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.
Where are the products that have come from "creation science"?
modern English. guns. the printing press. the common laws (ie, Ten Commandments)
It's a strange "science" indeed that does nothing, explains nothing, conducts no research, predicts nothing, yet demands a place at the table.
stranger still is that no science provides inventions excpet technology science. no science provides equations except math. no science provides hope and a universal truth that has been understood for eons before Aristotle thought about the stars.
science "proves" we as humans all share a common ancestry. the Bible said that in the times of Abraham and before.
science is meerly a means. God is the end.
similarly, the theory that 1+1=2 does NOT include 2+2=4!
you followed the logic so far, only to stop at the doorstep. if the logic is true, it is true all the way. what about the whole spectrum scares you so much? can you just not comprehend the idea that something is better than you? are you affraid of answering a simple question that relates to your supported hypothesis?
you say you claim evolution as factual in life. ok then. what step does evolution take in the actual production of life? (not changing of it, but formation)
also, think about this.
if you sat down and looked at several animals and on the list you saw an animal with no supperior strength, no natural camoflage (pink is hardly aundant in wildlife), no hard teeth, exceptional speed, flying or underwater thriving abilities: in other words, it is defenseless as well as fairly harmless.
would you pick THIS animal to survive enough generations to produce weapons and then fire and eventually, dominate the world? according to evolution and evolution alone, we should have died shortly after climbing out of the trees!
Oh, can it. Using Chick as your "stereotypical Christian creationist" is so pathetically lame and transparent as to be laughable. Try harder, damn it.
i will follow you far enough to say it does not include it, but the thoughts lead to it, and the question is still raised.
how much volume does thought take up?
what is the mass of a soul? (yes, i stole this one)
where does quantum physics begin and standard physics end?
why is art valued?
why did we bother to make things more complicated (and thereby reducing our efficient use of energy) by evoloving?
if matter is lazy, why does it sometimes live?
"Actually, in many cases the assumptions can be put to test."
yes, and in all cases, tests can provide something unexpected, despite the person performing the test using a textbook example.
Talk about a wasted life.
;-/
placemarker
As do doggedly opinionated imbeciles, eh?
There are none so blind as he who refuses to see.
;-/
To what do you attribute your ignorance? Did you not read widely enough?
Please be more specific if you wish to make wild accusations about homosexuality. You are showing a typical Creationist tendency to just call names rather than engage in normal conversation.
No one on this thread has ever claimed that Darwin was a Creator. Your lack of distinction between a deity and a person does lessen the effect of any points you were trying to make.
I see.
So how about what The Theory of Evolution refers to as the first forms of life? If your above-quoted statement is correct, even those "first" life forms had to come from another... or, to quote you (again), "you can't use evolution theory to explain it [them]."
Perhaps that previous life form was... God?
Your above quote is, like The Theory it struggles to defend, intellecto-phlegm feebly disguised as self-important, self defeating gibberish. Garbage in, garbage out.
;-/
Thoth will appreciate your endorsement of teaching Egyptian Creation stories.
This the second time on this thread that you have called people gay. What is your obsession with homosexuality? What does your obsession have to do with the topic at hand?
I predict that not one Creationist will criticize this guy for (at least twice) calling people gay. Name calling is part and parcel of the Creationist method it seems. (As is the silence of approval given by others.)
One reason not to teach Creationism in schools would be to keep this kind of comment out of the business of teaching.
Then you would not object to a teacher pointing out what a poor job of design it was.
He will. Even Darwin is a fervent believer these days.
MM
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