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.
looking at the number of posts, something occured to me.
evolution is more or less algerbraic. that is to say, "1" to the next step is "1 + (any number)"
you cannot arrive at anything beyond "0" using this method though. "not alive" does not evolve (or increase) the same way 0+0 or 0x(any number)does not equal anything else.
secular evolutionists are assuming that there is no "0" yet "0" is provided in the air we breathe. the point here being that something got added to our nothing to make everything in the first place. according to out theories, this should be a simple experiment as there are few things to consider. make sure you have the proper chemicals present, and blast it with enery.
where's the cells? nada. something is missing, but we see that energy and chemicals are all living things are, right?
the lack of an answer without theology provides that theology may still provide an answer.
Surely, you are not denying that 0.9999999..... = 1, are you?
Well, I guess that you've thorougly refuted evolution by posting a quote from a man who has been dead 122 years ago.
why not? you guys "proved it" by a guy who died 122 years ago.
What it is: An investigation into alternatives to abiogenesis, which is the crackpot theory (or non-theory, depending on how you look at it) sacred to metaphysical naturalists, via such disciplines as information science and complex systems theory.
Is suspect this is more accurate:
What it is: An investigation into alternatives to abiogenesis via such disciplines as information science and complex systems theory by those who understand neither.
Let's test your understanding, balrog: Give a rational defense of abiogensis based on evidence.
The problems with evolutionary theory are pretty simple. If evolution happened gradually, why does the fossil record show uniform stasis within species?
If evolution happened in great leaps, by what mechanism could this have happened?
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Another interesting problem with strict, materialistic evolution is the fact that it contradicts the first principle of medicine, the restoration of health to the body. How can health, or the proper operation of the body, be defined in an evolving life form? Logically, no species is fixed, but instead is in a state of perpetual evolution.
Who's to say if a disease isn't culling the herd? In fact, how could "disease" be defined under an evolutionary rubric? Are mutations good or bad? Would it even be possible to define a good or bad mutation?
At least explain to me how you "square" abiogenesis with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. 'Cause I sure can't figure out any way to do it.
you say God doesnt exist. you have no proof, therefore, are you not as "wrong" as i to even attempt to explain it? in which case, are you not diverging from your coveted ideals?
Darwin's contribution was important, but he hardly did all of the work. The theory has gained a lot of credibility as a result of findings by other scientists since Darwin died.
and none of this new evidence contradicts a God and a translation of the Bible. where is your issue i ask you?
Your 288: I think Darwin thoroughly refuted himself a century and a half ago when he said that the theory of evolution would be disproved if the fossil record did not, in the century to come, show itself to be replete with transitional forms.
Darwin:
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...What would be the problem with admitting that Darwin didn't say what you reported he said instead of all this dancing around? He said something quite the opposite of what you reported in 288. He had already figured out that the fossil record did not, would not, and should not contain every transitional that ever lived, despite the necessity that such things must have once existed. His chapter on the imperfections of the geological record is explicit from the beginning to the end about what he does and does not predict.
Square the existence of life with the Second Law.
There are areas in which Darwin is simply an out-of-date authority. He was only the first Darwinist, after all.
"May" != "will"
Valid explanations are those supported by evidence and observations, not those that are brought forth simply because you can't think of an explanation.
i use "may" for a specific reason. "will" is not always true. there are clouds and they are very heavy with solids. it is highly likely to rain ("may rain") but then again, it could blow over.
scientists found fossiles that look like what they predicted. they "may" be right on the prediction, or the prediction simply correlates to another phenomia not theorized yet.
evolution "might" be proved by fossils, God "might" be proven by simply waking up and realizing you are alive for a reason. then again, they might not. though the chances are so slim they arent statistically relevant, you must account for them when drawing a conclusion on a rule.
in other words "will" is a no-no word in science.
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