Darwinism Must Die So Evolution Can Live 951
Pickens writes "MacArthur fellow Carl Safina, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, has an interesting essay in the NYTimes that says that equating evolution with Charles Darwin opened the door for creationism by ignoring 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution — Gregor Mendel's patterns of heredity, the discovery of DNA, developmental biology, studies documenting evolution in nature, and evolution's role in medicine and disease. Darwinism implies an ideology adhering to one man's dictates, like Marxism, says Safina. He adds that nobody talks about Newtonism or Einsteinism, and that by making Darwin 'into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching.' By turning Darwin into an 'ism,' scientists created the opening for creationism, with the 'isms' implying equivalence. 'By propounding "Darwinism," even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one theory,' writes Safina. '"Darwinism" implies that biological scientists "believe in" Darwin's "theory." It's as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.'"
He didn't propose a "theory" in the strict sense (Score:1, Interesting)
Darwin was an observer. He made a logical conclusion from what he saw.
Darwin didn't have a true theory because the idea he had had no predictive power and little explanatory power, therefore was inherently untestable and not able to be used to answer questions. He wasn't aware of DNA, genes or chromosomes.
Evolution was just an observation and was only considered radical because no one had raised the question.
I beg your pardon? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, from TFA:
"Using phrases like "Darwinian selection" or "Darwinian evolution" implies there must be another kind of evolution at work, a process that can be described with another adjective. For instance, "Newtonian physics" distinguishes the mechanical physics Newton explored from subatomic quantum physics. So "Darwinian evolution" raises a question: What's the other evolution?
Into the breach: intelligent design."
Of course. This is just as it should be. Intelligent design is a powerful source of evolution. Or how does the writer think Airbuses emerged from the Wright brothers' prototype? The passage I just quoted implies that there is no legitimate evolution that is not Darwinian. This is plain silly.
Re:That is, as the Brits say, bollocks (Score:3, Interesting)
Then listen better. Even here in Europe there's people spewing this crap.
At the moment, here in the Netherlands there's a huge discussion going on on Dutch TV between a broadcasting organization (EO, Evangelical Broadcasting org, lit.) and 'the rest'
Though a lot of the people even working for said EO are quite intelligent and don't spew crap at all, quite a few (chaired by their former director) are even MORE insane than the US creationists like Kent Hovind and the people from Answers in Genesis
Re:He didn't propose a "theory" in the strict sens (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely.
Another reason creationists refer to Darwinism is that it sets them up for an Ad Hominum attack.
Darwin was a slightly flawed individual, living as he was in a time when social values were "Victorian". He would naturally had a view of the world that was somewhat tainted by a patriarchal society that was imperial, sexist and racist. And creationists are often found to be using this as evidence against his theories.
As well as this, the writing of his time, even scientific writing, was colourful and designed to compel as well as convince. We see this being used against him all the time with the popular "Darwin didn't even believe the eye could have evolved" nonsense.
Add to this his famous "death bed conversion" - no matter how much the evidence contradicts this - and you have a neatly sewn up package.
Of course, being an Ad Hominum, it would matter not a jot even if Darwin became the archbishop of Canterbury and then shagged the queen - the theory of evolution (in its current form) is the best description available for the origin of the species on this planet.
Re:He didn't propose a "theory" in the strict sens (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, not understanding the underlying mechanics of a system does not automatically invalidate a theory explaining them. Exhibit A: Gravity.
Valid point . but that doesen't give any one a free ride to prepetuate any bullshit theory too. you might notice that by this standard ID also has a strong case.
Re:How to Falsify Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, other, bigger scale "experiments" over evolution have been made and passed: astronomers at the time rejected the idea of evolution because the earth couldn't possibly have been around for long enough to allow the process to take as long as suggested. Of course, that statement was based on the idea that the sun was a ball of fire (ie, combustion) and there wasn't enough fuel in there to make the fire burn that long. When the two scientific theories were put against each other, astronomy lost: they eventually figured out that stars work with nuclear processes and, therefore, last that much longer.
