Dawkins on Evolution

[sandorski]

Sorry, but you are just wrong here. Ask anyone with a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline. Hence the phrase, publish or perish. Certainly, the quality of the publication is important, which is why journals have impact factors, but in general, numbers are what matter.

Sorry, I think if you did a Poll of Scientists they'd pick Dawkins. He has dramatically affected the way Evolution viewed. Not just Publicly, but also by Evolutionists themselves.

 

[mect]

Sorry, I think if you did a Poll of Scientists they'd pick Dawkins. He has dramatically affected the way Evolution viewed. Not just Publicly, but also by Evolutionists themselves.

That's because you aren't in the field. You are viewing things from the outside. When you are in the field, the scientists that make the impact to you are the ones that publish. That's why the big names are often essentially unknown to the general populace. I could string off a bunch of names people have never heard of that are leaders in the scientific community, and every one of them will have 200+ publications. Short of a Nobel prize or else significant public interaction on a national scale, leading scientists just don't get much widespread recognition. For example, the reason Collins is so widely known isn't because of his peer reviewed publications or his position at the head of the Human Genome Project, but because of his essentially non-scientific views and the books that he wrote for a general audience.

 

[Sclamoz]

Sorry, but you are just wrong here. Ask anyone with a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline. Hence the phrase, publish or perish. Certainly, the quality of the publication is important, which is why journals have impact factors, but in general, numbers are what matter.

While I think this is a stupid argument, I just wanted to point out what if there was a scientist out there with 401 peer reviewed papers on minute subjects, is his contribution automatically greater because he published 1 more article?

How many peer reviewed papers did Einstein & Hawking each write? If Collins has more papers are you going to claim he is superior than them?

I don't think you've thought this through.

 

[mect]

While I think this is a stupid argument, I just wanted to point out what if there was a scientist out there with 401 peer reviewed papers on minute subjects, is his contribution automatically greater because he published 1 more article?

How many peer reviewed papers did Einstein & Hawking each write? If Collins has more papers are you going to claim he is superior than them?

I don't think you've thought this through.

Sorry, but again, you don't understand how things work. Certainly various journals have bigger impact factors than others. There can definitely be a scientist who has published fewer papers than another who has more of an impact, but not less by a factor of 10. If Dawkins were up around 200 papers, then the number difference wouldn't mean as much, and at that point I'd have to be in their field to evaluate the influence those papers had. I'd have to start looking at how often their works have been cited by others, which is definitely another metric that could be used. Certainly, some researchers, because of the pressure to publish, will try to get 2 or 3 papers where another would only get one with the same data. There are certainly other metrics involved, but number of publications, certainly along with the impact factor of the journals, is likely one of the most important. And again, I'm not saying anything about most important, as that is a very personal metric. I'm referring more to how scientists rate a persons contribution to the body of scientific knowledge. Also, I acknowledge along with most other scientists that this isn't a perfect system, but it is the system.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Well according to a (relatively - 1996) recent study, about 60% of scientists either express disbelief or doubt in God. Take from that what you will.

In general the more education someone has the less likely they are to believe in god. This is particularly true in the hard sciences.

True, I remember reading that study. I can't remember whether or not they broke the scientists down into categories (eg physicists, biologists). I'm just saying, from my experience in the microbiology field, there are a significant number of people who believe in God. They may not attend Church regularly but the belief is still there.

 

[0marTheZealot]

While I think this is a stupid argument, I just wanted to point out what if there was a scientist out there with 401 peer reviewed papers on minute subjects, is his contribution automatically greater because he published 1 more article?

How many peer reviewed papers did Einstein & Hawking each write? If Collins has more papers are you going to claim he is superior than them?

I don't think you've thought this through.

Einstein was from a different era, but he did publish 5 huge papers in one year.

In general, there are two things that determine how successful a scientist is. One is the number of papers published and the other is how many times those papers are cited. You can publish 30 papers, but if you only get 1 or 2 citations, it means you either work in a very limited field or the work you did was not very interesting (or good). A person who publishes a major paper every couple years (eg 100+ citations) is probably in a better shape than someone who publishes 2-3 papers a year but has low citations.

