There is sufficient evidence in the literature to suggest that Charles Darwin was not most original prominent a figure in our understanding of Modern Evolution as he is noted for and celebrated in modern times on the understanding that we would today be ignorant about how Nature works if he did not produce his book on the Origin of Species.

All the basic ideas had been around for some time, notably from Patrick Mayhew, William Charles' Wells, and Edward Blyth, although these authors did not use the word 'natural selection'. As we all know Alfred Russell Wallace did monumental work on the same subject and many regard him as being more important than Charles Darwin in history of Biological Science.

In fact the ideas on which such observations of Nature may date back to even earlier times. The ancient Greeks understood the basic principles.The first Muslim biologist and philosopher to publish detailed speculations about natural history, the Afro-Arab writer al-Jahiz, wrote about it in the 9th century.

It appears therefore from the evidence that Darwin merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Charles Darwin a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the late 1800's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

What are your views?

...that you are trying hard to paint "atheists" in a negative light .

All the basics for relativity had been around for some time. It appears therefore from the evidence that Einstein merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Albert Einstein a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the early 1900's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

Derp Derp

Fenrir wrote:All the basics for relativity had been around for some time. It appears therefore from the evidence that Einstein merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Albert Einstein a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the early 1900's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

Derp Derp

Is not Einstein credited with determining the mathematical forumula E=mc2 from first principles?

IIzO wrote:...that you are trying hard to paint "atheists" in a negative light .

Why would I do that? - in any case I read here:

Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Da ... n_religion

I thought that the thing that Darwin is really celebrated for is that he proposed the mechanism of natural selection. The evidence for common ancestry was widely discussed before Darwin but the actual process was yet to be postulated.

Shantanu wrote:

Fenrir wrote:All the basics for relativity had been around for some time. It appears therefore from the evidence that Einstein merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Albert Einstein a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the early 1900's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

Derp Derp

Is not Einstein credited with determining the mathematical forumula E=mc2 from first principles?

Never heard of Maxwell?

or Rutherford?
or Boltzman?
Curie?
Poincare?
Planck?

I'll stop there, apparently long lists confuse you.

Bribase wrote:I thought that the thing that Darwin is really celebrated for is that he proposed the mechanism of natural selection. The evidence for common ancestry was widely discussed before Darwin but the actual process was yet to be postulated.

How does the idea of 'natural selection' relate to:

Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jahiz

Fenrir wrote:

Shantanu wrote:

Fenrir wrote:All the basics for relativity had been around for some time. It appears therefore from the evidence that Einstein merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Albert Einstein a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the early 1900's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

Derp Derp

Is not Einstein credited with determining the mathematical forumula E=mc2 from first principles?

Never heard of Maxwell?

or Rutherford?
or Boltzman?
Curie?
Poincare?
Planck?

I'll stop there, apparently long lists confuse you.

No long lists do not confuse me if they are relevant to the thread and the question posed.

Darwin wasn't the first to notice and come to the conclusions he did, in fact another man; Alfred Russel Wallace came the same conclusion independently and even went to so far as to send his findings to Darwin. These men simply lived at a time when scientific discoveries were starting to lead inexorably to the conclusions that these two men reached.

Shantanu wrote:

IIzO wrote:...that you are trying hard to paint "atheists" in a negative light .

Why would I do that? - in any case I read here:

Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Da ... n_religion

Now now....lets not forget the context in wich this particular thread was created :

Shantanu wrote:

Fenrir wrote:

Shantanu wrote:Theists believe in something, atheists do not believe until concrete evidence is placed before them. The affairs of the world come to a standstill with no progress with indecision prevailing from the lack-of-belief or uncertainty outlook.

Whoa, back it up right there.
Any chance you could support this assertion?

I'm not aware of any evidence that atheists are incapable of "progress" and are overcome by indecision.

Examples;

Charles Darwin
Stephen Hawking
Alan Turing
Andrei Sakharov
Thomas Edison
Democritus
Sigmond Freud
Linus Pauling
Paul Dirac
Francis Crick
Bruce Lee


Just to name a tiny fraction of possible names.

These are people who changed the world.

Accepting a lack of certainty with regards to questions it is not currently possible to answer does not equal fearful paralysis, and assertions of such are mendacious.

Firstly, do you agree that theists are driven by certainty of personal conviction and atheists by uncertainty or personal conviction?

Secondly, you can give as long list of names of atheistic people who have made 'progress', and it will mean nothing. I can look for a five times longer list of theistic people who have made 'progress' to counter it.

Thirdly, what are people who have changed the world? Here is my take: in addition to scientists, look for real evidence of all the Presidents and Prime Ministers of the countries of the world and find out who were/are theists and who wre/are atheists. Look at the top business men rich lists and find out who are theists and who are atheists. These are also people who made real progress in their lives to attain high positions and changed the world at the same time.

Shantanu wrote:

Fenrir wrote:

Shantanu wrote:

IIzO wrote:
Could you explicit this part please ?I detect hidden meanings but i can't quite tell what they are...

Theists go about their lives as if on a personal mission that drives them whereas atheists are drifters. This is derived from their respective psychological profiles that in theists makes decisions emphatically and positively based on the certainty that what they are doing is based on the correct conviction, that is God-approved. What is God in a general sense? The certainty of righteousness. They cannot be wrong. From the same information that is available to all they have made the leap of faith, the extrapolation into certainty. Atheists on the other hand do not have any kind of certainty base to steer them through life: they are less decisive as a result and watch more closely where they are going and they adjust their directions according to what they find. This is the underlying reason that theists are more in numbers and are generally more successful in life attaining high positions, No?

