A second shot at Margulis

I'm still more interested in your opinions than my own, at least at some point. I have very strong opinions on the subject... but I'm also not particularly qualified in the sense that in the end Margulis knows a HECK of a lot more about biology than I do.

There is no scientific proof of anything...proof isn't something scientists deal with at all.

There you go again, PZ! Scientists deal in proof all the time and the evidence is in the published literature. Take a look and see for yourself.

Or stop making this silly philosophical argument. Your playing with the creationists' balls and you really don't want to do that.

I can prove you posted your comment to the wrong thread.

Entirely OT, but whatever that new big ad in the middle of the page is (my Firefox is blocking it) is making the site take forever to load!

If they would just use a javascript "onload" function, that wouldn't happen too. Annoying.

Yeah, I got a picture with a message about not having the latest version of Flash, which for some reason made the page download hang indefinitely. I added the picture to my AdBlock list and now everything loads fine.

No, I'm not updating Flash to see advertisements.

If I'm thinking of the right ad, it loads for me (creepy screenshot of a woman looking MUCH too happy about the fireman's uniform she has just ignited...something about the science of fire-resistant clothing?) but does slow the site down.

There you go again, PZ! Scientists deal in proof all the time and the evidence is in the published literature. Take a look and see for yourself.

Have you meanwhile answered to my offer? You know, I told you the names of over 10 famous journals, claiming the word "proof" doesn't occur in them? You didn't for days...

Excerpts of Margulis on Memoirs of a Skepchick
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=462

I still have a high opinion of Margulis' contributions and creativity. But some of this is kind of sad.

Margulis:

"We find Peter Duesberg is the only researcher who behaves like a scientist as he has published all of his work that is relevant and discussed it comprehensibly.... (T)he best writing, and the scariest and most coherent is Celia Farber's article in Harper's magazine (Mar 06?) about the AIDs tests.... The term "HIV-AIDS" is a sham and should never be used."

"...[Kozo Polyanski] wrote a book eplaining this..he united Darwins "natural selection (which only ELIMINATES life forms, does not create them) with SYMBIOGENESIS that does create new species in the same genus.... Of course random mutations hone and refine the bigger hereditary processes but there is no evidence I know of that proves that random mutation GENERATES evolutionary novelty"

"...I don't know the term "ring species""

Ring species is really basic stuff! There is no shame in a biologist not knowing that, because biology is a huge discipline and covers a lot of ground. But shouldn't a scientist who dismisses the Modern Synthesis know that kind of thing?

To be fair, Margulis figured that ring species had something to do with clines, but the term is about more than that.

I'm not anti-Margulis like some, but her HIV-AIDS denial (citing Harpers - there's a science journal) and her comments on selection, mutation, and novelty are dismaying.

There you go again, PZ! Scientists deal in proof all the time and the evidence is in the published literature. Take a look and see for yourself.

Have you meanwhile answered to my offer? You know, I told you the names of over 10 famous journals, claiming the word "proof" doesn't occur in them? You didn't for days...