Susan:
>it's the organizing factor. It underlies *all* biological research.
Me:
>Really? In what way does DE underly all biological research?
Cliff:
>Biological researchers refer to DE about as often as surveyors
>use spherical trigonometry. But the Earth is still round.
Indeed. I should make it clear that I am not trying to imply that DE
is not true simply because it is so peripheral to most biological
research. I simply bring this up to correct the confusion that many
have about DE being so important for progress in the biological
sciences.
>Organizing factor? I think Linnaeus and others are more important
>to biology in that sense. DE is a quasi-philosophical idea; scientific,
>but so general and long-term and mysterious, so limited in useful
>predictive power, that it seems more important to philosophy than
>to science.
I tend to agree. For example, if you look at evolutionary psychology, it
looks more like astrology than any kind of hard science. And DE is central
to it. In contrast, look at cell biology. My favorite text is that by Lodish
et al. The 4th ed of "Molecular Cell Biology" is over 1000 pages long.
It's pretty high level (upper level undergrad or 1st year grad) and up to date
(as far as texts go). Yet the book devotes a whole three paragraphs (not even
a page) to DE. Throughout the frontiers of knowledge covered by the vast
majority of those 1000 pages, not a word is said about evolution or DE.
Oh, BTW, I seem to recall that Linnaeus was a creationist.
Mike
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