"I think Judaism w/o the divine (necessarily miraculous) revelation of the Torah isn't Judaism"
Not so sure about that. A big part of Judaism is tied up in being God's chosen people. Which, if you look at their history, hasn't bought them much as far as favors.
Christianity doesn't have that.
Actually I believe they use the term covenant (brit) more than "chosen people" and the covenant definitely involves the divinely revealed Torah. I'm not even sure the phrase "chosen people" even appears in the Bible or rabbinic literature at all.
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"I'd be amazed if he censored himelf in a classroom."
I wouldn't. In the sciences, ideology doesn't play very well. I've only had one instructor who tried to inject his personal beliefs outside of his field into the classroom.
LOL. Sure.
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"His Oxford website has links to atheist websites:"
That is a little different. Many professors have such stuff on their websites. Here is an example.
faculty.cs.tamu.edu
But, he never mentions it in class.
Of course not. He'd be fired if he did. Dawkins wouldn't be fired.
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"It has to do with the association of evolution with the origin of life"
For one, chemical evolution can mean one of two things.
The one you are talking about is very hypothetical. And has no real linkage to biological evolution which doesn't focus on the origins of life. They may share a common word, but that is about it.
What's the difference between "chemical evolution" and "biological evolution"? Other than that one is hypothetical.
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"Are you firm on your claim that bacteria don't have species?"
Like with plants, the concept of prokaryote species is very different from animals, which is where most of the terminology was developed.
And that is a huge problem. Suffice it to say that the concept of "species" is different for prokaryotes.
The concept of species may differ somewhat for different forms of life, but there are species of bacteria. Or at least, people who work with them think so.
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"If we made a new species by selective breeding (which we haven't done), "
You are sure of this, how?
"I doubt seriously taxonomists would ignore it."
Sure they would. Because they always have. Look at the different types of dogs, for example. Traditional taxonomy would have put them as various sub-species, if nothing else.
And, in fact, some dogs likely should be a different species.
en.wikipedia.org
"Then they shouldn't be considered separate species. "
Talk to the taxonomists. That is hardly a unique case.
Okay, make the term species as vague as you want and you can claim anything. Sure we do a lot via selective breeding - dogs are a great example. But we don't get by selective breeding two kinds of creatures which can't interbreed.
BTW biology would be a more rigorous science if it had terms with firm definitions.
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"So you're saying Linnaeus should have classed the races as separate species? "
Given the rules he had developed, yes.
I figured that.
"This is pretty nutty imo."
Why?
Well, because races can and do interbreed with no problems. Further, we know the human species had a pretty recent common origin.
What species would you put Barack Obama in? His mother's or his father's?
How many human species do you think we should recognize? In addition, to black vs white, you've indicated previously Ashkenazic Jews are a potential separate species - how about Albanians, Irish? Are southern Italians and northern Italians the same species? |
