Thursday, November 25, 2010

The Strongest Voice of Critique is....

To me, the strongest voice of critique regarding would be balter's augment. The key reason to this is quite simple; I have grown up in a world where the idea of evolution through natural selection is generally accepted. It has been one of the fundamental beliefs to me in that sense. I learned it in middle school, as well as high school. There has been tremendous amount of time dedicated to the topic during my biology class in my early education. Therefore I have to admit, it is pretty hard for me to taking in any rejections which can be consider as powerful but then again has been proven to be insufficient to overthrown Darwin's theory over time.


However I find Balter's statement saying that" I don't need to be a scientist to critise Darwin's theory" is very unique. To my opinion academic integrity is above, all the most important thing in the world of science. Balter's writing pointed out how Darwin in some degree took credit for other people's work by talking about their findings like it was his own idea. I do find that is rather unpleasant. It might not be such a big deal in the past, but in today's value it is a total disgrace to the name of science. To be honest I was quite shocked when I first read Balter's paper, and thought it must be some sort of false acquisition, however after the discussion we had regarding his work, it seems quite clearly that Darwin did took credit for works that has done by other scholars in the same field.


Now I look back at Darwin's work, especially the "on the origin of species" which is basically an unfinished work which has been published pre-maturely just to catch the title of the "first one" in the field. No to mention the fact that whenever he finds a dead end in his agreement, he just simply says "I will discuss about this issue in my next book' which in lots of occasion has not been realized. I have to say he is certainly not as honorable as a scientist can be, in fact he might not even be as honorable as a scientist should be. I am so glad that in today's society the requirement for citing, referencing during academic paper is so strict to the point that it is nearly impossible for some to get away with using other people's working and take credit for them as if they were his own work.


At the end of day I still respect Darwin for his achievement or shall I say contribution for making the idea of "evolution through natural selection" becomes a worldwide generally accepted theory. However I would have to admit that he is nowhere near as glorified as I used to think he is.

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