Re:That is, as the Brits say, bollocks (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue is that this ignorant view may be perpetuated in America. I have never heard anyone in Europe utter such crap.
You've obviously never lived in Europe.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Swiss_drag_knuckles_accepting_evolution.html?siteSect=201&sid=7141596&cKey=1160562740000&ty=st [swissinfo.ch]
Ignorance is not solely an American problem; it's simply our prevalence on the world stage that leads you to believe that. Living in Europe for the last 3 years, I've found it's not particularly different here.
Marxism (Score:2, Interesting)
Darwinism implies an ideology adhering to one man's dictates, like Marxism, says Safina
Yes that's correct. Nonetheless there is a reason one still refers to "Marxism": While biologists accepted Darwin's fundamental discoveries and built on them, social and economic sciences spent the last century trying to refute Marx's theories. Theories that do represent a good model to understand our society.
Re:*Believing* isn't the correct verb (Score:3, Interesting)
Friend1: Do you believe in god?
Me: Yep.
Friend: Do you think the devil is real?
Me: Yeah, I believe in the devil.
Friend2: You believe in the devil?!
Me: Yeah, it's in the bible...
Friend1: You can't believe in god AND the devil!
Me: What?
Friend2: You just said you believed in the devil!
And unfortunately, this fucking "believe in" vaguery (if that's a word) nonsense still means something to people. It seems that most (and I mean 99.999% of people, including me) just seem to string together nearly meaningless and incorrect phrases and call it language, thereby completely undermining rational thought.
Semantics can kill rational thought somehow.
Re:How to Falsify Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Any theory that can not explain how to both validate and falsify its claims in this manner can not be taken seriously.
Carl Popper thoroughly dismantled that idea in his 1935 book "Logic der Forschung". You should try reading it; the English translation of the main text is quite accessible. Looking at the problems you have with logic you may struggle with some of the appendices, but they're not necessary for the main argument. It may help bring your thinking from the 19th to the 20th century. Incidentally, I am aware about the controversy in science regarding falsification, but it doesn't apply here -- I'm not aware of any serious scientists who claim that what Popper described isn't science (isn't to "be taken seriously"); the controversy is whether Popper's method is the only thing science is.
Unfortunately, Darwin never properly demonstrated how to falsify his theory, which means evolution has not properly been proven
A perfect illustration of what the RA was saying. You think the claim that Darwin didn't do it is the same as the claim that it hasn't been done. You think work stopped on the subject 150 years ago.
As said before; if something is not false, it must therefore be true
That's not what you said before. What you said before was "if it can be shown that something is not false, it must therefore be true" (my emphasis), which is a completely different statement.
The whole issue of what is valid science and what isn't is a fascinating one, and you touch on some important issues, but you bury them in such sloppy logic it's no wonder you've been modded down. If you really care about this stuff -- and it seems you do -- then, seriously, take a philosophy 101 course where they'll teach you the basics of how to put an argument together (and how to take one apart.
For the moment, it might be worth a look at this article [talkorigins.org], which addresses some of the issues you raise and describes more current thinking on those issues (although it's a bit unfair to Popper: it claims that "One thing [Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos] thought in opposition to Popper - there was no point that could be ruled off as the dividing line between 'rational' science and 'non-rational' non-science." In fact, Popper argued the same thing: "My criterion of demarcation will accordingly have to be regarded as a proposal for an agreement or convention" (Carl Popper, "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", Routledge Classics 2002, p15, author's emphasis) -- in other words Popper doesn't believe the dividing line to be absolute either).
Come back when you can discuss coherently the 21st century questions about the relationship between evolutionary theory and the scientific method, instead of the 19th century questions.
Re:That is, as the Brits say, bollocks (Score:3, Interesting)
The evidence for Homeopathy and Vaccine caused Autism are not any better than the "evidence" for ID put forward by the nutjobs here in the US. There is a whole soap opera going on right now concerning the Science blog "Bad Science" by Brian Goldacre and some London radio personality that's decided the pharmecutical companies are out to kill children.
