al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski) (10/14/85)
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I too recently read Darwin's Origin of Species and was also struck by the
thoroughness of Darwin's coverage of opposing arguments. It was clear
that he was not just playing the customary game of setting up straw-man
arguments to knock down. He presented difficulties of the theory fairly
and admitted when they were strong. Also, the sheer volume of evidence
and examples of natural and sexual selection presented by Darwin was
very impressive. He knew what his opposition would be and that he needed
overwhelming factual support to have any hope of prevailing.
One thing I was surprised to see was Darwin's open-mindedness toward
Lamarckism, which was not yet refuted. Darwin said that certain
races of men did not have facial hair, perhaps because, for many
generations, the men plucked out any hair which did appear. NAMEDROP:
I happened to meet Gerard Piel, publisher of Scientific American at
the recent AAAS meeting in L.A., and this came up in conversation. He said
"Oh Yes, and the amount of Lamarckism depends on which edition you read."
Maybe it was edited out by revisionists?
The "Origin of Species" still is one of the best explanations
of Natural selection around. Reading that and something more modern
about "punctuated equilibria" and "molecular clocks" would be
a great education in evolutionary theory and in science in general.
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Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A
{seismo|ihnp4}!ut-sally!oakhill!mot!al | ucbvax!arizona!asuvax!mot!al
------------------------------------------------------------------------phillips@reed.UUCP (Patrick Phillips) (10/29/85)
>"Oh Yes, and the amount of Lamarckism depends on which edition you read." >Maybe it was edited out by revisionists? Actually, I think that the amount of Lamarckism increased with the editions. Darwin was apparently less secure with the importance of natural selection as time went along. (At least that's what Earnst Mayr says). -Patrick Phillips