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

[snarks_when_bored]

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

(laughing) Thanks for a good chuckle early in the morning!

[JudgemAll]

StPaul talked about us needing to match the faith of the working ant. Jesus talked about the quasi-static growth of a plant when talking of growing spirit and spreading the word or doing anything.

So, obviously the Bible does hint at evolution, but with faith and a Creator stilting patiently and wisely those things in His own ways. Evolution by itself is Babelian miscommunication or the type of butchery that occured as a result of wanting to be as gods, blackmailing God's love.

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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

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They treat the constitution as if man or the world evolved in such virtues that it did not need "backward stoneage" guidelines. Truth is different. Modernity has created more savagery than ever in man and the constitutions and the founders had predicted that democracy would be used and confused into a tool to recruit troops to a party promising free loot and rape to adherants. The muslim Turks used this technique to democraticaly motivate troop invasions of Europe saying raping infidels was good thing.

Those for the "evolving constitution" constantly ignore the predictions and valid disclaimers of the Founding Fathers, and instead reject them and bring their own progressist disclaimers. God provided for many disclaimers to whatever covenant that are still valid ages later. These people are into another cult which wants to avoid these, yet claiming to be part of a "disclaimant" group, which they are not. They are part of a "no disclaimer" progressism group on looting for political gain - threats, terrorism and blackmail, that is, in nicely worded accademic "higher" language.

[Right Wing Professor]

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.

Well, lets see, on the one hand we have James Watson, discoverer of the double-helix, probably the most famous biologist who ever lived (after Darwin), who says 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 . And there thirty other Noble prizewinners who just wrote to the Kansas School Board to say the same thing.

And we have some J. Random Bozo on the Internet who says that he's found a blog that says it's all wrong.

Who has more credibility? Hmmmm...?

[SeaLion]

seems as though the Nobel Prize is given to the adherents of the law of evolution

But (as has been pointed out in these threads before) anyone who could present a scientific alternative to Darwin's basic model of evolution, which better explained all of the available data, made more accurate predictions, and was equally in accord with findings of all other sciences--that man or woman would scoop up a Nobel and a place in the history of science faster than you could say 'allele'

With respect, it is simply wrong to insist that science holds up Darwinism in the way that religions maintain dogmas. Anyone with better evidence meeting good empirical standards can knock Darwin off his perch: it hasn't happened yet. And really, refuting (as opposed to refining) the basic Darwinian model looks as likely as someone 'proving' that the earth is flat

[JudgemAll]

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.

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That's what I believe. A cult behavior is one which destroys free speech and coerces people into some form of repent program under medical guise. The attacks on those believing or merely contemplating the Bible have widespread political correctness blackmail potential. They can do anything to anyone if they show their faithful adhesion, and not merely by lipservice pledging to it, but actualy persecuting others. Woe to the one appealing for restraint in such persecutions. The romanticizing of the importance of the doctrine knows no bound.

[JudgemAll]

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.

---

That's what I believe. A cult behavior is one which destroys free speech and coerces people into some form of repent program under medical guise. The attacks on those believing or merely contemplating the Bible have widespread political correctness blackmail potential. They can do anything to anyone if they show their faithful adhesion, and not merely by lipservice pledging to it, but actualy persecuting others. Woe to the one appealing for restraint in such persecutions. The romanticizing of the importance of the doctrine knows no bound.

[Right Wing Professor]

Puting man under the yoke of evolution is basicaly an exercise in castration.

BWAHAHAHA!

Creationism as castration anxiety! Hilarious.

Submitted to PatrickHenry for the 'This is your Mind on Creationism' list.

[JudgemAll]

Not the believer's castration anxiety, the Darwinists'. There is a reason for things like bulimia and anorexia in our oh so evolved spece. People tend to replace a lack of potency with accumulation of things like degrees which "empower" them "independently".

Strange thing is that Darwinists contradict themselves by being against things like "overpopulation" or means of being "fruitful and multiplying".

[JudgemAll]

Creationism as castration anxiety! Hilarious.
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Why make your problem my problem?

I never mentioned creationism or other sensationalizing things. You obviously have no clue and do not read, prefering instead to blackmail people into ridicule.

You have a problem, not me. That was my point on castration.

[JudgemAll]

This is indeed the big confusion: Darwin, or science, is not Darwinism.

The former are thesis requiring antithesis or fine tuning, the latter is a political cult of repent.

[Just mythoughts]

All the list compliers at it again, evolution threads expose the mind on evolution, one bent on destruction.....quite the liberal method of operation.

[Right Wing Professor]

In fact, he's so un-anxious, he had to respond twice to one two-line 'castration anxiety' post.

I sense issues here. Chuckle.

[Just mythoughts]

"(laughing) Thanks for a good chuckle early in the morning!"


