The Doctrine of Darwin

[BAMAPHIN 22]

Feb. 12, will be the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. By coincidence it is also Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, but the media hype I have seen has been reserved mostly for Darwin.



Unlike most of the celebrated figures in the history of science, Darwin was not a fox. He was a hedgehog. I refer to the ancient epigram of Archilochus, famously misunderstood by Isaiah Berlin. Archilochus actually said that "the fox has many tricks, and the hedgehog only one, but it's a good one" (i.e. curl into a ball so the fox can't get him).

Darwin was an honest, capable, plodding man. Alas, of his great hypothesis of "the origin of species, by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life," it must be said that what was true in it was not original, and what was original was not true.


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[Tetragrammaton]

Any time that someone uses the phrase Darwinism, I stop reading. They either have no idea what they are talking about or are more interested in being heard than actually saying anything.

FOX News actually had an interesting poll. A majority of the American people do not "believe in evolution". However, when you look at the data, people without a college degree were the most likely to not accept evolution, while those with degrees did overwhelmingly.

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I think it says something about society when the man is scorned here, but in the United Kingdom he is on their money and is buried next to Isaac Newton. We have a bit of a way to go.

[Marino613]

Any time that someone uses the phrase Darwinism, I stop reading. They either have no idea what they are talking about or are more interested in being heard than actually saying anything.


You will probably appreciate this Essay from the NY Times

Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

[Tetragrammaton]

You will probably appreciate this Essay from the NY Times

Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Thanks. This makes me wish I hadn't canceled by subscription to the Times.

It is a blatant attempt to make evolution sound like a religious sect. That way, they can criticize faults in the man as a way to discredit an entire section of science.

Darwin is such a minor part of the modern evolutionary synthesis. All it took was a semester of Biology for me to understand such a simple thing. If you believed the religious opposition, nothing about evolution has been challenged in 150 years.

[Dolphan7]

No comment. :chuckle:

[1 dol fan]

Well Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!