If darwin had known about dna

Pundit said:

Rather than debunking evolution, the write hapharzardly jump all over the place without having a credible argument.

Evolution is based on heredity, mutations and natural selection. Of those, heredity and mutations are based on DNA and natural selection is a common sense concept.

I fail to see where the writer is failing Darwin.If anything, the discovery of DNA should make Darwin's theory of evolution stronger, not weaker and should establish Darwin as somebody who was years ahead of his time, anticipating DNA and it's features way before it's discovery.

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X-PASTER said:

...In order to find a solution, Darwinists advanced the "Modern Synthetic Theory", or as it is more commonly known, Neo-Darwinism, at the end of the 1930's. Neo-Darwinism added mutations, which are distortions formed in the genes of living beings because of external factors such as radiation or replication errors, as the "cause of favourable variations" in addition to natural mutation...
Morereading...

Neo-Darwinism and Mutations

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I will devote this chapter to the consideration of various miscellaneous
objections which have been advanced against my views, as some of the
previous discussions may thus be made clearer; but it would be useless
to discuss all of them, as many have been made by writers who have not
taken the trouble to understand the subject. Thus a distinguished German
naturalist has asserted that the weakest part of my theory is, that I
consider all organic beings as imperfect: what I have really said is, that
all are not as perfect as they might have been in relation to their conditions;
and this is shown to be the case by so many native forms in many
quarters of the world having yielded their places to intruding foreigners.
Nor can organic beings, even if they were at any one time perfectly adapted
to their conditions of life, have remained so, when their conditions
changed, unless they themselves likewise changed; and no one will dispute
that the physical conditions of each country, as well as the number
and kinds of its inhabitants, have undergone many mutations.

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5. On The Sudden Appearance Of Whole Groups Of Allied
Species
The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear
in certain formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists—for
instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick, as a fatal objection to the belief
in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the
same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact
would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection. For
the development by this means of a group of forms, all of which are descended
from some one progenitor, must have been an extremely slow
process; and the progenitors must have lived long before their modified
descendants. But we continually overrate the perfection of the geological
record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or families have not been
found beneath a certain stage, that they did not exist before that stage. In
all cases positive palaeontological evidence may be implicitly trusted;
negative evidence is worthless, as experience has so often shown. We
continually forget how large the world is, compared with the area over
which our geological formations have been carefully examined; we forget
that groups of species may elsewhere have long existed, and have
slowly multiplied, before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of
Europe and the United States. We do not make due allowance for the
enormous intervals of time which have elapsed between our consecutive

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Consequently, if the theory be true, it is indisputable that before the
lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed, as long
as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Cambrian
age to the present day; and that during these vast periods the world
swarmed with living creatures. Here we encounter a formidable objection;
for it seems doubtful whether the earth, in a fit state for the habitation
of living creatures, has lasted long enough. Sir W. Thompson concludes
that the consolidation of the crust can hardly have occurred less
than twenty or more than four hundred million years ago, but probably
not less than ninety-eight or more than two hundred million years. These
very wide limits show how doubtful the data are; and other elements
may have hereafter to be introduced into the problem. Mr. Croll estimates
that about sixty million years have elapsed since the Cambrian period,
but this, judging from the small amount of organic change since the
commencement of the Glacial epoch, appears a very short time for the
many and great mutations of life, which have certainly occurred since
the Cambrian formation; and the previous one hundred and forty million
years can hardly be considered as sufficient for the development of
the varied forms of life which already existed during the Cambrian period.
It is, however, probable, as Sir William Thompson insists, that the
world at a very early period was subjected to more rapid and violent
changes in its physical conditions than those now occurring; and such
changes would have tended to induce changes at a corresponding rate in
the organisms which then existed

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The fact of the forms of life changing simultaneously in the above
large sense, at distant parts of the world, has greatly struck those admirable
observers, MM. de Verneuil and d'Archiac. After referring to the
parallelism of the palaeozoic forms of life in various parts of Europe,
they add, "If struck by this strange sequence, we turn our attention to
North America, and there discover a series of analogous phenomena, it
will appear certain that all these modifications of species, their extinction,
and the introduction of new ones, cannot be owing to mere changes
in marine currents or other causes more or less local and temporary, but
depend on general laws which govern the whole animal kingdom." M.
Barrande has made forcible remarks to precisely the same effect. It is, indeed,
quite futile to look to changes of currents, climate, or other physical
conditions, as the cause of these great mutations in the forms of life
throughout the world, under the most different climates. We must, as
Barrande has remarked, look to some special law. We shall see this more
clearly when we treat of the present distribution of organic beings, and
find how slight is the relation between the physical conditions of various
countries and the nature of their inhabitants.

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On the theory of descent, the full meaning of the fossil remains from
closely consecutive formations, being closely related, though ranked as
distinct species, is obvious. As the accumulation of each formation has
often been interrupted, and as long blank intervals have intervened
between successive formations, we ought not to expect to find, as I attempted
to show in the last chapter, in any one or in any two formations,
all the intermediate varieties between the species which appeared at the
commencement and close of these periods: but we ought to find after intervals,
very long as measured by years, but only moderately long as
measured geologically, closely allied forms, or, as they have been called
by some authors, representative species; and these assuredly we do find.
We find, in short, such evidence of the slow and scarcely sensible mutations
of specific forms, as we have the right to expect.

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Sir C. Lyell and other authors have ably treated this subject. I can give
here only the briefest abstract of the more important facts. Change of climate
must have had a powerful influence on migration. A region now
impassable to certain organisms from the nature of its climate, might
have been a high road for migration, when the climate was different. I
shall, however, presently have to discuss this branch of the subject in
some detail. Changes of level in the land must also have been highly influential:
a narrow isthmus now separates two marine faunas; submerge
it, or let it formerly have been submerged, and the two faunas will now
blend together, or may formerly have blended. Where the sea now extends,
land may at a former period have connected islands or possibly
even continents together, and thus have allowed terrestrial productions
to pass from one to the other. No geologist disputes that great mutations
of level have occurred within the period of existing organisms. Edward
Forbes insisted that all the islands in the Atlantic must have been recently
connected with Europe or Africa, and Europe likewise with America.
Other authors have thus hypothetically bridged over every ocean,
and united almost every island with some mainland. If, indeed, the arguments
used by Forbes are to be trusted, it must be admitted that scarcely
a single island exists which has not recently been united to some continent.
This view cuts the Gordian knot of the dispersal of the same species
to the most distant points, and removes many a difficulty; but to the best
of my judgment we are not authorized in admitting such enormous geographical
changes within the period of existing species. It seems to me

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On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting
links, between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at
each successive period between the extinct and still older species, why is
not every geological formation charged with such links? Why does not
every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation
and mutation of the forms of life?

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Why, it may be asked, until recently did nearly all the most eminent
living naturalists and geologists disbelieve in the mutability of species? It
cannot be asserted that organic beings in a state of nature are subject to
no variation; it cannot be proved that the amount of variation in the
course of long ages is a limited quantity; no clear distinction has been, or
can be, drawn between species and well-marked varieties. It cannot be
maintained that species when intercrossed are invariably sterile and varieties invariably fertile; or that sterility is a special endowment and
sign of creation. The belief that species were immutable productions was
almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be
of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse
of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geological record
is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the
mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.

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