Posted on 10/09/2006 8:43:40 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
See original article here : http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1577575/posts
READER RESPONSES TO ARTICLE :
http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/9/26/8/1/ ( sorry, subscription required )
Here is the text of Dr. Phillip Skell's response :
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2950&program=CSC%20Responses
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Why Do We Invoke Darwin? Phillip Skell Responds
By: Phillip Skell The Scientist September 26, 2005
The Scientist, Editor's Note: Philip Skell's Opinion in the Aug. 29, 2005 issue,"Why do we invoke Darwin?" (19 [16]:10)generated a tremendous response from readers. Here we present a selection of edited letters. Please continue the discussion in our new forum on The Scientist website at http://media.the-scientist.com/talkingpoints/.
Philip Skell responds:
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My essay about Darwinism and modern experimental biology has stirred up a lively discussion, but the responses still provide no evidence that evolutionary theory is the cornerstone of experimental biology. Comparative physiology and comparative genomics have certainly been fruitful, but comparative biology originated before Darwin and owes nothing to his theory. Before the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, comparative biology focused mainly on morphology, because physiology and biochemistry were in their infancy and genomics lay in the future; but the extension of a comparative approach to these sub-disciplines depended on the development of new methodologies and instruments, not on evolutionary theory and immersion in historical biology.
One letter mentions directed molecular evolution as a technique to discover antibodies, enzymes and drugs. Like comparative biology, this has certainly been fruitful, but it is not an application of Darwinian evolution – it is the modern molecular equivalent of classical breeding. Long before Darwin, breeders used artificial selection to develop improved strains of crops and livestock. Darwin extrapolated this in an attempt to explain the origin of new species, but he did not invent the process of artificial selection itself.
It is noteworthy that not one of these critics has detailed an example where Darwin's Grand Paradigm Theory guided researchers to their goals. In fact, most innovations are not guided by grand paradigms, but by far more modest, testable hypotheses. Recognizing this, neither medical schools nor pharmaceutical firms maintain divisions of evolutionary science. The fabulous advances in experimental biology over the past century have had a core dependence on the development of new methodologies and instruments, not by intensive immersion in historical biology and Darwin's theory, which attempted to historicize the meager documentation.
Evolution is not an observable characteristic of living organisms. What modern experimental biologists study are the mechanisms by which living organisms maintain their stability, without evolving. Organisms oscillate about a median state; and if they deviate significantly from that state, they die. It has been research on these mechanisms of stability, not research guided by Darwin's theory, which has produced the major fruits of modern biology and medicine. And so I ask again: Why do we invoke Darwin?
Philip Skell Fordham University Bronx, NY tvk@psu.edu
Member, National Academy of Sciences Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus Penn State University
Can't think of ANY single thing Darwin did for the benefit of mankind. Feel free to enlighten me. But he's no Jonas Salk.
I like what this man is saying.
However, evolution has been defined (for a purpose) as "shifts in the allele frequencies of genes within a population". This sets the bar very low. If a red-haired woman in New Jersey gives birth to red-haired triplets, then evolution has occurred.
Given that definition, it is false to say "Evolution is not an observable characteristic of living organisms." Which is, of course, why this silly definition has been adopted.
Of course you can't.
Feel free to enlighten me.
I would if that were possible.
But he's no Jonas Salk.
You're right -- Darwin's contributions to biology are far greater than Salk's.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Which is, of course, why this silly definition has been adopted.
Well there I disagree. But I would like to hear how you think the term should be defined.
Ping a ding ding.
Now, think about it. I can't either, but that's because I don't know anything about it.
But if you were to say, "what benefit has mechanics brought mankind," I would say, "countless."
But -- all questions of religion and non-religion aside -- has it helped the human race to propose that source of life is non-life? I don't think so.
Now, if the study becomes one of the mechanisms of variations of genetic development, that certainly might be useful. However, it does violence to logic to say that "logic has no logical origin." It is a contradiction on its face.
> I can't think of a single benefit for mankind that has come from the theories of special and general relativity.
How about from the Creationism Hypothesis? Not a thing.
Here is an overview of what Darwin got right and what he got wrong ....
SEE HERE : http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~do_while/sage/v6i4f.htm
Darwin’s Score Card
Darwin got some things right. Ironically, most of the things he got right were observations that argue against evolution. Let's look at all of Darwin's conclusions in tabular form.
Darwin Got It Right
For evolution
* More individuals are born than can survive.
* There is a lot of variation in species.
* Evolution depends upon inherited variations.
Against evolution
* “The laws governing inheritance were quite unknown” to Darwin.
* “Correlation of growth” (inbreeding) has side effects that limit variation.
* “Intercrossing” causes variations to revert to the norm.
* The fossil record mostly doesn’t support evolution.
* There are no living intermediate forms.
* Complex structures, such as the eye, and echolocation, could not have evolved.
* Instincts can’t be explained by natural selection.
* One can’t breed diverse species to produce new fertile species.
We all know that the heart of the controversy is speciation rather than simple genetic variation (I've got blue eyes -- what do you have?).
