Word: darwin
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...even NASA acknowledges that when it comes to searching for life, the Europeans have the edge this time. The esa probe comes in two parts: an orbiter that will stay aloft to conduct atmospheric studies and a lander that will descend to the surface. Dubbed Beagle 2, after Charles Darwin's famous specimen-collecting ship, the lander is only 91 cm wide when packed for flight, but on the ground it will open like a flower and deploy an impressive array of equipment. Among the instruments are a drill capable of digging 1.5 m below the surface, 12 ovens that...
...Charles Darwin's eccentric mathematician cousin Francis Galton who in 1874 ignited the nature-nurture controversy in its present form and coined the very phrase (borrowing the alliteration from Shakespeare, who had lifted it from an Elizabethan schoolmaster named Richard Mulcaster). Galton asserted that human personalities were born, not made by experience. At the same time, the philosopher William James argued that human beings have more instincts than animals, not fewer...
...Intellectual honesty requires rationally examining our fundamental premises—yet expressing hesitation about Darwin is considered irretrievable intellectual suicide, the unthinkable doubt, the unpardonable sin of academia...
Although the postmodern era questions everything else—the possibility of knowledge, basic morality and reality itself—critical discussion of Darwin is taboo. While evolutionary biologists test Darwin’s hypothesis in every experiment they conduct, the basic premise of evolution remains an scientific Holy of Holies, despite our absurd skepticism in other areas...
...must refuse to bow to our culture’s false idols. Science will not benefit from canonizing Darwin or making evolution an article of secular faith. We must reject intellectual excommunication as a valid form of dealing with criticism: the most important question for any society to ask is the one that is forbidden...