RufusAtticus

Okay, I have an addendum:

It is rare to get a PhD from a science program if you already have a scientific PhD.

The issue is that they use "multiple PhDs" like its significant, when it's not. I guess in a way it is. The people have been spending all their time getting degrees (mostly in the humanities) that they haven't bothered to become practicing scientists. It's no wonder then that they make so many mistakes and use a "public policy institution" to lead a so-called "scientific" movement.

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]</p>

Bubba

Exactly. Creative thought is not really dependet on the amount of formal education that one has. Darwin, for instance, was not formally trained in Biology. Also, I have the children of two good friends, one of whom is 16 and one of whom is 17. "Amanda" is 16 and very good at formal schooling but is not very strong as a conceptual thinker. "Kyle" is 17, and is excellent conceptual thinker who has good ideas about all kinds of things. He doesn't like to read, though and doesn't fit in well in a formal classroom situation.

Really, I like the rare individual who is both. My friend Kevin, for instance. He one of the people who convinced me that creationism is false and that evolution is true. Kevin not only has a very good grasp on creative/conceptual thinking, he's got a damn good accademic record as well.

Bubba

Dr.GH

Just a note that Darwin had as much training in biology as anyone did in the 1820s.

A friend of mine did his first PhD in math and the second in computer science. I asked him why he had bothered. He replied, " To remove the stigma of a degree in math."

pz

Hold up, there -- that's very misleading. There was no real science of "biology" at the time of Darwin. The nearest equivalent was called natural history, and Darwin was extremely well trained in it. He was the best of friends with the foremost experts in botany and geology, was a member of the best scientific societies, did regional fieldwork, and studied his discipline in the most remote and obscure places on the planet.

Sure, he wasn't "formally" trained in the sense of going to a graduate school dedicated to a particular science. But he had an academic/scientific training of the highest order, of the kind we can only envy.

Don't fall for the myth that Darwin was a nobody who got lucky with a clever idea. He was deeply imbedded in a privileged position within the highest strata of the 19th century scientific community, and his reputation was made by a great deal of painstaking, methodical research over the course of decades.

RufusAtticus

If Darwin had never come up with Natural Selection, he would still be remembered as the foremost authority on barnicles ever to live. Unlike the Origin of Species, his works on barnicles are still required reading for anyone who wants to study barnicles.

Bubba

...thanks for the correction, guys. I always thought Darwin was kind of a loner. One of these days I'll have to read a really good biography of his life.

Bubba

Principia

An amusing revelation from one of the many arm-chair philosopher-IDi[s]ts at ARN, <a href="http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000267" target="_blank">warren_bergerson</a>:
ROFLMAO. He has no access to PubMed. <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

OK, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and wait for the damage-control spinmeisters...

ps418

Darwin was also right on the money regarding how coral atolls form. Which is fairly remarkable, given the limited number of facts available to him at that time.

scigirl

Anyone that has access to the IntarWEb has access to Pubmed.

Here's a couple links next time someone "whines" about this:

PubMed:

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi" target="_blank">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi</a>

National Library of Medicine:

<a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/" target="_blank">http://www.nlm.nih.gov/</a>

Also, if this "whiner" lives in a college town, then he can get access to many on-line journals.

scigirl

KC

Darwin was a thorough, meticulous scientist, by any definition. He also posessed the one prerequisite for being a good scientist that no degree can provide, and which few, if any creationist seem to want: curiosity.

Cheers,

KC