Posted on 07/04/2004 5:19:27 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Professor Ernst Mayr, the scientist renowned as the father of modern biology, will celebrate his 100th birthday tomorrow by leading a scathing attack on creationism.
The evolutionary biologist, who is already acclaimed as one of the most prolific researchers of all time, has no intention of retiring and is shortly to publish new research that dismantles the fashionable creationist doctrine of “intelligent design”.
Although he has reluctantly cut his workload since a serious bout of pneumonia 18 months ago, Prof. Mayr has remained an active scientist at Harvard University throughout his 90s. He has written five books since his 90th birthday and is researching five academic papers. One of these, scheduled to appear later this year, will examine how “intelligent design” — the latest way in which creationists have sought to present a divine origin of the world — was thoroughly refuted by Charles Darwin a century and a half ago.
His work is motivated in part by a sense of exasperation at the re-emergence of creationism in the USA, which he compares unfavourably with the widespread acceptance of evolution that he encountered while growing up in early 20th-century Germany.
The states of Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Oklahoma currently omit the word “evolution” from their curriculums. The Alabama state board of education has voted to include disclaimers in textbooks describing evolution as a theory. In Georgia, the word “evolution” was banned from the science curriculum after the state’s schools superintendent described it as a “controversial buzzword”.
Fierce protest, including criticism from Jimmy Carter, the former President, reversed this.
Prof. Mayr, who will celebrate his 100th birthday at his holiday home in New Hampshire with his two daughters, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, was born on 5 July 1905 in Kempten, Germany. He took a PhD in zoology at the University of Berlin, before travelling to New Guinea in 1928 to study its diverse bird life. On his return in 1930 he emigrated to the USA. His most famous work, Systematics and the Origin of Species, was published in 1942 and is regarded still as a canonical work of biology.
It effectively founded the modern discipline by combining Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel’s genetics, showing how the two were compatible. Prof. Mayr redefined what scientists mean by a species, using interbreeding as a guide. If two varieties of duck or vole do not interbreed, they cannot be the same species.
Prof. Mayr has won all three of the awards sometimes termed the “triple crown” of biology — the Balzan Prize, the Crafoord Prize and the International Prize for Biology. Although he formally retired in 1975, he has been active as an Emeritus Professor ever since and has recently written extensively on the philosophy of biology.
Obviously you have never met a public school teacher ...
"It reviews how mainstream scientists are realizing that there are some the ways in which characteristics can be passed on in a non-hereditary manner. It may not exactly be the resurrection of Lamarckism as a general explanation for evolution, but in some isolated cases it may turn out to be exactly that: Lamarckism! "
This means what???? This is suppose to be a huge break through in the world of mainstream scientists, with a caveat of "can be" "may not" "may turn". Something to really sink ones teeth into.
"If an old, respected historian were to write a book against holocaust revisionism or afrocentrist history, would you think they were making a mockery of the scientific method?"
Stranger things have happened. Personally I could care less what he writes, doesn't make it true. At his age you never know what he might put to pen and require another scientific method.
One who truly wants to know will find the answer by asking one who practices the skill. Wiser men than I can provide a full answer to the question, so I won't try. One scholarly article I've found on the subject is here:
Theology Can Use the Scientific Method and Still be Theology
But suffice to say, trained theologians are your best source of information for such a question.
You don't think agnostics are secular?
No, and liberals don't always undermine America either. It just works out that way on my watch.
There's also the issue that no one "worships" Charles Darwin.
Some are simply too fey and gay to realize it. Others are too proud to admit it to themselves. The rest worship Michael Moore.
The abstract for that article has this statement: "An empirical method for theology assumes the existence of God and then asks what God’s nature is. It uses scientific techniques on proposed answers."
In the body of the article appears this howler: "Science does not verify or falsify theories by comparing them with a set of objective data found through observation."
Not much is to be gained by a deeper study of this guy's writings.
Now that would be a news article! People would be questioning the weather in Hell. Cheese would be rolling in England. Moose (meese?) would be crossing busy roads in Canada. And donkeys would be dancing in Tijuana. And speaking of dancing:
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! And you expect to be taken seriously??
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
mark thread
"No, I'm simply pointing out that there is nothing wrong with regarding two ideas as fact without the ideas necessarily being tied together. In the case of the theory of evolution, it does not include the topic of abiogenesis."
I must respectfully disagree. Modern evolutionary theory is basically the theory that all organisms evolved from lower (less deferentiated) organisms. It even goes so far as to say that the mitochrondria found in eukaryotic cells (defined nuclei with plasma membrane) are prokaryotic (no defined nucleus as in bacteria) cells that invaded the ancesters of eukaryotes and formed a symbiotic relationship. Ultimately, it devolves back to a very simply form of life. Abiogensis is simply carrying the study back further than original cells - how they came to be. The study of abiogenesis is a logical step from classic evolutionary theory. To try and separate them for "arguments" sake it disingenuous.
"You don't think agnostics are secular?"
Yes, and noncommital to boot! :-)
"That's because it's not science. And, of course, "creationism" tends to cover about 103 different creation myths - why should they choose yours over any others to waste time on in a science class?"
True, but I don't think those pushing for "intelligent design" attempt to push any particular creation account. They simply want the children to be presented the alternative view that there is inherent intelligence in what we know about life's functioning. Intelligence implies a designer.
I do not think were are a random act of chance or even the inherent result of the right mix of components at the right time and conditions so that primitive "life" resulted and that this "life" evolved over time to what we see today.
Talk about "myths."
"Huh? Science has nothing to do with ethics or morals. Science cannot tell you why murder, rape or theft is "wrong". Science is not proscriptive or prescriptive, science is merely descriptive."
and for all the picking apart of my post, you came to the correct conclusion. science is amoral. it has no reason but reason itself. humans act in unreasonable ways all the time. you may call this chaos, but chaos doesnt have a soul. i do.
we all have the Divine Spark. deal with it.
Crackpots come in all sizes.
and idiotic minds come in one. small.
I suspect you're still wrong. Few at this site would consider themselves such but I bet most of them still would not couple evolutionary theory with abiogenesis - they understand the theory you see.
That said, my observation is that most creationists (even the great majority of them) do not understand that evolutionary theory and abiogenesis are different things. But their ignorance does not guve them pause. Hang around, you'll see what I mean.
A good rule of thumb is that if Jimmy Carter is on your side you are wrong :-)
13 posted on 07/04/2004 5:37:25 PM PDT by Tribune7
To that I say AMEN andd AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Festival of Gratuitous Denials placemarker
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