Darwin knew nothing of genetics, though

[jackpin...@gmail.com]

Mendel tried to show him.

[Malcolm McMahon]

On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 11:52:35 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
> Mendel tried to show him.

Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work. Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory.

[jackpin...@gmail.com]

Malcolm McMahon

On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 11:52:35 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
> Mendel tried to show him.

Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work. Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory

. . . . .. .... ....

On NPR yesterday some professor was saying the Mendel sent Darwin a description of his findings, but Charles didn't read it.

[Malcolm McMahon]

Quite possible. Mendel's work was widely disregarded at the time.

[Andrew]

"Malcolm McMahon" wrote in message news:35f5985f-1d5c-4304...@googlegroups.com...

> jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Mendel tried to show him.
>
> Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work.
> Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory.

How do you figure that? Mendel's work does not confirm macroevolution.

We may note here that Mendel was a Christian, a scientist and a Creationist.

[Malcolm McMahon]

On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 14:49:19 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:
> "Malcolm McMahon" wrote in message news:35f5985f-1d5c-4304...@googlegroups.com...
> > jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Mendel tried to show him.
> >
> > Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work.
> > Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory.
>
> How do you figure that? Mendel's work does not confirm macroevolution.
>

Not exactly confirm, but it fits very nicely, firming up the ToE. Darwin knew nothing of the mechanism of mutation. His theory just assumes it. Once you know about genes you can see better how mutation happens. Of course there was plenty of evidence that it happened. Just visit a freak show and look in the bottles.

> We may note here that Mendel was a Christian, a scientist and a Creationist.

Well, no doubt he was a Christian and a very great scientist. I don't know if he knew about the theories of evolution going around at that point, and can you be a "creationist" if you haven't considered evolution?

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Tue, 2 Aug 2016 06:25:53 -0700 (PDT), Malcolm McMahon
<malcol...@googlemail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 14:08:00 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Malcolm McMahon
>> On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 11:52:35 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > Mendel tried to show him.
>>
>> Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work.
>> Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for
>> his theory
>> . . . . .. .... ....
>>
>> On NPR yesterday some professor was saying the Mendel sent
>>Darwin a description of his findings, but Charles didn't read it.

I don't remember any mention of Mendel in Darwin's letters.

Did Darwin speak German, and did Mendel speak English?

>Quite possible. Mendel's work was widely disregarded at the time.

Mendel's successor as the abbot of St. Whatsit's in Brno burned all
his papers - but his published one was on the hybridisation of plants
and wasn't translated into English until 1901, seventeen years after
his death.

He talked about "discrete inheritence units" which weren't called
genes until the early 1900s - and it took a long time to discover what
these were.

And it was even later research into this, that led to the
understanding of DNA which provided the mechanism for mutation.

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Tue, 2 Aug 2016 07:02:20 -0700 (PDT), Malcolm McMahon
<malcol...@googlemail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 14:49:19 UTC+1, Andrew wrote:
>> "Malcolm McMahon" wrote in message news:35f5985f-1d5c-4304...@googlegroups.com...
>> > jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >> Mendel tried to show him.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work.
>> > Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory.
>>
>> How do you figure that? Mendel's work does not confirm macroevolution.
>>
>
>Not exactly confirm, but it fits very nicely, firming up the ToE. Darwin knew
>nothing of the mechanism of mutation. His theory just assumes it.

No. It _predicted_ it.

Validating or disproving prediction is a major part of the scientific
method - and was Darwin's other great contribution to science.

And Mendel didn't know the mechanism for mutation, either.

> Once you
>know about genes you can see better how mutation happens. Of course
>there was plenty of evidence that it happened. Just visit a freak show
>and look in the bottles.

Mendel's paper was on hybridisation of plants, and described dominant
and regressive traits. He talked about "discrete units of inheritance"
but did not know what these actually were.

These weren't even called genes until the early 1900s, and it was
investigation into them that led to the understanding of DNA and the
mechanism for mutation. Much later, although DNA was a nineteenth
century discovery but nobody knew what it was.

>> We may note here that Mendel was a Christian, a scientist and a Creationist.

Which is utterly irrelevant.

