response 21 of 62:

Jan 18 23:07 UTC 2006

Re #0: It sounds like an interesting exhibit.  A few points, though:

Lots of people who came before Darwin believed that species evolved from
other species.  THinking of that idea wasn't Darwin's great contribution. 
What was his, though, was the idea of natural selection: that some members
of a species, for whatever reason, are occasionally born with attributes
which give them an advantage over their peers.  These organsms are therefore
more likely to prosper and reproduce.  When this process is repeated over
enough generations, an old species can beget a new one.

So it wasn't the idea of evolution that Darwin contributed, it was an
explanation of the mechanism for how it might come about.

Darwin didn't publish his work because he was worried about taking it to 
his grave.  He was a careful man, and had put off publishing for a long 
time because he knew it would be controversial, and he wanted to have as 
much evidence accumulated as possible before going public.

The thing that pushed him to publish was that someone else had the same 
idea, and was about to publish first.  That was Alfred Wallace, who was a 
self-educated outsider to the club of upper-class naturalists in England.  
Wallace made his living acquiring specimens of various species around the 
world, and sending them back to Europe for study.  He was a working-class 
guy who lived something of a vagabond existence, riding on tram steamers 
and spending large amounts of time being sick of various tropical 
diseases.

The interesting and surprising thing to me is always that no one came up 
with the idea of natural selection before Darwin and Wallace did.  It just 
seems so obvious now, in hindsight.  A large number of species had already 
been catalogued by the early 19th century, and of course people had 
noticed similarities between species and postulated that they somehow 
evolved from one another.  But no one could explain how that happened.

Darwin apparently got the idea from his discoveries on the Beagle and from 
reading about how human institutions evolved.  After drawing the analogy, 
he spent years carefully amassing evidence for it.

Wallace, on the other hand, didn't have leisure time to spend like that, 
because he had to travel around, gathering specimens to make a living.  
And he didn't have scientific training.  So how did he come up with the 
idea?  You would think, since scientists back in England had access to 
specimens he and other people were sending back, that they would have as 
good a chance as he would to deduce something from them.

Now here's the interesting part: because Wallace collected specimens for 
money, he of course collected more than one of each specimen.  In fact he 
collected lots of them.  And that allowed him to notice that there were in 
fact variations among representatives of the same species - something one 
wouldn't see if one was only looking at *one* specimen, as no doubt most 
of the scientists in England were.  So there's an answer for why no one 
thought of natural selection before: most people didn't appreciate the 
variety that could occur within one species, and so it didn't occur to 
them that maybe some members of a species would have a survival advantage 
over others, and this process repeated would lead to new species.

Wallace, on the other hand, had great examples of variety right in front 
of him.  In fact, he no doubt thought about it a lot, since he had to 
decide which specimens were worth sending back.  And this eventually led 
him to understand natural selection.

Fortunately for Darwin, Wallace and he had corresponded before, and 
Wallace had a great respect for him.  Wallace sent Darwin his article 
about natural selection, and asked for his opinion on this idea he was 
about to publish.  Darwin turned white, no doubt, upon reading the 
article.  Shortly thereafter, through some questionable dealings, a joint 
result of both Darwin and Wallace, together, was what acually appeared.

response 23 of 62:

Jan 18 23:52 UTC 2006

re resp:22: Natural selection wouldn't account for the development of 
the soul, unless a soul provides some sort of advantage in surviving 
and reproducing.  The only purpose for a soul, evolutionarily, would 
seem to be to obtain the divine assistance of God.

There is no evidence of developmental souls in a fetus, or degrees of 
souls in any humans ("Wow, look at this guy... he really has a big 
soul!"), or animals that have a lesser degree of soul, or anything like 
that.

I conclude that if souls are in there, they were put there by someone, 
and further that they do not reside in the appendix.

response 25 of 62:

Jan 19 01:01 UTC 2006

While the idea of evolution had been around before Darwin, and his main
contribution was identifying natural selection, what that did was move
evolution from just an *idea* to a process that had a logical basis. That
is why Darwin is associated with evolutionary theory: he made it manifest.

There are no "souls" in evolutionary theory. They are not a useful hypothesis
as they explain nothing and it cannot be tested. Souls are not science.

response 27 of 62:

Jan 19 07:01 UTC 2006

The study of radiation was a well established part of physics in 1906.
But your point is meaningless. Radiation was something to be studied. Souls
have never been even demonstrated to exist and there is no meaningful study
of souls. They are just another empty "intelligent design" hypothesis. To our
knowledge all there is is mind, which requires a brain.

response 29 of 62:

Jan 19 12:01 UTC 2006

(Rich again. In fact I wish I were as rich as klg; I'd make Gates look like
a pauper.)

response 31 of 62:

Jan 19 15:32 UTC 2006

Rane, I continue to feel sorry for you for being unable to recognize 
(or tolerate) humor in different situations.  Resp:23 was intended as 
humor in line with resp:22.

You don't believe in God?  Gee, I didn't know that -- since I happened 
to just now forget everything I've ever read on Grex.  Thanks for the 
enlightening update!

response 33 of 62:

Jan 19 17:54 UTC 2006

Re 31 I so love it when you are snarky.

response 35 of 62:

Jan 19 18:22 UTC 2006

insert eyeroll here.

response 37 of 62:

Jan 19 18:28 UTC 2006

Me too!  
Oops, it was just gas.  Never mind.

response 39 of 62:

Jan 19 18:40 UTC 2006

rotflmao. no, really.

response 41 of 62:

Jan 19 18:51 UTC 2006

Re #30: Yes, and _Hallowed Hunt_ too (and every other Bujold I can get my hands
on). I was *given* my *own copy* of _Cordelia's Honor_, _Civil Campaign_,
_Curse of Chalion_, and _Paladin of Souls_ for Christmas.

response 43 of 62:

Jan 19 19:29 UTC 2006

I think we got Hallowed Hunt through interlibrary loan, but it might have been
borrowed from another member of the Mythopoeic Society chapter my parents are
in.