But, while we have evidence of changes in shifts in the allele frequencies of genes within a population, evidence of speciation is harder to come by. Forging a link between humans and single-celled creatures is – shall we say – “unproven” and dependent on faith and conjecture. And if we define Science as “The thing which is dependent on evidence, faith, and conjecture”, then we widen the field quite a lot. I’m OK with that. Are you?
Well, even though you have categorically declared that I am an imbecil (un-enlightenable), about which you will get no argument from me, why don't you, for the benefit of others, expound your storehouse of knowledge about Darwin's contributions to biology?
Because, although your god was impugned by my remark (and you, by extension, judging by your childish and antisocial response), I would sincerely like to know why the man deserves 100 tons of concrete at the mecca of science.
thank you for the reasoned response.
You like it because his blatantly false claims support what you wish were true.
However, evolution has been defined (for a purpose) as "shifts in the allele frequencies of genes within a population". This sets the bar very low. If a red-haired woman in New Jersey gives birth to red-haired triplets, then evolution has occurred.
Not exactly, but if you haven't learned the difference by now, there's probably not much point in trying to explain it to you all over again.
Given that definition, it is false to say "Evolution is not an observable characteristic of living organisms." Which is, of course, why this silly definition has been adopted.
Nonsense. Your paranoid conspiracy theories are laughable.
The reason that evolution has been defined as a change in the genepool over time is because that's what it really is. Even drastic evolutionary change is, at its root, genetic change over time.
Trying to separate longterm amounts of genetic change from smaller short-term amounts of genetic change, as the evolution-deniers try to do, is as stupid and wrong as trying to claim that a pebble falling from the hand and hit the ground in less than a second is somehow a different "kind" of gravity than the gravity that causes the Earth to orbit around the Sun over the course of a year. It's not, it's just the same thing over larger time periods and larger scales. It would be a very weird sort of physics that tried to treat them differently and kept them in different analytical "boxes".
The same goes for small and large evolutionary change -- it's the same process. You can't compartmentalize the processes which affect the genepool from generation-to-generation from the same one that causes longterm genetic change, because the longterm results are the accumulation of the generation-to-generation processes/changes.
The processes affecting single-generation change are studied and tested and researched, and are called evolution, because they *are*, and because they are the "apple falling from the tree" that illuminates the bigger picture of evolution, just as Newton's apple illuminated the forces responsible for the movement of the heavenly bodies for him.
Sheesh, read a biology textbook for a change, instead of listening to the purposely misleading twaddle from the Discovery Institute and other dishonest anti-science propagandists, which attempts to mislead and confuse the reader on this point and so many others.
Furthermore, the author is lying when he claims that even on the larger scale, "Evolution is not an observable characteristic of living organisms" -- it most certainly is. These charlatans hope that their readers never crack open any science journals, because their lies will be quickly exposed if anyone actually bothers to follow the scientific publications.
I don't mind if Darwinists want to argue their case in the scientific forums. That's their right.
What bugs me is the way the use activist judges to force Darwinism down the throats of young children in the public schools, and refuse to allow any discussion of whether or not Darwin was right.
If Darwinism is scientifically correct, why do they maintain an unholy alliance with the ACLU to enforce their beliefs on people whether they like it or not? Why will they permit no discussion to take place?
There would be no need to brainwash children under the tyranny of activist judges if Darwinism had an airtight scientific case to make.
Sorry, kid, I don't try to educate people capable of making such idiotic remarks, I've learned that their minds are tightly closed and no amount of time spent on my part will penetrate. I object to blatantly false claims because, well, they're false, and because they attempt to infect the minds of others with disinformation. If you haven't been able to grasp that by now, if you think that the only reason someone might get annoyed at your twaddle is because they think of a nineteenth-century scientist as their "god" or because they use science as a "religion" (instead of caring about accuracy and truth in the face of blatant falsehoods and error), then you truly are beyond the reach of my ability to explain anything to you.
If you ever come back with an honest question, worded in a way that indicates you're truly interested in learning and not in trying to hand-wave away in advance anything I might say because to you it's all just a matter of an apostate "religion" following a false "god", well, do feel free to try again.
In the meantime, enjoy your bizarre fantasies about how science works and why people might be driven to correct blatant falsehoods about it. Buh bye.
B$ works for me.
Ichneumon, I called your bluff, and you folded, you like you must.
They don't. Try again.
and refuse to allow any discussion of whether or not Darwin was right.
That's entirely allowed, and takes place in schools all the time. What is *not* allowed, as a reading of the Kitzmiller decision would make quite clear if you ever bothered to read it, is religious indoctrination in public schools dishonestly presented in a Trojan horse labeled "of whether or not Darwin was right".
If Darwinism is scientifically correct,
Well, vast mountains of evidence along multiple independent cross-confirming lines certainly overwhelmingly indicates that it is.
why do they maintain an unholy alliance with the ACLU to enforce their beliefs on people whether they like it or not?
They don't. Schools are entirely free to decide to drop biology from their curriculums if they want.
Why will they permit no discussion to take place?
Again, discussion is entirely permitted. What *isn't* permitted is pushing a religion in the guise of such discussion.
There would be no need to brainwash children under the tyranny of activist judges if Darwinism had an airtight scientific case to make.
See above. Your rant is based on major misconceptions.
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