Why Darwin's still a scientific hotshot (Nobel laureate James D. Watson on Darwin and his influence)

LA Times Calendar Live.com ^ | September 18, 2005 | James D. Watson

[snarks_when_bored]

Why Darwin's still a scientific hotshot

By James D. Watson

September 18, 2005

Editor's Note:
"Nobel laureate James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the molecular structure of DNA, has edited and provided commentary for a new anthology of Charles Darwin's four major books, collected in one volume by Running Press. Watson's essay introducing "Darwin: The Indelible Stamp: The Evolution of an Idea" is excerpted here.


I first became aware of Charles Darwin and evolution while still a schoolboy growing up in Chicago. My father and I had a passion for bird-watching and when the snow or the rain kept me indoors, I read his bird books and learned about evolution. We also used to frequent the great Field Museum of Natural History, and my fragmentary knowledge of evolution helped guide me through the myriad specimens in the museum. It is extraordinary the extent to which Darwin's insights not only changed his contemporaries' view of the world but also continue to be a source of great intellectual stimulation for scientists and nonscientists alike. His "On the Origin of Species" was rightly praised by biologist Thomas Henry Huxley as " … the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands since the publication of Newton's "Principia."

When Darwin returned from his five-year voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle, he turned over his various collections to experts on birds, beetles, mollusks and the like. John Gould was Darwin's bird expert. Darwin was surprised to learn from him that the finches he had collected on the Galapagos Islands closely resembled similar birds on the South American continent some 600 miles away, yet the finches of one island were different from those of the other islands…"

Excerpt. Story follows: Los Angeles Times

[rabair]

I've read up a lot on the creation/evolution debate over the past couple years and determined that evolution is the biggest heap of garbage ever perpetrated on us. I don't want to get in to a whole debate here, because it's been done to death... but I would like to give folks a couple links... I've read tons of stuff, but a few months ago, found this blog... it's not your normal blog with trackbacks, comments, ads, etc.. just check it out you'll see what I mean. Anyway, this is an awesome daily reader... and all but completely stays away from saying anything "religious" other than occasionally pointing out how Darwinists are far more religious and have to leave a lot to their faith to believe their crap, which is why they constantly assume so much.

Anyway, I don't want to ramble, but check this site out... Highly researched and scientific with great commentary on articles.
http://creationsafaris.com/crevnews.htm

Another site is this one http://answersingenesis.org/ that is more toward the "mission" side of things, but one of the biggest creationist organizations, and because of this they have a lot of good information... but it's not a blog-style site with daily updates the way the other site is, which I prefer.. I've gotten to the point where it's one of the first pages I view every day.

[Mobilemitter]

"On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life"

As it most assuredly will always struggle for life, I think we should always preserve the less favoured title of Darwin's work.

[Skylab]

How many books have you read that were written by evolutionists?

[Ninian Dryhope]

"Uh, yes...but not all at once."

Then why do even very simple forms of life such as viruses and bacteria use the same complex code? Shouldn't there be some earlier, simpler forms of the code still extant?

[bkepley]

"Well-established laws in science..."

What bugs me is the complete ignorance scientists have of what history does to popular thinking. It could be that the science we are doing today will be fully accepted two thousand years from now (if we last that long), but it's also possible (in my opinion) that the science of today will seem to be amusingly prejudiced and conceited.

[snarks_when_bored]

"Not everything that happens happens as a result of some conscious, directing agency."

Your statement seems to admit that some things that happen, happen as a result of some conscious, directing agency. Or did you really mean that nothing happens as a result of some conscious, directing agency?

A careful reader...excellent. What I'm writing to you now is appearing as a result of my conscious, directing agency (ignoring all of the technical conditions that have to be satisfied as well, of course). So, indeed, some things that happen happen as a result of conscious, directing agency.

[Vaquero]

"..Evolution is a law (with several components) that is as well substantiated as any other natural law, whether the law of gravity, the laws of motion or Avogadro's law. Evolution is a fact, disputed only by those who choose to ignore the evidence, put their common sense on hold and believe instead that unchanging knowledge and wisdom can be reached only by revelation." There you go.....'nuff said.

[snarks_when_bored]

"Uh, yes...but not all at once."

Then why do even very simple forms of life such as viruses and bacteria use the same complex code? Shouldn't there be some earlier, simpler forms of the code still extant?

Those forms have disappeared, victims of adverse circumstances to which they could not stand up. What we see now (and in the fossil record, such as it is) are the winners (at least for a time). It seems that a certain degree of complexity in their molecular structure is required for types of organisms to persist over long periods of time.

[snarks_when_bored]

What bugs me is the complete ignorance scientists have of what history does to popular thinking. It could be that the science we are doing today will be fully accepted two thousand years from now (if we last that long), but it's also possible (in my opinion) that the science of today will seem to be amusingly prejudiced and conceited.

I also said 'rarely' in what I wrote to you earlier. But, even so, unless the cosmos changes its current structure fairly drastically, no foreseeable future science is going to find that Newton's law of gravity doesn't do a fairly decent job of predicting how freely falling objects in a fairly weak gravitational field behave. Similarly, as Feynman wrote somewhere, in 40,000 years the only thing that will be remembered from the 19th century on Earth (if there's anybody around to remember, that is) will be Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, which, again, is a quite accurate theory of how electricity and magnetism behave so long as the energies aren't too large and the distances over which the interactions take place aren't too short.

You must remember that the scientific method is a very young thing (a few centuries old). And yet, even in its short period of existence, it has produced remarkable results. Not that there's not more to know, of course...

[JudgemAll]

If the guy says it is scientific, why is he romantic about Darwin and don't show facts and logic? The author is talking about Darwinism, an ideology, he is not talking about Darwin and the science itself.

