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.
ok, to be fair, lets ignore the aspect of origins, as it seems to set you in a tiff.
we know that things die off and changes occur. we know mutations happen. we know water rolls down hill when gravity is present.
here is the point i am raising that you will not accept as a logical one
WHY?
because our idea of God exists! we have an absolute origin of everything, as the BBT states (which is now becoming a sort of big brother to the Super String Theory, in that several existances are streched, and instead of something from nothing, the cooling of energy forms a universe. the spark that energized that system was caused by another reaction, and so on and so forth.) this still does NOT answer where the laws came from, and why they even apply.
the idea of the true origins of laws and being comes from our concept of God, which has (as again, i have said before) been reported by the Bible, and is just now getting covered by science.
natural science is simply trying to come to the human understanding of what everything is. the Bible already states it in principle, but not in an equation.
this leads into "half a wing is useless" hypothesis. i dont recall the man, but it was shortly after Darwin released his theory that this was brought up.
Thus my reply in 252 that 1) all stages are possible, as Darwin himself answered his critics, and 2) evidence for the "impossible" stages exists. Subsequent to this, you've done a lot of backtracking which almost amounts to accepting theistic evolution. That's a side of your mouth from which nothing was heard earlier. If you can live with evolution being a fact, I would suggest you try doing so.
Now you're back to complete luddite dumb-dumbism. What O what is this missing link you have been taught to thump your chest and demand? Between fish and amphibians? Probably not; we have some of those. Birds and dinosaurs? Probably not; we have some of those. Land animals and whales? Probably not; we have some of those.
[299] thats still doesnt show me the skeletal remains of the missing link.
The silly dance. Try just arguing from one side of your mouth at a time.
Let us remember that the creationists, with their "theory," did actually manage to make one big, bold prediction. Because they claim, according to their "science," that everything was created at once (or in a few days), creationism predicts that there were no transitionals between major groups. Why would there be any? No need, as the separate groups were wonderfully created all at once.
Thus, as transitionals are gradually discovered, each and every one is a refutation of the creationists' prediction.
But as we know, every fossil ever found has been lumped into a taxonomic bin, thus allowing creationists to argue that it is the same as everything else in the bin. We have here a science of not seeing, of obliterating real information in favor of stupid lawyer tricks.
Bones. That's all I see. No evidence; just bones!
im still failing to see where you think i am saying evoltuion is 100% wrong though.... i pointed out a discrepency. you knocked it out. congrats. i still have not and will not say evolution is completely right or wrong. its a great start, and it provides usefull insight into the opperations of this world. you guys have cited where i stated skepticism, not where i claimed it was wrong. ever played devil's advocate?
the "dance" you see me doing is myself doing something you are not. i am putting myself into several points of view, and coming to the same conclusion, while noting that the other side doesnt have the whole picture.
neither side produces everything. the Bible provides insight, but no explanaition. the natural sciences provied explanation but no insight. it is not a dance, it is proving both sides valid and conclusive, even if from one side or another is not getting the detailed whole picture by itself.
[298] evolution is the means, God is the end.
[299] thats still doesnt show me the skeletal remains of the missing link.
The silly dance. Try just arguing from one side of your mouth at a time.
all that those statments together provide you is evidence that i dont believe evolution was a random chance.
Intelligent design ain't theology, PH!
The evidence is in the connections. The thigh bones always connect with the hip bones. The knuckle bones often connect with the nose bones.
"Let us remember that the creationists, with their "theory," did actually manage to make one big, bold prediction. Because they claim, according to their "science," that everything was created at once (or in a few days), creationism predicts that there were no transitionals between major groups. Why would there be any? No need, as the separate groups were wonderfully created all at once. "
ERRRRNT wrong!
the original language of Greek used a word that meant "a period of time" this term was OFTEN used to describe a day, but not exclusively. the Bible states that existance as man knows it was created in 7 periods of time.
it goes on to state "man was created on the 6th *period of time8 and on the 7th, (signifying laws of nature completely accounted for?) God rested."
What did he say, that there wouldn't be any transitional forms?
"its a great start, and it provides usefull insight into the opperations of this world."
to keep this safe from you legalists, replace "insight" with "guidelines"
I think you're correct. It isn't science either. So what is it?
"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. In the first place, it should always be borne in mind what sort of intermediate forms must, on the theory, have formerly existed."No problem, as long as you assume that they must have existed. Skeptics of the theory would call this "speculation."-Charles "Chuck" Darwin
The Origin of Species (1859)
"Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed."-Charles "TF*" Darwin
My Life & Letters*TF=transitional form
you have something unexplained.
you study it, and come to the conclusion that you now have more questions than answers. you do this over and over again. you still have more questions than answers.
Theology has an answer that does not conflict with your methods. it provides that intellegent design must have taken place, and this is provable by the simple fact that you keep arriving at simply more questions. your inability to prove anything beyond a "law" is proof that "law" is not absolute, but we can grasp the idea of absolute. why is that? Theology provides that the ideal "absolute" must exist. they named that absolute "God"
where is the problem?
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