>
There's still quite a heated debate in the sci news groups about
what Charles Darwin really said about the evolution of the eye.
<
It's time this matter is cleared up -- simply and concisely --
once and for all.
<
(Actually, I thought I had ended all the confusion back on
Saturday, May 11, 1996, when a pseudo named Michael
Clark accused me of misquoting Darwin. He had the balls
to say I used only a ****tion of Darwin's quote.)
<
=============================================
<
Here's exactly what I wrote:
<
>> ``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."
><
>=============================================
><
>Here's what Charles Darwin really said:
>
>> '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,
<
> (Wake me when it's over) Z Z Z Z Z Z Z z z z z z z . . . .
<
>>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
<
> Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z z z z z z z . . .
<
>>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, in his
Origin of Species
>>
>==========================================================
>
>I thought I said what Darwin had said but David Ian Greig
>said what I said wasn't what Darwin really had said because
>he said Darwin had more to say than what I said he had
>said, then Steve Vickers of the UK butts in and says HE
>knows what Darwin really said, claiming what I said he
>had said wasn't what Darwin really had said, so I said, 'Okay,
>I'll say what they say about what Darwin really said, since
>I suppose that this is indeed what he had said, even though
>I really don't know for sure if he had said it, but this is what
>they say he had said.
> >
>>================================================
<
Nice little song and dance, there, Zippy.
Can you balance a ball on your nose? ----
< -- Michael Clark
<
> Up your's, Dimwit!
<
>(Folks, please excuse the interruption!)
<
================================================
>
>Actually, it really doesn't matter what Darwin had said
>or what these fellas said he had said -- or what they say
>I said or didn't say --- since what I said, whether Darwin
>said it or not, isn't something that really had to be said.
>Perhaps Darwin said what he said because he felt he
>had to say it -- he certainly was entitled to say what he
>wanted to say. But by saying what they say he had said,
>he actually said more than he needed to say, so maybe
>he didn't have to say what he said. 'Course, IF Darwin
>did say what these fella said he had said, critics could
>later say he had nothing to say even though he had said it.
>
>Ed Conrad
>Emeritus Professor of Journalism
>Ediacara University
>Walla Walla, WA
<
============================================
<
> OH, SAY, CAN YOU SEE?
<
< PETRIFIED BONES, TEETH AND SOFT ORGANS
< (SOME HUMAN) FOUND BETWEEN COAL VEINS
<
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/OldestHumanSkull.JPG
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/HumanBrain.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/ManasOldasCoal.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/Discoveries.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/MoreFossils.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/TestResults.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/OldestTool.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/Scorpion.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/FOSSILS/MVC-013F.JPG
<
< =================
<
< PETRIFIED FOSSILS STILL EMBEDDED IN SLATE
<
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/NewFossils/MVC-002S.JPG
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/NewFossils/MVC-003S.JPG
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/NewFossils/MVC-006S.JPG
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/NewFossils/MVC-007S.JPG
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/NewFossils/MVC-009S.JPG
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/NewFossils/MVC-010S.JPG
http://mysite.verizon.net/edconrad/NewFossils/MVC-012S.JPG
<
================================================
<
"We can forgive a child
who is afraid of the dark.
The real tragedy of life
is when men are afraid
of the light." -- Plato
<
==================
<
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<
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|