>Well, no doubt he was a Christian and a very great scientist. I don't
>know if he knew about the theories of evolution going around at that
>point, and can you be a "creationist" if you haven't considered evolution?

You need to differentiate between the various theories of evolution,
and the fact of evolution which had been known for a long time.

Being a Christian had nothing to do with his work, And if he had been
a creationist, he couldn't have done it because he would have stopped
at "God did it".

[Cloud Hobbit]

Darwin never read Mendel's work. It would have helped a lot if he had.
It fits in nicely with Evolution.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-mendel-darwin-connection/24433As we all know today, unknown to Darwin, in his monastery garden the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel was working away developing just the mechanism of heredity that was needed by the theory of the Origin. Mendel experimenting on pea plants was showing that the basic mechanism of heredity is nonblending, and that in fact a process like natural selection that picks out good new variations can be fully effective as a means of evolutionary change. Mendel provided the famous ratios (of variations passed on from one generation to the next) that are the basis for what today we know as “Mendel’s laws.” The trouble is that, as we also all know today, Darwin never read Mendel and so his problem went unsolved. Indeed, it was not until the next century (around 1900), when new researchers worked with Mendel’s discoveries, that natural selection and heredity could be brought harmoniously together and the route was then opened for the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution that is the dominant paradigm in biology today.

Darwin may not have read Mendel but Mendel read Darwin! As soon as the Origin was published in German, Mendel got a copy and read it carefully, putting notes in the margin. But Mendel’s notes were never along the lines of “I can solve Herr Darwin’s problems.” They were more predictable along the lines of “Can I a Catholic priest accept evolution?” (He found that he could.)

[Andrew]

"Careful scrutiny of Mendel's Pisum paper, published
in 1866, and of the time and circumstances in which it
appeared suggests not only that it is antievolutionary in
content, but also that it was specifically written in
contradiction of Darwin's book, The Origin of Species,
published in 1859, and that Mendel's and Darwin's
theories, the two theories which were united in the 1940s
to form the modern synthesis, are completely antithetical."

http://somosbacteriasyvirus.com/mendel.pdf

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 14:08:00 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:

To clarify - according to,
<http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/102/8/587>
"Did Darwin Read Mendel?"

This states that Mendel latterly sent up to 40 copies
of his paper to leading scientists, but Darwin is not
known to be one of them.

Separately, a book by Wilhelm Focke that was in Darwin's
possession contains a description of Mendel's research,
but those pages in Darwin's copy were "uncut", which
appears to be the situation described in detail at
<http://www.commercenewstoday.com/archives/3916-The-joy-of-uncut-pages.html>
If Darwin had set out to read the book then presumably
he would have cut apart the joined pages - or else he
flipped past the sealed section. It's the sort of
book where you mainly look to see what it says about
yourself...

But in addition to this, we are told that "Hermann Hoffman,
a Professor of Botany at Giessen had written a little book
on plant hybrids in 1869 and on page 52 was a long excerpt
from Mendel's paper of 1865. On Darwin's copy of the book
(now preserved in the Cambridge University Library) are
hand written notes in the margins by Darwin on pages 50,
51, 53 (facing page 52), 54 and 55. These are close to the
citation of Mendel's paper but it may be that Darwin skipped
over this passage or did not appreciate its significance."

[JTEM]

Malcolm McMahon wrote:

> Quite possible. Mendel's work was widely disregarded at the time.

Which is weird, because Darwin is now a cult figure,
though he added virtually NOTHING what so ever to
the body of knowledge, and Mendel was a brilliant
scientist who unraveled the key to life.

Seriously, what did Darwin do? Certainly NOT come
up with the idea of common descent. That wasn't
his idea. And he FAILED miserably in his attempts
to explain it, how it might work.

So why does anyone care about Darwin at all?

Why remember the guy who took ideas from other
people and couldn't add to them? Why not
remember those other people?







-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/148382649258

[JTEM]

Christopher A. Lee wrote:

> And it was even later research into this, that led to the
> understanding of DNA which provided the mechanism for mutation.

Darwin got NOTHING right.

Oh he did correctly COPY the idea of common descent
from others, but that's it. Not one original idea
of Darwin's turned out to be true.