Thomas Kuhn would sigh in relief (Score:3, Interesting)
Instead of the classic vulgar misreading of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in which this and that scientific principle is "just a theory" ("So why can't I call creationism _my_ theory?"), this is what he was writing about -- periodically changing the paradigm of thought to one that melds better with the sum of current observations. In short, a good idea that is more about the culture of science surrounding evolution.
It's Evolution, Baby! (Score:3, Interesting)
However at least the Catholic church isn't dismissing the idea's, which is a long way from the outright attacks made by more fundamentalist churches. The thing about this debate is that while fundamental theist's attack science and the theory of evolution using doubt, no counter-argument is made that has any impact on the faith of proponents of Intelligent Design.
Science and Religion are different bodies of knowledge, but not mutually exclusive because both use reason as a tool for different goals. There are scientific people who are religious and religious people who are scientific. Making a science based argument about the ignorance of Intelligent Design to someone who has a predominately religious background make both sides dig their heals in. That's why this debate has become so polarised.
I've found that having an understanding of the doctrine that supports scientific investigation and framing that discussion so that it attacks the underpinnings of Intelligent Design an important tool. Building and demonstrating an understanding of the theocratic aspects of this debate is an important tool to disarming the proponents of Intelligent Design and helping them understand why science is important to their faith.
A scientific argument explaining the shortcomings of Intelligent Design to a religious person really just reveals their ignorance of science and, as such, they feel ignorant of science but it's not important to them.
A theocratic argument explaining the shortcomings of Intelligent Design to a religious person reveals the shortcomings of Intelligent Design when compared to the discoveries made by a study of Evolution.
When confronted with one of these discussions I point out that Intelligent Design limits how far humanity explores nature, or in theocratic terms "the works of God". I go on to point out that there is nothing in the Theory of evolution that attacks Christian beliefs but, in fact, uses science as a tool to uncover the amazing wonder of how nature works, or in theocratic terms "the glory of God".
It's at this point that proponents of Intelligent Design start to join the dots for themselves. The insecurity they feel about Darwin's idea's attacking their belief system give way to the possibility that Intelligent Design could actually be a form of blasphemy, something that is important to a religious person.
I think it's important to frame the debate this way because the Intelligent Design position cleverly deceives religious people into accepting ignorance over education and promotes the notion that science aims to dispel religion. Science and Religion have to co-exist in society if we are to dispel ignorance and fundamentalism.
Re:I beg your pardon? (Score:5, Interesting)
Good call.
To have evolution you need to have phenotypic variation in a population, variation in fitness for different phenotypes, and some degree of heritability for different phenotypes. Aeronautical engineering has two of these things, but does not reproduce, therefore it is not evolution.
However, there is an "alternative" to natural selection [defined as animals get better adapted to their environment across generations].
This alternative is artificial selection, or selective breeding. Rather than letting nature pick the best phenotypes to reproduce, we select characteristics that we like (they may not have a high fitness in the wild) and breed them. That's still considered evolution, just not Darwinian selection. It's about as close to ID as you're going to get until we can make designer bacteria.
Re:That is, as the Brits say, bollocks (Score:3, Interesting)
Let us pray that Obama can wipe public references to deities into oblivion.
There isn't a chance in hell your prayers will be answered because a) there is no god b) Barak Obama isn't him either, and c) Obama panders to the religious nonsense more than most presidents we have had with the possible exception of George W, but Obama has only been in 3 weeks. Give him time and he will beat Bush.
Re:neodarwinism (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the other part is that scientists use Darwinian, not Darwinism. This is like Einsteinian and Newtonian in physics. Nobody kvetches about those. I have yet to hear an evolutionary scientist mention Darwinism when discussing the topic.
Re:How to Falsify Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
If evolution be not true, the only explanation for the appearance of varied life on the planet is intelligent design.
