Evokution is NOT central to biology
We keep hearing that tired old refrain that evolution is"central" to biology, or some such drivel. That is like saying that because manufacturing is the origin of engineered things, manufacturing engineering is central to engineering. Other engineeering disciplines -- e.g.mechanical,electrical, and chemical -- are needed to understand and design those things.
posted by Larry Fafarman | 3/08/2011 04:31:00 AM
12 Comments:
It is central in that it forms an axiomatic mind set of justification. That is, you discover a new protein, you automatically are challenge to justify it in terms of evolutionary thought.
Lazarus Lupin
http://strangespanner.blogspot.com/
art and review
OK, Lazarus. But that is only PART of studying the new protein, noT the WHOLE THING, as is falsely implied by the statement that evolution is central tob biology. There are lots of other things to study, like the protein's structure
and function
OK, Lazarus. But that is only PART of studying the new protein, noT the WHOLE THING, as is falsely implied by the statement that evolution is central tob biology. There are lots of other things to study, like the protein's structure
and function
even these have component that is devoted to the evolutionary axiom since when you study the function the natural question arises of how did this arise within the framework of evolution. It can even work backwards where we take knowledge and a theoretical framework we already have and take the protein and say, "Well it's a relative of this and this protein, so it should operate something like this." In which case an experiment can be set up to test the hypothesis.
Evolutionary thinking might give some clues but it is still NOT the WHOLE THING.
Evolutionary thinking might give some clues but it is still NOT the WHOLE THING.
>>>>>>That is like saying that because manufacturing is the origin of engineered things, manufacturing engineering is central to engineering. Other engineeering disciplines -- e.g.mechanical,electrical, and chemical -- are needed to understand and design those things.<<<<<<
What does the second sentence have to do with the first? That other disciplines are needed says nothing about whether manufacturing engineering is or isn't central to engineering.
>>>>>>But that is only PART of studying the new protein, noT the WHOLE THING, as is falsely implied by the statement that evolution is central tob biology. There are lots of other things to study, like the protein's structure
and function.<<<<<<
That's not what is implied by the statement that evolution is central to biology. Is English your second language or something? You don't seem to have a very good grasp of the meaning of common terms.
You stupid fathead, the whole idea behind the statement that "evolution is central to biology" and similar statements is to give the false impression that nothing can be studied in biology without including evolution in the study.
Lying for Darwin is no better than lying for Jesus.
>>>>>>You stupid fathead, the whole idea behind the statement that "evolution is central to biology" and similar statements is to give the false impression that nothing can be studied in biology without including evolution in the study.<<<<<<
In other words, evolution is "PART of studying" anything in biology, "noT the WHOLE THING."
That is NOT what I said, Bozo.
Fellows, fellows, there's no need to get hot under the collar here. I think we are having some semantic difficulties here. I think we should redefine the point being made which is that one doesn't need evolution to say study the chemistry of a new protein. It's sort of like the argument that you don't need God to explain the universe so therefore there is no God. Whether evolution is needed or not to study a protein has nothing to do with the merits of evolution. Now, what does argue for evolution in this situation is that by applying evolutionary biology we can make a testable hypothesis which either brings us more knowledge or not.
Lazarus Lupin
Post a Comment
<< Home