Re: Aquatic eccrine sweating ref request, was Re: tears

Phil Nicholls (pnich@globalone.net)
Mon, 13 Nov 1995 07:00:07 GMT

hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) graced us with the following
words:

>bdiebold@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Benjamin H. Diebold) writes:

>>Most scientific change, including major paradigm shifts, come from within
>>the scientific community. Einstein, Darwin, Pauling, Watson and Crick are

>Crowley is close to the truth and so are you. Einstein was an outsider;
>he was working in the patent office not in expensive physics labs.

>Darwin was nobody and evolution was nothing when he wrote it, unless
>you count Rumi's writings circa 1200.

By the time Darwin published his book "On the Origin of Species" he
was a respected naturalist, having published "The Voyage of the
Beagle", and some shorter publications, including an article on the
formation of atolls. He was a member of the Royal Society and
exchanged ideas with some of the leading biologists of his time.

The idea of evolution had been around for some time prior to Darwin
and for an excellent history you might try "Darwin's Century" by Loren
Eisley.

>One of Watson/Crick was a mathematician, hardly a biologist.

Wrong. Both were biologists (see Watson's book, The Double Helix).

>And biology is only now getting math in it (well the last 50 years or so).

This really depends on what you mean by "getting into math."
Population biologists like Fisher and Haldane were constructing
mathematically models of populations since the 1930's. Biology
itself is just now reaching the peak of activity comparable to what
happened in physics in the 1920's and 1930's.

>But most knowledge is added by pros in the field obviously. This is
>especially true in fields in which outsiders cannot even comrehend
>anything, ie math, quantum physcis, etc. Now PA is not one of
>these fields. Neither is psychology nor sociology, or archaeology.

So according to your formulation, most knowledge in physical
anthropolgy, psychology, sociology and archaeology is added by
outsiders. Well, I must say this is a very interesting perspective.
Would you care to support this with some recent examples -- say within
the last 20 years or so?

>And I think everyone knows the reason why.

I'm not sure everyone does, Mark. Please enlighten us. I, for one,
could use a good laught.

> Regards, Mark
> http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey

Phil Nicholls pnich@globalone.net
"To ask a question you must first know most of the answer"
-Robert Sheckley