Over 500 Scientists Proclaim Their Doubts About Darwin's Theory of EvolutionRobert Crowther February 20, 2006 7:28 AM Over 500 doctoral scientists have now signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution. [img]https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/AJNP3PMo7GEuw1dpF6Bfv3U1Sl6uNlZw1Oj4M5k8OoLE45WZRRROYEAXukD1HHTvvP409X8uQPs9VH77lag6pr6Pc3BomdBn5RoRoJ0vpsWysWliwLnsz9Q4GXCH9gGI4ILChBLIcEIdyhc2KMOFYpk=s0-d-e1-ft#[/img] Kenneth Chang is a science reporter for The New York Times, covering chemistry, geology, solid state physics, nanotechnology, Pluto, plague and other scientific miscellany. He should have received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois but instead left after seven years to attend the science writing program at University of California at Santa Cruz. He worked at The Los Angeles Times, the Greenwich Time in Connecticut, The Newark Star-Ledger and ABCNEWS.com prior to joining the Times in 2000.
2006年2月21日，《纽约时报》科学专题报道记者Kenneth Chang 撰文讥讽道:
哪有什么生物科学家 净是些 福音派信徒签署反对进化论请愿书
February 21, 2006 Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition By KENNETH CHANG In the recent skirmishes over evolution, advocates who have pushed to dilute its teaching have regularly pointed to a petition signed by 514 scientists and engineers. The petition, they say, is proof that scientific doubt over evolution persists. But random interviews with 20 people who signed the petition and a review of the public statements of more than a dozen others suggest that many are evangelical Christians, whose doubts about evolution grew out of their religious beliefs. And even the petition's sponsor, the Discovery Institute in Seattle, says that only a quarter of the signers are biologists, whose field is most directly concerned with evolution. The other signers include 76 chemists, 75 engineers, 63 physicists and 24 professors of medicine. The petition was started in 2001 by the institute, which champions intelligent design as an alternative theory to evolution and supports a "teach the controversy" approach, like the one scuttled by the state Board of Education in Ohio last week. Institute officials said that 41 people added their names to the petition after a federal judge ruled in December against the Dover, Pa., school district's attempt to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.
hick
和city slicker这两个词的意思在各种语言中一定都能找到对应的
词，它们分别是城里人和乡下人对对方的贬称。hick的意思是“乡
巴佬，土包子，”而 slick字面意思是“圆滑的，油滑的”，因而
city slicker也就是乡下人眼中的“城里老油子，打扮光鲜，老于
世故却不可信的城里滑头”。
hick ≈ rube ≈ redneck ≈ bumpkin Most Hilarious Pictures Of Rednecks "Early on, the critics said there was nobody who disbelieved Darwin's theory except for rubes in the woods," said Bruce Chapman, president of the institute. "How many does it take to be a noticeable minority — 10, 50, 100, 500?" Mr. Chapman said the petition showed "there is a minority of scientists who disagree with Darwin's theory, and it is not just a handful." The petition makes no mention of intelligent design, the proposition that life is so complex that it is best explained as the design of an intelligent being. Rather, it states: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." A Web site with the full list of those who signed the petition was made available yesterday by the institute at dissentfromdarwin.org. The signers all claim doctorates in science or engineering. The list includes a few nationally prominent scientists like James M. Tour, a professor of chemistry at Rice University; Rosalind W. Picard, director of the affective computing research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Philip S. Skell, an emeritus professor of chemistry at Penn State who is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. It also includes many with more modest positions, like Thomas H. Marshall, director of public works in Delaware, Ohio, who has a doctorate in environmental ecology. The Discovery Institute says 128 signers hold degrees in the biological sciences and 26 in biochemistry. That leaves more than 350 nonbiologists, including Dr. Tour, Dr. Picard and Dr. Skell. Of the 128 biologists who signed, few conduct research that would directly address the question of what shaped the history of life. Of the signers who are evangelical Christians, most defend their doubts on scientific grounds but also say that evolution runs against their religious beliefs. Several said that their doubts began when they increased their involvement with Christian churches. Some said they read the