At 02:37 AM 10/09/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> >Susan: A young Charles Darwin who knew nothing about common descent got on
>a boat and went out into the world. He collected hundreds of crates of
>specimens.
>He made thousands of observations which he carefully wrote down in his
>notebooks. After a while all those observations started to make a pattern.
>When IDists and other creationists start to do that and risk having their
>sacrosanct conclusion contradicted, they will begin to have some respect in
>the scientific community.
>
>DNAunion: Interesting, but as a side note on Darwin, he was hardly trotting
>off into new territory when he published his work.
>
>Obviously, evolution had already been written about - by Larmarck.
>Moreoever, many people began opposing the fixity of species in their works a
>long time before Darwin ever published his "Origin of Species": some from
>1795, some from the 1820's, and some from the 1830's. In addition, papers on
>common descent were published
> in the 1850's before Darwin's "Origin of Species" was published.
>Furthermore, someone wrote on descent with modification in 1846, and another
>in 1859 (at about the same time as Darwin). Also, the struggle for existence
>- that more organisms are born than can survive, leading to a struggle for
>existence - was written about before Darwin's book. And even natural
>selection was written about in the 1810's.
>
>Boy, that Darwin sure was a pioneer blazing a new trail, wasn' t he?
are you implying that he was very well-read in his field? Most serious
scientists are. Evolution was "in the air" at the time. Even if Darwin had
never existed someone would have eventually done what he did. The paper
that motivated Darwin to publish was essentially a paper that said "isn't
this interesting" and pointed out the same evolutionary pattern that Darwin
had seen. Wallace probably would have gone on to do the research to support
his hypothesis or his paper might have motivated Huxley to do so.
Creationists would now be sneering about "Wallaceism" or "Huxleyism"
instead of "Darwinism."
Susan
--------
Always ask. Hang out with people who make you laugh. Love as many people as
you can. Read everything you can get your hands on. Take frequent naps.
Watch as little television as you can stand. Tell people what you want. Do
what you love as much as you can. Dance every day.
--------
Please visit my website:
http://www.telepath.com/susanb
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