Does Biology make sense without Darwin?

[Shadow Wolf]

Is insisting Darwinism is the one essential grand unifying theme of science

I have not once heard such a claim until now.

 

[Audie]

I have not once heard such a claim until now.

Just made it up. it is a ridiculous idea.

 

[Polymath257]

Can you teach medicine, technology and agriculture with no practical loss of benefit to mankind
Is insisting Darwinism is the one essential grand unifying theme of science OR merely a dogma justifying atheism?

Hubris? or truth? or merely truthy

from Wiki
Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" is a 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist and Eastern Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, criticising anti-evolution creationism and espousing theistic evolution. The essay was first published in American Biology Teacher in 1973.

Dobzhansky first used the title statement, in a slight variation, in a 1964 presidential address to the American Society of Zoologists, "Biology, Molecular and Organismic", to assert the importance of organismic biology in response to the challenge of the rising field of molecular biology The term "light of evolution"—or sub specie evolutionis—had been used earlier by the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and then by the biologist Julian Huxley.

Yes, you can be a perfectly good technician without understanding the underlying principles of what you work with. For example, a car mechanic need not study physics in depth. A doctor need not study biology in depth.

But if you really want to *understand* a subject, you have to go beyond the technician level and to the level of testing ideas and science. And *that* is where evolution is a fundamental insight into biology. if your scope is limited, you can get away without knowing it just as a car mechanic can get away without knowing Newtonian Mechanics. But to truly see the underlying unity, you need to study the science.

 

[whirlingmerc]

I have not once heard such a claim until now.

It is claimed all the time
see https://www.quora.com/Why-is-evolution-considered-the-core-theme-of-biology

and Psychology today
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-evolution-considered-the-core-theme-of-biology

https://quizlet.com/116897760/biology-chapter-16-flash-cards/
Bio flash cards
Q What is evolution often called
A grand unifying theory of life sciences

No practical consequence inherent to the claim to the exclusion of creationary or intelligent design views... but it makes atheists happy

 

[Audie]

Which of those says ToE is the grand unifying throry of
science, as you earlier claimed?

Prease find the quote for us.

You wont, of course.

Nor will you take back your falsehoods.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It is claimed all the time
see https://www.quora.com/Why-is-evolution-considered-the-core-theme-of-biology

and Psychology today
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-evolution-considered-the-core-theme-of-biology

https://quizlet.com/116897760/biology-chapter-16-flash-cards/
Bio flash cards
Q What is evolution often called
A grand unifying theory of life sciences

No practical consequence inherent to the claim to the exclusion of creationary or intelligent design views... but it makes atheists happy

Creation and ID are not science. They are the defense of a myth. You do not even seem to understand what science is. I have a thread dedicated to learning what the scientific method is. You should participate.

 

[whirlingmerc]

you are correct it should say the claim is of 'life science'

 

[whirlingmerc]

Creation and ID are not science. They are the defense of a myth. You do not even seem to understand what science is. I have a thread dedicated to learning what the scientific method is. You should participate.

Assertions and Ad Hominem remain logical fallacies
The first to articulate the scientific method would have been creationists and would not agree with you
see Sir Thomas Bacon

The scientific method does not rule out miracles or creation nor is it the only approach of scientific investigation since some investigations use a historical detective like approach because things are not always repeatable testable obserable

 

[Audie]

you are correct it should say the claim is of 'life science'

Well! I stand correvted, and so do you.

Was there any point you wished to make?
That it is the unifying theme in biology was news 150 years ago.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Assertions and Ad Hominem remain logical fallacies
The first to articulate the scientific method would have been creationists and would not agree with you
see Sir Thomas Bacon

The scientific method does not rule out miracles or creation nor is it the only approach of scientific investigation since some investigations use a historical detective like approach because things are not always repeatable testable obserable

There was no "assertion". You wrote a post where your ignorance was obvious. I offered a cure. Nor was there an ad hominem. Creationists far too often rely on that claim.

And yes, one could take a scientific approach to either creationism or ID. The problem is that they don't. That is why your side lost the Dover trial. My thread could help you to understand that.

Here is a simple question for you:

What reasonable test would show either creationism or ID to be wrong if they are wrong?

 

[ecco]

Ernst Haeckel holding that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” meaning that the developing human embryo passes through stages recreating the evolutionary descent of man from ancestral species. ...But Professor Haeckel’s pseudoscience is not being inflicted only on junior-high students with out-of-date textbooks.

Professor Sagan relied upon embryonic recapitulation for a 1990 essay in that noted scientific journal Parade, in which he presented superficial Haeckelesque embryonic observations — “looks a little like a segmented worm,” “something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian,” “reptilian face,” “mammalian but somewhat piglike,” “the face resembles that of a primate but is still not quite human,” etc. — to argue for abortion.

