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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