From: Brian D Harper <bharper@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu>
[snip]
>My point was not whether ultra-Darwinism is itself a typical view among
evolutionary
>biologists but whether neo-Darwinists or evolutionary biologists or
biologists in general
>promote the "impression" above.
OK. I understand that the issue of whether "ultra-Darwinism" is a typical
view was not your point. Nevertheless, in the course of making your point,
you did state that this group is "a very narrow set of neo-Darwinists", and
I wanted to draw attention to the fact that this is wrong.
>Richard suggested I conduct a poll. Within the context of what I wrote, the
poll
>should ask:
>
>Do you believe that everyone who is skeptical of neo Darwinism is pursuing
na•ve,
>impractical, theologically impoverished (whatever that means) ideas.
Well, since I was referring to a different point from you, that was not the
poll question I had in mind. I wanted to know whether most professional
biologists in your university would agree that those who are characterized
by Gould and Eldredge as "ultra-Darwinians" are "a very narrow set of
neo-Darwinists".
Also, I think it's worth pointing out that, when Tom Pearson used the
expression "naive, impractical (or theologically impoverished) features", he
was referring to creationism, not to all those who are skeptical of
neo-Darwinism. This became distorted by Bertvan into the version that you
are now including in your proposed poll question. In other words, no-one
here actually expressed such a view.
[snip]
Richard Wein (Tich)
See my web pages for various games at http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~tich/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Mar 13 2000 - 19:44:50 EST