ED CONRAD A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES . . .

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As you all know, there's currently a heated debate in the sci news
groups about what Charles Darwin really said about the evolution of
the eye.
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It's time this matter is cleared up -- simply and concisely -- once
and for all.
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(Actually, I thought I had ended all the confusion back on Saturday,
May 11, 1996, when a pseudoscientist named Michael Clark accused me
of misquoting Darwin. He had the balls to say I used only a portion of
Darwin's quote.)
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=====================================
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Here's what I said:
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``To suppose that the eye (with so many parts all working
together) . . . could have been formed by natural selection seems, I
freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
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======================================
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Here's what Charles Darwin REALLY said:
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"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for
adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different
amounts of light,
for the correction of spherical and chromatic
aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I
freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said
that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense
of mankind declared the doctrine false; but
the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows,
cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous
gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect
can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is
certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations
be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such
variations
should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then
the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be
formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination,
should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve
comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life
itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest
organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of
perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive
elements in their barecode should become aggregated and developed into
nerves, endowed with this special sensibility."
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================================
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I thought I said what Darwin had said but David Iain Greig said what I
said wasn't what Darwin really had said because he said Darwin had
more to say than what I said he had said, then Steve Vickers of the
UK
butts in and says HE knows what Darwin really said, claiming what I
said he said wasn't what Darwin really had said, so I said, 'Okay,
I'll say what they say about what Darwin really said, since I suppose
that this is indeed what he had said, even though I really don't know
for sure if he had said it, but this is what they say he had said.=======================================
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Nice little song and dance, there, Zippy. Can you balance a ball on
your nose? -- Michael Clark
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Up your's, Douche Brain!
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(Folks, excuse the interruption!)
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==============================
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Actually, it really doesn't matter what Darwin had said or what these
fellas said he had said -- or what they say I said or didn't say --
since what I said, whether Darwin said it or not, isn't something
that
really had to be said. Perhaps Darwin said what
he said because he felt he had to say it -- he certainly was entitled
to say what he wanted to say. But by saying what they say he had said,
he actually said more than he needed to say, so maybe he didn't have
to say what he said. Of course, IF Darwin did say what these fella
said he had said, critics could later say he had nothing to say even
though he had said it.

Ed Conrad
Emeritus Professor of Clear, Concise Journalism
Ediacara University
Walla Walla, WA
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====================
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MAN AS OLD AS COAL
http://www.edconrad.com
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DEATH DOES NOT EXIST
http://www.edconrad.com/pics/Miracle.jpg
http://edconrad.com/lifeafterdeath
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======================
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Rare photo shows Charles Darwin taking a dip off
the Galapos Islands after finishing "Origin of Species"
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http://www.edconrad.com/pics/SaveTheWhale.,jpg
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==========================
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