Bible literally and doubt not only evolution but also findings of geology and cosmology that show the universe and the earth to be billions of years old. Scott R. Fulton, a professor of mathematics and computer science at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., who signed the petition, said that the argument for intelligent design was "very interesting and promising." He said he thought his religious belief was "not particularly relevant" in how he judged intelligent design. "It probably influences in the sense in that it makes me very interested in the questions," he said. "When I see scientific evidence that points to God, I find that encouraging." Roger J. Lien, a professor of poultry science at Auburn, said he received a copy of the petition from Christian friends. "I stuck my name on it," he said. "Basically, it states what I believe." Dr. Lien said that he grew up in California in a family that was not deeply religious and that he accepted evolution through much of his scientific career. He said he became a Christian about a decade ago, six years after he joined the Auburn faculty. "The world is broken, and we humans and our science can't fix it," Dr. Lien said. "I was brought to Jesus Christ and God and creationism and believing in the Bible." He also said he thought that evolution was "inconsistent with what the Bible says." Another signer is Dr. Gregory J. Brewer, a professor of cell biology at the Southern Illinois University medical school. Like other skeptics, he readily accepts what he calls "microevolution," the ability of species to adapt to changing conditions in their environment. But he holds to the opinion that science has not convincingly shown that one species can evolve into another. "I think there's a lot of problems with evolutionary dogma," said Dr. Brewer, who also does not accept the scientific consensus that the universe is billions of years old. "Scientifically, I think there are other possibilities, one of which would be intelligent design. Based on faith, I do believe in the creation account." Dr. Tour, who developed the "nano-car" — a single molecule in the shape of a car, with four rolling wheels — said he remained open-minded about evolution. "I respect that work," said Dr. Tour, who describes himself as a Messianic Jew, one who also believes in Christ as the Messiah. But he said his experience in chemistry and nanotechnology had showed him how hard it was to maneuver atoms and molecules. He found it hard to believe, he said, that nature was able to produce the machinery of cells through random processes. The explanations offered by evolution, he said, are incomplete. "I can't make the jumps, the leaps they make in the explanations," Dr. Tour said. "Will I or other scientists likely be able to makes those jumps in the future? Maybe." Opposing petitions have sprung up. The National Center for Science Education, which has battled efforts to dilute the teaching of evolution, has sponsored a pro-evolution petition signed by 700 scientists named Steve, in honor of Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard paleontologist who died in 2002. The petition affirms that evolution is "a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences." Mr. Chapman of that institute said the opposing petitions were beside the point. "We never claimed we're in a fight for numbers," he said. Discovery officials said that they did not ask the religious beliefs of the signers and that such beliefs were not relevant. John G. West, a senior fellow at Discovery, said it was "stunning hypocrisy" to ask signers about their religion "while treating the religious beliefs of the proponents of Darwin as irrelevant." Discovery officials did point to two scientists, David Berlinski, a philosopher and mathematician and a senior fellow at the institute, and Stanley N. Salthe, a visiting scientist at Binghamton University, State University of New York, who signed but do not hold conservative religious beliefs. Dr. Salthe, who describes himself as an atheist, said that when he signed the petition he had no idea what the Discovery Institute was. Rather, he said, "I signed it in irritation." He said evolutionary biologists were unfairly suppressing any competing ideas. "They deserve to be prodded, as it were," Dr. Salthe said. "It was my way of thumbing my nose at them." Dr. Salthe said he did not find intelligent design to be a compelling theory, either. "From my point of view," he said, "it's a plague on both your houses."
