Should we reassess Darwin's legacy?
Bicentennial celebrations have portrayed Darwin as a kindly old gentleman pottering around an English house and garden. What that misses is the way his ideas were abused in the 20th century and the way in which Darwin was wrong about certain key issues. He asserted that different races of mankind had traveled different distances along the evolutionary path - white Caucasians were at the top of the racial hierarchy, while black and brown people ranked below. [Racism] was a widespread prejudice in British society at the time, but he presented racial hierarchy as a matter of science. He also held that the poor were genetically second-rate - which inspired eugenics.
Full article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091124/hl_time/08599194248300
Darwin was not always talking about the human race.. right..
He studied other forms of life to see how it correlated to us
"why have some animals had their mental powers more highly developed than others, as such development would be advantageous to all? Why have not apes acquired the intellectual powers of man?"
I believe apes and man evolved FROM A COMMON ANCESTOR. There is evolution in the form of skin color, eye shape, height and so on, and there are even diseases such as Sickle Cell that affect some races and not others.
As for the poor being genetically second-rate, I think that is more of a social/mental factor than anything else. If you grow up in dysfunction and come to think it the norm, then generations after you will feel the same unless the environment changes.
Heard all of this about Darwin before..its old news actually. However I don't see what his personal beliefs, etc have to do with his scientific discoveries.
Evolution is not something that you can chose to believe or not believe. It is a fact (in scientific terms a theory is a fact (A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis. In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology. In fact, some laws, such as the law of gravity, can also be theories when taken more generally. The law of gravity is expressed as a single mathematical expression and is presumed to be true all over the universe and all through time. Without such an assumption, we can do no science based on gravity's effects. But from the law, we derived the theory of gravity which describes how gravity works,what causes it, and how it behaves. We also use that to develop another theory, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, in which gravity plays a crucial role. The basic law is intact, but the theory expands it to include various and complex situations involving space and time. The biggest difference between a law and a theory is that a theory is much more complex and dynamic. A law describes a single action, whereas a theory explains an entire group of related phenomena.
In scientific terms a theory does not mean the same as common usage meaning of theory: 6 a: a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
b: an unproved assumption : conjecture
How something becomes a theory:
Development of a Simple Theory by the Scientific Method:
- Start with an observation that evokes a question: Broth spoils when I leave it out for a couple of days. Why?
- Using logic and previous knowledge, state a possible ansser, called a Hypothesis: Tiny organisms floating in the air must fall into the broth and start reproducing.
- Perform an expierment or Test: After boiling some broth, I divide it into two containers, one covered and one not covered. I place them on the table for two days and see if one spoils. Only the uncovered broth spoiled.
- Then publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Publication: "Only broth that is exposed to the air after two days tended to spoil. The covered specimen did not."
- Other scientists read about your experiment and try to duplicate it. Verification: Every scientist who tries your experiment comes up with the same results. So they try other methods to make sure your experiment was measuring what it was supposed to. Again, they get the same results every time.
- In time, and if experiments continue to support your hypothesis, it becomes a Theory: Microorganisms from the air cause broth to spoil.
- http://potomac9499.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/theory-scientific-vs-layman-definition/ and http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
Ashley's Husband Made it Home From a Deployment in Iraq - And Then Tragedy Struck
- amayabrianna
on Nov. 25, 2009 at 9:13 AM