书中著名的最后一段宣称‘若干能力被吹入某一种或某些生物类型中’。这里重新启用‘吹入’，像在模仿圣经《创世纪》中的上帝；但由于用的是被动式，使人觉得模棱两可，到底是谁在吹入？还是仅仅是个比喻？在第二版中达尔文在‘吹入’前加入了‘被造物主’几个字。其实即使是第一版，‘造物主’也出现过，只是被错误地用作另类解释自然界一个角色罢了。”（参1，xviii页）
虽然达尔文从来没有明确地否认上帝的存在，但是基于他的其它著作、以及他的同时代人和现代崇拜者对他的评论，我们可以肯定地说达尔文受他祖父 Erasmus Darwin博士的影响，在写此书之前就是个无神论者。历史学家说达尔文年老后逐渐远离基督教。
用达尔文的这种世界观，让我来推测他为什么接受了进化论：试想一下，如果他已经预先假设了上帝（即造物主）的不存在，但是他充满激情地想用科学的框架来解释物种起源，那么他有什么可以求助呢？他必须设定生命是从简单的东西（原始汤）开始的，这些简单的东西必须克服一切困难，逐渐建造自己，演变成今天这样的复杂系统。因为达尔文认为上帝必须预设不存在，那么这种建造过程必须是在一个没有外界干预的封闭系统进行的。根据定义，在一个封闭系统中，没有外界信息注入，内在发生的事情必须是自发的。达尔文明白这一点，这就是为什么“信息”这个对任何被设计系统攸关重要的概念没有明显出现在他的书中。到此，他需要面对如何从随机产生有序这个最基本的问题。若说达尔文彻底忽视了信息，也不完全对，因为，很有意思，他在书中提到了很多定律，比如，在书中著名的最后一段，他总结出了如下定律，我在其中加了“定律”一词以使大家读起来更加明白，而又不扭曲达尔文的原意：
“这些法则，就其最广泛的意义来说，就是伴有生殖的生长（定律）；包含在生殖内的遗传(定律）；由于外在环境的间接和直接影响以及由于不常使用所引起的变异（定律）：生殖率如此之高以致引起生存斗争（定律），因而导致自然选择（定律）、并引起性能分歧（定律）和劣势物种的绝灭（定律）。”（参1，384页）
根据热力学第二定律（注1），没有外界的信息和外界的干预，进化是不可能发生的。然而这个最基本的法则被达尔文忽视了。定律是信息的一种形式。我在大学最后一年学了“信息理论”，我不得不承认我已经忘掉大部分了，但是在我脑海里依然存留着一些公理：（1）信息是非物质的；（2）信息的运载物可以是物质；（3）信息的背后有一个思想。这些都是不言自明的原则。信息的另一种形式是艺术，我们不能通过分析颜料的化学成分或画布的原子结构来理解艺术，我们必须进入画家或工匠的思想来欣赏其作品的美丽。我们也懂得每个定律都有一个立律者，每件艺术品都必须有一位艺术家—这些也都是不言自明的。问题是：谁是达尔文世界中的立律者呢？谁是自然界的艺术家呢？一个无意识的自然界怎样自己产生定律呢？一个无头脑的颜料怎样生成一副油画呢？当我读这本书时，我发现如果在脑海中把“自然”二字换成“创造者”或“上帝”，我的思想变得不太受捆绑，并且书中的论证听上去更顺理成章。
假设达尔文的进化论确实是正确的，那么我猜想，在这个无上帝的世界，他可以构想的唯一的机制必须是自发的无导向的随机漫步（Random Walk)，即今天我们所看到的东西完全是随机率的产品（注2）。要从自发的无导向的过程产生高等生物（和现今错综复杂的宇宙），唯一的依赖是“时间”，而且必须是相当长的时间。这是因为在随机漫步中，物质有时会向上发展一步，有时会向下退后一步，抵消了原来的成效。为了确保最终的结果是进化，进步必须比退步多。这样看来随机漫步并不完全是随机了。如果是这样，问题就变成了“谁在其中做了手脚呢？”我们看到，这个问题本身就有问题，因为“谁”这个字本身就不可避免地隐喻着一个外部代理。