Uh, no. There are other "theories" with just as much evidence as intelligent design.
For instance, there's my "poof" theory. In the "poof" theory, all of the life forms on earth "poofed" into place from another universe. Or universes. Doesn't matter. Anyway, my "poof" theory explains the variety of life on earth, because these alternate universes from which life is "poofing" have much more variety than Earth does. How come we don't see it happening now? We do, actually. Haven't you heard of unicorns? Not everything that poofs into place survives, and you don't always get a breeding pair, either.
What's that? Intelligent Design is better? Nope. We have exactly as much evidence for your Designer and your Designer's methods as we do for my "poof" theory. Sure, I can't show you my alternate universes, but you can's show me your Designer, His Workshop or anything else.
For that matter, there are plenty of other whackos out there who've got a theory with just about as much evidence as mine, such as Michael Cremo (author of "Forbidden Archaeology" and sort of a Hindu creationist), the late Fred Hoyle (panspermia), or Periannan Senapathy (author of "Independent Birth of Origins"). You have to show your Intelligent Design is better than them, too.
Re:neodarwinism (Score:3, Interesting)
He wasn't a devout Christian. He was a Christian at first but no more or less so than anybody else of his time. Yes, he studied Divinity at Cambridge with the aim of becoming a country parson, but that was really only to provide him with a respectable position so that he could carry on collecting beetles
Re:I beg your pardon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Biologists challenge Darwin's ideas EVERY DAY. (Score:3, Interesting)
Darwin's ideas are, in point of fact, a species of orthodoxy, just like creationism. The important thing to remember is that religion and science deal with new ideas in precisely opposite ways.
If a creationist theologian examines the notion that man is descended from other apes, he refers to the assertions of his orthodoxy, and sees that God created Adam on the seventh day, and therefore rejects this new idea. If an anthropologist examines the idea that such and such a hominid was an ancestor of man, then he sets out to prove that the notion is inconsistent with known fact. He sets out, in effect, to prove that evolution did not happen in this case.
The statistician's name for this notion is "the null hypothesis". In setting out to prove an idea, you set out to disprove the null hypothesis. In this game, the null hypothesis is considered innocent until proven guilty: any reasonable grounds whatsoever for accepting the null hypothesis is allowed. If under those slanted rules, the null hypotheses fails, then the idea must be considered consistent with all the facts currently in hand.
Scientific theories perform some of the same functions as religious dogmas in casual reasoning. They can, of course, be wrong and this wrongness can temporarily slow scientific progress. But when it comes down to real work, the core function of a scientific theory is completely opposite to that of religious dogma. Scientific theories are not touchstones; they are sources of ideas to disprove as null hypotheses. The published empirical data are the touchstone against which the scientist sets out to crush the tenets of scientific theory, if he can. If he fails, then he has advance scientific knowledge.
It is their reliability as sources of failing null hypotheses that makes scientific theories practically useful to researchers. The reason a scientist, in his gut, reacts against creationism is he is sure that he will set out to disprove it and succeed.
Now the notion that we've made a religious fetish of Darwin reflect a fundamental misunderstanding about how the differences between theology and science. Scientists are not necessarily philosophers of science, so when they are invited to a debate by theologians, they often unconsciously slip into arguing on theological grounds, or they simply fail to communicate because neither side has any intellectual context for understanding the other, and neither side is aware of this.
If theologians new how scientific theories are actually used they'd be less anxious to seek the imprimatur of the scientific community.
Re:neodarwinism (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought that "Darwinism" was a term thought up by the religious anti-evolution side.
Ideas are easier to attack when they can be pinned to a particular individual, and the attacks made ad hominem. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's a tactic most often used by conservatives. For example, I find it difficult to discuss global warming with conservatives without veering into a debate on the merits of Al Gore and whether he invented the Internet. Similarly, debates on other matters have been "settled" with assertions that Michael Moore is undeniably fat and doesn't dress nicely.
