The book reveals an effort to suppress any information that contradicts Darwins ideas.
There is a twisted view of what Darwin actually said and did. I was wondering if you were able to see that.
It would be ignorant to assume that Darwins ideas are the last in determining how we came to be. Don't you think?
You may want to call this ignorance, but among those of us who have read Darwin there is a tendency even among us to forget what he said and did. It's worse among people who dislike him because they shut down and their eyes glaze over as soon as the substance of what he said and did comes out. As for whether Darwin's ideas are the last word, you merely have to answer the question he asked himself were the animals on the Galapagos, a young volcanic archipelago, created specially for that island? Now, is there any doubt? This alone will determine if Darwin had "the last word". Is there a reasonable doubt about his findings at Galapagos?
So you needn't be curious about me,
My curiosity extends to countless people who are against Darwin. You happen to express a similar point of view, and you are willing to engage science pros and fans here at SciForums.
But rather you should ask yourself why information regarding his ideas are so vehemently suppressed
I only sense a suppression of Darwin's discovery at Galapagos. In a way you even seem reluctant to discuss it. Your author, as far as I can tell, is actively suppressing Darwin's discovery. That is, the man set out to criticize Darwin, yet never lays out what the findings at Galapagos were. (As far as I can tell. I only read your link, not the book.)
and more importantly, why you yourself cannot accept anything that challenges them.
The problem, Jan, is I have yet to see any challenge raised to Darwin's findings at Galapagos. I am not aware of any critic of Darwin who has ever tried to refute what he found at Galapagos and how he explained it. So far I have only encountered vague arguments against peripheral ideas (like politics and suppression, etc.) that are not relevant to his discovery. Darwin's discovery stands on its own two legs today as it did in the 1850s when he published it. But why do we never see it discussed in threads like this? Because people want to talk about everything except nature. And yet this theory entirely hinges on what nature is actually doing. So now perhaps you see that your question is asking something different. It's not about me not accepting a challenge. It's about the challengers not challenging the actual material. I'm voicing this, and it appears to you that I am not accepting challenges made of Darwin's ideas. In reality I'm opposing the people who say they are challenging Darwin, because they are completely ignoring the actual material Darwin wrote. Your author is one of them.
So, how do you come to believe that everything evolved from one cell, to the diversity we see today.
(I'm assuing it's not a rhetorical question, so I'll answer as to my own experience.) My personal experience began in the 60s when I first took biology. I was fascinated with the fossil record. It begins with single celled organisms, and as you ascend to higher layers, you see the diversity and increasing complexity of forms. The first thing that leaps out at you is that these creatures arose throughout all of natural history, springing one from another, and spread out over vast reaches of time. It would otherwise be impossible for them to be layered one upon the other. This is the first piece of information. The second piece is Darwin's discovery at Galapagos. This was also covered in my 60s biology class. Darwin was not simply making up some idea about the fossil record. He was initially only trying to explain how the peculiar creatures of Galapagos got to the islands. (That's the material religious people don't like to discuss). Most of the species on Galapagos occur only there, nowhere else. Yet the islands are young. They were volcanoes that rose from the ocean floor only very recently (in geologic time). Therefore these creatures could not have come into existence at the same time as similar creatures on the mainland. They came much later. Put all of this together and you need an explanation. Evolution is so far the only rational explanation for how those creatures got there. Finally, link the two--the fossil layers, and Darwin's theory. They are perfectly compatible. So are genetics, DNA studies, observations of natural selection, speciation in lab dishes, and so on. Dig just a little, and you find a mountain of evidence that all dovetails together. So you see, this has nothing to do with blindly following someone's ideas. It has to do with investigating nature and taking one's own Beagle on a trip to those same remote islands, and responding to nature that same way Darwin did: by application of logic, to deduce the best possible answer that explains what nature is doing.
That's the question I want you to focus on, not actual evolution, which I think everybody on the planet accepts. Okay?