为了避免这个人性化的“谁”的问题，达尔文引进了“自然”一词。“自然选择定律”指出，一旦生物被提升到某个高级阶段，它必须停留在那里而不被自然力量拖下来。这样一个有偏颇的随机漫步从定义上讲是不自然的，因为“偏颇”和“随机”是相互矛盾的词汇。但无论如何，这就是达尔文进化论的核心：物质+机遇+时间。我要指出的是，就是“时间”也有问题—科学家已经指出地球年龄只有45亿年，这个时间太短了！原始物质都不可能在这么短时间里随机自发地进化成基因中的单一条带，更何况编码！
在我看来，这本书可以当作是一部“数据书”，因为几乎全书都是在基于对植物和动物外部观察的基础上，描述它们的生活行为（注3）。要想从这些海量数据中得出“理论”，必须要有一组大前提，而达尔文并没有明确阐述这些大前提。从这本数据书中推演出理论是非常困难的一项工作。顺便说一下，我最近碰巧读到R.C.斯普罗的书（参3），书中他引用了提摩太·费里斯书中的一段话。费里斯概括了达尔文的三个大前提，它有助于我更清楚地察验达尔文的观点。这些大前提是：
- 同一物种中每个成员是不同的。
- 每个生物往往会生产很多后代，多于环境所能承受的。
- 个性的差异，加上环境的压力，影响了个体传递其遗传特质的概率，它只有活得足够长才有可能传递遗传特质给下一代。
从这些经过试验验证的基本的原则，可以推断出更复杂深远的涵义。让我们来一一细看，其中我加上了自己的注解：
- “个体的特性今天已经在人类身上得到证实：每个人都有其独特的基因代码。法医现在更喜欢用DNA验证，而不是用指纹验证。这种个体特性在进化中起到至关重要的作用。”比如说，我想在超市的新鲜蔬果部門取五个苹果，如果苹果都长得一模一样的话，我只要闭上眼睛随便拿出五个即可。但事实上，它们每个都不相同，我必须花点儿努力去挑选。然而这个“我”在进化中是谁呢？应该是“自然”。这样“自然选择”这个概念就产生了。
- “在人类繁殖的例子中，尽管女人的卵子只受孕于一个精子，但是男人一次射精会包含几百万个精子。太浪费了？如果‘浪费’了999999个精子只是为了保证一个卵子受孕，这就说明生物有强大的动力要生存和延续下去。”这样“适者生存”的概念变成了必然。
- 第三点有些问题：如果鼠爸爸看到另一个老鼠死在鼠夹上了，鼠爸爸（代表比人类低级的动物）应该教鼠宝宝们为了生存不要靠近鼠夹。但是从来没有发生过这样的事。如果老鼠不能把救命的特质传给下一代，那么很难相信比老鼠更低等的生物会这样做。另外，“基因特质”本身就很矛盾，因为“基因”是非常复杂、充满信息的东西，这就把我们又带回到先前问过的谁是信息的给予者这个问题了。
达尔文列举了上述所有的定律来试图用“科学方法”自圆其说，之后在书中最后一段继续写道：
“这样，从自然界的战争里，从饥饿和死亡里，我们便能体会到最可赞美的目的，即高级动物的产生，直接随之而至。这种生命观点是何等壮丽啊：原始，若干能力被吹入到几种或一种生物类型中去，行星按照引力的既定法则继续运行，最美丽的和最奇异的类型从如此简单的始端，过去，直到现今还在继续进化着。”
整本书以“进化着”结尾。最后一个问题：当达尔文写道“若干能力被吹入到一种或一种生物类型中去”的时候，他是否给上帝的存在留了一定的空间？我把这个问题留给读者去思考。
当我写完了所要写的，就把手稿自己留着。在余下的几个礼拜里，不断地推敲。总觉得对这本费时费力的书的“感觉”言犹未尽。有一天我在Barnes & Noble书店翻书，看到一个非常有趣的比喻（参4，79页）：
