So no one wants to admitt to the signifigance of Darwin in the Modern Synthesis, I can't say that I am supprised.
"More than a century ago Darwin and Huxley posited that humans share recent common ancestors with the African great apes. Modern molecular studies have spectacularly confirmed this prediction and have refined the relationships, showing that the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus or pygmy chimpanzee) are our closest living evolutionary relatives." (Nature 437, 69-87 (1 September 2005))
The first two citations are Darwin and Huxley but lets pretend that they are beside the point. Never mind that Darwin's prediction of sub-species of humans is completly false. Huxley's elaboration of various Apes is vintage naturalism and he leaves off with this interesting statement:
"If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillus work, then, it is not because I discern any inherent improbability in his assertions respecting the man-like Apes; nor from any wish to throw suspicion on his veracity; but because, in my opinion, so long as his narrative remains in its present state of unexplained and apparently inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to original authority respecting any subject whatsoever.
It may be truth, but it is not evidence."
(Evidence As to Mans Place in Nature, by Thomas H. Huxley, 1863)
If there is a testable prediction to be found in this list of acute observations I couldn't find it. Still, 'Modern molecular studies have spectacularly confirmed this prediction', this is a flawed philosophical premise not a testable hypothesis. Darwinism is not a scientific theory, it classic victorian naturalism complete with naturalistic assumptions.
A well ordered discussion of the differences between the human brain and the chimpanzee at the top of the thread remains ignored. I usually know when I have proven my point, substantive discussion descends to the level of personal remarks. My challenge again to anyone doubting the relevance of Darwin's sole contribution to modern biology can be boiled down to a single literary term, 'selection'. The only thing in his elaborate antithesis of special creation remotely simular to a scientific model is his diagram of the tree of life (aka single common ancestory).
"Darwin founded a new branch of life science, evolutionary biology. Four of his contributions to evolutionary biology are especially important, as they held considerable sway beyond that discipline. The first is the non-constancy of species, or the modern conception of evolution itself. The second is the notion of branching evolution, implying the common descent of all species of living things on earth from a single unique origin. Up until 1859, all evolutionary proposals, such as that of naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, instead endorsed linear evolution, a teleological march toward greater perfection that had been in vogue since Aristotle's concept of Scala Naturae, the chain of being. Darwin further noted that evolution must be gradual, with no major breaks or discontinuities. Finally, he reasoned that the mechanism of evolution was natural selection."
Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought
Gradual? No major breaks or discontinuities? Let's just ignore the fact that the fossil record demonstrates long periods of stasis and sudden changes at all levels of taxa. Now contrast this proposition of the non-continuity of species with the exacting nature of genuine scientific prediction. Mendel predicted both the elementum (we now know to be genes) and crossing over in a process we now know as recombination. This was predicted half a century before anyone had even seen a chromosome and has been confirmed in every conceivable way.
"The rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity in the opening weeks of the 20th century sparked a scientific quest to understand the nature and content of genetic information that has propelled biology for the last hundred years. The scientific progress made falls naturally into four main phases, corresponding roughly to the four quarters of the century. The first established the cellular basis of heredity: the chromosomes. The second defined the molecular basis of heredity: the DNA double helix. The third unlocked the informational basis of heredity, with the discovery of the biological mechanism by which cells read the information contained in genes and with the invention of the recombinant DNA technologies of cloning and sequencing by which scientists can do the same."
Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome
Like I said, go and learn what this means,
The Modern Synthesis of Genetics and Evolution
"...his narrative remains in its present state of unexplained and apparently inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to original authority respecting any subject whatsoever." (Huxley, The Place of Man in Nature)
I would say the same for his prediction of apes and human beings having a common ancestor.
One of the problems with the evolutionary expansion of the human brain from that of an ape is the size, weight and complexity. The human brian would have had to triple in size, starting 2 1/2 million years ago and ending 200 to 400 thousand years ago. The brain weight would have had to grow by 250% while the body only grows by 20%. The average brain weight would have to go from 400-450g, 2 1/2 MY ago to 13501450 g 0.20.4 MY.
"It is generally believed that the brain expansion set the stage for the emergence of human language and other high-order cognitive functions and that it was caused by adaptive selection, yet the genetic basis of the expansion remains elusive."
(Evolution of the Human ASPM Gene, a Major Determinant of Brain Size, Genetics, Vol. 165, 2063-2070, December 2003)
In case anyone was wondering what the topic of the thread is, it was started with three important questions:
"I bring you yet another renunciation of the much celebrated, never demonstrated, often pontificated, single common ancestor model...but seriously folks. Let us ponder the the most signifigant questions confronting the single common ancestor model in our day. What makes us human? (Nature 437, 69-87 ) What is the genetic basis for the threefold expansion of the human brain in 2 1/2 million years?(Genetics, Vol. 165, 2063-2070) What is the genetic and evolutionary background of phenotypic traits that set humans apart from our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees?(Genome Research 14:1462-1473)"
The sources, cited and linked remain untouched which tells me that the primary points are irrefutable or too technical for the open forum.