Taken in context as part of the whole it isn't nearly as Haeckelesque as you make it out to be.

http://humanist.de/wissenschaft/sagan001/

• By the third week, around the time of the first missed menstrual period, the forming embryo is about 2 millimeters long and is developing various body parts. Only at this stage does it begin to be dependent on a rudimentary placenta. It looks a little like a segmented worm.4
• By the end of the fourth week, it's about 5 millimeters (about 1/5 inch) long. It's recognizable now as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks rather like a newt or a tadpole. This is the end of the first month after conception.
• By the fifth week, the gross divisions of the brain can be distinguished. What will later develop into eyes are apparent, and little buds appear—on their way to becoming arms and legs.

{Pictures not posting. Copyright?}

• By the sixth week, the embryo is 13 millimeters (about ½ inch) long. The eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be.
• By the end of the seventh week, the tail is almost gone, and sexual characteristics can be discerned (although both sexes look female). The face is mammalian but somewhat piglike. By the end of the eighth week, the face resembles that of a primate but is still not quite human. Most of the human body parts are present in their essentials. Some lower brain anatomy is well-developed. The fetus shows some reflex response to delicate stimulation.
• By the tenth week, the face has an ummistakably human cast. It is beginning to be possible to distinguish males from females. Nails and major bone structures are not apparent until the third month.
• By the fourth month, you can tell the face of one fetus from that of another. Quickening is most commonly felt in the fifth month. The bronchioles of the lungs do not begin developing until approximately the sixth month, the alveoli still later.

In the same essay, Professor Sagan presents clumsy mistruths about U.S. abortion law and grossly inaccurate observations about fetal brain development. This is not entirely surprising: Carl Sagan was an astronomer with no special expertise in fetal development or law.

Perhaps you would care to quote some of Sagan's "clumsy mistruths about U.S. abortion law and grossly inaccurate observations".

In context this time please.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It is claimed all the time
see https://www.quora.com/Why-is-evolution-considered-the-core-theme-of-biology

and Psychology today
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-evolution-considered-the-core-theme-of-biology

"Core theme of biology" is a world's difference from "one grand unifying theme of science."

No practical consequence inherent to the claim to the exclusion of creationary or intelligent design views... but it makes atheists happy

Are you aware that many theists, including Christians, reject the notion of Creationism/ID? As for Creationism/ID, it is not scientific because it is not falsifiable and there are no means to actually test it.

 

[Audie]

Assertions and Ad Hominem remain logical fallacies
The first to articulate the scientific method would have been creationists and would not agree with you
see Sir Thomas Bacon

The scientific method does not rule out miracles or creation nor is it the only approach of scientific investigation since some investigations use a historical detective like approach because things are not always repeatable testable obserable

The status of ad hom as a fallacy is also
not news. Subz offered none; why do you bother
with all this news of the obvious?

 

[whirlingmerc]

"Core theme of biology" is a world's difference from "one grand unifying theme of science."

Are you aware that many theists, including Christians, reject the notion of Creationism/ID? As for Creationism/ID, it is not scientific because it is not falsifiable and there are no means to actually test it.

Many people reject many things which doesn't make it correct
Some find themselves rejecting Biblical claims

 

[whirlingmerc]

Well! I stand correvted, and so do you.

Was there any point you wished to make?
That it is the unifying theme in biology was news 150 years ago.

150 years ago Haekle's embryo drawings were news now they are known as fraud

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Many people reject many things which doesn't make it correct

True. But your statement of "makes atheists happy" is not accurate. Especially since evolution and atheism are not inherently linked.

Some find themselves rejecting Biblical claims

I reject a number of them because they are inaccurate, have no proof to verify its claims, and are immoral.

 

[Subduction Zone]

150 years ago Haekle's embryo drawings were news now they are known as fraud

That is an overstatement. He was a bit sloppy in some of his work and he copied some work, but his work itself was not fraudulent. He was merely mistaken. He was correct in some concepts and that is why some of his work is reproduced with photographs these days. This is simply an ad hom on your part against Haeckel.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Many people reject many things which doesn't make it correct
Some find themselves rejecting Biblical claims

Some Biblical claims have been shown to be wrong. Your post is a bit of a non-sequitur.

 

[Audie]

150 years ago Haekle's embryo drawings were news now they are known as fraud

Irrelevant, and false. That ToE was the unifying theme in biology
was true them and is true now.

Re the drawings
Only the creos, for their own reasons, call it "fraud".

Mainly as a misrepresentation of events in the century before
last is as close as they can come to a valid argument
against ToE.

Probably also in a try at a firebreak against the
entirely accurate ibservation that creationism is
the fraud.

You did not say if drawings of canals on Mars
are "fraud" to a creo.

 

[whirlingmerc]

Irrelevant, and false. That ToE was the unifying theme in biology
was true them and is true now.

Re the drawings
Only the creos, for their own reasons, call it "fraud".

Mainly as a misrepresentation of events in the century before
last is as close as they can come to a valid argument
against ToE.

Probably also in a try at a firebreak against the
entirely accurate ibservation that creationism is
the fraud.

You did not say if drawings of canals on Mars
are "fraud" to a creo.

So you feel Haekel's embryo drawings were good science?
Sadly hardly the only fraud regarding evolution, one of the most notorious being Piltown