Re: [asa] Lincoln and Darwin

Can anybody think of any innovation that was NOT built on (or an improvement of)
previously existing ideas? As J.Diamond did a good job pointing out in his text
("Guns, Germs, & Steel" I think) most or nearly all innovations cannot be neatly
attributed to one person's genius. The steam engine makes a great example where
people like James Watt or Thomas Newcomen before him, and many others before
that simply improved on older versions of the contraption; and before the
contraption came others who had the idea or description but then never built it
--all the way back to the Greeks with their aeolipile where influences begin to
fade beyond our historical reach. I don't think it entirely an abuse of the
word 'evolution' to co-opt it (over many objections, no doubt) as a description
for innovation and invention. At least the analogy could be made that books and
publications are like the hereditary mechanism (the DNA if you will) that
provides material for future benefactors to add improvements of their own. The
market of ideas and/or general usefulness provides the natural selection.
Darwin was no exception as we've heard on this list. So it shouldn't stop us
from celebrating brilliance where credit is due. After all, nobody really works
from a vacuum.

--Merv

Quoting gordon brown <Gordon.Brown@Colorado.EDU>:

> ... if Einstein had not accomplished what
> he did in physics, others would have.
>
> It occurs to me that this observation might be made of individual
> scientists in general. How many discoveries or ideas that had a major
> influence on the development of science depended on the individual persons
> who produced them? Wouldn't someone else have thought of natural
> selection? (Some would say that Wallace did independently.) We would be
> using calculus and Newton's laws today even if Newton had never lived. By
> contrast, many wars started by megalomaniacs have profoundly affected the
> direction of world history, as have the heroes who prevented them from
> attaining their goals. Even so, we rightly admire the impressive
> accomplishments of the individuals who were first to come up with
> solutions to significant questions in science.
>
> Even though few people accomplish what noone else could, as Christians we
> do know one man who did what noone else could have done: Jesus Christ.
>
> Gordon Brown (ASA member)
>

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Received on Thu Feb 12 11:41:34 2009