In article <Cv3tny.MvJ at murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, jpc4e at dayhoff.med.Virginia.EDU (Jonathan Paul Carson) writes:
> I've gotten some comments (very helpful ones, actually) about
> my last posting.
>> I never claimed to dethrone Darwin or uphold some
> Bible-thumping view. I never wished to throw aside all of the
> subtlety in the available models we know of in population
> genetics by speaking plainly and generally. I never wanted to
> preach the emergence of some Gaian global New Age consciousness.
> Lovelock and Margulis are visionaries whom I admire, though; I
> suspect that they are unhappy with the negative attention they've
> gotten from crystal-brandishing gurus and cyncial hard-nosed
> skeptics, alike.
>> A fully-fleshed out idea is not necessarily a good one (due to
> the fact that it is always a bit *too* exclusive); a half-baked
> idea is not necessarily a bad one (inspiration moves science
> along just as reductionist logic gives form to good ideas).
>> All I wanted to posit was the notion that evolution and
> its underlying biochemical mechanisms is still a *dynamic*
> field that generates much excitement among myself and others--
> admittedly I have to brush up on my understanding of genetics
> (and will do so very soon). I mean dynamic in the sense that
> molecular biology and the study of evolution are not merely
> tools with which to continue the never-ending (and futile)
> dissection of life. They might possibly converge to yield some
> powerful and far-reaching concepts of the whole. I mean, be
> serious. Does anyone study a living being as if it were a damn
> clock with just a lot of pieces? If you do, I wonder how you
> look at your collegues and those you call friends.
>>> jon
>
'futile dissection of life'?????
What are you doing in this Newsgroup?
And by the way, a clock is not just a lot of pieces. It gives you the time.
But maybe that's too subtle.
Vince
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Vincent Schoenfeld
Graduate Student
University Department of Medicine
Addenbrooke's Hospital
Cambridge CB2 2QQ, UK
vs10005 at med.cam.ac.uk | Phone: (0223)402436/336853
| Fax: (0223)21136
'If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research'
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