Loads of profs and docs dissent from Darwinian "consensus"

[d.a.s.h]

Gosh, look at all these Professors and other science bods who think evolution by natural and sexual selection isn't all it's cracked up to be:

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

Some impressive-looking names there as well from the very start, such as:

Philip Skell - Emeritus, Evan Pugh Prof. of Chemistry, Pennsylvania State University and Member of the National Academy of Sciences

Plus loads of doctors and dentists are thinking along the same lines:

http://www.pssiinternational.com/list.pdf

How could so many distinguished people possibly be wrong? They've got degrees and that.

 

[cesare]

Blimey, is this still going? I thought it had been discredited years ago.

 

[purplex]

Religious nutbags - feed them to the lions..

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Can't open those links.

 

[cesare]

Can't open those links.

They're PDFs and quite slow to open (for me). They're just lists of people supporting the statement, that's all.

 

[kyser_soze]

So does it say anywhere what they do believe?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Scientific argument by petition is a bizarre concept.

 

[xes]

they'll never find the missing like,cos the missing links left on their spaceships around 30000 years ago

 

[dilute micro]

Darwinism is way too often oversimplified for one thing and the landscape of the schools of thought in the associated sciences is almost completely unknown and unappreciated. I think most people assume that the only ones that have problems with darwinism are creationists types while naturalists are in lockstep with it. That's not the way it is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Darwinism is way too often oversimplified for one thing .

Explain please.

 

[cesare]

Here's a wiki link if anyone's interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_and_Surgeons_who_Dissent_from_Darwinism

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Medical doctors aren't scientists, anyway. They are not trained to think scientifically, they are simply required to memorise lists of symptoms and their likely causes. I wouldn't want a geneticist performing open-heart surgery on me, and equally, I do not turn to medics for a critique of evolution.

 

[editor]

So the proof for a generous but mysteriously invisible entity taking time out from his/her busy universe/everything-creating schedule to design the world, drop off a load of living things that all get on and then promptly fuck off for an eternity is what, exactly?

 

[kyser_soze]

What I love is the way this Discovery Institure lump theist evolutionists (i.e. those who think evolution is true, but that God still made the universe) in with those who deny Darwinism...

 

[dilute micro]

Explain please.

It partly has to do with the history of Darwinism. It started out in a simple form and then got more complex with all the new areas of study during the 1900's up to now. But in popular use it has been delivered with the philosophy of Keep It Simple. The thing there is that without getting into the nitty gritty of all the branches of biology as we have today, it's easy to miss any problems at all. That and the fact that most people who really get into Darwinism do so as a hobby including biology types themselves. I'm positive the curriculum changes from school to school but I know from what I saw there was no in-depth look at all into the history of theory, or school of thought within the community of naturalism. All that was taught was basic mechanics of evolution. And without knowing what every other university in the world teaches on the subject I can't imagine why they'd bother with 'why this naturalist thinks this vs darwinism and this naturalist thinks this'.

 

[danny la rouge]

So what? All it proves is that you get halfwits with doctorates.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It partly has to do with the history of Darwinism. It started out in a simple form and then got more complex with all the new areas of study during the 1900's up to now. But in popular use it has been delivered with the philosophy of Keep It Simple. The thing there is that without getting into the nitty gritty of all the branches of biology as we have today, it's easy to miss any problems at all. That and the fact that most people who really get into Darwinism do so as a hobby including biology types themselves. I'm positive the curriculum changes from school to school but I know from what I saw there was no in-depth look at all into the history of theory, or school of thought within the community of naturalism. All that was taught was basic mechanics of evolution. And without knowing what every other university in the world teaches on the subject I can't imagine why they'd bother with 'why this naturalist thinks this vs darwinism and this naturalist thinks this'.

I still don't quite get your point. Understanding of evolution has improved since Darwin's times. So what?

 

[Crispy]

I still don't quite get your point. Understanding of evolution has improved since Darwin's times. So what?

So that was his point. You'll find plenty of disagreement and competing theories within the broader theory of evolution.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So that was his point. You'll find plenty of disagreement and competing theories within the broader theory of evolution.

Even so, you will be hard pressed to find a credible naturalist who does not believe in evolution.

 

[dilute micro]

I still don't quite get your point. Understanding of evolution has improved since Darwin's times. So what?

