I had no idea

[james_davis_nicoll]

As pointed out in email, JEP on evolution.

Comments

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

Of course there are holes in Darwin! Darwin was just starting a brand-new science, and he couldn't come up with everything! We've come a long way since then.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

The tell tale sign of the intelligent design loon: being obsessed by Darwin, rather than actually existing contemporary evolutionary biology (aka "biology").

[wakboth.livejournal.com]

Well that's just natural. They assume ToE was intelligently designed from the start, discounting the possibility of it evolving along the way. Thus, they must attack the original version and the authority of the designer!

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Scientific crackpots usually try to attack founding figures and historical experiments, as if that would cause the edifice of a science to crumble, rather than critiquing contemporary science in any coherent way. The anti-relativity people are always going on about mistakes in Einstein's arguments and flaws in the Michelson-Morley experiment, as if that would accomplish anything at this point.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Maybe it's because they have trouble distinguishing science from religion? After all, when critiquing Christianity, people usually go to the bible first...

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Maybe partly that, but also an identification of the science with what they read in introductory texts or popular expositions, which often take a quasi-historical approach.

Also, a limited understanding that science is fundamentally a social process, rather than a giant deduction that some isolated person makes from first principles.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, anyone who uses the term "Darwinism" doesn't understand it.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Kind of like using "Mohammedan" instead of "Muslim".

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I had to give up at that point... gosh, Darwin's theory might have some holes in it? NO! I'd better take another look at Lord Kelvin's thoughts on the age of the Earth too in that case. Surely nothing has changed since the 1850s?