>Gregor Mendel, known as the discoverer of genetics.
Actually, he discovered some laws of heredity. He had no knowledge of genes.
In fact
>so antethitical to evolution are the teachings of Mendelian Genetics
>that for many many years they were outlawed in the Soviet Union,
>you could not teach genetics in the Soviet Union, you could not
>teach the great discoveries that Mendel made.
I believe that you refer to Trofim Lysenko. His wierd views of heredity
rather than evolution was the primary reason for this. He believed that
acquired traits were inherited. Of course this affected his view of
NeoDarwinian evolution as well.
>
>"The foundation for modern science can be said to have been laid at Oxford
>when scholars there attacked Thomas Aquinas's teaching by proving that his
>chief authority, Aristotle, made certain mistakes about natural
>phenomena... When the Roman Church attacked Copernicus and Galileo
>(1564-1642), it was not because their teaching actually contained anything
>contrary to the Bible. The church authorities thought it did, but that was
>because Aristotelian elements had become part of church orthodoxy, and
>Galileo's notions clearly conflicted with them. In fact, Galileo defended
>the compatibility of Copernicus and the Bible, and this was one of the
>factors which brought about his trial."
>
>Francis Schaeffer, "How Should We Then Live?" p131
Schaeffer's point here is not very clear to me. From my reading, Galileo
was an irascible fellow who alienated his colleagues as well as the church.
I understand that Galileo's challenge of Aristotlian naturalism alienated
Galileo from his science contemporaries, not from the church, as it sounds
in Randy's quote above. On the other hand, the church thought Galileo's
scientific viewpoints were blasphemous.
Basically, the Church used a literal interpretation of scripture to justify
silencing Galileo's belief that the earth was not the center of the solar
system. Several
passages in the Psalms and in Jeremiah were cited by the church as biblical
evidence against
heliocentrism.The Psalms speak about the earth being formed and not moved,
while the passages in Jeremiah refer to his commanding the sun and the moon
to stand still. If the sun does not move around the earth, this command is
impossible to understand in its literal sense. In this example, science
ultimately offered better
revelation about the Creation than did theology.
My point is that part of
the Church's justification for suppressing non-geocentric views of the solar
system was based on scripture. Jerome Langford spells it out well in his
book, Galileo, Science and the Church
(Univ. Michigan Press, 1966). In the chapter entitled, Spiritual
Objections, Langford spells out this justification and quotes extensively
from writings of Colombe, Lorini, Bellarmine and others. Bellarmine
wrote to Foscarini the following, "But to want to affirm that the sun really
is fixed in the center of the heavens and only revolves around itself
without traveling from ease to west, and that the earth is situated in the
third sphere and revolves with great speed around the sun, is a very
dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the philosophers and scholastic
theologians, but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering the
scriptures false." p60.
Sounds a bit like the anti-evolution rhetoric we often hear today.
Scriptures used to argue agains heliocentrism include Joshua 10:12-13, Ps
18:6-7, 92:1, 103:5, and Eccl 1:5 (Langford, p52-53).
____________________________________________________________
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 Center
CSC K4-432
600 Highland Ave.
Madison, WI 53792
"Now how does one alter the charge on the niobium ball? 'Well at tha
t stage', said my friend, 'we spray it with positrons to increase the charge
or with electrons to decrease the charge.' From that day forth I've been a
scientific realist. So far as I'm concerned, if you can spray them then
they are real. Ian Hacking, Representing and Intervening, 1983
____________________________________________________________