Mageth

Perhaps those websites should also post this Muller quote:

"The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Th us there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly.

"Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favour of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....

"So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words."

H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959)

Coragyps

H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959)

Wow. 142 years is way too damn long.

Mageth

Note if you're looking for references, there appears to be at least two "famous" H.J. Mullers, Hermann (the one in question) and Herbert (a U.S. Historian and educator).

Coragyps

Such fine points as there being two H. J.'s would be lost on our cretinist friends, anyway.

Valentine Pontifex

Actually this is might be more out-of-date than out-of-context (though I have not checked the context). It does sound like something Muller
could have said given my understanding of what
he stood for.

Looks remember something about what the state of things were over a half-century ago.

This was before we understood how DNA coded the information it contained. (That was discovered in the 1960s while the structure of DNA was figured out by Watson and Crick in 1953.) Back then, it was widely believed virtually all mutations were harmful. This is something that we know know is false. Also in that time, especially for the classical genetists working with Drosophilia had this idea that nature had far less variablity than it really does. Think of typological terms like "wild type."

Basically, this quote can not be taken seriously since genetics has advanced considerably since the Muller's time. Could the creationists actually quote a genetist from say the 1990s or even (gasp) the naughties.

Oolon Colluphid

Oh what nonsense! Look at what Muller said:

Evolution has not been proven:

"The honest scientist will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty."

Evolution cannot be observed:

"Evolution [...] cannot be directly seen."

And evolution is not a fact:

"In an absolute sense evolution is not a fact".

Get over it, evo-fools!

Hastur

Fascinating.

A whole collection of edited and out-of-context quotes on a thread devoted to same.

Creationism=brain damage.
<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

{edited to ask...Is that really you, Oolon?}

[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: He Who Must Not Be Named ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

Well I was going to reply with a simple , but it seems my screen name's changed back (in the same way as post counts update automatically). Cover blown. I'll have to get meself a proper sock-puppet for these things...

Cheers, Oolon

Writer@Large

I have it: "How Radiation Changes the Genetic Constitution," H.J. Muller, Professor of Genetics at Indiana University, Bulliten of the Atomic Scientists November 1955. And I was right--it *is* an article about mutation related to nuclear energy use. The selected quote comes out of a section on "Characteristics of Natural Point Mutations" and deals with the "genetic changes induced by exposure to radiation from artificial sources" (Muller 330). He's particularly concerned about the effects of radioactive compounds from power plants on humans. It's not an article about the possibilities of evolution.

It's also misquoted. (Go figure.) Here's what cretinists quote:

"It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing --- GOOD ONES ARE SO RARE WE CAN CONSIDER THEM ALL BAD"

Here's the actual quote:

Note the "key" part of the cretinist quote, "GOOD ONES ARE SO RARE WE CAN CONSIDER THEM ALL BAD," doesn't appear here. The closest we can come to it is the last sentence of the paragraph,"Yet in all except very rare cases the change will be disadvantageous, involving an impairment of function." Yet Muller goes on to say in the next paragraph:

Hence, once again, the cretinists--who can even make Richard Dawkins sound like an evolution-hater--are selecting and misquoting to make someone say what they never intended to say.

--W@L

Oolon Colluphid

I bet I know what’s happened. The second part was originally some creationist’s explanatory annotation -- they’d need it explained as simply as possible, after all, far too many long words in Muller’s original. The language of “good” and “bad” is out of character compared to the rest. Somewhere along the line someone copied the quote, annotation and all, and the extra words got inside the quote marks. Then this new improved version was copied onwards to other websites.

(Don’t be too smug; a Google search for the parthenogenic whiptail lizards ‘Cnenidophorus’ will bring up several pages, all making the same point about them. But as <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/dec00.html" target="_blank">this Talk.Origins feedback page</a> reveals, it’s a typo in the original TO page.)

Still, this Muller ‘quote’ is a classic example of a mutation that improved replication chances...

Cheers, Oolon