National Geographic: Was Darwin Wrong?

Post #183,709

11/9/04 7:33:13 AM

Post #183,717

by deSitter

11/9/04 8:48:30 AM

Re: National Geographic: Was Darwin Wrong?

Evolution is not a "theory" of origins. It's a *description of the process of inheritance of genetic traits*. The morons who place these messages in books are not only too idiotic to understand evolution, they don't even understand what science is *period*.

If they are so concerned about filling their kids' heads with lies, why don't they just take their cross-eyed little bastards out of school?

-drl

Post #183,734

by imric

11/9/04 9:17:50 AM

Cuz den dey'd have no babysitter! duh!

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Post #183,774

by Another Scott

11/9/04 12:53:18 PM

I assume you're arguing with this from the NG article.

Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life's work of Charles Darwin, is a theory. It's a theory about the origin of adaptation, complexity, and diversity among Earth's living creatures. If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be tempted to say that it's "just" a theory. In the same sense, relativity as described by Albert Einstein is "just" a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally\ufffdtaking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along.

It seems to me that he's saying what you think he should say. He's not saying it's a theory of origins of life but rather of how change happens to species.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #183,784

by deSitter

11/9/04 1:32:28 PM

Exactly

To make an analogous point - Aristotle had a "model" of gravity - that heavy things "sought their natural place". This of course is not a theory - it's a description of Aristotle's conception of "heaviness". Newton on the other hand, had "gravity by instantaneous action at a distance compatible with the general laws of motion I set down heretofore".

-drl

Post #183,906

by tuberculosis

11/12/04 12:08:04 AM

Theory is wrong word

At this point, natural selection is an observable process. We can watch it happen. We have known cases. We can perform experiments that clearly demonstrate the mechanism. Its not a theory. Its a documented mechanism.

Creationism, OTOH, is a fairy tale with no evidence to back it up other than the book in which the fairy tale is written.

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