No

and a larger pile of self-serving crap I haven't seen for a long time. Please respond to the specific examples I gave above.

Taking just one example, did not Charles Darwin copy other people's observations of Nature?

Here...now people know what to expect .

IIzO wrote:
Here...now people know what to expect .

Thanks, this is a time saver, although I had already set my universal translator to "bibble" and my phaser to "woo."

In respect to the theory of evolution, the person of Charles Darwin is not as such interesting. As mattwilson pointed out, had it not been published by Darwin, Wallace would have done it. Perhaps, Mr Wallace being a slightly more controversial person, it may have been harder for the general public to accept them - people are like that, dontcher know - but the time was ripe, the amount of aquired knowledge sufficient, a readiness existed.

Shantanu wrote:There is sufficient evidence in the literature to suggest that Charles Darwin was not most original prominent a figure in our understanding of Modern Evolution as he is noted for and celebrated in modern times on the understanding that we would today be ignorant about how Nature works if he did not produce his book on the Origin of Species.

All the basic ideas had been around for some time, notably from Patrick Mayhew, William Charles' Wells, and Edward Blyth, although these authors did not use the word 'natural selection'. As we all know Alfred Russell Wallace did monumental work on the same subject and many regard him as being more important than Charles Darwin in history of Biological Science.

In fact the ideas on which such observations of Nature may date back to even earlier times. The ancient Greeks understood the basic principles.The first Muslim biologist and philosopher to publish detailed speculations about natural history, the Afro-Arab writer al-Jahiz, wrote about it in the 9th century.

It appears therefore from the evidence that Darwin merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Charles Darwin a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the late 1800's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

What are your views?

Who cares? Darwin isn't the atheists' god, needing veneration. The contribution to science transcends whoever actually made it. Just take it that, if several independent minds were coming to the same conclusion, there might be something in the theory.

It appears therefore from the evidence that Darwin merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Charles Darwin a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the late 1800's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

decent description of the progress of science.... ....or Edison

Shantanu wrote: If he had not been around around at the late 1800's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

I guess we'll have to stop sacrificing small children to him then.

The OP smacks of attacking the character and not the theory. I guess the IDers have given up on supplying a robust alternate theory.

Shantanu wrote:It appears therefore from the evidence that Darwin merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Charles Darwin a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the late 1800's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

What are your views?

My view is that this isn't very controversial at all - in fact, the more people understand that Darwin was not the sole 'inventor' of evolutionary theory, and hence some 'extraordinarily important figure' to atheists (as many creationists claim or imply), the better.
However, the thing that makes what you say or imply slightly controversial, is that Darwin in your view seems to be a guy who cobbled together the work of other people, and that was it. This is obviously not true. Darwin was a good scientist in his own right, finding a lot of evidence for his hypothesis on his own.
I'm taking this from memory now, but as far as I can recall, Wallace partly agreed to give his work to Darwin because Darwin had much more evidence than Wallace.

The time, as you and other have already said, was right. Evidence were beginning to converge on this conclusion from all sides. Sure, these people too stood on shoulders of giants as it were - the idea had been there for a long time - but it wasn't until around this time that there started to come in evidence and a general understanding from many diverse fields.

There's a good run-down of the history of evolutionary thought up until Darwin in the book "Evolution - what the fossils say and why it matters" by Donald R. Prothero, in chapter 4; "The evolution of evolution". I have it in my bookshelf, perhaps I should take another look through it.

Jehannum wrote:

Shantanu wrote:There is sufficient evidence in the literature to suggest that Charles Darwin was not most original prominent a figure in our understanding of Modern Evolution as he is noted for and celebrated in modern times on the understanding that we would today be ignorant about how Nature works if he did not produce his book on the Origin of Species.

All the basic ideas had been around for some time, notably from Patrick Mayhew, William Charles' Wells, and Edward Blyth, although these authors did not use the word 'natural selection'. As we all know Alfred Russell Wallace did monumental work on the same subject and many regard him as being more important than Charles Darwin in history of Biological Science.

In fact the ideas on which such observations of Nature may date back to even earlier times. The ancient Greeks understood the basic principles.The first Muslim biologist and philosopher to publish detailed speculations about natural history, the Afro-Arab writer al-Jahiz, wrote about it in the 9th century.

It appears therefore from the evidence that Darwin merely strung them together into coherence. All this makes Charles Darwin a compiler of evidence. If he had not been around around at the late 1800's, it is very likely that someone else would have.

What are your views?

Who cares? Darwin isn't the atheists' god, needing veneration. The contribution to science transcends whoever actually made it. Just take it that, if several independent minds were coming to the same conclusion, there might be something in the theory.

Scientists rarely work in physical or temporal isolation. They build on the work of others and knowledge does not emerge like flashes of light in the dark but rather through the gradual accumulation of facts and a measured evaluation of existing theories, sometimes rejecting, sometimes refining. Isaac Newton himself said that if he saw further than others, it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Whether a theory emerges from a moment of pure inspiration or from the historical progression of the work of numerous scientists is irrelevant. What matters is whether it fucking works. End of.

John P. M. wrote:There's a good run-down of the history of evolutionary thought up until Darwin in the book "Evolution - what the fossils say and why it matters" by Donald R. Prothero, in chapter 4; "The evolution of evolution". I have it in my bookshelf, perhaps I should take another look through it.

For those who don't have access to that book or other books with similar content, there's a pretty good Wikipedia page on this as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ry_thought