Anyways, both Dawkins and Collins are great scientists. Collins (and his lab) identified the genetic basis for cystic fibrosis. This was no small feat considering the work was done back in the '70s. It would take a week or more to analyze a sequence of a few hundred base pairs (it takes less than 5 minutes now). To dismiss him as a bureaucrat is disingenuous. He's a very accomplished scientist. Likewise, Dawkins has contributed a lot to the study of evolution. His "gene's eye view" helps explain a lot of the quirky shit you see in viruses/plasmids. It can also help explain what's happening in epigenetically controlled diseases like Angelman's syndrome. Both have contributed mightily to the biological sciences.

 

[piasabird]

What is the point of evolution? How did life start? Cant answer that one can you? Which is the more important question?

Evolution will not teach us how to make cheap energy or solve our transportation question. It is pointless.

 

[mect]

What is the point of evolution? How did life start? Cant answer that one can you? Which is the more important question?

Evolution will not teach us how to make cheap energy or solve our transportation question. It is pointless.

No, evolution is huge. It helps us predict how diseases will mutate, how to better protect ourselves from disease, how to protect our planet, and a ton of other things that biologists would know that I can't just pull off the top of my head. It is one of the most basic scientific subjects that influences everything.

 

[werepossum]

No, evolution is huge. It helps us predict how diseases will mutate, how to better protect ourselves from disease, how to protect our planet, and a ton of other things that biologists would know that I can't just pull off the top of my head. It is one of the most basic scientific subjects that influences everything.

Hah, that's what I was about to post. The more we understand evolution, the better we become at genetic engineering - and hopefully, the less likely those products will kill us. That said, Dawkins is a total dick; Southpark nailed him perfectly. And THAT said, the only thing I've ever seen that would make me doubt evolution (or rather, totally unguided evolution) is the Cambrian explosion. (And I didn't even consider the sheer unlikeliness of that event until a recent television show.)

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

What is the point of evolution?

That makes as much sense as asking what the point of gravity is.

How did life start? Cant answer that one can you?

I'm not convinced that it did start

Which is the more important question?

Evolution isn't a question, and abiogenesis is a separate topic.

Evolution will not teach us how to make cheap energy or solve our transportation question. It is pointless.

Another ignorant conservative that equates "things he doesn't understand, but dislikes for ideological reasons" with "things that aren't important."

 

[Jeff7]

What is the point of evolution? How did life start? Cant answer that one can you? Which is the more important question?

Evolution will not teach us how to make cheap energy or solve our transportation question. It is pointless.

Many decades ago, ignorant scientists pissed away countless years of their lives studying a particle with a mass somewhere on the order of 9*10^-31 kg. A tiny, utterly useless thing. So what, we understand what matter is made of. Who cares? A particle that small won't do anything for us, so stop wasting time studying it.

 

[0marTheZealot]

What is the point of evolution? How did life start? Cant answer that one can you? Which is the more important question?

Evolution will not teach us how to make cheap energy or solve our transportation question. It is pointless.

Evolution has no point, it's all a competition to get genes into the next generation. Repeat ad nausem.

How life started is not a question evolution can answer because it's not a question evolution addresses. You might as well apply Kepler's Law of Gravitation to predict this year's apple harvest in Florida. That's about how relevant the theory of evolution is to the beginning of life. Evolution kicks in after life established itself.

Finally, asking evolution to solve problems it wasn't designed to solve doesn't make evolution a bad theory. It's akin to saying "nuclear physics doesn't explain why planes are aerodynamic, so the theory is useless". Evolution is extremely important when it comes to disease control. For example, physicians today limit their use of antibiotics when it comes to routine infections because antibiotic resistance has become widespread. Evolution can predict how long you have to hold back on antibiotic use before they become useful again. Likewise, evolution explains why the drug cocktail model works in combating HIV/cancer/malaria.

 

[fskimospy]

What is the point of evolution? How did life start? Cant answer that one can you? Which is the more important question?

Evolution will not teach us how to make cheap energy or solve our transportation question. It is pointless.

How life will change from where it is today is almost certainly a more important question than how life started. I'm not sure why people here continue to confuse evolution with abiogenesis, as the difference has been shown dozens and dozens of times.

Evolution is the foundation of all modern biology. It's only pointless if you think biology is pointless.