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is a petition publicized in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a creationist "think" tank, which attempts to push creationism, in the guise of Intelligent design, into public schools in the United States.[1] The petition expresses denial about the ability of genetic drift and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. It also demands that there should be a more careful examination of Darwinism. The petition was signed by about 700 individuals, with a wide variety of scientific and non-scientific backgrounds when first published. It now contains over 1200 signatures.[2] The petition states that: We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged. There is scientific dissent from Darwinism. It deserves to be heard. The petition continues to be used in Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns in an attempt to discredit evolution and bolster claims that intelligent design is scientifically valid by claiming that evolution lacks broad scientific support. However, the language of the statement is misleading. It frames the argument in a way that anyone could agree with it. So long as they don't know the Discovery Institute's true motivations (which is to undermine evolution using deceit and trickery, not to show any kind of genuine fallibility with it), anyone who is open to the idea of scientific inquiry would agree that they should be skeptical of everything, including evolution. If only the writers of the statement (i.e. creationists) were skeptical of their own ideas, which they clearly aren't. The petition is considered a fallacious Appeal to authority, whereby the creationists at the Discovery Institute are attempting to prove that there is a dissent from "Darwinism" by finding a few creationist scientists to support the statement. The roughly 700 dissenters who originally signed the petition would have represented about 0.063% of the estimated 1,108,100 biological and geological scientists in the US in 1999, except, of course, that three-quarters of the signatories had no academic background in biology.[3][4] (The roughly 150 biologist Darwin Dissenters would hence represent about 0.013% of the US biologists that existed in 1999.) As of 2006, the list was expanded to include non-US scientists. However, the list nonetheless represents less than 0.03% of all research scientists in the world.[5] Despite the increase in absolute number of scientists willing to sign the dissent form, the figures indicate the support from scientists for creationism and intelligent design is steadily decreasing. 嘿嘿，呵呵。
傅里叶变黄油猫软件工程师，应用数学专业ψ 2013-03-30 10:27
支持者： 蒙莎 冥王星小仙女 那是06年的新闻，要么是假新闻，要么他们到现在也没引起什么 注意。 新闻中引述他们的观点，就是最常见反进化论观点：生命如此复杂，一定是被设计的。这个观点根本不值一驳，提出这样观点的根本不配当科学家。 前阵子Ent在微博上和一213争论进化论的问题，之后写了三篇日志，供参考：
Darwin and the Galápagos Islands [img]https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/zEOV42XLrdNLYuimJ4lXsqaNSmRYkhk60WwO-KUC3ZVUHLlrczbMA_LxJwsLjkodJq7eigi5hn0BkjM-JdxYP1k4hAZq_AsD4QxsnrpWMcoZKdATRVP1igm-RgsWNzpb3LtFFmUkfGVC__YajLLcCrEW5Oib2tKSEKc=s0-d-e1-ft#[/img] [img]https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/RjGhuyGyh5RSvOQ4Ls6rGdJ4uKxtzaRLZ2pU4VyrkeYs429jehnxLdzjJQdSX6o_kcGrhkfCD4EhGMARQ89SjnIxiOqJB6io4uNEXGIKAw75g_kBB5KfcDA_zXpAcEB7cvzBc3tNbakhDDrO0jaVt-V83WqOg27toTns6lPWxMMl1WYh-4z6fchD7F9Tmw=s0-d-e1-ft#[/img] Galapagos Islands: Following Darwin's footsteps Sir David Attenborough's ( May 8, 1926 - ) love of the Galápagos remains undimmed
八郎寒武纪古生物化石群位于贵州省台江县革东镇八郎村后山坡一带剑河的西北部，距新县城3公里，八郎古生物群是世界寒武纪生命大爆炸的三大遗址之一，内含“两个世界级生物群”和一条潜在“国际层型候选剖面”，具有极高的科学研究价值，是全人类共同的珍贵遗产。 八郎动物群是加拿大布尔吉斯叶岩类型动物群在我国的首次发现，这也是国际古生物学研究中的一个重要发现，该动物研究不仅对洲际间中寒武纪古生物地层对比具有重要意义，而且对于全世界早期后生、动物演化、生物地理区和古地理等方面的理论研究也具有重大意义。 b “寒武纪大爆炸是怎么回事”？答：有好几种解释我们不确定哪种对，但都和现有进化理论不矛盾。从复杂生命正式登场的有化石记录的全过程接近1亿年，寒武纪大爆发全长近6500万年，就算只算高潮期也有2000万年。寒武纪的进化比生命史上其它阶段要“快”不少，但远远没快到“突跃”的程度。 c“点断平衡是不是用突变推翻了渐变？”答：还是和达尔文的基本框架不矛盾。早先的观点认为演化速率是大致均匀的，而点断平衡理论认为成种的速率快慢不同，有时很快，大多数时候很慢。这种速率差异最主要的机制是边缘成种。但是边缘成种本身完全是符合经典的进化理论的。点断平衡只是提出了一个新的宏观趋势而已，“断”这个字不意味着中间出现了断裂。我觉得翻译得不太好。
Just thinking about how much crying I’ve done in
the past four weeks while reading The Sixth Extinctioninspires more tears. Some sections, I
read aloud to Greg while we were driving to Utah,
and while we were camping. But I would choke up
so bad and start crying, that I couldn’t continue.
This is not a book I could ever read aloud without
stopping to cry.
Of the many species that have existed on earth - estimates run as high as fifty billion - more than ninety-nine per cent have disappeared. In the light of this, it is sometimes joked that all of life today amounts to little more than a rounding error.
—— Elizabeth Kolbert
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