stevestory
Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005
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Quote (Zachriel @ April 27 2008,11:32) | I'm sure everyone has seen Allen MacNeill's excellent work at Uncommon Descent as documented on the Official Uncommonly Dense Discussion Thread. But Teach' MacNeill has just unleashed a double-barrelled blast of pedagogy over at Telic Thoughts.
Quote | Allen_MacNeill: And so today, Lynn Margulis's SET {serial endosymbiosis theory} has become the dominant theory explaining not only the origin of eukaryotes, but also the origin of evolutionary novelty at dozens of different levels in biology (see her Acquiring Genomes for a comprehensive review). So well accepted has her work become by evolutionary biologists that finally, after almost four decades, creationists and ID supporters have begun to attack her theories. As she said at our Darwin Day celebration at Cornell this past February, no greater affirmation of one's "having arrived" as a major theorist in evolutionary biology could be imagined. |
Quote | Allen_MacNeill: The point here is that, if ID wants to become accepted as part of evolutionary biology in the same way that Lynn Margulis's SET has become accepted, then ID supporters have to do the same thing she did: get out in the field and get your hands dirty, and get into the lab and do the same thing. Her ideas were just as unorthodox and unacceptable in 1969 as ID is now. However, she didn't put all of her effort into public relations and political propaganda. No "Symbiosis Institute" dumped millions into the production of deliberately distorted press kits and one-sided propaganda films. Legions of self-appointed experts whose only exposure to biology was in high school classes or what they read on Answers in Genesis or Uncommon Descent bloviated on SET and declared themselves experts after a week of superficial study of articles on Wikipedia... |
Quote | Allen_MacNeill: The difference between her and them is that they can't even begin to claim any credibility in science; their "work" is entirely parasitic on hers, and deserves nothing but contempt.
And unless and until IDers decide that it's finally time to stop doing agitprop and start doing science, they and the creationists will at best be a trivial footnote. |
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