Darwin took other people's ideas and tried but failed
to explain them.

Mendel was a genius scientist, Darwin was a useless,
crusty, WAY over privileged twat who stole the credit
from other people's work.



-- --

http://jtem.tumblr.com/post/148382649258

[nature bats last]

On Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 6:08:00 AM UTC-7, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
> Malcolm McMahon
> On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 11:52:35 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Mendel tried to show him.
>
> Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work. Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory
> . . . . .. .... ....
>

.> On NPR yesterday some professor was saying the Mendel sent Darwin a description of his findings, but Charles didn't read it.

I believe that I've read that Mendel's letter was found, unopened, among Darwin's
effects. And that's a shame: Darwin himself had pointed out that according to the
contemporary understanding of heredity, any beneficial variation would be swamped
out and lost in the much greater population at large -- the "drop of ink in the swimming
pool" concept. Darwin saw this as a major problem with his theory, and could
only express hope that future generations would find an answer to it.

And of course they did -- heredity is digital, not analog, and beneficial
mutations can persist as long as one individual carries them.


Seth

[nature bats last]

Yep. But not in the way you are thinking, I expect. From the same
paper:

"Now, in retrospect, it can be seen exactly what
Mendel did: he deliberately chose characters
exhibiting a most unusual pattern of inheritance
("this peculiar form of transmission," as Darwin
referred to Mendelian-type inheritance) because he
wanted to demonstrate stasis, formulated a highly
improbable theory, and then extrapolated to all
other modes of inheritance. But it is today known
that the genome is extraordinarily fluid, as a
consequence of a variety of mechanisms of
nonreciprocal DNA transfer within and between
chromosomes, and it is obvious, as the early
opponents of Mendelism maintained (Wallace was by no
means alone in his objections), that the type of
transmission upon which Mendel focused (that
represented largely by human diseases and laboratory
mutants) is the exception and not the rule: "The
ubiquity of genomic turnover mechanisms both within
and between genes (single-copy and multigene
families) means that few genes will be found that
are refractory to the mechanisms involved. It is
conceivable that strict Mendelian genes and stable
Mendelian populations in Hardy-Weinberg equilibria
do not exist except as observed over short periods
of time and amongst small numbers of progeny" "

Seth

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 10:47:54 -0700 (PDT), nature bats last
<seqk...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 6:08:00 AM UTC-7, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Malcolm McMahon
>> On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 11:52:35 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > Mendel tried to show him.
>>
>> Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work. Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory
>> . . . . .. .... ....
>>
>
>.> On NPR yesterday some professor was saying the Mendel sent Darwin a description of his findings, but Charles didn't read it.
>
>I believe that I've read that Mendel's letter was found, unopened, among Darwin's
>effects. And that's a shame: Darwin himself had pointed out that according to the
>contemporary understanding of heredity, any beneficial variation would be swamped
>out and lost in the much greater population at large -- the "drop of ink in the swimming
>pool" concept. Darwin saw this as a major problem with his theory, and could
>only express hope that future generations would find an answer to it.

Again, did he see it as a problem, or did he just predict this would
be found?

[nature bats last]

On Thursday, August 4, 2016 at 11:33:34 AM UTC-7, Christopher A. Lee wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 10:47:54 -0700 (PDT), nature bats last
> <seqk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 6:08:00 AM UTC-7, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Malcolm McMahon
> >> On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 11:52:35 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> > Mendel tried to show him.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work. Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory
> >> . . . . .. .... ....
> >>
> >
> >.> On NPR yesterday some professor was saying the Mendel sent Darwin a description of his findings, but Charles didn't read it.
> >

.> >I believe that I've read that Mendel's letter was found, unopened, among Darwin's
.> >effects. And that's a shame: Darwin himself had pointed out that according to the
.> >contemporary understanding of heredity, any beneficial variation would be swamped
.> >out and lost in the much greater population at large -- the "drop of ink in the swimming
.> >pool" concept. Darwin saw this as a major problem with his theory, and could
.> >only express hope that future generations would find an answer to it.
>
.> Again, did he see it as a problem, or did he just predict this would
.> be found?

