Do you think Darwin is right

[halogamer1989]

akuma587 said:

Jackson50 said:
Darwin was the catalyst for the development of modern evolutionary theory, which I agree with, but he was wrong on many things. Of course, that is to be expected. For instance, although he existed at the same time as Mendel, he was unaware of Mendel's work and the idea of genetic drift.

Exactly.  Newton isn't so well remembered because he got every detail right (his theory of gravity for instance is pretty outdated) but because he got so much else right and was so astonishingly ahead of his time.

Darwin's theory was pretty elegant in how simple it was and how intuitive it is.  He was grasping for straws in terms of some of the evolutionary mechanisms (like genes), but everyone else was too at the time.  The technology simply wasn't there.  Mendel didn't fully understand what they were either, at least as we understand genes now.  He had no idea what DNA was.

As time has gone on and with the help of other scientists, evolution has turned into the fundamental unifying theory in biology.  Its everywhere you look.  Its withstood just about every major test that's been thrown at it, and if it didn't it was more because the model we were using for evolution at the time was bad rather than the theory itself.

 

I could activate inactive genes in an emu and turn it into a veloceraptor like creature but that does not mean velociraptors evolved from emus.  What about the ancient Ice Age pyramids with grey alien research, Von Daniken, etc. ;)