"I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question, and this cannot possibly be done here." (Charles Darwin, Introduction, On the Origin of Species 1859)
Two for Tuesday:
"Directed by all-powerful selection, chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshiped." (Grasse, Pierre-Paul (1977) Evolution of Living Organisms, p. 107 Academic Press, New York, N.Y.)
Grasse is just silly. And if you had ever read anything by Darwin, especially the Origin, you would have known that one of Darwin's strengths is that he bent over backwards to consider opposing views. His admission of uncertainty, one of many throughout his works, is the self-criticism necessary for being a great scientist.
ReplyDeleteIt should be needless to add that in the century and a half since the Origin was published, many of the things Darwin was uncertain about are now well understood. So although Darwin is admired, he is not worshiped, or at least not seriously.
You forget from time to time, although I've told you before, that science doesn't work the way religion does, or at least ideally it doesn't: Nature is the final authority for the way things are, not some sort of Big Boss Scientist. You guys believe in the Word- I'll take the World over the Word, thanks.
"Directed by all-powerful selection, chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshiped."
ReplyDelete1. I wish someone told me! I'm not part of the secret, it appears. :-(
2. Thank goodness Grasse has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.
Seriously, people like you, Dan, and Grasse have just some really **weird** understandings of what chance, selection, and atheism are.
Do you notice that children believe whatever thier guardians tell them? Kids beleive completly in Santa Claus until some voice of reason informs them of thier nievety. I'm sure if people around them kept telling them there is a santa, they would believe it until they stayed up all night and watched the tree. The only way to prove or disprove any religion is to die. Can't you see how easy it is to hide a truth that can only be realised after a person is incapable of communicating with others? Religion was designed to explain things that people couldn't back then, and to scare people into being civil. Now we have microscopes and computers and thousands of years of experiments to teach us about the world and morality. Does every cell that dies in your body simply wait in heaven for your conscious brain to die? Or do you ignore mainstream science completly and still believe we're made out of sticks and earth and that the world was created in 7 days 5000 years ago? Your selfish, jealous god gets angry and takes breaks just like the humans who made him up. The fairy tail you believe is one that has been drilled into generations with violence and fear. People were brain washed into pretending to beleive the stuff because they saw their neighbors being hung by those in power.(the church)When enough people around you belive crazy stuff, you might too. Fear of burning in fire for all of the afterlife might have seemed pretty real coming from an authority figure.
ReplyDelete...and when you believe nonsense, you teach it to your kids. Sad really, all you sheeple walking around literally believing in a talking snake and the rapture, while our habitat is being destroyed by people who are selfish and evil beyond my imagination and who achieve thier power by appeling to the faithful and the ignorant. by the way.. a person must be ignorant if they are to have faith.
ReplyDelete"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire (1694-1778)
Plut0,
ReplyDelete>>Now we have microscopes and computers and thousands of years of experiments to teach us about the world and morality.
O'rly? So science can answer life's important questions?
Please provide us the "evidence" of "why" we are here, and "how" we got here please.
D'souza once said "Science is an attempt to understand the natural world in a natural way. Science then, in that sense, is restricted to natural explanations for natural phenomena. If a natural explanation is inadequate then science stops."