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INTRODUCTION

The Theory of Evolution has become something of a celebrity again; it has been parachuted into the frontline of the war between scientific rationalists and religious dogmatists. Listing flaws in evolution has become a full time occupation for some, acceptance of the validity and existence of the flaws is unquestioning; the supposed existence of these flaws is taken as proof of the correctness creationism (or intelligent design; or whatever). As is usual when ideas are raised as weapons or devils, only the name of the idea is remembered, the text of the idea is forgotten. Only the name of the devil is remembered, the fact that he was pushed and didn't fall is forgotten.

It is therefore pertinent to first examine the text of the idea, so the fear of the mere name of the devil is put behind us.

DEFINING EVOLUTION

Evolution is the origination of new species of life through the process of Natural Selection. The full title of Charles Darwin's book which first proposed the mechanism, is "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". The theory makes a number of assumptions about living organisms:

every individual within a species possesses a number of characteristics which are inherited from its forebears;
within a species, there is some variation in characteristics between individuals;
there is a mechanism by which an organism can pass on its characteristics to its offspring;

Darwin spends the first three chapters of his book justifying these assumptions from observation. He then outlines the process of Natural Selection: nature preserves those variations in characteristics which are suitable (fit) for the species' survival in the environment it finds itself and discards those variations which are unsuitable. Or, as Mr Darwin himself put it:

"Let it be borne in mind in what an endless number of strange peculiarities our domestic productions, and, in a lesser degree, those under nature, vary; and how strong the hereditary tendency is Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best

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