From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Thu Sep 18 2003 - 13:06:58 EDT
In a message dated 9/18/03 12:18:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
alexanian@uncw.edu writes:
> The most important ideas underlying the whole of biology lies in the
> experiments in plant hybridization by Gregor Mendel in 1865, the ideas of Erwin
> Schrödinger and Max Delbruck in the 30's. The latter two provided the inspiring
> ideas used by Crick and Watson in their DNA studies. I am sure none of them
> used Darwinian concepts for their contributions.
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
>
>
>
I mentioned mendel's experiments in an earlier post. I don't understand your
insistence on this particular point and what it buys you. Darwin had a
problem with the inheritance of characteristics because he didn't know the genetic
mechanism, no one did at the time, he thought characters 'blended' rather than
being encoded in discrete units and some of his guesses appear quite
Lamarckian. Mendel discovered the mechanism. Mendel validated Darwin. So did ancient
pastoralists. They bred their animals. They could see the differences wrought
by their mating choices and could breed animals successfully without reading
The Origin of Species or Mendel's paper.
Mendel was restricted to peas. Darwin went from coral reefs to earthworms to
demonstrate that all living things evolved.
So, I don't agree with you, unless you are saying Darwin's work is
unimportant.
rich
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