The mid-century Darwinian Synthesis has been pretty much shattered in the last two or three decades. And it wasn't _facts_, to begin with, that shattered it: it was new hypotheses that for the first time made sense of those texts (excuse me, facts) that had been cluttering biological science since the day Darwin published his book. But they made no sense. They couldn't fit anything, and they gave no help in exploring the world. In other words a focus on those facts would have seriously interfered with deepening our understanding of evolution, and it was only that deepening INSIDE orthodox Darwinian biology that eventually made it possible to begin to craft _theories_ that included more texts (excuse me, facts) than had orthodox theory.
Facts are toothless & useless if they don't fit a theory. It is the theory that makes them useful, and also makes it possible to challenge them.
What's the latest text on that brand new fact that neutrinos can travel faster than light? :-)
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Carrol Cox Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 12:33 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] On the Flight of the Bumble Bee ,was Lou Proyect responds...
Ravi quoted WS: " science, or rather pseudo-science"
The " rather pseudo-science" empties the whole topic of either humor or intellectual significance. If _real_ science doesn't make these errors, then who cares.
Carrol
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk