Sir William Lawrence, 1st Baronet Quotes
Having examined the principal points in which the several tribes of the human species differ from each other... I proceed to inquire whether the diversities enumerated ... are to be considered as characteristic distinctions coeval with the origin of the species, or as a result of subsequent variation; and in the event of the latter... whether they are the effect of external... causes, or of native or congenital variety.
Lawrence, William. Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. J. Callow, 1819, p. 438.
The Bible contains two separate and somewhat contradictory versions of creation (Adam & Eve vs. the 6 day creation).
This is a very important quotation. It is usually quoted by opponents of evolution, but almost always, the last sentence is omitted. Evolution nay sayers often claim that the wing of a bird or the human eye could not have evolved in gradual steps, but almost all scientists do not agree, In addition, science has learned, since Darwin’s era, that gradualism, while generally the rule in evolution, is not always required in that mutations can create relatively rapid evolutionary change. So can behavioral factors like the dog evolving from the wolf which occurred in just a few generations. However, if there were found an organism that was created in seconds, doubt would be cast on parts of the evolution concepts. However, no one has established that. The best opponents of science have done to maintain their position is to offer complex animals and organisms they believe are too complex to have been created gradually, but they have not been able to scientifically demonstrate that there is a single one.
Actually, while such selective breeding is possible in all animals, the selection for a single trait almost always produces other unintended and unanticipated traits and these could be devastating to the “new generation”, unpleasant, benign, or anything else. At the time selective breeding was the only possible tool to produce “desirable” traits in an animal or to eliminate what someone things of as “undesirable” traits. Today, our understanding of the human genome and genetic engineering offers a much more reliable possibility of affecting animal traits without as many risks of random and unintended consequences that are present with breeding.
The fundamentalist majority of the school board agreed, but the minority did not. Nor do virtually all the leading scientists in the country. The word “theory” as it is used to describe Darwin’s construct or in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity refers to an intellectual construct for which there has been continuous empirical demonstration since is was first promulgated. The attorney general and the school board, not being scientifically trained, mistakenly believe that a scientific theory is like a general theory which is a set of hypotheses which are established (proven) or not. But scientific theories are not proven or disproven per se. Various elements of them are, and elements of a scientific theory are modified and altered over time and research. Few scientific constructs has had as much empirical demonstration of the various elements as Evolution.
The school board had been pressured by religious fundamentalists throughout the state of Georgia to affix these stickers to all textbooks as there were no textbooks that met curricular standards that did not teach evolution. As soon as they started this practice, a suit was filed in the Federal District Court which found the practice violated both the Federal and Georgia State Constitutions ({586989}). The only reason that the stickers had been used was to try and placate those religious fundamentalists of the community who were opposed to the teaching of evolution. See {586968} for a quote from the legal opinion.
This particular quotation is particularly distressful to some religious fundamentalists who not only will not accept that man evolved, but find it worse to accept that man is continuously evolving.
He was commenting on the seemingly brilliant designs of organisms that evolution has brought about, so sophisticated, that planners could hardly have conceived of them. His point is that those organisms are the great successes which the failures have become extinct and the moderate successes have constantly gotten better.
As early as this was in scientific history, he essentially described the process whereby new species are formed by the mutation from the old series.
Darwin believed at the time that large populations were critical to national success and development. The next 100 years would prove that large population was a handicap to progress and real growth of standard of living.
Darwin did not develop an interest in the origin of life in a vacuum. His grandfather and many other scientists and naturalists had realized that species evolved and improved over tome and generations. What Charles Darwin added was the principles of the mechanism of how it all worked.
Darwin’s work had polarized England into two camps. Spencer was one of the major public supporters of Darwin. Tennyson expressed a similar intuitive view a decade earlier {627586}. Spencer reasoned that if an egg cell and a sperm cell could produce a human in 9 months, why was it not plausible that the cell could become a human in hunreds of millions of years.
This quotation gives is a view of regeneration, evolution and species development before Darwin. It also shows us that a number of the Founding Fathers were quite current with the thinking of the major intellectuals of Europe.
This quotation from this letter was one of the key items of evidence showing that Wallace had independently developed the concept of Evolution before Darwin published his famous treatise. Darwin began formulating his theory of natural selection in the late 1830s but he went on working quietly on it for twenty years. He wanted to amass a wealth of evidence before publicly presenting his idea. During those years he corresponded briefly with Wallace (right), who was exploring the wildlife of South America and Asia. Wallace supplied Darwin with birds for his studies and decided to seek Darwin's help in publishing his own ideas on evolution. He sent Darwin his theory in 1858, which, to Darwin's shock, nearly replicated Darwin's own…. Joseph Dalton Hooker arranged for both Darwin's and Wallace's theories to be presented to a meeting of the Linnaean Society in 1858. However, Wallace seems to have been onto the idea of evolution over a decade before as this quotation shows.
- Born: July 16, 1783
- Died: July 5, 1867
- Nationality: English
- Profession: Physician & Scientist
Sir William Lawrence, 1st Baronet FRCS FRS was an English surgeon who became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of London and Serjeant Surgeon to the Queen.
