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He said it: Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of … ?

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Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

– Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975)

So, nothing in biology made sense before 1859? Darwin’s Origin of Species? No biologist believes that.

Tom Bethell

Hey, add your own “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of … ”

Comments
Fine if evidence is king. There is no evidence to fill a locker for evolution as they propose it. Evolution should be null and void by now and so either its got the evidence of the lack of it is not interpreted accurately. I say the great flaw really really was using geology as the evidence for a biological conclusion. Thats what will be said in retrospect when evolutionism is filed under failed.Robert Byers
February 11, 2012
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Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of the evidence, which should be followed no matter where it leads. Theories may be overturned, hypotheses rendered invalid, but biology--indeed, all scientific endeavors--will be null and void and meaningless unless the evidence is properly interpreted and followed. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of materialism. We only can properly "do" science when we can put it in test tube and perform experiments on it and then interpret the data. Sorry, theoretical physicists. And some cosmologists. Oh, and the quantum mechanics guys. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of Darwin. We praise St. Darwin of the Galapagos for his eternally valid theory of evolution!Barb
February 10, 2012
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Unfortunately there isn't anything coherent about the current theory of evolution. And the "theory" sure as heck doesn't tel us why this should do this in this way. Heck biologists don't know how things came to be the way they are- all they can say is "it evolved".Joe
February 10, 2012
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Yes, I would agree. Even medicine was rudimentary, although starting to make some sense. Evolutionary theory pulls it all together in a coherent explanatory framework. Even in my own field, it underpins what I every question I ask: "why should this do this in this way?" Without evolutionary theory the question would have little meaning - it would be like asking: "why is the Mona Lisa smiling?"Elizabeth Liddle
February 10, 2012
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So, nothing in biology made sense before 1859? Darwin’s Origin of Species? No biologist believes that.
From my reading of 19th century science what it appears to me is that early in the century there was a lot of data from biology, paleontology, biogeography, embryology, taxonomy etc - but the various biological fields of science were disconnected from each other, with nothing uniting them. At first, this wasn’t a problem – after all, why would embryology have anything to do with paleontology? Or what would either of those have to do with biogeography, etc? But over time it became obvious that they are connected in some way. As Louis Agassiz (one of the greatest 19th century scientists) puts it: “'the phenomena of animal life correspond to one another, whether we compare their rank as determined by structural complication with the phases of their growth, or with their succession in past geological ages; whether we compare this succession with their embryonic growth, or all these different relations with each other and with the geographical distribution of animals upon earth. The same series everywhere!” The individual fields had their various theories – Catastrophism, the Great Chain of Being, Recapitulation (the non-evolutionary variety), etc, but these theories did nothing to even try to address why all these disparate fields were seeing the same patterns. So, there was a lot of head scratching going on, and I get the sense that scientists were waiting for someone to come up with something to unite the fields.goodusername
February 10, 2012
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Nothing in biology makes sense---if your listening to a Russian! Nothing in biology makes sense--if geology is most of the investigation(Id folks take heed too)! Nothing in biology makes sense ---without scientific investigation but instead just a hunch is all that is going on! Nothing in biology makes sense---to mankind who can't fix very much of it!Robert Byers
February 9, 2012
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So, nothing in biology made sense before 1859? Darwin’s Origin of Species? No biologist believes that.
I would guess that many biologists do believe that. And this non-biologist tends to agree. Before Darwin, biology was largely a matter of describing and classifying, with not much in the way of a unifying theory. Or at least that is my impression.Neil Rickert
February 9, 2012
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“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of nothing creating biological features...praise be to darwin!"Blue_Savannah
February 9, 2012
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