You'll start hearing about "Newtonism" and "Einsteinism" the moment that some conservative (most likely religious) constituency realizes that modern physics challenges their worldview every bit as much as evolutionary biology. After all, Relativity is only a theory, and why should anyone listen to a guy who can't comb his hair properly?
But don't listen to me - I didn't shave today...
Does it even matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
So creationism or Intelligent Design are individuals or religions' way to integrate current science into existing dogma. So what?
Religions have been morphing and changing for 1000's of years for various reasons.
Shoot, most of the material I read on evolution practically implies intelligence in the process, that it approaches deism. The consumer level science outlets are the worst.
Re:*Believing* isn't the correct verb (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How to Falsify Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not just a straight copy paste, every time this is posted it's slightly different. After a few thousand posts, it may turn into a cogent argument!
Re:He didn't propose a "theory" in the strict sens (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't seem to me to prove evolution. You could say that god creates things that match, that go together, and He must have made a moth to match that flower.
Not that it's not an insightful prediction, and not that I believe in creationism at all, but it doesn't seem to me like that prediction is based on anything other than understanding the reproduction of flowers and knowing that, given that structure of flower, there must be an insect able to pollenate it.
Chart of acceptance of evolution in various countr (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Actually, strictly speaking it wasn't (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to agree with you. Whatever else is scientific about the theory of evolution, in the matters you discussed, it is not. I have made the same criticism myself, though obviously not in the academy.
I don't think you responsed to the mainstream explanation for peacock's tails though (taken from the Wikipedia "Handicap principle" article): The large tail is a signaling mechanism. It says, "look, I can survive ... even with this big tail dragging me down". Thus, what the peacock loses in agility, it gains in being able to send accurate fitness signals and thus weed out those with less robust survival mechanism.
This explanation has been applied to human contexts, like bungie jumping, dangerous jobs, and the "Ghetto caddy": basically, despite their danger, they give the appearance of being able to survive against overwhelming odds, which serves as a fitness signal, and thus women would be evolved to be attracted to it. Supposedly, this is also why holding your hands up in front of you (ready to defend) makes women uneasy.
But where I basically agree with you is that, in proposing such an explanation, you destroy the explanatory power of evolution. The handicap principle allows you to "explain" literally any feature: either it helps the organism survive, or it helps the organism signal how it can survive even when burdened. This permits anything, so it explains nothing.
Re:How to Falsify Intelligent Design (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a brilliant Doonesbury on this irony a few years ago. A doctor discovers his patient has drug resistant TB, and asks him if he is a creationist (knowing the answer in advance, presumably from previous discussion). The patient says, "Why yes, I am. Why do you ask?" The Doctor replies:
It gets even funnier from there.
People who want to "believe" superstitious whatnot can certainly do so, but when they insist we teach this in schools, society should revoke their rights to use the fruits of science to sustain their standard of living, until they evolve their thinking. (That prohibition to include guns, which would remain strictly under the control of those who do not believe in armageddon or any other such garbage.)
They can have access to educational materials, but they really need to get back in touch with their superstitious roots, which include praying all winter for warmer weather, as structural engineering requires a scientific understanding of the world which is in conflict with their belief in a benevolent god who magically provides them with whatever they need.
Northern climates are effective at demonstrating that god (for lack of a better term) is ambivalent. Let's set aside a portion of a national forest where they can evolve their belief in science from first principles, like making fire and skinning bears with stone knives.
Darwinism - Evolution - WHO CARES (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:neodarwinism (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not very scientific. It may follow logically that consciousness ends at death, but if you're going to be totally honest, you can neither prove nor disprove that there is life after death, because human consciousness post-death is not observable (and therefore not reportable).
Of course nothing about life after death is "provable", but then, nothing about the physical universe is provable either, except your own existence (your senses could be lying to you). At some point, we have to fall back on Occaam's Razor [wikipedia.org], which tells us that, all else being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the "best". And all the major religions of the world have absolutely no evidence for them. So if they're all equally likely, then the best conclusion is that they are equally false.
