On 26 Jan 2009, at 00:20, Charlie Bell wrote: > > On 26/01/2009, at 7:38 AM, dsummersmi...@comcast.net wrote: >> >>> Empirical observations of patterns occurring within a limited scope >>> can >>> shed no light on the state of things outside that scope. >> >> If you really believe that, then you would throw most of evolutionary >> theory out, beause we've only been making good scientific >> measurements over >> a very limited scope of time, say the last 150-200 years. > > Given that it's the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin > this year, and that built on a couple of decades of research by > Darwin... Most of evolutionary theory was built in the last 100 years, > once the mechanism of heredity was worked out and the statistical > tools were developed to actually test Darwin's ideas. You would not > throw out "most of evolutionary theory" at all, by your criterion. > > Really, it's amazing how much of what most people think they know > about biological science, particularly evolutionary biology, is > completely wrong.
Dan's Kantian views about epistemology lead him to this position I suspect. Evolutionary theory is much more firmly established than cosmology and at least as well established as classical physics. > > > Evolution underpins the whole of biology. Nothing makes sense without > it, and every single time we ask "what would this looks like if > evolution were true", that's what we find. And Natural Selection is > the one of the most elegant ideas in science, right up there with > elliptical orbits and laws of motion. But despite that, it's viewed as > a soft science, or worse, a trivially easy one. Being able to recite > the soundbyte "survival of the fittest" and mumble something about > variation of hereditary characters doesn't mean that one understands > the implications. That's why it's a degree level subject, it's why I > spent 4 years doing very little else (British degrees being much more > focused than US ones, f'rex). One simply can't get to the same level > of understanding if you're not living and breathing it. My BSc computer science degree was *five* years :-) > > > This is why I tend to stay out of physics discussions, 'cause I know > how little I know, and reading A Brief History Of Time doesn't make me > an expert. > Knowledge in every field is now so specialised and abstruse that we have to rely on the opinions of experts. Experts have to explain their views in simplified or analogical ways which are always open to misunderstanding. Polymath Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ "I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back." - Neal Stephenson _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
