John
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
I would have to say that Darwin is one of the best persuasive writers I have read. Working in sales I have seen some interesting uses of persuasive speach, but none have compared in tone or verbage to the works of Darwin. He masterfully uses emotives combined with matter of fact statements to sway the reader to his conclusions. Unfortunately, this has a great deal to do with the fact that a great many people have ascribed to his views, however fallacious they may be. Not only is his evidence incomplete, but much of what he states as fact is, at best, assumption, and some is even obviously and admittedly biased. And the fact that he admitts his ignorance all the more draws sympathy from his audience, anothger point of genious that I have seen used to much lesser degrees in some disreputable salespersons I have observed. His detailed citations, as well as strong command of the english language, as well as others, gives the work a distinguishing air of authority. But, "Air", is just what it is.<br> It is not my intention to besmurch the character of the man, but it is known that he was a starch critic of religion, likely due to the hipocrasies he encountered through his own studies at the abby. However justified his criticisms of the church, the bias in his work is obvious, making it difficult to draw an objective conclusion from his presentation of evidence he openly claims are cited for the express purpose of supporting his claims, as well as omittions that discount them.<br> Apart from his biasses and errrant assumptions, I must credit the man with having developed a most interesting theory, although he did not come to it wholey independant of others, he shows great determination in researching ways to prove his theory. The principal itself carries a great deal of logic, but I myself have that the more I reseearched the topic, the more holes I found in both the theory of natural selection, and in the supporting postulates of this and other works. This book is the first instance where the term evolution comes into Darwin's work, while it did appear in the Origin of the Species, it was not untill a later edition, publish after the Descent of Man. Interstingly the Theory of evolution was originated by Bonnet in 1762 wich is now refered to as the Theory of Preformation to avoid confusion.<br> The underlying problem with the theory is the assumptions that one must make in order to accept it. When reading the text, consider what things you are being asked to assume to be true, and ask yourself if those things can be proved. In many instances the assumptions are quite logical, not neccesssarily proved, but they are highly plausable. In other instances the assumtions are quite broad, or rely on the acceptance as fact previously made assumptions. While taken in context within the text, the arguements appear quite believable, but because of the nature of the physical sciences, the body of information is so limitless as to allow for most any conclusion to be drawn from a small fraction of the facts available.<br> As to the Descent of man, there are many more questions to be answered before we can make any such bold assumptions as his being a descendant of a more rudimentary species. Frankly I have not seen sufficient evidence to support this theory, and given his ingenious talent for persuasive writing, I would not consider Charles Robert Darwin to be much of a scientist, but quite an excellent salesman. He makes a great pitch, but I'm no easy sell, I intend to do a lot more than kick the tires, I want to see under the hood, I want a test drive, and neither Darwin nor any of his predecesors have the gas to get this theory started, but only alot of polish to make it look good.