The simplest explanation is that life is exactly as it appears to be: a very, very complex self-reproducing chemical reaction that is powered by the sun. THAT is the simplest explanation that fits the facts that we have.
Re:neodarwinism (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, if you get too literal, you run into other problems. After all, there are passages in Genesis that make reference to God setting up the pillars that support the four corners of the earth... While I'm sure there were still plenty of them in Darwin's time, I doubt you'd find even the staunchest creationists today that still believe that the earth has corners. So somehow they have to pick and choose which parts are literal and which are not. I suppose they use the same logic that they used to decide that homosexuality is still a heinous sin, but the restrictions on eating pork and seafood, when it's acceptable to sell your daughter into slavery, and most of the other old testament laws no longer apply in today's society.
As far as dinosaurs go, maybe you just weren't paying attention... Most of them claim that our dating mechanisms aren't accurate. They claim that dinosaurs lived side by side with humans up until the flood or until the expulsion from Eden. Others claim that the dinosaurs never really existed at all, and that fossils are part of the earth God created, to test our faith (or planted by the devil to mislead us). I've also heard the claim that our current measures of time and human lifespan were not applicable until the expulsion from Eden, meaning that Adam and Eve may have lived happily in Eden for millions of years before the beginning of the supposed 6,000 year recorded history in the Bible. (Although, you're starting to get away from strict Creationism there, because that interpretation can also be stretched to imply that the "seven days" of creation actually lasted about 4 billion years by our current measurements.)
I am surprised to see a high ranking Scientist make a statement like this, though. I agree with the reasoning behind it, but I had assumed that the Scientific community had already gotten away from using the term "Darwinism". The only times I can ever remember hearing it used were either 1) Religious types who use the term as a sort of straw man for attacking evolutionary theory, or 2) attempts to apply Darwin's ideas to areas outside of biology, e.g. "Social Darwinism". Is "Darwinism" really still in widespread use among scientists? Or is this more of an attempt to convince non-scientists to give up a term that scientists have already abandoned long ago?
Re:How to Falsify Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
Umm, prove it. What magical garbage statistics do you have to say it is impossible? We have a vast vast universe with a long period of time (either of these may be infinite, but let's just say it is very very large). Given the vastness, statistic improbabilities become entirely probable.
The narrative that drives evolutionary thought is that there is no God
Garbage. Evolution is about science. It is about explaining and understanding our history using the scientific method. Just because it doesn't agree with the Bible doesn't mean it was designed to prove there is no God. The fact that the Bible fails to be scientific isn't surprising. It was written by story tellers, not scientists. Your religion and science can still exist...just not in something overly literal from the Bible.
The problem with "debating" with people like you is you are completely invested in your side being right. You can be provided counter evidence but you will simply dismiss it without even considering it. I am assuming this is why the GP has the "fuck off" attitude. You don't care about facts or truth or science, you only care about being right because you have completely invested in your flavor of religion being right. Reading the bible and only authors that are biased to your same opinion isn't going to broaden your understanding or ability to actually debate. I mean, to actually criticize evolution as having logical leaps to believe and then believe in religion borders on the absurd. The theory of evolution has gone through peer review and passes the test of science. Religion has nothing to do with fact or science and so comparing the two is like comparing apples to unicorns.
Re:neodarwinism (Score:3, Interesting)
well, it's based on the Bible.
The Jews have a pretty good number. It's funny how they ignore that:
a) Adam and Eve only had boys, and
b) Cain was marked so that no would kill him. But since he was driven away, who would kill him? Obviously there are people outside of Adam and Eves family...actually it's obviously an allegory.
