Why do I say this? Why should my beliefs--my evolutionary beliefs--be given unique status in biology classes? First, because teaching an essentially religious theory like ID--outside of the "comparative religions" scenario I've described--is illegal. ID is religion carefully disguised as science to get around the Constitution--that is why ID supporters rarely talk explicitly of God--but it is religion nevertheless. If the Supreme Court rules otherwise, then that will not be the first time that the Supreme Court has been wrong.
100
It's all a Ruse!
"Or maybe this other Michael Ruse?" ~ js1138
He seems as conflicted as Darwin was, doesn't he. Maybe he also lives somewhat of a double life like Darwin did. Ya think?
I wonder if it causes him psychosomatic aliments --painful flatulence, vomiting, insomnia, palpitations--, too. LOL
Encyclopedia Britannica: (excerpts):
"...At this time, however, Darwin began to lead something of a double life. To the world he was busy preparing his Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle, which was published in 1839. ... Privately Darwin had begun a remarkable series of notebooks in which he initiated a set of questions and answers about "the species problem." .... Darwin kept this interest secret while he gathered evidence to substantiate his theory of organic evolution.
..There was no place in Darwin's world for divine intervention, nor was mankind placed in a position of superiority vis-a-vis the rest of the animal world. Darwin saw man as part of a continuum with the rest of nature, not separated by divine injunction.
After the publication of the Origin, Darwin continued to write, while friends, especially Huxley, defended the theory before the public. ...
...Darwin met the issue of human evolution head-on in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), in which he elaborated on the controversial subject only alluded to in the Origin. ...
The second half of the book elaborated upon the theory of sexual selection. Darwin observed that in some species males battle other males for access to certain females. But in other species, such as peacocks, there is a social system in which the females select males according to such qualities as strength or beauty. Twentieth-century biologists have expanded this theory to the selection by females of males who can contribute toward the survival of their offspring; i.e., female selection secures traits that make the next generation more competitive.
Although Darwin's description of female choice was roundly rejected by most scientists at the time, he adamantly defended this insight until the end of his life. While not universally accepted today, the theory of female choice has many adherents among evolutionary biologists.
The last of Darwin's sequels to the Origin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), was an attempt to erase the last barrier presumed to exist between human and nonhuman animals--the idea that the expression of such feelings as suffering, anxiety, grief, despair, joy, love, devotion, hatred, and anger is unique to human beings.
Darwin connected studies of facial muscles and the emission of sounds with the corresponding emotional states in man and then argued that the same facial movements and sounds in nonhuman animals express similar emotional states. This book laid the groundwork for the study of ethology, neurobiology, and communication theory in psychology. ..
Throughout his career Darwin wrote two kinds of books--those with a broad canvas, such as the evolution quartet, and those with a narrow focus ...
Darwin worked alone at home, leading the life of an independent scientist (a privileged existence open to a fortunate few in Victorian England). Money from Robert Darwin made it unnecessary for Charles to seek employment.
After his return from the voyage Darwin knew he would never become a clergyman like his mentor, Henslow. Nor would he remain a bachelor like his brother, Erasmus, who was a man-about-town.
After drawing up lists of the benefits and drawbacks of marriage, he proposed to his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, whom he married on Jan. 29, 1839. She brought fortune, devotion, and considerable housewifely skills that enabled him to work in peace for the next 40 years.
Newly married, the Darwins moved into a house on Gower Street in London, but within a few years Darwin's increasingly poor health prompted them to move to the country. In 1842 the Darwins moved into Down House in the village of Downe, Kent, only 16 miles from London but remote from easy access to the city.
Charles and Emma Darwin had 10 children: two died in infancy and a third, Anne, died at age 10. The surviving five sons went away to school. George, Francis, and Horace became distinguished scientists, and Leonard, a major in the royal army, was an engineer and eugenicist.
William Erasmus was undistinguished, as were his sisters, who prepared at home to follow their mother into marriage. Henrietta married; Elizabeth remained single at Down.
Darwin was devoted to his wife and daughters but treated them as children, obliging Emma to ask him for the only key to the drawers containing all the keys to cupboards and other locked depositories.
Darwin noted in The Descent that the young of both sexes resemble the adult female in most species and reasoned that males are more evolutionarily advanced than females.
His attitude toward women coloured his scientific insights. "The female is less eager than the male," he wrote, "She is coy," and when she takes part in choosing a mate, she chooses "not the male which is most attractive to her, but the one which is least distasteful."
...Comfortable in English society, Darwin treasured his place and feared alienating those who he knew would be offended by his theory. ...
The once adventurous young naturalist was a semi-invalid before his 40th year.
Darwin's illness has been the subject of extensive speculation. Some of the symptoms--painful flatulence, vomiting, insomnia, palpitations--appeared in force as soon as he began his first transmutation notebook, in 1837.
Although he was exposed to insects in South America and could possibly have caught Chagas' or some other tropical disease, a careful analysis of the attacks in the context of his activities points to psychogenic origins.
Throughout the next decades Darwin's maladies waxed and waned. But during the last decade of his life, when he concentrated on botanical research and no longer speculated about evolution, he experienced the best health since his years at Cambridge. ...
Darwin died at Down House on April 19, 1882. ... his work remains central to modern evolutionary theory.
Excerpted from the Encyclopedia Britannica without permission.
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/darwinism.html