Why everything you've been told about evolution is wrong

[martino]

I agree with you Catalpa. I can't understand the smugness of some people when it comes to TOE, how they hold it up and gloat as if they personallyly have discovered the elixir of life. How old is it now, 150 years? It has become the orthodoxy of the day just as creationism was when first Darwin published it, and I can imagine it too will be challeneged and removed as the primal dogma in the field. Perhaps these findings will be the start of that process.

Molecular science is actually hindered I believe by TOE as it guides all research and is always in the background as the framework upon which all life is built. I just don't buy intuitively. For instance so much of a genome is made up of introns which are never expressed, and 'junk' DNA for which no explanation has been offered. In my opinion, science would do well to investigate without the constraints traditional evolution places on it.

[Q-Tours]

An interesting response from Prof Jerry Coyne, U Chicago.

I don't think he like the Guardian article:

Burkeman’s article represents the most self-serving, lazy, overblown, and irresponsible sort of science journalism. He lays out strong charges against modern evolutionary biology, and then doesn’t bother to consult a single expert to see if those charges stick. He touts epigenesis to the skies, but doesn’t bother to find out whether its proponents may have exaggerated its evolutionary importance. (This wouldn’t have required much digging!) Burkeman apparently lacks the ability to adjudicate claims and controversies in biology. Granted, we don’t expect all journalists to be able to do this, but if you don’t know what you’re talking about, you ask the experts.

[ibis]

I agree with you Catalpa. I can't understand the smugness of some people when it comes to TOE, how they hold it up and gloat as if they personallyly have discovered the elixir of life. How old is it now, 150 years? It has become the orthodoxy of the day just as creationism was when first Darwin published it, and I can imagine it too will be challeneged and removed as the primal dogma in the field. Perhaps these findings will be the start of that process.

Molecular science is actually hindered I believe by TOE as it guides all research and is always in the background as the framework upon which all life is built. I just don't buy intuitively. For instance so much of a genome is made up of introns which are never expressed, and 'junk' DNA for which no explanation has been offered. In my opinion, science would do well to investigate without the constraints traditional evolution places on it.

Hm. Not sure about that, really:

'Junk' DNA gets credit for making us who we are

The blueprint for life is not all about genes. Now we are finally pinning down how much differences in non-coding DNA – stretches of the molecule that don't produce proteins and used to be considered "junk" – shape who we are.

In recent years, researchers have recognised that non-coding DNA, which makes up about 98 per cent of the human genome, plays a critical role in determining whether genes are active or not and how much of a particular protein gets churned out.

Now, two teams have revealed dramatic differences between the non-coding DNA of people whose genes are 99 per cent the same. "We largely have the same sets of genes. It's just how they're regulated that makes them different," says Michael Snyder, a geneticist at Stanford University in California.

Full article here.

[Q-Tours]

I agree with you Catalpa. I can't understand the smugness of some people when it comes to TOE, how they hold it up and gloat as if they personallyly have discovered the elixir of life. How old is it now, 150 years? It has become the orthodoxy of the day just as creationism was when first Darwin published it, and I can imagine it too will be challeneged and removed as the primal dogma in the field. Perhaps these findings will be the start of that process.

Molecular science is actually hindered I believe by TOE as it guides all research and is always in the background as the framework upon which all life is built. I just don't buy intuitively. For instance so much of a genome is made up of introns which are never expressed, and 'junk' DNA for which no explanation has been offered. In my opinion, science would do well to investigate without the constraints traditional evolution places on it.

What do you mean by "the constraints traditional evolution places on it"? Is it the case that scientists who work in that area make claims that the data doesn't support, but prevent discussion of it? That would be a complete academic and professional no-no, wouldn't it? Surely if you could overturn the concensus view in biology you'd be on a plane to Oslo in the morning?

[martino]

What do you mean by "the constraints traditional evolution places on it"? Is it the case that scientists who work in that area make claims that the data doesn't support, but prevent discussion of it? That would be a complete academic and professional no-no, wouldn't it? Surely if you could overturn the concensus view in biology you'd be on a plane to Oslo in the morning?

No, but the theory of evolution is taken as a given and biologists approach their work with this in the back of their minds. They design experiments accordingly and phylogenic trees and theories of speciation all 'fit' an accepted evolutionary schema. I'm saying that biology could be more fruitful if other approaches were also admitted. As for academic 'no-nos' the recent climategate furore is a perfect example of how science is made to fit the orthodoxy of the day. Scientists are as malleable as any professional these days. As for Oslo, I'd say someone will be flying there one day with some new theory that makes everything else redundant, it's just too early to say evolution is the be all and end all.

[Q-Tours]

I take your point about orthodoxies. But unless you can actually point to some tenet of evolutionary 'orthodoxy' that doesn't fit the data, the problem is to do with personalities and authority, not the science itself, no?

[ibis]

I take your point about orthodoxies. But unless you can actually point to some tenet of evolutionary 'orthodoxy' that doesn't fit the data, the problem is to do with personalities and authority, not the science itself, no?

A little bit more is necessary than that, since most of the articles referenced in this thread are the work of evolutionary biologists that clearly challenges the phylogenetic paradigm that martino believes all evolutionary biologists suffer from. There is, therefore, something of a danger of overstating the effects of paradigms in science, however attractive the theory of maverick geniuses working against the stifling orthodoxy may be.

[martino]

Well Q-Tours I can't give you an example, if I could, well I'd be off to Oslo I suppose. But you accept my point calling for a more open approach. Random mutagenesis just seems too convenient to explain everything. I was sitting in a park one autumn's day watching the helicopters fall from the sycamore trees and I just couldn't get how random mutation came up with the helicopter with the perfect geometrics to carry the seed as far as possibe on the wind. The tree takes so long to grow, has no mortal enemies, and then how could it be deemed to be in competion with other trees of its species if they were so far dispersed from each other. Descent with modification and survival of the fittest just doesn't add up for me in that case.

[ibis]

Well Q-Tours I can't give you an example, if I could, well I'd be off to Oslo I suppose. But you accept my point calling for a more open approach. Random mutagenesis just seems too convenient to explain everything. I was sitting in a park one autumn's day watching the helicopters fall from the sycamore trees and I just couldn't get how random mutation came up with the helicopter with the perfect geometrics to carry the seed as far as possibe on the wind. The tree takes so long to grow, has no mortal enemies, and then how could it be deemed to be in competion with other trees of its species if they were so far dispersed from each other. Descent with modification and survival of the fittest just doesn't add up for me in that case.

Softly, softly....catchee monkey...

[Q-Tours]

I'm not a scientist, but the question occurs: how many helicopters per tree? Over time, it adds up to a lot of chances to produce one (hopefully successful) seed that only needs one adaptive trait to make it more successful than its neighbours.