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.
Born July 5, 1904
Give us an example of what you mean by trying. As a general rule, science proceeds by speculating about possible steps in a natural chain of causation, then seeking to demonstrate that each step is possible.
Demonstrating that synthetic assembly of organic compounds is possible is irrelevant to the question of whether natural assembly is possible. We can make petroleum from corn, but that says nothing about how underground oil was formed.
And, uh, the number of creationists that accept evolutionists can be counted by the toes on my hands.
I should add that another fundamental attribute of a closed system is that no matter or energy can leave, either.
And this is one mystery that has persisted for millennia; "establishment" biological science doesn't seem to be coming any closer to solving it. Probably because it's looking in all the wrong places would be my bet. Good grief, Darwin positively ignored the issue -- we have a scientific discipline said to be a "life science," yet it has ever ignored life per se.
IMHO "orthodox biology" has too many preconceived notions that have become sacred texts. And the following attitude I see reflected here daily is positively unscientific. In so many words, "Intelligent design is the province of infidels.... we must not let them get their grubby little hands on our sacred scriptures.... They are heretics and polluters of the One True Faith."....
Either the Second Law is false or you misunderstand it.
Whether I understand it or not, the Second Law seems to hold up pretty well in closed physical systems; put an energy source nearby, and the behavior of the system can change. But it is one thing for matter to behave differently as compared to an earlier state, and quite another for it to become alive. For one thing, aliveness seems to involve some degree of consciousness. How does "dumb" matter become "smart?" Answer that and you'll know how the life process came into being.
Are you sure about that, D? How do you know that?
Evolution is millenia old? The scientific method is millenia old? What are you smoking?
And "solving it"? Solving what? The Grand Mystery of Life, the Universe, and Everything? Try 42.
Good grief, Darwin positively ignored the issue -- we have a scientific discipline said to be a "life science," yet it has ever ignored life per se.
Um, did I miss it? Have we ever defined "life" in any meaningful, rigorous, or scientific terms?
IMHO "orthodox biology" has too many preconceived notions that have become sacred texts.
The essence of science is to observe nature, think critically, and to discover the truth where ever it can be found. Try it sometime.
And the following attitude I see reflected here daily is positively unscientific. In so many words, "Intelligent design is the province of infidels.... we must not let them get their grubby little hands on our sacred scriptures.... They are heretics and polluters of the One True Faith."....
Call me when they have a scientific hypothesis.
Whether I understand it or not, the Second Law seems to hold up pretty well in closed physical systems; put an energy source nearby, and the behavior of the system can change.
Well, we've certainly never seen it violated. Of course, that's what makes it a Law.
But it is one thing for matter to behave differently as compared to an earlier state, and quite another for it to become alive.
Different how? Funny, how nobody has ever noticed that except you.
For one thing, aliveness seems to involve some degree of consciousness.
Only if you define it that way. How conscious is a virus?
How does "dumb" matter become "smart?" Answer that and you'll know how the life process came into being.
"Dumb" and "smart" are your adjectives, conveying no information without further description. Try it sometime.
No it does not. There are various formulations of the second law. None of these are violated by abiogenesis or life, etc.
The primary manifestation of the second law is that no process can convert heat to other forms of energy with 100% efficiency. Living things do not extract 100% of the available energy. Nearly any process is possible if there is enough energy; some processes are just less efficient than others; no process is perfectly efficient.
All this is covered in elementary thermodynamics courses. Physics-oriented courses talk about heat engines and chemistry-oriented courses talk about chemical reactions.
Hey, give 'em a break. I mean, how important is mathematics to science? </sarcasm>
What's amazing about the gullibility of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is that he was one of the engineers of one of the greatest hoaxes of all time, Piltdown Man.
Ernst Mayr was born in Kempten, Germany, on July 5, 1904 ...
Source:http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic07-05-04.html#1
More likely, someone is lurking, waiting for a loosly worded phrase to be lawyered to death.
There is a difference between loose terminology and silly concepts. The Second Law is being incorrectly applied here. It's not just imprecise terminology; it's a fundamental misunderstanding.
Abiogenesis is not part of evolutionary theory, but there is no denying that most biologists believe it happened. Not having the technology to produce a stepwise phenomenon does no grant liberty to say it is impossible. Let's put it this way, if such a natural process is demonstrated, would it destroy your faith?
Reference, please.
No, but evidently there are evolutionists that dare not lose their faith.
I know there have been rumors. Is there any hard evidence? Was Doyle a member of the Out-Of-England claque?
IF "intelligent design" is a scientific explanation, then it is examinable and disprovable by scientists and the scientific method.
If it isn't and is not examinable, it has no place as a scientific explanation or any place in science courses.
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