In my personal week, I discovered that Lynn Margulis, a noted biologist, died last month. I used to read her in "CoEvolution Quarterly."
As a young scientist Margulis presented the maverick theory that eukaryotic cells evolved not in the lineal "tree-of-life" manner of standard evolution, but from the symbiosis of multiple prokaryotic cells. She took much heat for this from orthodox biologists, but she stuck to her guns and eventually won the debate.
Later in life Margulis observed:
<i>[P]eople are always more loyal to their tribal group than to any other abstract notion of ‘truth’—scientists especially… <b>It is professional suicide to continually contradict one’s teachers or social leaders.</b>
The problem is that many fine scientists recognize genuine difficulties with the ‘standard model’ of evolution, so to speak. However, most lack the conceptual tools to solve the difficulties they legitimately recognize.
<b>Scientists, like anyone else, follow the money flow.</b></i>
All this sounds vaguely familiar.
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