Re: Aliens, dinosaurs and ape men

[Gerd Groenewold <venator@win.bright.net>]

Hello all,

Gary Kern wrote:

> Regarding Darwin, that's another kettle of fish.  The reality is that
> the various scenarios of natural selection are no more than scientific
> myths:  they are invented after the fact of an animal's development and
> cannot be tested or proven.  So with the dinosaurs:  there are dozens of
> theories not only on their demise, but also on how they lived, whether
> they were warm-blooded, made migrations in herds, safeguarded their
> young, etc.  All of this is valid speculation, but the invocations of
> natural selection (i.e., survival of the fittest through successful
> variation in a particular niche) is, to my mind, always just invention.
> Unfortunately, the Creationists (Bible-thumpers who believe that God
> created all the animals, and that's that) have entered the picture to
> muddy up the waters, so that it is hard to attack Darwinism without
> being misunderstood and mischaracterized.  I think Darwin was entirely
> right about evolution occurring, but doubt that natural selection (even
> with modern adjustments) can explain how it occurred.
> 

I tend to think it is pretty close to at least a part of the process
involved, but I think the theory itself is incomplete.  My point,
however, was not necessarily the correctness of Darwin's theory, but
instead the fact that it is being debated not on scientific merits, but
that instead the debate has been brought on by politics, at least at its
inception, which points to a major problem in the scientific community.

We see, I think, a similar problem throughout all of academia, as Jünger
pointed out.

GERD