My recollection -- and this was some time back -- was that he raised
three points that could honestly be brought up as objections to his theory:
the heredity problem, the age of the earth, and the paucity of the
fossil record. And forthrightly said that he had no answer, but
hoped that future generations would find the solutions to all three.

But as I say, a long time back, so I'm not sure of the exact
answer to your question.

In any event, all three have been most thoroughly dealt with.


Seth

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:54:00 -0700 (PDT), nature bats last

<seqk...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, August 4, 2016 at 11:33:34 AM UTC-7, Christopher A. Lee wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 10:47:54 -0700 (PDT), nature bats last
>> <seqk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 6:08:00 AM UTC-7, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >> Malcolm McMahon
>> >> On Tuesday, 2 August 2016 11:52:35 UTC+1, jackpin...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >> > Mendel tried to show him.
>> >>
>> >> Unfortunately Darwin doesn't seem to have heard of Mendel's work. Which is a pity since it would certainly have been confirmation for his theory
>> >> . . . . .. .... ....
>> >>
>> >
>> >.> On NPR yesterday some professor was saying the Mendel
>>>>sent Darwin a description of his findings, but Charles didn't read it.
>
>.> >I believe that I've read that Mendel's letter was found, unopened, among Darwin's
>.> >effects. And that's a shame: Darwin himself had pointed out that according to the
>.> >contemporary understanding of heredity, any beneficial variation would be swamped
>.> >out and lost in the much greater population at large -- the "drop of ink in the swimming
>.> >pool" concept. Darwin saw this as a major problem with his theory, and could
>.> >only express hope that future generations would find an answer to it.

I don't think so - that goes against the idea of natural selection
over time.

>.> Again, did he see it as a problem, or did he just predict this would
>.> be found?
>
>My recollection -- and this was some time back -- was that he raised
>three points that could honestly be brought up as objections to his theory:
>the heredity problem, the age of the earth, and the paucity of the
>fossil record. And forthrightly said that he had no answer, but
>hoped that future generations would find the solutions to all three.

It was also his style to pose questions and possible objections, then
answe them himself - and dishonest quote miners take thesese as actual
difficultied, ignoring the answers.

>But as I say, a long time back, so I'm not sure of the exact
>answer to your question.
>
>In any event, all three have been most thoroughly dealt with.

Yep.

The loonies imagine Darwin is some kind of prophet, not to be
questioned - even though a century and a half of solid research has
corrected his few errors and also expanded his explanation to include
the things he didn't know but predicted, and to explain _those_ too.

>Seth

[nature bats last]

.> The loonies imagine Darwin is some kind of prophet, not to be
.> questioned - even though a century and a half of solid research has
.> corrected his few errors and also expanded his explanation to include
.> the things he didn't know but predicted, and to explain _those_ too.

And here's the candidate for Vice President getting every single
thing wrong about evolution:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/08/04/mike-pence-creationist/


Seth

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:00:25 -0700 (PDT), nature bats last
<seqk...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 8:15:03 PM UTC-7, Andrew wrote:
>> "Careful scrutiny of Mendel's Pisum paper, published
>> in 1866, and of the time and circumstances in which it
>> appeared suggests not only that it is antievolutionary in
>> content, but also that it was specifically written in
>> contradiction of Darwin's book, The Origin of Species,
>> published in 1859, and that Mendel's and Darwin's
>> theories, the two theories which were united in the 1940s
>> to form the modern synthesis, are completely antithetical."

Bollocks.

Mendel's paper was actually on the subject of hybridisation, and he
introduced the idea of dominant and regressive traits in what he
called "discrete units of inheritance".

It didn't have anything to do with speciation, and didn't mention the
possibility of mutation in them.

And that in no way reflects on Mendel's major contribution to science,
which spurred other researchers and led to genetics.

The mutation part wasn't understood until comparatively recently, once
DNA was understood.

The paper was written in German and not translated into English until
the early 1900s, a couple of decades after Darwin's death - and I have
no idea if the latter spoke German, I suspect he didn't.

Darwin was one of the giants on whose shoulders other giants stood and
natural selection was one of those "Eureka" moments which are obvious
in retrospect, but it took a genius to come up with for the first
time.

.

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:08:10 -0700 (PDT), nature bats last

Renquist, Scalia and Reagan were all creationists.

