Re: Testing Darwinism

Steve Clark (ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu)
Fri, 17 Nov 1995 10:20:36 -0600

This from Glenn:
>Steve Clark wrote:
>>>Back to the Walter's positivism, the requirement for natural selection to
>be immediately observable is similar to the positivism of Comte and his ilk
>who disbelieve atomic theory because no one has ever seen an atom. <<
>
>Just an odd fact here. Pictures of atoms have been in existence from at least
>1967. In my old textbook, Russell Wehr and James Richards, _Physics of the
>Atom_, Addison Wesley, 1967, p. 188, is a picture of the atoms in marcasite,
>FeS2. It is a black and white photo (color photos are meaningless for this
>scale) and clearly shows the larger iron and smaller sulfur atoms. I don't
>know who Comte is, but since at least 1967, he has had the evidence to
>disprove his position.

Auguste Comte was 19th century French founder of positivism and sometimes
took it to the extreme--as with the atomic model example.

What sort of "picture" of the atoms in marcasite do you refer to Glenn--are
they direct images or some indirect visualization such as an Xray
diffraction? I didn't think that the resolution of electron microscopes was
sufficient (especially in 1967) to directly visualize atoms. If atoms can
be directly visualized, it may still not satisfy Comte if he were alive
today, because he may not accept the existence of electrons and subatomic
particles unless they too could be seen.

By the way, if the photo you refer to was in color, what color would atoms be?

Steve
__________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53792

"Universities are full of knowledge; the freshmen bring a little in, the
seniors take none away...the knowledge accumulates." Mark Twain
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