Why everything you've been told about evolution is wrong

[ibis]

All the ones from the same tree would have the same genes.

Yes, I know that's what you were saying, but no, you're wrong, at least if you mean 'genetically identical'. They won't be genetically identical by any means.

For a start sycamores are not self-pollinating nor asexually reproductive but wind and insect pollinated, which means that different helicopters from a single tree may have different "fathers". For a second the amount of seed produced by a single tree is very large, so statistically there will be a fair bit of mutation in the genes as well.

[martino]

Yes, you're right ibis, thanks for putting me straight. No trip to Oslo for me then!

[ibis]

Yes, you're right ibis, thanks for putting me straight. No trip to Oslo for me then!

Sorry...!

[martino]

Sorry...!

No worries ibis. Now if only I could turn my hand at writing poems about turf and bogs and stone walls......

[sondagefaux]

Guardian article attacking this article.

"Why everything you've been told about evolution is wrong," bellows the headline in today's Guardian. Well rest easy, my anxious science fans, it's not. Assuming everything you've been told about evolution has come from people who understand it, the less appealing headline should read, "as you were, you clever people".

Alas, in his feature, Oliver Burkeman has given, in my view, an insufficiently critical airing to some specious arguments put forward in a new book entitled What Darwin got Wrong. Authors Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini are not evolutionary biologists, and have attempted to scrutinise evolutionary theory whilst simultaneously misrepresenting it.

Of course, there are plenty of things that Darwin got wrong. That is the nature of science, and indeed good scientists love to be wrong. It means that the theory will subsequently be refined to be more right. Darwin knew, as does every subsequent evolutionary biologist, that natural selection is the major, but not the only contributing factor to evolution.

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini seem oblivious to this. They base their whole argument on either misunderstanding what real evolutionary biologists think, or by simply ignoring it. They describe processes in evolution that are easy to understand and are part of evolutionary theory, and quote them as a means to knock down that exact same theory. Repeating and enhancing these brainwrongs so elegantly, as Burkeman does, simply makes matters worse.

Take epigenetics – the idea that modifications to the structure of DNA changes its behaviour. As Burkeman points out, this is a new field, and its impact on biology has not yet been fully realised. However, nothing about it suggests that it doesn't fit within the existing framework of evolutionary theory. Burkeman cites a study (from my own alma mater) of Swedish boys whose lifespan was affected by the behaviour of their grandfathers. Although new for paternal inheritance, the paper itself describes the phenomenon as "well recognised". A metastudy of this "transgenerational" effect across many species concludes that the effect is universal. As ever, evolutionary theory needs refining, but does not need a revolutionary assault.

There are too many things wrong with Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini's arguments to go into here, so for a detailed analysis I refer you to a thorough demolition in the Boston Review (warning, contains real science).

"Nobody wants to provide ammunition to the proponents of creationism," says Burkeman. But he is doing just that. Unfortunately now, many people will again assert that evolution is wrong, but very few will understand that the fact that 8% of our own genome is derived from viruses enhances evolutionary theory, rather than subverts it, as Burkeman suggests.

Beyond a 'Darwin was wrong' headline | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The Boston Review article.

Boston Review — Ned Block and Philip Kitcher: Misunderstanding Darwin

[nozzferrahhtoo]

What if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate?

It was. Wildly and even comically in some places. However we do not go by just his theory any more. It has been improved, refined, researched and has reached a point where much of it would be pretty much unrecognisable to him today were he resurrected and shown it. He would have much to learn.

Just goes to show - Science is full of surprises...

Not really. There is absolutely nothing new in this article from the Guardian and the title is merely sensationalist. The writer says:

Epigenetics is the most vivid reason why the popular understanding of evolution might need revising

But it seems only the writers’ understanding of it is all that needs updating. Stuff like this has been long written about and long misinterpreted too. Epigenetics is nothing new and anyone who thinks it is should be writing an article titles “Why everything I thought I have been told about evolution is in dire need of updating”.

A good place to start would be here:

Epigenetics : Pharyngula

but it is a huge subject area and there is a lot to read before you make yourself look as bad as the author of the article.

[Bill]

Yes, you're right ibis, thanks for putting me straight. No trip to Oslo for me then!

Don't you mean Stockholm?

[cHeal]

Hardly a surprise when one considers that there was no Darwinian epiphany during his 5 year voyage. He simply captured and killed wildlife and send the samples home. He had no notion then of evolution or anything approximating to that. In fact there is a view that the penny didn't drop until long after his return when somebody else prompted the theory.

Correct. He was in fact hugely influenced by Adam Smiths writings on free markets and another writer around that time who wrote about the problems of over population. Many people criticize capitalism because it is survival of the fittest and a form of "social Darwinism" but in reality it was Darwin who was inspired to develop the theory of Natural Selection based on Adam Smiths writings about business. A very interesting distinction to recognize as it demonstrates that the Free Market that Smith wrote of was not in fact a theory of how economies and countries should be governed, but how they would actually be without governance.

[nozzferrahhtoo]

He had no notion then of evolution or anything approximating to that.

Correct.

Actually do be a stickler for semantics, this is not _entirely_ correct.

Evolution was well known and written about at these times indicated. In fact one of Darwin’s ancestors, Erasmus Darwin, wrote a bit on the subject too.

What was NOT known during the years on the ship and until he came back home was the mechanism by which Evolution works, not that evolution in fact happens.

There is an important distinction between Evolution and Natural Selection. The latter is merely the theory on how the former works. Even if one proved everything Darwin wrote about Natural Selection wrong, this still says nothing about whether Evolution happened/happens or not.

It may not appear an important distinction on the surface, but it can get important when you get down into the nitty gritty of the Theories.

Darwins great idea was not to discover evolution, but to come up with and demonstrate the mechanisms by which it operates. A similar example would bet hat Newton did not „discover“ gravity. Everyone knew it was there and real long before he came along.

[gaius hippingo]

Evolution is only a theory and like any good scientific theory, is open to revision/correction upon the discovery of new information.

Hawking and black hole theory is one such correction.