(Some 40% of Americans do not accept evolution. But OK, we can start with simple cells.) The evolution of primitive cells leads us to first metazoans (like hydra and sponges) and from there to worms, then to jawless fish. Jawless fish lead us to mud-walking fishes, and from to earliest quadrupeds - amphibians to reptiles and birds, then mammals. Insects follow a parallel course, upon their divergence from primitive insect-like marine animals.
Why would Darwin ask such a question? He was already aware of small changes over time first hand, as were breeders all over the world, from time immemorial.
Darwin was aware of selective breeding. But natural selection did not dawn on him (as far as I know) until the need arose for him to explain the creatures on Galapagos. He needed to explain how they got there. Had it not been the case that the islands rose from the sea floor fairly recently, he may never have stumbled onto the need to explain such a thing. This gets back to why any discussion of Darwin or his theory ought to go into his discoveries at the Galapagos Islands.
Who said I ''rely on someone else's explanation''?
I'm asking why you don't address Darwin in your own mind, independent of the comments and complaints of others. That is, can you address how the creatures got to Galapagos by retracing what Darwin went through. This way, if you have any objections, they they address nature instead of just politics and ideas. I'm not just asking this to launch into argument. What I mean is, aren't you curious about what Darwin experienced that was so phenomenal it produced this huge discovery?
Have you actually read that book?
I read the link you gave us. I found the writer to be lacking in science, and merely arguing, from an irrational position that defies any discussion of the way nature actually works. It's merely his opinion. I'm not sure if you appreciate what I mean when I distinguish between nature and opinion. Having read his essay, I couldn't bear to read a whole book that never tries to address Galapagos, while bashing the man whose ideas are completely founded upon what he discovered there.
If you have you'll realise it is full of data found by proffesional, and full-blown rejections and suppressions of the results that data, because it contradicts darwinism.
Until he addresses Galapagos, nothing he says can undermine Darwin. This discussion has to begin where Darwin begins, or it just derails and begins talking about people and politics, not nature. What Darwin discovered concerns nature, specifically the nature of the Galapagos islands. There's no politics involved, just nature. This is why I initially asked you if you aren't curious yourself about the wildlife on those islands, and what led Darwin to his famous discovery. Without this on the plate, we're never actually talking about evolution.
If the authors do make their own comments, it is only on the basis of what they unearthed, and the attitudes, and quotes of the establishment, whose jobs seem to be gate keepers for the idea.
There is no establishment or prevailing ideas or gate keepers at Galapagos. Just birds, turtles and iguanas. That's all we need to analyze Darwin. Your author has no interest in these facts (none in his essay anyway.)
My questions to you is: why do you reject something you haven't read or investigated? And so what if Darwin's ideas are off-base?
I did read the link and it was sufficient for me to quickly determine that the man is a quack. He makes no scientific inquiry into nature. All he's worried about is what he perceives as politics and persuasion. Without the discussion ever touching on Galapagos, there is no basis to refute Darwin. The origin of the animals at Galapagos remains completely unaddressed. It's not science, just an essay of a guy's opinion - a guy who is just interested in people and politics, not nature.
Why the need to convince oneself? If he is wrong, or mistaken, then so be it?
It's not about a man, or men and women and their ideas. It's about nature, nothing more. As long as we are not talking about nature, we are not talking about evolution. And that discussion, if it is to honestly try to capture Darwin's discovery, has to begin at Galapagos. But even ignoring Darwin, the question of how the creatures got to Galapagos remains the linchpin of any idea that favors or criticizes the Theory of Evolution. Either kind of theory must completely turn on nature itself, and the processes by which we figure out the subtle ways nature works. The more we leave nature out of any discussion of evolution, the more we are talking about something entirely different. And that is the prevailing opinion of religious people that I've noticed--a desire to talk about something else, and yet to call it a discussion on evolution, or Darwinism, or science-- while in fact talking only about politics and persuasion.
