IP: Re: Darwin in Kansas

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> X-Sender: gdyson () mail cc wwu edu
> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 07:15:03 -0700
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: George Dyson <gdyson () cc wwu edu>
>
>
> [SCIENCE, 27 August 1999, p. 1355]
>
>
> Darwin in Kansas
>
> Re: Darwin-Free Biology (Science 285, 6 August 1999, p. 813):
>
> Where is Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) when we need him most? As
> he warned the Kansas State Board of Education in 1794:
>
> "The world itself might have been generated, rather than created; that is,
> it might have been gradually produced from very small beginnings,
> increasing by the activity of its inherent principles, rather than by a
> sudden evolution of the whole by the Almighty fiat. --What a magnificent idea
> of the infinite power of THE GREAT ARCHITECT! THE CAUSE OF CAUSES! PARENT
> OF PARENTS! ENS ENTIUM! For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to
> require a greater infinity of power to cause the causes of effects, than to
> cause the effects themselves."
>
> [Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life (1794), vol. 1, p.
> 509.]
>
> --------
>
> --
> George B. Dyson                                      gdyson () cc wwu edu
> ______________________________________________________________________