It's an authority thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
But the anti-evolution fundamentalists can't quite wrap their head around that. They have a mindset where the first time someone said something, it's truth. Their dogma hasn't changed significantly in two thousand years; on the few occasions it has, it's quietly integrated into their knowledge. A prime example is how livid the church was with Galileo for daring to suggest, as others had, the heliocentric model, for dogma at the time declared the heavens to be eternal and unchanging. Now every fundamentalist can give you an impressive speech about how the precise orbits of the planets is proof of the magnificence of God. No one really remembers or cares that this wasn't always the case.
But more to the point, their obsession with Darwin is based on their obsession with authority figures and revelation. To them, truth is and always has been the Bible, and the people who wrote the Bible were, allegedly, handed this knowledge from on high. No one had to go find out what commandments and laws God wanted -- he apparently just told someone. In that same vein, the Church is the authority on interpreting the Bible or enforcing it, and so people associated with the Church are also authorities. A fundamentalist's entire worldview is predicated on these revealed truths from authorities.
They therefore assume that everyone else works on this same principle -- that authority figures hand out information which is either true or false, and if they can show that person, or anything he said, to be in error, then they've destroyed his authority. To them, the information is only as good as the authority of the person who offered it, because that person's authority is the final product and the information is really only secondary. If Paul was just some guy nobody would care what he said, but because he was supposedly in touch with the ultimate authority, his words are recorded and now we all know what he said.
They don't realise or don't care that science is done by incorporating the knowledge of dozens of disciplines and thousands of people who worked on the problem before, and that knocking one of them down doesn't affect the final product because the product is not the authority of the scientist.
So, by attacking Darwin they hope to make him look foolish or wrong, and if they can do that, then absolutely everything built upon his work is also foolish or wrong. That's the mindset of a fundamentalist -- the mindset of anyone who believes in revelation over investigation.
Re:do scientists actually call it Darwinism? (Score:2, Interesting)
The well-accepted name for the process is evolution
Darwin hated using 'evolution' as the shorthand for his theory. Evolution was the result. The mechanism that causes evolution was Natural Selection. He called it Evolution by the process of Natural Selection, or just Natural Selection for short. He predicted that people would misunderstand the term if the mechanism of his theory was not made the focus of discussion. How right he was.
Here is a picture of the front cover of his most famous work [wikipedia.org]. The word 'evolution' does not even appear.
The Origin of Species (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do we still have the "lesser", "older" species?
I've not heard a real explanation to this point. I am not referring to the process of natural selection, simply the origin of species. Two completely different theories and ideas.
Why do we still have fish, primates, birds? We do we not have half human-ape looking hybrids? Why are there no hybrid species of other types?
Not a troll, a genuine question. I am a spiritual creationist, my core beliefs are "neo" "Christian" ['follower of the way', anyone? I despise the word 'Christian' which was never intended to be used as such], and I do take tidbits and input from all sources in this walk of life, including philosophies and input from many different religions world-wide.
Additionally and thankfully, I have a very open mind regarding scientific thought and theory. I do however, think that it's possible modern science's "scale" is off when it comes to judging how long the universe and Earth have existed.
-Simple small things like the scale of time it takes to create coal can be sped up, or slowed down. This has been simulated many times in lab conditions, and they even found fossilized dinosaur footprints within coal in a mine. If it takes coal "millions of years" to form, (all the time,) then said footprint should not remain.
-The speed of light is not a constant, it is affected by things such as space-gas and nebulas, so in effect we have no true idea how "far" things in space are from us if this is remotely true.
-The amount of time it takes to petrify an object is by far, not, a constant, as shown even in modern day broken dam floods, etc.
-The amount of dust on the moon was about an inch or two, not several feet of dust as astronomers predicted, thus creating the long lunar module stilts for.
-Sea life has been found in, decidedly, un-sea-like areas, such as the grand canyon, within all layers of soil, much more so than "river" or fresh water dwelling organisms.
-Carbon dating has been shown to be drastically affected by simple things, such as smoke from a fire.
In the end, re Darwin, it seems to be a no-brainer to me that natural selection itself exists, but the fact that all species are, for the lack of a better description, largely and plainly definitive between themselves, is compelling to me.