[Mad Joe thinks the first two couldn't have been because the RCC isn't
a creationist denomination]

>Seth
>

[Malcolm McMahon]

On Thursday, 4 August 2016 17:21:48 UTC+1, JTEM wrote:
> Malcolm McMahon wrote:
>
> > Quite possible. Mendel's work was widely disregarded at the time.
>
> Which is weird, because Darwin is now a cult figure,
> though he added virtually NOTHING what so ever to
> the body of knowledge, and Mendel was a brilliant
> scientist who unraveled the key to life.
>
> Seriously, what did Darwin do? Certainly NOT come
> up with the idea of common descent. That wasn't
> his idea. And he FAILED miserably in his attempts
> to explain it, how it might work.
>

What Darwin added was the idea of evolution through natural selection. The idea of evolution was well established, but the combination of mutation and natural selection as a mechanism was new, though, for example, Wallace came up with it at the same time.

But Darwin struggled to understand mutation without genetics and, in the end, was driven back towards Lamarkianism.

The ToE we have today is a synthesis of Darwin, and Mendel.

Looks to me like we'll be adding a touch of Quantum weirdness soon.

[Cloud Hobbit]

On Thursday, August 4, 2016 at 9:21:48 AM UTC-7, JTEM wrote:
> Malcolm McMahon wrote:
>
> > Quite possible. Mendel's work was widely disregarded at the time.
>
> Which is weird, because Darwin is now a cult figure,

He's not cult figure, he's respected as the man who discovered the mechanism by which natural selection worked to cause species to evolve. It opened the door to a whole new fields of medical science which led to new medicines, new treatments and probably a whole bunch of things I can't remember. He's not a cult figure, he's a pioneer.

> though he added virtually NOTHING what so ever to
> the body of knowledge, and Mendel was a brilliant
> scientist who unraveled the key to life.
>
> Seriously, what did Darwin do? Certainly NOT come
> up with the idea of common descent. That wasn't
> his idea.

According to Wikipedia it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_descent

Universal common descent through an evolutionary process was first proposed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859), which concluded: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

And he FAILED miserably in his attempts
> to explain it, how it might work.
>

But we got it figured our now, that's for sure. I doubt that your characterization of Darwin's ability to communicate this idea is accurate as you have this habit of lying your ass off whenever it suits you.

> So why does anyone care about Darwin at all?
>
> Why remember the guy who took ideas from other
> people and couldn't add to them? Why not
> remember those other people?
>
>
>

Firstly, you are untruthful in your characterization of Darwin's work.
Discovering natural selection was the key that unlocked everything, and the world has never been the same. Another scientist also figured out natural selection. His name was Alfred Russel Wallace, who sent a copy of an essay called "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Independently from the Original Type." Wallace sent this paper to Darwin for an opinion. Darwin took Wallace's manuscript to a friend, Sir Charles Lyell, who decided that both Wallace's and Darwin's ideas should be presented at the same time.

Might have been the title that put people off from Wallace's work. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

How many times are you going to repeat these lies?
Any lie is a good lie if it's a lie for Jesus, right?

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 01:42:20 -0700 (PDT), Malcolm McMahon
<malcol...@googlemail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, 4 August 2016 17:21:48 UTC+1, JTEM wrote:
>> Malcolm McMahon wrote:
>>
>> > Quite possible. Mendel's work was widely disregarded at the time.
>>
>> Which is weird, because Darwin is now a cult figure,
>> though he added virtually NOTHING what so ever to
>> the body of knowledge, and Mendel was a brilliant
>> scientist who unraveled the key to life.
>>
>> Seriously, what did Darwin do? Certainly NOT come
>> up with the idea of common descent. That wasn't
>> his idea. And he FAILED miserably in his attempts
>> to explain it, how it might work.
>>
>
>What Darwin added was the idea of evolution through natural selection.
>The idea of evolution was well established, but the combination of
>mutation and natural selection as a mechanism was new, though, for
>example, Wallace came up with it at the same time.
>
>But Darwin struggled to understand mutation without genetics and, in
>the end, was driven back towards Lamarkianism.

No.

