Wistar Institute Conference; Happy 50th Birthday (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 28, 2016, 02:42 (3130 days ago)

This famous conference 50 years ago featured the world's most famous mathematicians who told the Darwinists that mathematical attempts to prove Darwin only strongly suggested it was wrong:-http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/04/for_darwin_advo102798.html-"'It looks like the math is not going to cooperate" with Darwinism, was the message the mathematicians and physicists delivered to their biologist colleagues. As Paul says, the official monograph that followed the conference -- "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution" (1967) -- features transcripts of the conversations and one can all but hear the attendees tossing chairs at each other.-***-"The 52 listed participants also include Loren Eiseley, Murray Eden, Stanislaw Ulam, William Bossert, Ernst Mayr, Richard Lewontin, and C.H. Waddington. No debate about Darwinism, you say?-***-"Dr. Nelson notes that the upcoming Royal Society meeting, "New trends in evolutionary biology: biological, philosophical and social science perspectives," to be held in November of this year, will likely replay the drama of Wistar. And as I mentioned on Friday, Science Magazine last week reported on a new $8.7 million project funded by the Templeton Foundation devoted to an "evolution rethink" that has the more rigid Darwinists squawking in protest. Undisputed scientific "facts" don't need to be "rethought."-"What's changed since 1966 is that challenges to Darwinism have multiplied and grown enormously in scientific sophistication, matched by the heightened defensiveness of Darwin apologists. The mathematical challenge, like the others, remains without a convincing answer. That's why in replying to critics, Darwinists overwhelmingly content themselves with storytelling, insults, and invective."-Comment: I have a copy of the proceedings and covered it in my first book. Thee biologists could not believe the math folks were not being cooperative.