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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (38252)	6/29/2013 2:09:47 AM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

Thinks he speaks for all 30,000 sects of "____+____" on earth, it must be great to be brumar? Silly rabbit, doesn't know apparently there's only one Vicar of Christ on earth and he resides in Rome & was/is a beautiful example of that tendncy towards monopoly. Nature loves monopolies, so does brumar. thought this good doing research tnite, Forbes Thought of the day: "The empires of the future will be empires of the mind" ~ Winston Churchill

To: Solon who wrote (38252)	6/29/2013 2:44:57 AM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

The best review i found on Amazon for this latest tome of ID'ism from Disco Institute's on "Darby's Doubt", very good links & complete overview. The ironic thing is scientists are their own greatest critics coming up with new syngergies & hypothesis all the time well beyond Darwin, good links he supplies. ........ I am in agreement with Stephen C. Meyer that Neo-Darwinism fails to explain the Cambrian explosion, but his over-all conclusion of intelligent design being the solution to the riddle I also disagree with. The book is split into three sections, the first is a serious introduction to the subject and highlights Darwin's problem with the Cambrian explosion. Part two goes into more detail and highlights some flaws in Neo-Darwinism. There is also a brief intoduction to epigenetic inheritance which is explained more in the third section which is mostly a survey of non-Darwinian evolutionary theories! Yes you heard correct, non-Darwinian but still evolutionary. Darwinism itself should be equated with evolution. There is some interesting research discussed in this book. I say the third section is worth reading definitely even if you skip the rest of the book. Here Meyer discusses the self-organizational theories of Stuart Kauffmann and Stuart Newman. I had never heard of the "long-jump" mutation hypothesis before. I did some further research and found Newman has published some interesting papers in the Journal of Theoretical Biology on "long-jump" mutations and the NK model. It is unclear of these theories are mainstream or not but many of these evolutionary theories that Meyer discusses at totally at odds with the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Stephen C. Meyer mentions the work of Gould, and even evo-devo scientists such as Sean B. Carroll or Wallace Authur. Many other scientists are mentioned who have come to reject the neo-Darwinian synthesis such as Lynn Margulis, Brian Goodwin and Eugene Konnin, but just because they reject Neo-Darwinism does not mean they reject evolution. All three of these scientists have pointed out the flaws of Neo-Darwinism in their books. Goodwin belongs in the "process structuralism" camp How the Leopard Changed Its Spots : The Evolution of Complexity and Margulis was a defender of symbiogenesis as the main origin of new novelty in evolution opposed to the neo-Darwinian mutation + natural selection scenario Acquiring Genomes: A Theory Of The Origins Of Species. The work of Eugene Koonin is too complicated to go into detail but he goes as far as claiming the modern synthesis (Neo-Darwinism) has been replaced by a new synthesis of pluralistic evolutionary mechanisms and processes in his book The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution (FT Press Science). Meyer surveys the above non-Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms as well as the controversial natural genetic engineering of James Shapiro, and the neo-Lamarckian "epigenetic" inheritance of Eva Jablonka such as DNA methylation processes and RNA-mediated inheritance. He also talks about how evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology) scientists have broken classical assumptions of the neo-Darwinism synthesis as some of their research into developmental processes has suggested mechanisms of large-scale change in animal form opposed to strict gradual change. However, Meyer ends up rejecting the work of the evo-devo scientists claiming no mutations can produce viable major changes that are needed for new body plans. He also rejects the theories of Jeffrey Schwartz into Hox genes to explain the sudden appearance of animal forms in the fossil record. He is more sympathetic to the natural genetic engineering of Shapiro but ends up rejecting it. He also talks about the "non-adaptive" theory of evolution of Michael Lynch in great detail but ends up criticising and rejecting it! Meyer seems to reject evolutionary mechanisms even if they are non-Darwinian! Likewise he rejects the "neo-Lamarckian" epigenetic mechanisms proposed by Eva Jablonka in her books Epigenetic Inheritance and Evolution: The Lamarckian Dimension and Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology). I am currently reading Jablonka's books and as it currently stands I believe Meyer has been too quick in rejecting all of her research into epigenetics. So in short Meyer comes to the conclusion that no naturalistic evolutionary mechanism or process (whether it be neo-Darwinian or totally non-Darwinian) can explain the Cambrian explosion. It is unclear if Meyer accepts common descent or not, probably not from some of his comments. He dedicates only a small part of the book to his own hypothesis of intelligent design. I say hypothesis because that it what it is, but it probably would be criticised as a non-testable hypothesis. He talks about signs of design in the cambrian explosion. His design hypothesis is a supposition for a baseline or starting point for further investigation, it certainly is interesting but I find it hard to see how he can test his design hypothesis or how any further research into "design" is going to explain anything as it attempts to explain everything in one go, he actually discusses similar things in a chapter called "Rules of Science" near the end of his book. Because of this many reviewers will probably claim Meyer is indulging in pseudoscience. The physicist John Davidson in his little known book Natural Creation or Natural Selection?: A Complete New Theory of Evolution also proposed that an intelligent process was behind the Cambrian explosion and also argued for design but the explanation was no different than just saying God did it (i.e. some transcendent metaphysical force or "universal mind" caused the explosion, the criticism of such supernatural explanations is that that they should not be taught in the science room because they are metaphysical not empirical science. Because I accept evolution in my opinion if intelligent design exists then evolution would have brought it about. I am more open-minded to the possibility of theistic evolution I guess. I don't think design should be ruled out altogether (perhaps some form of design and evolution are compatible?), it is not impossible but common descent and evolution are facts. I am certainly not going to deny the evidence for naturalistic evolution. So where are we left? I believe the Cambrian explosion is still a mystery and we only have pieces of the puzzle but science is bringing us closer to solving the riddle, who knows what further research will discover? I am currently looking into the various alternative environmental, developmental, and ecological explanations for the explosion (some are listed on Wikipedia). Andrew Parker wrote a very interesting book found here In The Blink Of An Eye and proposed an entirely naturalistic explanation to explain all of the facts of the Cambrian explosion. Just because neo-Darwinism is false does not mean evolution is not true. Other interesting books: The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes (Denis Noble explains how all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis (often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproven, also see his lecture "Physiology and Evolution" at the major international Congress in Suzhou, China on how Neo-Darwinism has been replaced.) Mutation-Driven Evolution (Nei has developed a new mutation theory of evolution, may be of interest? This is controversial!). A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance (Meyer did not mention the "heretical" ideas of Rupert Sheldrake in his book, I would be interested in knowing what he thinks about Sheldrake's hypothesis of Morphic Resonance.) There is also a little known book called "Thinking Beyond Darwin: The Idea of the Type As a Key to Vertebrate Evolution which discusses non-Darwinian evolutionary theories and Goeathen science, if you have read Brian Goodwin you may enjoy it. meme