He CONCLUDED that mechanisms for heredity were required and PREDICTED
that they would be found.

Having read Origin, do you think he could have reached a different
conclusion?

He was one of the first scientists to use the now commonplace method
of homing in to the answer by validating or disproving predictions
made by a theory - if not the first.

If you think about it, Mendel "only" CONCLUDED and PREDICTED what he
called "discrete units of inheritance" without knowing what these
were.

And leMaitre "only" CONCLUDED and PREDICTED the big bang.

But that's how science works.

>The ToE we have today is a synthesis of Darwin, and Mendel.

Mendel didn't even think about mutation.

That didn't come until much later,

He was researching plant hybridisation and discovered dominant and
recessive traits.

Which is not discrediting either him or his contribution to scientific
knowledge.

The mechanism for mutation came with the much later understanding of
DNA,

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 5 Aug 2016 02:19:21 -0700 (PDT), Cloud Hobbit
<youngbl...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, August 4, 2016 at 9:21:48 AM UTC-7, JTEM wrote:
>> Malcolm McMahon wrote:
>>
>> > Quite possible. Mendel's work was widely disregarded at the time.
>>
>> Which is weird, because Darwin is now a cult figure,
>
>He's not cult figure, he's respected as the man who discovered the
>mechanism by which natural selection worked to cause species to
>evolve. It opened the door to a whole new fields of medical science
>which led to new medicines, new treatments and probably a whole
>bunch of things I can't remember. He's not a cult figure, he's a pioneer.

All this net.psycho has, are button-pushing lies, mostly about things
that are nothing to do with atheism.

He's a fundamentalist and creationist who imagines he attacks
evolution by slandering and libeling the person who published the
first scientifically derived explanation for it, which brought it to
popular attention.

Even though he knew Man wasn't any different in that respect from the
rest of the animal kingdom, he avoided mentioning it until The Descent
Of Man, to avoid upsetting people (especially his beloved wife, Emma)
- and evolution wasn't even controversial until then, and then only
among the deeply religious .

[JTEM]

Malcolm McMahon wrote:

> What Darwin added was the idea of evolution through natural selection.

So he fucked up and missed "Sexual Selection," you're saying.

But you're wrong. Darwin ENUMERATED it!

That's all. The "Natural Selection" was always there. These
are NATURALISTS we are speaking of. So they never so much as
implied an UNnatural process, leaving only a natural one.

It's like I announced I was going to the store, Darwin jumped
up and shouted, "He's going to leave the house" and everyone
showered Darwin for his deep insights, and providing the
missing piece of information that I left out...

"Yes, going to the store does indeed mean leaving my home.
Thank you, Darwin. Thank you so much for figuring that one
out."

> The idea of evolution was well established, but the combination of mutation and natural selection as a mechanism was new

WRONG!

When Darwin used the term "Mutations" he was speaking of
the organism itself: A whale is a mutated "bear" (or so
he thought).

The context is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than our present use
of "Mutation" in evolution, which is referring to a
a copying error in DNA.

NOT THE SAME THING AT ALL!

But you are making my point: People stretch themselves
thin -- over great lengths -- to credit Darwin for NOTHING.

Darwin took other people's ideas and failed miserably
at explaining them. In the process he added NOTHING to
the body of knowledge. And, his incompetence may very
well have held back science! After all, he WAS exposed
to Mendel's work! He was!

: Hermann Hoffman, a Professor of Botany at Giessen had

: written a little book on plant hybrids in 1869 and on
: page 52 was a long excerpt from Mendel's paper of
: 1865. On Darwin's copy of the book (now preserved in
: the Cambridge University Library) are hand written
: notes in the margins by Darwin on pages 50, 51, 53
: (facing page 52), 54 and 55.

http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/102/8/587

So an excerpt from Mendel's paper was on page 52, and
Darwin read & left notes on pages 50, 51, 53, 54 & 55.
Which leaves us with powerful evidence that Darwin was
either jealously guarding his own STUPID ideas from
"competition," or the man was simply too incompetent
to recognize the answer even when it's spelled out for
you in print...

Thank you. Thank you for helping to illustrate the
uselessness of Darwin, and the shame on those who
insist on deifying him as the collective does.






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