billwald@juno.com writes
in message <20000415.212409.-243127.3.billwald@juno.com>:
> "For followers of Karl Popper's analysis of science and how it
> should be done, there is no more dismal example of a metaphysical
> system masquerading as a science than the theory of evolution.
> Popper himself, in The Poverty of Historicism, singles out
> evolutionary theory for an attack. "Can there be a law of
> evolution?" "No, the search for the law of the 'unvarying order'
> in evolution cannot possibly fall within the scope of scientific
> method...". By this, Popper means only that the history of living
> organisms and their transformations on Earth are a specific
> sequence of unique events, no different from, say, the history
> of England. Since it is a unique sequence, no generalities can
> be constructed about it." (Lewontin R.C., "Testing the Theory
> of Natural Selection," review of Creed R., ed., "Ecological
> Genetics and Evolution," Blackwell: Oxford, 1971, Nature, Vol.
> 236, March 24, 1972, p.181).
Just to emphasize my point to Stephen Jones regarding the
difficulty of trying to extract solid conclusions from limited
quotes, I offer this one:
"It does appear that some people think that I denied scientific
character to the historical sciences, such as paleontology, or
the history of the evolution of life on Earth. This is a mistake,
and I here wish to affirm that these and other historical sciences
have in my opinion scientific character; their hypotheses can
in many cases be tested." (Popper, Letter to _New Scientist_,
87(1981):611)
(nor should this limited quote be construed as a solid conclusion
about Karl Popper, whose views seem to have changed quite
a bit over his life :)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 17 2000 - 18:54:13 EDT