DarkStar's Collection of Quotations - Number 1

Message 87, please, DS.

You mean the frauds evolutionists identified and uncovered?What's funny, is, you'd think creationists and intellectual Don Quixotes like yourself would be the ones to have uncovered these untruths. But, I can't think of a single instance where these frauds and mistakes have been revealed by anybody but evolutionary biologists, wondering why these finds simply didn't fit into the macroevolutionary framework.Certainly you haven't shown evidence of anything but the self-correcting nature of science doing what it's supposed to do. In the meantime, creationists and folks like yourself - whatever you are, I guess - surrounded, as they are, by what they believe to be frauds, can't seem to actually prove any of it.Oh, and message 87, if you please. Or were you retreating from the claim that Darwin was speaking of evolution in his letter to Asa Gray?This message has been edited by crashfrog, 08-19-2004 08:49 PM

Woah woah wait a minute!You still haven't substantiated your claim that Darwin was speaking about evolution in the letter. Since he doesn't say in the letter, that's a point you have to address.As it is, we have nothing but your own assertion that he was referring to evolution in that letter.If you don't care to substantiate your assertion, can we consider it withdrawn? If you refuse to defend or substantiate your assertions, how will that be the case?

Then by all means, substantiate your claim about Quote 1 or withdraw it. We're sort of stuck on that point, crucial as it is to your argument, until you address it.

It should be noted, though, that nobody but you and creationists think that he was referring to evolution. The Darwin Correspondence Online Database summarizes the letter as follows:

quote:

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Thanks for AG's remarks on disjoined species. CD's notions are based on belief that disjoined species have suffered much extinction, which is the common cause of small genera and disjoined ranges.

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Discusses out-crossing in plants.

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Has failed to meet with a detailed account of regular and normal impregnation in the bud. Podostemon, Subularia, and underwater Leguminosae are the strongest cases against him.

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Moreover you've still failed to address why Darwin would allude to the theory of evolution before he had presented it to Asa Gray.To paint this as any sort of "unanswered question" or "maybe so, maybe not" situation is disingenuity personified.At any rate, I was able to find the letter we've been talking about, sort of:

quote:

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Letter 586. TO ASA GRAY.

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June 18th (1857).

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It has been extremely kind of you telling me about the trees: now with your facts, and those from Britain, N. Zealand, and Tasmania I shall have fair materials for judging. I am writing this away from home, but I think your fraction of 95/132 is as large as in other cases, and is at least a striking coincidence.

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I thank you much for your remarks about my crossing notions, to which, I may add, I was led by exactly the same idea as yours, viz., that crossing must be one means of eliminating variation, and then I wished to make out how far in animals and vegetables this was possible. Papilionaceous flowers are almost dead floorers to me, and I cannot experimentise, as castration alone often produces sterility. I am surprised at what you say about Compositae and Gramineae. From what I have seen of latter they seemed to me (and I have watched wheat, owing to what L. de Longchamps has said on their fertilisation in bud) favourable for crossing; and from Cassini's observations and Klreuter's on the adhesive pollen, and C.C. Sprengel's, I had concluded that the Compositae were eminently likely (I am aware of the pistil brushing out pollen) to be crossed.1 If in some months' time you can find time to tell me whether you have made any observations on the early fertilisation of plants in these two orders, I should be very glad to hear, as it would save me from great blunder. In several published remarks on this subject in various genera it has seemed to me that the early fertilisation has been inferred from the early shedding of the pollen, which I think is clearly a false inference. Another cause, I should think, of the belief of fertilisation in the bud, is the not-rare, abnormal, early maturity of the pistil as described by Grtner. I have hitherto failed in meeting with detailed accounts of regular and normal impregnation in the bud. Podostemon and Subularia under water (and Leguminosae) seem and are strongest cases against me, as far as I as yet know. I am so sorry that you are so overwhelmed with work; it makes your very great kindness to me the more striking.

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It is really pretty to see how effectual insects are. A short time ago I found a female holly sixty measured yards from any other holly, and I cut off some twigs and took by chance twenty stigmas, cut off their tops, and put them under the microscope: there was pollen on every one, and in profusion on most! weather cloudy and stormy and unfavourable, wind in wrong direction to have brought any.

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from No webpage found at provided URL: http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/more_letters/mletters2_10.htmlThat was the letter DarkQuote has been referencing, via Talkorigins. According to the introduction to the print: Did Darwin even say what DS says he said? Who knows? Is this letter printed in its entirity? It doesn't say. (Maybe it's not even the right letter. I don't know.)Nonetheless it's apparent from this, the body of the letter, that Darwin is not referring to the theory he wouldn't have published for some months at the time he wrote the letter.Trying to even suggest that Darwin is speaking about evolution is simply the height of mendacity.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 08-19-2004 09:57 PM

How many Steves on the list?

Do you suppose that maybe, when the Project Steve list came out, they cross-referenced and purged their own list?It'd be funny to try and find matches between "anti-evolution" lists and the Project Steve list.

I think his half-assed retraction is about all we're likely to get out of him.Let him move on to his second quote, if he likes. We can tear that one apart, too.

Ah, but I did provide a considerable portion of the letter - perhaps even its entirity, and certainly enough to substantiate Talkorigin's interpretation of the letter.But saying that you can't know what he meant without the letter in its entirity is like saying you can't know what the jigsaw picture is until you put in the last piece.There's more than enough pieces here to refute your inital interpretation of Darwin's quote, and moreover, you havene't even told us what led you to believe he was speaking of evolution in the first place.If you knew you were unable to make that assertion, why did you make it?Percy seems to be doing a pretty good job here, so I'll bow out with this: Does anyone else think it's pretty weird that DS would point out that you can't know what someone is saying absent the entire context of their statement, but then, in the very same post, present a list of quotes absent their entire context?DarkStar, why do you think a search for truth would involve talking out of both sides of your mouth?

Yeah, where did DS go?The author of the relevant Darwin Quote Mine Project article (the one DS linked to and I quoted at the beginning of the thread), John Pieret, was kind enough to email me a tiff file of the actual letter in question; along with a typed-up transcript. (Much love to Mr. Pieret.)I'm gonna post all that on the site later this week; my DSL comes in this week and then I actually download the huge tiff file and host it. So stay tuned. Of course, there's not much point if we've chased DS off...