paul@phs.UUCP (02/24/84)
<bk> I find myself somewhat irritated at the seemingly common netland assumption that scientists who are convinced that abiogenesis and evolution took place need creationists who are not convinced to keep them honest, rather as if pro-evolution scientists were joined in a conspiracy to fool others into believing in evolution. It has always been my experience that in any field with more than one scientist in it, there is going to be a difference of opinion. Is it in fact the case that pro-evolution scientists are aware of, and promote notice of, flaws in scenarios presented for abiogenesis? without being "forced" to by creationists? I think so, even from my limited reading on the subject. Take this example: C.R. Woese, whom you may recall wrote a monograph favoring abiogenesis from which I abstracted a couple of quotes a week or so ago, also said the below at a symposium in 1979, published (in "The Origins of Life and Evolution") in 1980: "We accept as unavoidable truths what are unsubstantiated assumptions. We overlook the difficulties and those features that are intuitively repulsive in the Oparin scheme. We take for granted that an Oparin ocean, the focus of prebiotic, chemical evolution, existed. We can see no alternative to the first organism being fermentative heterotrophs. We accept that primitive synthesis must have been effected by energy sources (ultraviolet light, electrical discharge, etc) that, to our experience, play no significant role in biology. We allow life to originate in forms that are basically destructive of the organization that preceded them. We permit photosynthesis to arise in a deus ex machina fashion, only after life has exhausted all other metabolic regimens, from heterotrophy to chemoautotrophy. We create an oceanic time bomb -- the vast Oparin reservoir of energy-rich compounds -- and in effect 'explode' it by the appearance of the first replicating entities. This picture creates life in a basically nonbiological way." Woese, of course, has his own view of abiogenesis, apparently first presented in this forum; the point is that a pro-evolution scientist is capable of critiquing the work and ideas of other pro-evolution scientists. Nor is Woese alone in this ability: in the article in the same book by K.E. Van Holde, one of the organizers of the symposium, there is a fairly detailed consideration of the impossibility of significant peptide synthesis occurring in the ocean. This is not, of course, to say that creationist scientists should keep their mouths shut, or that evolutionary science is the province solely of those who are pro-evolution. Rather, it is to say that some netlanders have a rather peculiar notion of what scientists of any persuasion are like, as foolish as some of the public's notion of what computerists are like (who, of course, want to put Big Brother in power, and reduce people to mere numbers, and so on). ------------------------------------ Paul Dolber @ Evil Scientist Headquarters (...!duke!phs!paul)
bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes ) (02/25/84)
It would seem that those of us who are pro-evolution are caught in
a double bind by the creationists. If we agree, it is obviously
because there is a pro-evolutionist conspiracy to wipe creationist
thought from the face of the earth. If we disagree, however, this
somehow indicates a flaw in evolutionary theory thus is evidence
for the truth of creationism. :-)
--
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
Byron Howes
UNC - Chapel Hill
({decvax,akgua}!mcnc!unc!bch)jlg@lanl-a.UUCP (03/03/84)
Ocean : n., A body of water covering two thirds of a planet made for man ... who has no gills.