I was trying to answer your question about why I said it's oversimplified. Understanding of evolution has gotten much more complicated since Darwin and with those complexities and the additional questions they bring to each tiny avenue of biology it's really not fair to say it's improved.

 

[cesare]

I was trying to answer your question about why I said it's oversimplified. Understanding of evolution has gotten much more complicated since Darwin and with those complexities and the additional questions they bring to each tiny avenue of biology it's really not fair to say it's improved.

The issue of additional questions arising out of further and better information means that understanding hasn't improved since Darwin's times?

 

[dilute micro]

The issue of additional questions arising out of further and better information means that understanding hasn't improved since Darwin's times?

No. Darwinism was a simple theory. It would be better for darwinism that things remained simple. But the more people find in all the strange esoteric studies has proven to be not so easy to make it fit with strict darwinism. Lynn Margulis is a good example of a leading naturalist and theorist who has differed with darwinism. She even once called strict darwinism a "cult", iirc.

 

[cesare]

No. Darwinism was a simple theory. It would be better for darwinism that things remained simple. But the more people find in all the strange esoteric studies has proven to be not so easy to make it fit with strict darwinism. Lynn Margulis is a good example of a leading naturalist and theorist who has differed with darwinism. She even once called strict darwinism a "cult", iirc.

Ah, I see what you mean now, thanks.

I just found the quote: "a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon Biology."

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No. Darwinism was a simple theory. It would be better for darwinism that things remained simple. But the more people find in all the strange esoteric studies has proven to be not so easy to make it fit with strict darwinism. Lynn Margulis is a good example of a leading naturalist and theorist who has differed with darwinism. She even once called strict darwinism a "cult", iirc.

This is why it is always better to refer to evolution and never to Darwinism.

 

[Crispy]

it's not like gravity is called Newtonism

 

[8ball]

The meaning of the term 'Darwinism' varies wildly with whomever it is that is using it.

I quite like it when stupid people all sign a document identifying itself.
Almost as much as I like it when they all stand in a line and I have my sniper rifle with me.

 

[ymu]

This is why it is always better to refer to evolution and never to Darwinism.

Not really. Evolution is the theory - and for most essentially a statement of fact - that organisms have evolved over time. Darwinism is a theory of how and why they evolved; neo-Darwinism incorporates modern genetics into the theory.

Lamarckism is also a theory of evolution. The idea that the giraffes neck stretches as it reaches for food and that this attribute is directly passed on to the next generation. In it's original form, Lamarckism is something of an anachronism, but there are examples of Lamarckian, or at least non-genetic, inheritance. Whether or not these have significant implications for evolution, I'm not sure.

 

[8ball]

Darwinism is a theory of how and why they evolved; neo-Darwinism incorporates modern genetics into the theory.

While this is true when scientists use the term, others sometimes mean something different.

It's been a long time since talking about evolution would cause confusion due to someone assuming soft inheritance.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't think Lamarckism has been taken seriously since Lysenko, has it? The reason I dislike calling it Darwinism is that certain people then assume that there is such a thing as a Darwinist who dogmatically 'believes in' the theories of Charles Darwin in an analogous way to belief in a religious dogma.

 

[ymu]

I don't think Lamarckism has been taken seriously since Lysenko, has it? The reason I dislike calling it Darwinism is that certain people then assume that there is such a thing as a Darwinist who dogmatically 'believes in' the theories of Charles Darwin in an analogous way to belief in a religious dogma.

Lamarckism clearly isn't the key mechanism, but there are examples of Lamarckian inheritance.

Steve Jones gives one example but I can't remember which book. There's some protein or other that will cause you to develop one of several types of antibody at random. There's no genetic means of predicting which one you will develop, but if your mother was exposed before you were born you will always develop the same type of antibody as her.

D-type wasps are another. In wasps, fertilised eggs become female and unfertilised eggs are male. So males are only genetically related to their daughters. D-type wasps are infertile, so all of their offspring are male and not related to them. But they'll all be D-type wasps too.

There's also some evidence that organisms can adapt and pass the adaptation on to their offspring. There were some experiments done with bacteria which showed a much higher rate of adaptation to the environment than would be possible with purely Darwinian mechanisms. IIRC, Lamarckian inheritance is thought to be quite common in simple or single-celled organisms.