RE: [asa] Lincoln and Darwin

George,

Do not forget that David Hilbert wrote "Einstein’s equations" before Einstein did.

Moorad

________________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of gmurphy10@neo.rr.com [gmurphy10@neo.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 11:36 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu; gordon brown
Subject: Re: [asa] Lincoln and Darwin

Certainly Wallace came up with natural selection independently of Darwin. Calculus was "in the air" in the mid-17th century & would soon have been arrived at sans Newton. In fact a good case can be made for Leibniz' independent discovery. Others were on the verge of special relativity before Einstein. It's not at all so clear, however, that _general_ relativity would have been discovered by anyone else, at least not for quite awhile.

Shalom,
George

---- gordon brown <Gordon.Brown@Colorado.EDU> wrote:
> Today is the bicentennial of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.
> Maybe this is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the impact of
> individual scientists versus the impact of individuals in certain other
> professions.
>
> Several years ago TIME Magazine named Albert Einstein as its Person of the
> 20th Century. I read a comment by someone who suggested that that was a
> mistake. He thought that Winston Churchill should have had that
> distinction. His reasoning was that 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)
>
>
> On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Dick Fischer wrote:
> > I think it is one thing for a religious organization, and in this case a
> > major religion, to admit to previous mistakes. It's quite another to
> > celebrate them. It's in that same vein that I have some misgivings about
> > celebrating Darwin. Okay, he was a brilliant scientist and made a major
> > contribution to our understanding of biology. But somehow I feel overtones
> > that serve to be a slap in the face to our Christian beliefs. Maybe I'm
> > just being over sensitive but if I were a pastor and Darwin Week was coming
> > up (it is) I don't think I would prepare a special sermon to mark the
> > occasion. I would prefer a science week to honor great scientists and group
> > Darwin in with Kepler, Newton, Einstein and others. I would rather
> > celebrate science than just Darwin. I think it has the unfortunate
> > ramification of sending the wrong message or at the very least a mixed
> > message.
>
>
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Received on Thu Feb 12 15:21:10 2009