On Thu, 21 Mar 1996 01:49:27 -0500 you wrote:
BH>Continued from #3:
>
>BH>...The intents of one of the Yockey posts that I submitted to the
>reflector was to uncouple Darwin from the prebiotic soup paradigm.
>Yockey's main point here is that people try to tie Darwin to this in
>view of his famous "warm little pond" quote.
>SJ>There is no doubt that Darwin wrote it and can justly claim to be
>the father of "the prebiotic soup paradigm":
>BH>Then why didn't he?
SJ>I've though I had already answered that with a quote from deBeer's
>biography of Darwin? Maybe it was some other post? Here it is again:
BH>Here I will appeal to Denis Lamoureux's comments on trucklism.
>Thanks Dennis, I learned a new word. :-)
That's not fair. It was *my* quote! :-)
>BH>..Yockey has a way with words ;-)
>SJ>No doubt, but Yockey overlooks that *Darwin* was not just anyone! His
>private correspondence and journals have actually been published and
>are in libraries throughout the world. Those who have done this must
>assume that Darwin did not just dash off "tentative ideas and even
>nonsense", but thought deeply and seriously about what he wrote. In
>addition, Darwin's "warm little pond" letter is widely repeated in OOL
>literature including by such luminaries as Orgel and Shapiro. Yockey
>is being somewhat disingenous to claim that this is just "personal
>correspondence" (like other people's) and that those who read it are
>"snoopers".
BH>Do you think Darwin had any idea that his personal letters would
>be published?
I am sure his son Francis would never have done it unless he had
his father's express permission. Otherwise it would be an unforgivable
breach of his late father's privacy.
BH>I think any scholar that did not consider the possibility that
>private correspondence may contain "tentative ideas and even
>nonsense" would not be much of a scholar. Surely Darwin's
>parenthetical remark "and oh! what a big if" suggests that
>Darwin thought the idea tentative at best.
Of course Darwin's corrrspondence had "tentative ideas". But my point
was that they would have been well-thought out, and certainly not
"nonsense".
BH>Also note that
>the quote begins "It is often said ..." indicating that the
>subject was commonly discussed at the time. I also read somewhere
>(but can't seem to find the reference) that Darwin's father
>Erasmus also discussed the warm little pond. In any event,
>there seems good reason to doubt that the idea was original
>to Darwin.
Erasmus Darwin was Charles Darwin's *grandfather*. I have already
quoted Orgel and Shapiro who state that "the warm little pond" origin
of life idea originated with Charles Darwin. If you claim it was
originated by Erasmus Darwin, then you would need to demonstrate
that.
>BH>If Darwin had regarded the "warm little pond" at all seriously in
>1871 he had changed his mind by 1872. What Darwin "vividly raised"
>and published as his considered opinion, and what he was prepared
>to take responsibility for on the question of origin of life is
>in Chapter XV of the 1872 edition of _Origin of Species_....
SJ>Again, Yockey confuses what Darwin thought and "what he was
>prepared to take responsibility for".
BH>If he wasn't prepared to take responsibility for the idea then:
>(a) perhaps he didn't think the idea had much merit
Not necessarily. He had enough problems on his hands, and there was no
way to prove it.
>(b) he doesn't deserve credit for it. IMHO, proper credit is
>due the first person who *was* willing to take responsibility
>for the idea by publishing it and defending it publicly.
This is your criteria. But the fact is that Charles Darwin *has*
been given the "credit" for it, because he first thought of it and
wrote it down (albeit in private correspondence).
>This passage makes it clear that Darwin's published opinion on the
>nature and origin of life...that...life must be accepted as an
>axiom."-- Hubert Yockey, J. Theor. Biol. (1995) 176:349-355.
>SJ>Darwin did not claim that the "origin of life...must be accepted
>as an axiom". He just claimed it was "unknown":
BH>The key in the Darwin quote was his gravity illustration:
>
> "Who can explain the essence of the attraction of gravity?
> No one now objects to following out the results consequent on
> this unknown element of attraction ..."
>
>IOW, the "unknown element of attraction" is accepted as an axiom.
Darwin says nothing about an "axiom", but he does say: "the
attraction of gravity...his unknown element of attraction".
God bless.
Steve
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