On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:03:55 GMT, Ed Conrad <edconrad@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
><
>(On Sat, 11 May 1996, Ed Conrad wrote to talk.origins, etc., in
>response to Michael Clark's accusation that he had used only
>a ****tion of Charles Darwin's quote in which he expressed
>serious doubts about the evolution of the eye:
><
>=======================================================
><
>The Ed Conrad Hurry-Up-I-Have-to-Catch-a-Train Version:
><
>> ``To suppose that the eye (with so many parts all working together) .
. .
>> could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess,
>> absurd in the highest degree."
><
>=======================================================
><
>The Charles Darwin Let-Me-Put-You-To-Sleep Version:
><
>>"'To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for
>>adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different
>>amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic
>>aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I
>>freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said
>>that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common
>>sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of
>>Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted
>>in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple
>>and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist,
>>each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if
>>further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is
>>likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to
>>any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of
>>believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural
>>selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be
>>considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be
>>sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself
>>originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in
>>which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it
>>does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their
>>sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves,
>> endowed with this special sensibility."
>> [Darwin, 1859, _The
Origin of Species
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>==========================================================
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> I thought I said what Darwin had said
But you were wrong. Darwin actually says the opposite of what you
said. It's like taking a film critic's, "This film is one of the
greatest bombs in history" and quoting it, while leaving out the word
"bombs"
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