This is the big cult of repent to entitled scientists indoctrination trick.

And as for criticizing revelation, what does this have to do with Darwin? God is a revealed person. We know Him because we know what He will do. Science is about knowing what happened in the past and projecting it in the future into gizmos. They are two different independent concepts which do not necessarily exclude each other.

The author is not promoting science but a cult of repent to the likes of him, and he cannot see that coz he does not know God nor himself and his own unethical conflict of interests to discuss the matter.

In other words, those who do not trust him are liberaly labeled and "romanticized" as people needing some form of mental incarceration he himself in fact needs and is blackmailing sensical good people against.

[snarks_when_bored]

Since you're sure that evolution is garbage, perhaps you'll respond to my request on two other threads for a creationist/intelligent design solution to the so-called 'biogeography problem'. (BTW, I notice that in his second paragraph, Watson alludes to precisely that problem.) To my mind, it's the knock-down argument against any notion of special creation or intelligent design placement of organisms on this planet. Here are the links:

The biogeography problem (post #95)

The IDist trilemma with respect to the biogeography problem (post #98)

Another request for a response to the biogeography problem

I look forward to your reply (just as I looked forward to Dave's reply, which I never got).

[JudgemAll]

Indeed, there is no absolutely well established scientific discovery, just tentative approximate models. If we go into absolute we go into cult of repent and godhood.

Let us remember that there's no free lunch, and they treatscience as an emancipating free lunch. So long man is paranoid and does not trust the future actions of fellow man, such science will be used to iron that problem out.

Christ showed wondrous signs but warned those who had the "science" that crucifiction was the other side of that coin. It just does not take accepted gifts but hard work with people to manage those gifts.

What will these blackmailed scientists do or care for when nuke war occurs as a result of evolution. Mankind could very well be on a path to extinction as we know it, evolution be damned.

[JudgemAll]

The sensationalist liberal LA times mixes again politics, liberal cults of repent and science again using a misguided "entitled" Nobel prize "genius".

Evolution was meant to show the unsensational sensationalism of God's creation. It does take time and faith to grow a flower and make bees "evolve". Scientists retort against the religiously wise with sensationalist be all end all god theories, which really defeat the purpose of the humble "growth" of the animal kingdom. Man becomes a sensationalist artistic animal as opposed to a regular sensing one. He also is superadaptive as he can compute and engineer his own survival in environments which are not good for any animal (eg. living on the moon). Puting man under the yoke of evolution is basicaly an exercise in castration. This bodes ill if we do not note the quantum like leaps of man from animals.

[Just mythoughts]

"If the guy says it is scientific, why is he romantic about Darwin and don't show facts and logic? The author is talking about Darwinism, an ideology, he is not talking about Darwin and the science itself."

Could it be that Darwin is a "god"?

"This is the big cult of repent to entitled scientists indoctrination trick. "

Could it be the base of the entitlement era??

"And as for criticizing revelation, what does this have to do with Darwin? God is a revealed person. We know Him because we know what He will do. Science is about knowing what happened in the past and projecting it in the future into gizmos. They are two different independent concepts which do not necessarily exclude each other."

One cannot ignore at its base evolution rejects the Creator, thus they are 'gods'.

"The author is not promoting science but a cult of repent to the likes of him, and he cannot see that coz he does not know God nor himself and his own unethical conflict of interests to discuss the matter.

In other words, those who do not trust him are liberaly labeled and "romanticized" as people needing some form of mental incarceration he himself in fact needs and is blackmailing sensical good people against."


Well there is at least one word from Genesis the evolutionists do adhere to and use liberally and that word is "DOMINION". Seems there is a connection in how this word evolution is applied not only to the flesh body but to the mind, those liberals do call the Constitution a living evolving document.

[snarks_when_bored]

"You're asking the wrong question, I think. Asking for a 'who' in this context is mistaken. Not everything that happens happens as a result of some conscious, directing agency."

When did science become about the right or wrong question?

Whose law is it that "not everything that happens happens as a result of some conscious, directing agency".

Doesn't this mean that life is a lottery or a bad accident depending on the status of ones life???

On your first question: Science is always about asking the right question. When a problem finally gets posed in a way that makes it amenable to study, progress usually follows. Until it does, little progress is made. (Case in point: When Galileo started asking how long does it take freely falling objects to traverse fixed distances rather than why do falling objects fall, he discovered the constant acceleration of gravity and brought modern physics into existence.)

On your second question: it's not a law, it's an observation.

On your third question: Uh, pretty much so.

[Just mythoughts]

What is the punishment for one who disobeys the law of evolution?

[JudgemAll]

Mankind would not survive "reality".

Reality is like enduring nuclear war and other man made and "natural" cataclisms. It cannot be done without a faith, miracles and spirit.

I always laugh at bourgeois liberal people talking about reality from the blessed comforts of their armchairs. Such romantics who do not want to admit that a love muscle or wondrous theory can be used to make oneself puke guts.

[JudgemAll]

Punsihment for disobeying laws of evolution is the Nobel Prize. This gifted scientist sees himself eroneously as the present day appogee of evolution.

[Just mythoughts]

"Punsihment for disobeying laws of evolution is the Nobel Prize. This gifted scientist sees himself eroneously as the present day appogee of evolution."


I don't know about this, seems as though the Nobel Prize is given to the adherents of the law of evolution. I want to know what their punishment is for breaking it, could it be to decree an unfitness, like maybe a weak mind, mental instability.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Mankind would not survive "reality".


It has worked well so far. Reality, BTW, doesn't need quotes.

"It cannot be done without a faith, miracles and spirit."

Nonsense. It can't be done for long with a mystical epistemology.

" Such romantics who do not want to admit that a love muscle or wondrous theory can be used to make oneself puke guts"

So much for eating my breakfast.