Darwinism

Carl Woese (1928-2012), the discoverer of the third kingdom of life, the archaea, told Suzan Mazur that he felt Darwin had grabbed the spotlight, unearned: I’ve maintained for a long time up until the end of the 20th century that the problem of the evolutionary process is a problem before its time. Darwin was trying to get personal credit by barging in. Conceptual thought about evolution was laid down first by people like Buffon and Darwin’s own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin — whom Darwin never mentions in the Origin of Species, except in a footnote when he was forced in the third edition to add it to the footer of the preface. He named him in a dismissive way. He basically said, oh Read More ›

From Eurekalert: The frequent occurrence of same-sex behaviors in beetles of one sex could be explained by genes that are favored by natural selection when expressed in the opposite sex, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. The study by researchers from Uppsala University, Sweden sheds new light on same-sex sexual behavior in the animal kingdom through examination of the seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus, a common beetle found in bean stores across the world. … The scientists showed that when a particular sex had been bred for increased SSB, siblings of the opposite sex enjoyed an increase in reproductive performance. They also showed changes in traits such as mobility and sex recognition after selective Read More ›

Recently, we wrote about how a forbidden Darwin debunker had to be stopped. Debunking is all right as long as it doesn’t touch the culture’s true icons*: In the last few years, Sutton has himself embarked on another journey to the depths, this one far more treacherous than the ones he’s made before. The stakes were low when he was hunting something trivial, the supermyth of Popeye’s spinach; now Sutton has been digging in more sacred ground: the legacy of the great scientific hero and champion of the skeptics, Charles Darwin. In 2014, after spending a year working 18-hour days, seven days a week, Sutton published his most extensive work to date, a 600-page broadside on a cherished story of Read More ›

Richard Weikart’s radio debate with philosopher Peter Singer (infanticide supporter) and evolutionary psychologist Susan Blackmore He writes, “This debate came about because of my recent book, The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life. Blackmore raises the issue of Darwinism to defend her position.” Here. See also: Darwin womb to tomb: Darwinism and abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia Father of adult son with Down syndrome reflects on post-birth abortion and Darwinism Nearly half of Americans now think humans are not special and “The evolutionary psychologist knows why you vote — and shop, and tip at restaurants” Follow UD News at Twitter!

From Jonathan Webb at BBC News: A new study reveals how crocodiles’ eyes are fine-tuned for lurking at the water surface to watch for prey. The “fovea”, a patch of tightly packed receptors that delivers sharp vision, forms a horizontal streak instead of the usual circular spot. This allows the animal to scan the shoreline without moving its head, according to Australian researchers. They also found differences in the cone cells, which sense colours, between saltwater and freshwater crocs. … This is because light conditions are different in salt and freshwater habitats, but only underwater – and the crocodiles’ eyes show corresponding tweaks. … This arrangement reflects the predator’s iconic ability to lurk with just its eyes above the water, Read More ›

From Suzan Mazur’s The Paradigm Shifters: Overthrowing “the Hegemony of the Culture of Darwin”: Scientists remain divided in their assessment of whether origin of life and evolution are linked. One investigator I’ve discussed this with for The Paradigm Shifters, Eugene Koonin, an expert in viruses and microbes, comments: “So, in a sense, you cannot help thinking the origin is a boundary, so there is something distinct in the origin problem from the rest of evolution.” Koonin also thinks paradigm shift is crucial since viruses and microbes, which transfer “genetic” information nonlinearly (non-Darwinian) and are the largest part of the biomass, were left out of the Modern Synthesis. And, says Koonin further, “in nature, any multicellular organism – animal, fungus, or Read More ›

From National Academy of Sciences Press: Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion (2007) by Francisco Ayala, Thinking Evolutionarily: Evolution Education Across the Life Sciences: Summary of a Convocation (2012), and In the Light of Evolution: Volume III: Two Centuries of Darwin (2009) by John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala, and More. If you live in the United States, you may well have already paid via your taxes, so do take advantage of this offer. Of course, one would have to pay to get more correct information, but life usually does work that way. Follow UD News at Twitter!

