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What is the resistance? I think it is the same kind of resistance that kept doctors from using antispeptic practices for 70 years after Semelweiss (sp?) introduced them into a maternity hospital and proved they saved lives from dying of infection. I think you had the same kind of resistance to African paleontolgy regarding Dart's a Leakey's discoveries.

I guess if you have spent a lot of time and money becoming an expert in one line of thought, it is really irritating to be asked to change it especially by one who has not gone through the ordeal of "basic training".

I guess if you have spent a lot of time and money becoming an expert in one line of thought, it is really irritating to be asked to change it especially by one who has not gone through the ordeal of "basic training".

And through it all they hold themselves up as practitioners of the scientific method™. Hypocrites!

"For thirty years, nobody disputed this 'fact'. One group of scientists abandoned their experiments on human liver cells because they could only find twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in each cell. Another researcher invented a method of separating the chromosomes, but still he thought he saw twenty-four pairs. It was not until 1955, when an Indonesian named Joe-Hin Tjio travelled from Spain to Sweden to work with Albert Levan, that the truth dawned. Tjio and Levan, using better techniques, plainly saw twenty-three pairs. They even went back and counted twenty-three pairs in photographs in books where the caption stated that there were twenty-four pairs. There are none so blind as do not wish to see." (p 23-24)

The author avoids technical language and explains what is known about genes and chromosomes with simple metaphors. While he airs some dirty laundry (as above), he still writes from a reductionist perspective. He's a Briton and emphasizes the achievements of other Britons, but manages to cover the Earth.

Genome:
The Autobiography of a Species
in 23 Chapters
by Matt Ridley