Re: Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an 'RNA World'

On 13/03/2024 02:21, John Harshman wrote:

On 3/12/24 3:13 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

On 2024-03-11 19:48:01 +0000, JTEM said:
>

  Richmond wrote:
>

Darwin didn't know about genes

>
Darwin was exposed to Mendel's work --THE Mendel, the
guy who worked out inheritance -- and he was exposed
to it BEFORE he completed his "Pangenesis" vomit.
>

but then his book was published before
Mendel

>
Again, "Pangenesis."
>
Mendel worked it all out, Darwin was exposed to it AND
THEN Darwin came out with the "Pangenesis" bullshit.
>

As for rejecting
evolution, well the last line in 'The Origin of Species' is:

>
Omg. I'll repeat it:
>
Stalin. Mao.

>
I don't know about Mao, but Stalin had no problem with evolution. In 1959 (100 years after The Origin; 150 years after Darwin's birth) I was at the same school as Darwin, many years after him. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR sent the school a commemorative medal. (Don't bother to tell me that Stalin had died by then: I know.) Interest in Darwinism was at low ebb in England in 1959, and the anniversaries passed almost unnoticed.

 JTEM has his own vocabulary. By "evolution" he means the modern synthesis, also called (which JTEM would detest) neoDarwinism. What he seeks to attach Darwin's name to is Lysenkoism or neoLamarckism. If you make all those switches what he says is more or less correct.
 Not sure whether Mao or the CCP adopted Lysenkoism, but it doesn't seem out of the question.

I've spent less time than you on these matters
and on JTEM.  If you're correct about their
current argument, the question of counting
an animal's legs, when you call a tail a leg,
comes to mind.
<https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/11/15/legs/>
I'm not satisfied that "Lysenkoism" was
a reformed Lamarckism.  But as I say, it's not
my thing.  And so far as Charles Darwin ever
considered Lamarckism, he replaced it with his
own ideas.  I'm satisfied that he decided that
genetic variation produces different survival
outcomes - not the other way around.
JTEM is not speaking their own language,
they are just lying.  This is unremarkable
and uninteresting.