Has any of Engels' Science been proved wrong?

[jacobin1949]

Does anyone know if modern science has proven wrong any of the purely scientific theories laid out by Engels in Dialectics of Nature? Evolution, early man, physics, chemistry, astronomy. It be quite surprising if modern science hasn't proven him wrong some where.

[ComradeRed]

I know his physics turned out to be wrong, his chemistry seemed to be based on crude chemistry that could be shown true with Lewis dot diagrams.

Astronomy, he was also wrong. Early man, from what little I have read of current theories and Engels' ideas, was wrong too.

I can't help you with evolution I'm afraid :(

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jacobin, you have already been told that Engels's work has been completely debunked here, but you, just like Fundamentalist Christians, are only interested in stuff that supports your world view.

Fortunately, the truth of historical materialism is not affected by any of this.

Dialectics of Nature and much of Anti-Duhring taken apart here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2005.htm

[JimFar]

Engels debunked spiritualism in this essay (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch10.htm) which was later published posthumously in his Dialectics of Nature.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Jim, but, as with everything Engels wrote on science and Philosophy, it is not worth the paper it was written on.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:

Thanks for that Jim, but, as with everything Engels wrote on science and Philosophy, it is not worth the paper it was written on.

Well, you must admit, he at least got things right concerning spiritualism :lol:

As you may recall, Stephen Jay Gould thought quite highly of Engels's essay, The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm), despite Engels's tendency to frame his arguments in Lamarckian terms. See Gould's essay, Posture maketh the man (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n6_v47/ai_17628712/pg_1).

Engels by most accounts had a very broad knowledge of science. However, I think your issue with him concerns his philosophy of science which was largely of Hegelian derivation (along with a strong admixture of Naturphilosophie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturphilosophie) with all the faults and weaknesses associated with that. That led him down the primrose path on many issues, and led him to some fairly odd and quirky notions concerning such things as the nature of imaginary numbers, the foundations of the calculus, and his claim that motion is inherently contradictory.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim:


Well, you must admit, he at least got things right concerning spiritualism

For all the wrong reasons, though.

And I do know that Gould thought highly of Engels, but I am at a loss as to why.

I must admiit, though, that the Essay you link to is one of the few things Engels wrote on science that I like.


Engels by most accounts had a very broad knowledge of science

I am not sure how we could decide; those who say he had a broad knowledge of science tend to be Stalinists who cannot tell the difference between truth, hagiography, and saving their necks.

I rather think he was a well-read amateur/dilettante, who was clearly out of his depth in science, mathematics, logic and Philosophy, and Marx did not have the heart -- or the bottle -- to tell him.