Does Untestable
Speculation Characterize Evolutionary Theory?
Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (J.M.
Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 197l), pp. 168-169.
...Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and
imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to
its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the
variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should
be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of
believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though
insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, First
edition (John Murray, Albemarle Street, London, 1859), p. 184.
...In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours
with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so
extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted
competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of
bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and
habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a
whale.
[Note: Darwin removed this speculation from the second and later editions. It can be
found in The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, A Variorum Text, Morse Peckham,
editor (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1959), p. 333.]
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (J.M.
Dent & Sons, Ltd., London, 1972), pp. 461-462.
In the future I see open fields for far more important researches.
Psychology will be securely based on the foundation already well laid by Mr. Herbert
Spencer, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.
Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.
Ibid., pp. 112-113.
...no doubt...will be...will not be...may have been... ...would be...
...apparently...
...is supposed to...will have come...perhaps... ...If we
suppose...may...but we have only to suppose... Thus, as I believe...
...it is probable...would vary... I have assumed...supposed... ...are
supposed... ...will generally tend...these will have... ...may...
...will have played... ...will be... ...will generally... ...will
generally tend... So it probably will be...will be... If, however...may...
If...assumed...will have become...will be
...were supposed... ...supposed...must... ...will probably... It seems,
therefore, extremely probable...
G.G. Simpson, This View of Life (Harcourt,
Brace & World, New York, 1964), pp. viii-ix.
Finally, it is irresistible to speculate and to extrapolate.
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