Criticizing neo-Darwinism

The reason it appears to you that "darwinists" have attitudes consistent with your self-important fantasies is that you make up their attitudes in your head.

(1) Darwin spent his life studying biology and was recognised by his peers as the greatest naturalist of his age.Frierich Nietzsche knew nothing of biology, wrote a lot of crazy stuff, went mad, and spent the latter half of his life staring at the wall while his sister displayed him to tourists.Which of them knew more about biology?(2) We are not taking Darwin's word for anything. The theory of evolution does not rest on his opinion, but on the facts.However, if you are going to invoke the Argument from Authority, here are some scientists with scientific qualifications.Chew on these."Since its first appearance on Earth, life has taken many forms, all of which continue to evolve, in ways which palaeontology and the modern biological and biochemical sciences are describing and independently confirming with increasing precision. Commonalities in the structure of the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial origin."--- Albanian Academy of Sciences; National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Argentina; Australian Academy of Science; Austrian Academy of Sciences; Bangladesh Academy of Sciences; The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium; Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Brazilian Academy of Sciences; Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada; Academia Chilena de Ciencias; Chinese Academy of Sciences; Academia Sinica, China, Taiwan; Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences; Cuban Academy of Sciences; Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters; Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt; Académie des Sciences, France; Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities; The Academy of Athens, Greece; Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Indian National Science Academy; Indonesian Academy of Sciences; Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran; Royal Irish Academy; Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy; Science Council of Japan; Kenya National Academy of Sciences; National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic; Latvian Academy of Sciences; Lithuanian Academy of Sciences; Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Academia Mexicana de Ciencias; Mongolian Academy of Sciences; Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco; The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand; Nigerian Academy of Sciences; Pakistan Academy of Sciences; Palestine Academy for Science and Technology; Academia Nacional de Ciencias del Peru; National Academy of Science and Technology, The Philippines; Polish Academy of Sciences; Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal; Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Singapore National Academy of Sciences; Slovak Academy of Sciences; Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Academy of Science of South Africa; Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain; National Academy of Sciences, Sri Lanka; Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Council of the Swiss Scientific Academies; Academy of Sciences, Republic of Tajikistan; Turkish Academy of Sciences; The Uganda National Academy of Sciences; The Royal Society, UK; US National Academy of Sciences; Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences; Academia de Ciencias Físicas, Matemáticas y Naturales de Venezuela; Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences; The Caribbean Academy of Sciences; African Academy of Sciences; The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS); The Executive Board of the International Council for Science (ICSU).Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You mean, devoid of factual content?Here's Shaw on smallpox vaccination, by the way:

quote:

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For years past the strain of countenancing such a proceeding, so gross, reckless, dirty, and dangerous as vaccination from the calf, has been growing unbearable to bacteriological experts. . . . Nothing but the natural ignorance of the public, countenanced by the inoculated erroneousness of the ordinary general medical practitioners, makes such a barbarism as vaccination possible. . . Recent developments have shown that an inoculation made in the usual general practitioner's light-hearted way, without previous highly skilled examination of the state of the patient's blood, is just as likely to be a simple manslaughter as a cure or preventive. But vaccination is nothing short of attempted murder. A skilled bacteriologist would just as soon think of cutting his child's arm and rubbing the contents of the dustpan into the wound, as vaccinating it in the same.

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Yes, that's smallpox, the disease we wiped from the face of the earth by vaccination.

You've become an evolutionist? Hurrah. They do not use the obsolote term "darwinism". They do however, say that: "Since its first appearance on Earth, life has taken many forms, all of which continue to evolve, in ways which palaeontology and the modern biological and biochemical sciences are describing and independently confirming with increasing precision."Now, these "ways" would be descent with modification and natural selection, yes?

Good grief.Clearly if a species exists there is in fact a niche for it.Is there anything else totally obvious that you're having trouble understanding?

As for personal incredulity, it isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.Skepticism requires analysis of the evidence, not sitting around saying "It doesn't sound right to me so it's not true".Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Bullshit excuse? You mean like you posting an OP devoted chiefly to personal attacks on him, in which you call him "sleazy", "unethical", and a "fucking pussy"? Yeah, nwr may be an evolutionist, but at least he's wrong about something.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

{Snark one-liner hidden. 6 hour suspension handed out. - Adminnemooseus}Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Hide snark, add note including mention of 6 hour suspension because of snark.

Loud praise would have been more damning still.---I haven't responded to your OP because after all you wrote it in 2006, and I should be wasting my time picking up on inaccuracies which you may have noted yourself in the course of the past four years.Are there any points in it you'd like to discuss?

Your sheer biological illiteracy is staggering.It's like asking "How important is petrol to the running of a car? 20% of the motive force? If it can't account for it, what accounts for the rest? The blueprint of the engine? The exhaust pipe? If it is not combustion what is it?"Reading creationists trying to talk about biology is often like listening to someone pretending to be knowledgable about sports by saying: "And then the referee did an endrun around the shortstop, so of course the quarterback awarded a slam-dunk". You've taken some words with meaning in biology and apparently just dumped them in a random pile.And of course if you really wanted to know about biology you could always acquire a textbook and find out the meaning of the words you're employing and the way in which the various concepts relate to one another. As it is you give the curious impression of being obsessed with biology without being remotely interested in it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Surely to say that you will take a pass on something should properly imply that you have it as an option.As it is, you're like a quadriplegic person announcing that he'll "take a pass" on dancing.

This post has been edited out of consideration for Adminnemooseus. I shall have other opportunities to mock Bolder-dash.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.