“假设你问我汽车是如何运作的，我告诉你怎样打开点火器、踩油门、操纵方向盘。你可能会说我告诉你的是怎样开车，跟汽车是怎样运作大相径庭。我然后又给你示范怎样开打火器、踩油门、操纵方向盘，强调说这绝对是如何让车动起来的方法。稍加思索后（也许还有一些驾驶经验），你完全有理由抱怨说，我的解释在车坏了的时侯对你完全没有用处。你可能意识到驾车的知识（即‘仪表盘知识’）和‘引擎知识’根本是两回事。”
在这些可见的表盘、油门、方向盘、以及路状经验的背后，存在着看不见的原理决定着四缸发动机的奥托循环怎样运作；在奥托循环背后，还有更高级的热动力学理论。除非我们从这些抽象的概念开始了解，我们根本无法知道汽车的运作原理。
达尔文从采集到的“表盘数据”过于简单化地大胆推论生命的起源，这使得其令人肃然起敬的数据收集过程黯然失色。他以“不需要上帝”这个假设作为基础是非常不科学的，因此不能有任何科学意义。我不是说，达尔文的数据采集过程完全肤浅，但是它没有重视一些“引擎知识”，比如说生物细胞中的信息怎样来指导生命的进程。
以下个真实的故事。著名物理学家，诺贝尔奖得主理查德·费曼在某个一个星期六和一群父亲和他们的儿子们到旷野去学习大自然。接下来的星期一，他们都回到了工作岗位，孩子们都在外面玩耍。有一个男孩和费曼聊天，以下是他们的对话(参5，4页）：
男孩：“你看那只鸟，它是什么鸟呢？”
费曼：“我一点儿也不知道它是什么鸟。”
男孩：“它是一只褐喉画眉鸟。”（或某种鸟）
费曼：“你父亲什么都没教你。”
男孩：“恰恰相反，我父亲教过我。看到一只鸟他会说：‘你知道这是什么鸟吗？这是褐喉画眉鸟；葡萄牙语是……，意大利语是……’他接着说：‘中文是……，日语是……’等等”
费曼：“那么你只知道用不同的语言怎样称呼这只鸟。”
男孩：“我至少对这只鸟知道一些东西呀。”
费曼：“你对这支鸟一窍不通，你只知道人类住在不同的地方以及他们怎样称呼这种鸟。”
费曼：“让我们一起来深入了解一下这只鸟吧。”（参5，4页）
知道一物的名称和真知道此物，其差别非常大。达尔文知道所有昆虫，爬行动物，水生和陆地生物，植物，花卉，水果和许多动植物的名称。他还不辞劳苦地为有机世界分类为界(Kingdom)、门(Phylum)、纲(Class)、目(Order)、科(Family)、属(Genus)、种(Species)这些体系。我绝对不能说：“他一无所知”。但是若想推论物种的起源，他知道得实在太少了。所以说，进化论充其量可以被看作是一个假设。就像费曼对那个男孩说的那样：“让我们一起来深入了解一下这只鸟。”，我们可以说：“让我们一起来深入了解一下另一种观念—神创论。”
参考文献：
1. 《物种起源》查尔斯·达尔文；Barnes & Noble 经典系列
2. 博客文章：
a. https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=258
b. https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=234
c. https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=205
3.《思想的结果》R.C.斯普罗
4.《普通人的物理世界》罗杰·S.琼斯
5.《发现的乐趣》理查德·P.费曼
注解：
1. 热力学第二定律是法国科学家萨迪·卡诺于1824年发现的。它指出在一个封闭系统中，要使物质从无序到有序必须借助外界力量。
2. 我们所讲的“偶然事件”不是因为事件没有原因，而是因为我们不想有这样的结果，或者因为我们不知道事件的实际原因是什么。在这个意义上， “偶然”的替代词是 “无知”。
3. 这就是为什么我在本文中很少大段引用该书。
