Chauvin on "childhood hypotheses of biology"

Chauvin, Remy.  1970.  "Finalism in Biology" in _Evolution in
Perspective: Commentaries in Honor of Pierre Lecomte Du
Nouy_, George N. Shuster & Ralph E. Thorson, editors
(Wisconsin: University of Notre Dame Press), 282pp., 59-70.
>From the biographical notes on vii:
     REMY CHAUVIN was educated at Laval University and
     the University of Paris, and holds the degree of Doctor of
     Natural Sciences.  Some of his numerous and distinguished
     publications treat of insect life.  During recent years he has
     been a member of the faculty of the University of
     Strasbourg.

Three paragraphs on 65-6, two sentences on 67, two paragraphs
on 68-9, and a paragraph on 70:
     The neo-Darwinians take a very convenient stand, and I
     mistrust stands that are too convenient.  For them the world
     has no mysteries.  They know all there is to be known
     about the complete genesis of all organisms.  I assure you
     that I do not exaggerate.  I have just reread a passage by
     Julian Huxley, a man I greatly admire, but in my opinion,
     he should blush for the gross blunders he left at the bottoms
     of certain pages.

     The very fact of evolution is not actually denied by any
     reasonable biologist.  It is evident that the species have
     changed and that they have changed in different directions,
     in the direction of progress (if we can define progress,
     which I doubt) or in the direction of a regression (perhaps
     easier to define).  In short they have changed, and they
     very certainly derive one from the other.  This being said,
     what is the mechanism?

     Some people, of whom I am one, think that the mechanism
     is still very obscure.  Others, as I have pointed out, say that
     it is actually devoid of mystery.  It is the play of blind
     mutations which through natural selection have ended by
     building, in many millions of years, the most complicated
     mechanisms.  This would demonstrate that the finality of
     the marvelous organic machines is only an appearance.  At
     least that is what the promoters of this thesis say, but their
     arguments may not be as solid as they think.
     ....
     Finally, the last objection (that of the eye and the ear) has
     not stopped certain neo-Darwinians who are the most
     imaginative of men.  It is too bad that their imagination
     sometimes tends to be extravagant.  ....

     Let us admit, for it is possible, that these extraordinary
     structural characters of the butterfly depend on a few
     genes.  I am willing to agree.  But how shall we interpret
     such a mechanism?  We will simply have pushed the
     problem back.  At that moment, the gene or genes will only
     be a wonderful deus ex machina.  It will be a true miracle.
     It will not help to say that a gene produces this
     extraordinary imitation, either of another animal or of a
     dead leaf, by itself alone.  I will always ask how that gene
     acts.  The real problem is the _how_.

     I must strongly insist that the thing which naturally
     exasperates the mechanists is the fact that there is no
     explanation.  They say, "You are Lamarckians, or you have
     no other explanation."  No, I have none.  I simply propose
     to search.  This world is very vast, very mysterious and in
     great part unfathomed, and I do not pretend to know
     everything about it.  I have no ready-made solution.  I
     think-- and moreover regret it-- that Darwinism,
     neo-Darwinism, and in great part the old forms of
     Lamarckianism, are nothing more than the childhood
     hypotheses of biology.
     ....
     Everybody admits that we ignore the constitution of an
     organism and yet pretend to know the genesis.  To be kind
     we will admit that biology is actually at the initial stage of
     physics though certain scientists think it far from having
     reached this stage.  How then can you expect modern
     biology to unravel the genesis of an organism of which you
     do not know the constitution?  It seems to me that there is
     here an extraordinary aberration.  It is very improbable that
     the secret of the universe-- for this is neither more nor less
     than the secret of the formation of the organisms-- should
     have been revealed all at once by a benevolent deity to
     certain scientists particularly favored by the gods.

Compare
how, at the genetic level, could a land animal have become a whale?
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=timi-1808971313340001%40ashauger.hip.berkeley.edu