Hey it is a hoot. Now you got a law, then there are consequences for obeying and disobeying a law. Even gravity punishes those who seek to defy it.

So now we have established a law of evolution, there must be dominion in charge of the rewards, justice for the adherents and non-adherents regarding that law.

[SeaLion]

So now we have established a law of evolution, there must be dominion in charge of the rewards, justice for the adherents and non-adherents regarding that law

...Hmmm. Well, there is a penalty for breaking the Law of Gravity.

[bkepley]

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.

No question. But I also see scientists make some pretty outrageous remarks about the "little people" who refuse to give up their misconceptions. There was an amusing flurry in American Spectator in which a letter writer claimed that the belief in Intelligent Design would end all scientific query. The letter quoted Newton who it just so happens, believed in intelligent design (no caps). I could easily see a future in which it was proven and accepted that there is intelligence embedded in all of creation and was accepted and proven scientific fact. Regarding the people who try to force it into schools, it's premature to say the least! Let them keep working on intelligent design. If they come up with something indisputable and provable then it will come to be accepted and the more hysterical Darwinists will be the ridiculed ones.

[Just mythoughts]

"But (as has been pointed out in these threads before) anyone who could present a scientific alternative to Darwin's basic model of evolution, which better explained all of the available data, made more accurate predictions, and was equally in accord with findings of all other sciences--that man or woman would scoop up a Nobel and a place in the history of science faster than you could say 'allele'"

You are not quite accurately describing "scientific alternative" because that word science has been perverted to mean only what evolutionists say it can mean.

"With respect, it is simply wrong to insist that science holds up Darwinism in the way that religions maintain dogmas. Anyone with better evidence meeting good empirical standards can knock Darwin off his perch: it hasn't happened yet. And really, refuting (as opposed to refining) the basic Darwinian model looks as likely as someone 'proving' that the earth is flat"

People do like to use that flat earth accusation as though it gives evolution credibility. At the base of Darwin was the rejection of the Heavenly Father, and he postulated an idea that gave himself his descendants a superior ranking compared and contrasted to human beings as a whole. Now while modern evolutionists bend over backwards to deny what old Darwin thought, the focus has been shifted away from his basic premise to now include allllll forms of life having one common descent, without absolutely zilch proof.

[SeaLion]

Newton who it just so happens, believed in intelligent design

But Darwin started off believing 'Intelligent Design'--virtually everyone in the West, prior to Darwin's Origins, believed in some form of 'Intelligent Design' (whether literal Biblical account in Genesis, or some more Deistic view). That model eventually collapsed because the accumulated evidence against it was simply overwhelming--apart from a small number of 'fundamentalists', who appear to be refugees from reality. The vast majority of Christians have no more difficulty with Darwin than they have with the notion of the earth circling the sun (a 'belief' once persecuted by the Church as a heresy)

Creationism/ID is not some innovation--it's a re-tread of a cosmology that prevailed for the best part of 2000 years of Western history--and many of those were particularly unsavoury times.

I could easily see a future in which it was proven and accepted that there is intelligence embedded in all of creation and was accepted and proven scientific fact. Regarding the people who try to force it into schools, it's premature to say the least! Let them keep working on intelligent design. If they come up with something indisputable and provable then it will come to be accepted and the more hysterical Darwinists will be the ridiculed ones.

Science is open to anyone who wishes to learn the scientific method--which remains our best tool for developing empirical knowledge. No hypothesis is protected from challenge on scientific grounds, so no theory is ever absolute dogma--which is a major way in which science and religion differ. Creationism, by starting with religious answers before it poses questions, cannot be science--because it cannot acknowledge any scientific answers which are contrary to its religioous premises.

Ultimately, you are right, it is a matter of probabilities. There is a tiny probablity that the law of gravity won't hold if I leap from the roof of my office--but I am confident enough that it will that I'll pass on testing it yet again, if you don't mind!

[Just mythoughts]

"...Hmmm. Well, there is a penalty for breaking the Law of Gravity."

Exactly, "Gravity" has no grace for any that break her.

So now if there is a law of evolution, then the lawmakers are required to explain what that means. Who sits in judgment of the breaker of that law of evolution? How exactly does one break that law of evolution? Where does one appear for the trial of breaking that law of evolution?

So many questions about the law of evolution, when did it go into effect?

[bkepley]

Creationism, by starting with religious answers before it poses questions, cannot be science--because it cannot acknowledge any scientific answers which are contrary to its religioous premises.

Not necessarily...only in your eyes. It's true that the intelligent design folks are coupled to the religious folks but I don't think all of them see are religous in the sense of an interventionist God.

[dmz]

To refer to the "law" of gravity, and the "law" of evolution as though they are "laws" enacted by some governing body, and enforced by same was cute the first time it was used in this thread, but not each subsequent time.

Please note that words sometimes have multiple meanings; the word "law" is one such word.