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.
Most algorithms are very simple compared to nature, crossover is primitive in most cases there are no species per-se so "children" in many cases dont work as well as parents that were selected for reproduction(arm attached in the place of head etc). But such heavy randomness leads to creation sometimes remarkably different solutions then what human would ever concieve. Point being is that you take genetic material, take fitness function(ability to survive), take ability to reproduce and you get something very interesting. You get order evolving from random junk(most times initial populations are randomly created).
Tolerances for life to exist in the form that we know. It is quite possible that life based on completely different chemical reactions could exist in evironment that would instanly kill anything that we consider "life".
G'day.
You are implying a host of people much more educated and intelligent than you are "scientific illiterates". (see post 34)
I do not accept this reasoning. Such reasoning is specious.
This placemarker is specious.
Well ... some people are gay and fey and they worship Charles Darwin to boot.
What is your obsession with deviant homosexuals that you are compelled to ask ?
What you ask for is akin to the SupremeClowns who want to see lots of porno films before they rule that deviant homosexuality is legal.
:-)
You are changing your criterion. First you suggested "longest lasting" now you are switching to "most popular." Zogbyfication of your criterion doesn't make it more scientific.
Which do you mean? Oldest? Most popular? Do you feel that there is a difference?
Mayr's comments on Kuhn are right on target. Kuhn missed quantum mechanics completely. QM was accepted almost overnight (about 1 year) because it worked so well on so many things.
most popular NOW means it survived THEN. it also means that more people accept it than ever accepted Thoth. God is a God that transcends culture and reasons.
i most certainly am NOT changing the criteria, i am pointing out that of all the "myths" this one not only survives, it thrives, as well as the scientific community has alot it owes the Bible and it's readers. (as posted earlier)
you guys have still failed to present a theory that shows how all things were oriniginally one thing, yet you accept that this must be true.
In the beginning, God created the Heavens and Earth.
it states this theory in plain english, yet you keep assuming away that they are unrelated.
So, propose a theory. Use either of your criteria (age or popularity, whichever one you feel like at the time.) Give a testable prediction. So far you have proposed no theory.
ok, what preditory animal would you say couldnt kill a man with an iq of 40 easily? keep in mind, that all these animals had larger and more powerful (typically) ancestors.
it took time for man to develop intellect, according to evolution... but its our only real survival tool. why, exactly, did we not go the way of the Dodo? what kind of womb did we have where animals just didnt attack us while we learned how to carve and throw?
but more to the point, and easier to illustrate, "half a wing is useless"
why would a fast moving carnivor with obvious advantages over food, sprout wings? why also, would this carnivor know how to use these wings if all they are is a "genetic mutation"? why are there so many generations between little tufts of wings, to only wings.. when claws have the advantage for hunting?
i am not saying that evolution is bunk, but i am saying it isnt the answer to everything, and what natural science is about is solving everything we can. all means must find the same end for any of it to make sense.
according to evolutionists, "Creationism" is a theory. according to the limited aspect of evolution, something is still lacking, the origin of life.
the thing is, our lack of making life is evidence that we cannot yet do so. there is also evidnece in that we have not witnessed new life created naturally, despite being around long enough to have seen it. something more intellegent than us made life. it must have, because the other two ways have not been met. hence, the testable in its non-duplicating way, the Theologically sound Gen. 1:1.
There may be a reason and an order..
question is...
how the heck can humans possibly come close to understanding it?
well, for one thing, there is proof that we have understanding of it in that we understand it exists.
we know there is a reason for everything. we know there is a purpose and a rule governing every physical aspect of everything.
"to everything, there is a season, a time to build up, a time to break down...." Ecc 3:1-8
science is showing us what the Bible said eons before natural science was in the grasp of our tiny minds.
a good way to look at it is that its the Book that puts into comrehension, that which cannot yet be understood. it is taking our fullest capacity to its brink to fit things together, yet we have a guideline of whats to come un-decifered in front of us.
Are "intlligent design" and evolution necessarily contradictory?
I think not.
Evolution is a biological mechanism. When a scientist strays beyond studying what can be determined only by scientific methods, and condemn "intlligent design", he is no longer speaking from a position of authority in his field - just rendering a personal opinion. In this case, I would view that opinion as flawed.
Who the heck does he think created the laws of biology and physics by which evolution and other processes in the universe operate?
I was all a fortuitous accident? I hardly think so.
well stated :)
It's simple. Godless secular atheistic Satanist mainstream science studies some aspect of nature and writes a journal article. Duane Gish reads the journal article and publishes a rebuttal on ICR. And/or, Stephen Meyer at the prestigious Discovery Institute--does that sound scientific and pioneering or what?--reads the journal article and sends out a press release in rebuttal. Thus is our knowledge advanced.
Yes. But that doesn't apply only to scientists. When anyone so strays, his opinion can be regarded as flawed. That's why so-called intelligent design gets no respect. It's based on nothing that can be verified.
No, creationism is not a theory. It makes no predictions nor does it provide explanations. It offers no tests of itself or anything else.
Evolutionary theory does not include the origin of life. It only addresses changes in such life. Evolutionary theory does not include X-ray diffraction either. Creationists continually misstate evolutionary theory either out of ignorance or malice.
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