Re: [asa] Two questions (chopped quotations)

To Mike Gene:

My apologies. I see from my post that just arrived that my Darwin quotations were compressed, and virtually chopped out, as were your own quotations, which I had reproduced below my post. Also, the font changed part-way through, and that wasn't my doing. I'm new here, so I don't know the rules about length and formatting; does the ASA software automatically compress posts longer than a certain number of words? Or did I commit some formatting faux pas, by typing three little hyphens between my text and the Darwin quotations, to separate them off?

Anyhow, here is the end of my post again, without the hyphens, and with your own post chopped:

The passages:

Chapter II, second paragraph:

It may be doubted whether sudden and considerable deviations of structure such as we occasionally see in our domestic productions, more especially with plants, are ever permanently propagated in a state of nature. Almost every part of every organic being is so beautifully related to its complex conditions of life that it seems as improbable that any part should have been suddenly produced perfect, as that a complex machine should have been invented by man in a perfect state.

Chapter VII, last six paragraphs (first five omitted; the last paragraph summarizes the others):

.........

He who believes that some ancient form was transformed suddenly through an internal force or tendency into, for instance, one furnished with wings, will be almost compelled to assume, in opposition to all analogy, that many individuals varied simultaneously. It cannot be denied that such abrupt and great changes of structure are widely different from those which most species apparently have undergone. He will further be compelled to believe that many structures beautifully adapted to all the other parts of the same creature and to the surrounding conditions, have been suddenly produced; and of such complex and wonderful co-adaptations, he will not be able to assign a shadow of an explanation. He will be forced to admit that these great and sudden transformations have left no trace of their action on the embryo. To admit all this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms of miracle, and to leave those of Science.

I can send you the remaining paragraphs privately if you like, or you can just get them off the complete works of Darwin web site, as I did.

Cameron.

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Received on Wed Apr 15 21:00:43 2009