Hopeful Monsters

   Darwin wrote that "If it could be demonstrated that any complex
   organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by
   numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would abso-
   lutely break down." One particularly eminent scientist of the mid-
   twentieth century who concluded that it had absolutely broken
   down was the German-American geneticist, Professor Richard
   Goldschmidt of the University of California at Berkeley. Gold-
   schmidt issued a famous challenge to the neo-Darwinists, listing a
   series of complex structures from mammalian hair to hemoglobin
   that he thought could not have been produced by the accumulation
   and selection of small mutations. Like Pierre Grasse', Goldschmidt
   concluded that Darwinian evolution could account for no more than
   variations within the species boundary; unlike Grasse', he thought
   that evolution beyond that point must have occurred in single
   jumps through macromutations. He conceded that large-scale mu-
   tations would in almost all cases produce hopelessly maladapted
   monsters, but he thought that on rare occasions a lucky accident
   might produce a "hopeful monster," a member of a new species with
   the capacity to survive and propagate (but with what mate?).

   The Darwinists met this fantastic suggestion with savage ridicule.
   As Goldschmidt put it, "This time I was not only crazy but almost a
   criminal." Gould has even compared the treatment accorded Gold-
   schmidt in Darwinist circles with the daily "Two Minute Hate"
   directed at "Emmanuel Goldstein, enemy of the people" in George
   Orwell's novel 1984. The venom is explained by the emotional at-
   tachment Darwinists have to their theory, but the ridicule had a
   sound scientific basis. If Goldschmidt really meant that all the
   complex interrelated parts of an animal could be reformed together
   in a single generation by a systemic macromutation, he was postulat-
   ing a virtual miracle that had no basis either in genetic theory or in
   experimental evidence. Mutations are thought to stem from ran-
   dom errors in copying the commands of the DNAs genetic code. To
   suppose that such a random event could reconstruct even a single
   complex organ like a liver or kidney is about as reasonable as to
   suppose that an improved watch can be designed by throwing an
   old one against a wall. Adaptive macromutations are impossible, say
   the Darwinists, especially if required in any quantity, and so all
   those complex organs must have evolved-many times indepen-
   dently-by the selective accumulation of micromutations over a
   long period of time.