It is difficult to conceive of the problem that faced Darwin and his contemporaries when we compare the level and nature of his knowledge with that which we possess today.
We can join him in postulating how morphological changes could accumulate, gradually transforming one kind of animal into another. What he did not know about was the massive area of science covered by branches such as microbiology and molecular biology. These had not yet been revealed.
Many scientists use instruments to take measurements of one kind or another. They are taught how to interpret the data or charts generated. They discuss the processes occurring in their chemical changes or biological systems, etc., but have little idea of how the machine is constructed. That is the domain of the engineers, who, in turn, probably have little understanding of what the scientist makes of their output! Such instrumentation is often described as a ‘black box’ for the scientist. It has no significance to the scientist’s interpretation of the data.
