Comments on: Happy Darwin Day https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/02/12/happy-darwin-day/ Wed, 12 Feb 2014 15:15:18 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/02/12/happy-darwin-day/#comment-478637 Wed, 12 Feb 2014 15:15:18 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=18807#comment-478637 Sylvester, that is true. But it is also true that modern science generally can trace its roots to Darwin. Of course, it can trace its roots to a lot of individuals, some events, some organizations, in the past. But Darwin developed the highest form of what I would call the “true” scientific method. Not this circle of hypothesis testing and formulation thing (that’s nice too). Rather, he developed the method of drawing information from multiple sources (observation, experience, literature, ideas held forth in conversations, creative thought), evaluating everything in context of everything else, giving all ideas an equal measure of consideration for as long as they stood the various tests, and finally, synthesis into a provisional model. He did that first with his work on coral reef formation, then later with his work on evolution, for example.

In a sense, Darwin made other scientists suck it up and do the work and not just be armchair victorian meddlers in natural history as much as many had been.

He certainly wasn’t alone in that approach but he did in part invent it for himself while on the Voyage and in those early ears after, in my opinion.

]]> By: Sylvester B https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/02/12/happy-darwin-day/#comment-478636 Wed, 12 Feb 2014 15:06:17 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=18807#comment-478636 Darwin was in my humble opinion the scientist who most affected the future. He called into question the accepted truth of the Bible (as well as then-current science) and contributed to the development of free-thinking every where.

Happy birthday, old sock!

JimB

]]> By: Steven Earl Salmony https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/02/12/happy-darwin-day/#comment-478635 Wed, 12 Feb 2014 13:22:31 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=18807#comment-478635 I cannot help but wonder what knowledgeable people are to do when a species like Homo sapiens is confronted with a colossal planetary emergency that it appears to have induced. Do human beings not have an original, overarching obligation or perhaps an absolute duty to warn of such a dire situation? What honor should be bestowed on first rank scientists and other esteemed professionals in possession of well-established science who pose as if they “see no truth, hear no truth and speak no truth” regarding known causes of the clear and present danger while mainstreamed, false (preternatural, pseudoscientific) knowledge is deliberately allowed to stand unchallenged as if it represented the best available science?

]]> By: International Darwin Day | Computers & Science https://gregladen.com/blog/2014/02/12/happy-darwin-day/#comment-478634 Wed, 12 Feb 2014 12:35:20 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=18807#comment-478634 […] Happy Darwin Day […]

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