Just thought I'd steal the microphone for a personal shout-out. Happy birthday to my grandmother, Dr. Elsie Sandefur, founder of the U.C.L.A. Zooarchaeology Bone Lab!
Happy birthday, Grandma!
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5 Comments
Salvador T. Cordova · 20 December 2004
Well Timothy, I extend my birthday wishes to your Grandmother as well.
Happy Birthday Dr. Elsie Sandefur!
Salvador
Gary Hurd · 20 December 2004
Happy Birthday, Elsie!
Wayne Francis · 20 December 2004
Happy Birthday Dr. Sandefur.
Gary Abramson · 21 December 2004
It seems to me the scientific community should divide evolution into two components:
1.) The Theory of Evolutionary Origin
2.) The Process of Evolution through Natural Selection
That way, the "Process of Evolution" can be treated like the "process of photosynthesis" or the "process of nuclear fusion". There is nothing theoretical about evolution and it is critical to get the "theory" out of the mind of an ignorant public.
People can then argue till their blue in the face over the very origin of life itself: pitting the "Theory of Evolutionary Origin" against the "Theory of Intelligent Design". The "Theory of Evolutionary Origin" would suggest life first started by an evolutionary process of recombinant proteins. As this is a question we can never answer (not knowing if Earth was seeded by microbes from Mars, from some alien civilization, or by the chance of lightning striking the gasses of the ancient Earth -- who knows -- who was there?) we can relegate this to the other religious questions that seek to somehow definitively answer all the great unknowns our minds are simply not capable of understanding in the first place. That would separate the fact of evolution from the religious debate that basically pits the entirety of the observable natural world against a few sentences in the bible, and free everyone to get on with a more focused and reasonable debate.
CrystalCowboy · 3 January 2005
In response to #12103,
Ernst Mayr has broken Darwin's contribution into 5 proposed theories,
1) Populations change over time
2) Common descent
3) Multiplication of species (speciation)
4) Gradualism
5) Natural Selection
As for the http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/modorlife.html"Theory of Evolutionary Origin", there are several naturalistic theories (or hypotheses?), and the name would depend on the specifics. Probably the front-runner is the RNA World Theory given the molecular biology breakthroughs of the last couple decades, including the structure of the ribosome which reveals that it is, at its heart, an RNA machine.
As for where Intelligent Design fits in, that would depend on the proponent. To take Behe's argument, for example, he does not completely deny common descent, but believes that ID is necessary for things such as clotting cascades and immune systems. So for Behe, a first replicator or first cell would not be enough, he would require at least multicellular eukaryotes be created. Thus it is hard to draw a firm line between evolution of an existing life form and origin of life for those who require some act of creation.