OOL: was [asa] Quoting Evolution [was Darwin] out of context

Gregory Arago asks:

>
>
> In his paper, Rich asks: 'What do scientists say about 'the
> beginning?' I wonder about this also. Could anyone out there suggest a
> guess about how many scientists (i.e. what percentage) actually
> pronounce on ‘the beginning’ of life or human existence? It seems to
> me this is a surprisingly minuscule number of scientists, yet their
> views are accorded such respect for their speculations and the
> experiments they carry out. Isn’t it true that a vast number of
> scientists don’t pronounce on ‘beginnings’?

DN replies: The standard expression is "Origin of Life", OOL for short.
I am not an OOL researcher, but my impression is that the number of OOL
researchers is substantial -- and most of them just get on with their
scientific job and do not make write popular articles or make
pronouncements to the media. Quite correctly, most scientists who are
not OOL researchers do not make pronouncements on OOL.
Don

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Received on Mon Aug 21 17:20:45 2006