Informational Darwinism

The Theory of Evolution has, since Darwin, been sustained by contributions from many sciences, most especially from molecular biology. Philosophers, l ike biologists and the man in the street, have accepted the idea that the c ontemporary form of evolutionary theory has arrived at a convincing and fin al structure. As it now stands, natural selection is thought to work throug h the information-handling mechanism of the DNA molecule. Variation in the genome's constructive message is achieved through random errors of processi ng called mutations. How that mechanism and its revision works, and how muc h information it can hold are fundamental questions for the Neo-Darwinian t heory to face. It is argued here that neither the operation nor the data co ntent of the genome, as science understand them, can underpin the role Darw inism assigns to natural selection. It follows that we cannot put our confi dence in the explanatory force of Darwinian reasoning, but neither is there an alternative to it.