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.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Vet, this is for you.
How do you use the scientific method in theology?
incomprehensible placemarker
Not quite. "Science" is a method. And "scientists" are those who employ that method.
I don't.
How so?
I want to know what the mass of a soul is.
If this were true we would have very little to disagree upon. There would be literally mountains of evidence of speciation if it were true. (On that point Darwin was correct).
I am not a biologist, and my experience with all of these concepts is from using Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming to evolve programs for image analysis and mineral identification. All of them work, populations of programs do evolve when faced with evolutionary pressure, gradual evolution is the most effective in programming evolution since mutations usually just create lots of useless junk that hinders not speeds up the process.
If you are using the term evolution in this paragraph to indicate "adaptation" we have no disagreement, however evidence of adaptation does not spell out changes in kinds of animals. The beaks, the spots, the spikes on a fish, are all proving to be evidences of adaptation within the genetic material already present within the creature. Link
However is the best workable theory.
Only if a person discounts the obvious tolerances that our world must maintain for life to even exist. Stretching those tolerances for even 1 million years is obviously foolish considering the rate of extinction of species, the catastrophic missiles that float around our solar system, the balance of chemistry and temperatures that regulate that chemistry of life...
There are so many reasons to discount evolution theory. Read more articles from here for further enlightenment.
Thank you for your reasoned tone, it is refreshing!
LOL! Good story.
Groucho Marx in one of his movies says, "Making mountains out of molehills isn't easy. You try that sometime!" A fine example is Coppedge's quest to present every bit of news that comes along, no matter what, as evidence for the reality of his delusions.
see my #128
Scientific method is what constantly continues to evolve.
"How so?"
The goal is to prove evolution, and every new discovery is use to further that goal, many alterations have been made since Darwin to give evolution credibility.
The scientific method is established under "peer review", and the "peers" are constantly updating, revising, and renewing their review.
Just look how this article is written and directed, nothing in it to give themselves credibility, rather a mocking of "Creationist" going to get theirs. That is the foundation of evolution's "scientific methods".
As though when one peers through a microscope and sees something for the first time, it's like they created it.
yes, thanks for the adjustment. yeah, science is a method, employed to investigate fields of study. scientists use this method. good catch :)
That's because it's not science. And, of course, "creationism" tends to cover about 103 different creation myths - why should they choose yours over any others to waste time on in a science class?
1) its lasted longest.
2) its supported by obsevations made by scientists.
3) it isnt a myth, it may have been Man's limited understanding when the Book was written, but it is NOT a myth. a myth is easy to disprove (Atlas holding the world up is a myth, we see no Atlas after going around the world)
the best term a reasoning scientist can conclude to use for Creationists (esp Judeo-Christians) is a "theory"
the real term is "Faith," or even "Truth"
the reason being, things happen that cannont be explained by what is before us. we also accept that with every answer comes more questions. we know (to a limited extent) HOW, but what about WHY, or WHERE, or even WHO/WHAT?
if science is so perfect at explaining away things, why is it not ok to kill another man in cold blood?
What is the "scientific method"? From HERE.
The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:
* 1. Observe some aspect of the universe.When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.
* 2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
* 3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
* 4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
* 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.
Yes. Scientists get their good ideas from wherever creative people get their ideas. Kekule realized what the structure of the benzine molecule had to be when he dreamed about a snake eating its own tail.
Of course, that's not all there is to it: since we're talking science, just having a dream wasn't enough. The notion had to stand up to experimental testing. (It did. Of course, we don't hear too much about the ones that don't pan out, but that's the way it goes.) Science uses both sides of your brain.
You said "Do you actually have an argument against evolution, or do you have nothing to offer but trite one-liners?"
As a matter of fact, I do have an argument or two against the issue of evolution of species. I would encourage anyone who has not already closed their mind on the subject, to evaluate creation science and evolution. There are a number of good books available. (I like ICR myself)
I just happen to like one-liners. CS Lewis, referring to the whole evolution silliness remarked "There are some ideas, so fantastic they can only be believed by intellectuals.
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