To avoid controversy. No guff. As Suzan Mazur, author of The Paradigm Shifters: Overthrowing “the Hegemony of the Culture of Darwin,” tells it at Huffington Post: The Big Questions are these: What exactly is the extended evolutionary synthesis (“ES”) John Templeton Foundation has recently funded with $8M (and $3M more going to ES from institutional contributions)? What good is an extended synthesis without the largest part of the biosphere — viruses — factored in? Why fund now, when ES has been kicking around ever since it was born at “Altenberg!“ eight years ago? Paul Wason, Science and Religion chief at Templeton simply won’t say, declining my request for an interview and emailing that he “would prefer not to be involved Read More ›

From science writer Daniel Engber at Five Thirty-Eight: Who Will Debunk The Debunkers? Sutton, a criminology professor at Nottingham Trent University, started his career of doubting very young: He remembers being told when he was still a boy that all his favorite rock stars on BBC’s “Top of the Pops” were lip-synching and that some weren’t even playing their guitars. Soon he began to wonder at the depths of this deception. Could the members of Led Zeppelin be in on this conspiracy? Was Jimmy Page a lie? Since then, Sutton told me via email, “I have always been concerned with establishing the veracity of what is presented as true, and what is something else.” But he went too far. He Read More ›

Being an evolutionist means never having to say you’re sorry. Just look at Richard Dawkins who will say pretty much anything at any time, no matter how much it contradicts science or just plain logic. If he ever gets into trouble he can always lapse back into a rant about those creationist rascals and the audience will automatically erupt with applause. And so arguing evolution with an evolutionist is a lot like the Monty Python argument skit. They will pull out all manner of canards, misdirections, and fallacies, depending on their mood at the moment. One common example is the use of normal science as confirmatory evidence.  Read more

Recently, we’ve seen some rather abrupt shifts: The Royal Society is suddenly rethinking the importance of Darwinism in evolution—which will have huge ramifications even if they lose heart and flee the scene. It’s enough that they even considered such grave apostasy. For most people who grew up in the English-speaking world, evolution (indeed, all of biology) is Darwinism. The American Darwin-in-the-schools lobby, for example, has no similar interest in horizontal gene transfer, hybridization, epigenetics, or other ways evolution can happen. No one is suing the school board over chromosome doubling or getting their pants in a knot over convergence. But then these demonstrated ways evolution can happen do not add up to a grand naturalist scheme either. It’s more like Read More ›

From Michael Denton,’s Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, Admittedly, there are still many prominent figures such as Michael Ruse, Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins who strictly adhere to a pan-adaptational framework and to the notion that all macroevolutionary phenomena, from the origin of life to the origin of man, can be generally accounted for by the same mechanism, cumulative selection, that works at the microevolutionary level. But despite these dyed-in-the-wool Darwinists, there is now a growing chorus of dissent within mainstream evolutionary biology! A significant number of researchers, particularly in the new field of evo-devo, now argue that macroevolution requires an explanatory framework different from that of microevolution—thus confirming the underlying leitmotif of Evolution, a Theory in Read More ›

From Amanda Gefter at Quanta: The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality It’s an interview with cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman on the basic theme “Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be.” More. If Hoffman is correct, evolution makes science hopeless. Some people have said that for years, but we didn’t think they’d be getting their evidence from Darwin’s crowd itself. See also: Neuroscience tried wholly embracing naturalism, but then the brain got away and Would we give up naturalism to solve the hard problem of consciousness? Follow UD News at Twitter!

One thing we can all agree on is that the infamous finches on the Galápagos Islands are a classic icon of evolution. The difference is that evolutionists are playing the fool. Ever since Darwin wondered aloud that if the different types of finches he saw on the Galápagos Islands were not merely variants of a species, but in fact different species, then it “would undermine the stability of species,” and therefore the finches (and everything else) must have spontaneously arisen, evolutionists’ dullness has been embarrassing. Like the co-worker who reveals his ignorance as he rambles on about his pet peeve, evolutionists’ positivistic proclamations about the finches reveal an astonishing level of ignorance.  Read more

Were we talking nearly $9 million? From beneficiary Evolution Institute: My interest in the EES arose in the aftermath of the Altenberg meeting. It was clear that the notion of an extended synthesis divided the evolutionary biology community, generating both enormous excitement and strong negative responses. However, I held the view that the negativity arose primarily from the absence of a clear rationale for an EES, and the mistaken perception that the EES was a rejection of neo-Darwinism. If it were possible to harness the enthusiasm and new ideas, whilst at the same time circumventing the concerns of more orthodox evolutionists, then the EES could prove a stimulant to the field. Love it! “Mistaken perception that the EES was a Read More ›