Darwinism

The documentary explores the mystery of non-adaptive order in biology and the unique challenge it presents to Darwinian evolution. More re documentary: here.

From his blog, Sandwalk: I’m looking forward to learning about all the paradigm-shifting work on evolutionary theory from the likes of Denis Noble and the Third Way crowd [Physiologists fall for the Third Way]. There may even be some famous members of the Altenberg 16 [More calls to extend the defunct Modern Synthesis]. More. His is likely to be an eclectic perspective, and we will listen with interest. See also: So who’s in and who’s out at Royal Society 2016 “rethink evolution” meet? and PZ Myers on Royal Society “rethink evolution” meet: “But that’s not how science works.” Follow UD News at Twitter!

“But that’s not how science works.” From his blog Pharyngula, Larry Moran is attending — not as a representative of the crackpot contingent, but, I suspect, to cast a cynical eye on the shenanigans. The Third Way of Evolution gang seems to be excited about the meeting, which is not a good sign — these are people who have taken some useful ideas in evolutionary theory, like epigenetics and niche construction, and turned the dial up to 11 to argue that these concepts are so revolutionary that they demand a complete upheaval of neo-Darwinian thinking. Many evidence-based concepts do demand it, actually. What’s changed is this: Darwinism (natural selection acting on random mutation) was once a default explanation of change Read More ›

Let the door hit both of you on the way out? Well, how else to understand this, from a review of new book, The Society of Genes (Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher, Harvard U Press)? From New Scientist: FORTY years ago, Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene popularised the notion that the gene, rather than the individual, was the true unit of evolution. That view has dominated evolutionary genetics ever since. But in The Society of Genes, biologists Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher say that it’s time to replace the selfish-gene metaphor with a new one that focuses on relationships. “We are not the simple sum of our genes,” they write. “The members of the society of genes do not Read More ›

From Suzan Mazur at HuffPo, offering the “unofficial list” for the the meeting scheduled for the public November 7-9 meet, co-sponsored by the British Academy for the humanities and social sciences: Prime movers of the event are: Oxford physiologist and Royal Society Fellow, Denis Noble — who has already made his case on this page for replacing the modern synthesis; Sir Patrick Bateson, FRS, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2003 for his service to biology and currently serves as president of the Zoological Society of London; Nancy Cartwright, Lady Hampshire, a University of Durham/University of California-San Diego philosopher of science and Fellow of the British Academy; John Dupré, a philosopher of biology at the University of Exeter whose Read More ›

Yes, in certain ways, says mathematician at the University of Adelaide. From Science Daily: The old adage that says ‘If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ has finally been put to the test — mathematically. A team of researchers has found that overwhelming evidence without a dissenting opinion can in fact weaken the credibility of a case, or point to a failure of the system. … The team put three different scenarios to the test based on mathematical probability: the use of witnesses to confirm the identity of a criminal suspect; the accurate identification of an archaeological find; and the reliability of a cryptographic system. They found in each case that there was a point at Read More ›

Bad news for scuba shops: To adapt to a ‘water world’, Dr Skinner expects humans would develop webbed hands and eyes like those of cats to help us see in the poor lighting conditions underwater. We would also retain a layer of baby fat into adulthood as an insulator for spending long periods submerged. Regular foraging in shallow waters could lead us to develop artificial ‘gills’ to help us breathe, extracting oxygen from the water and delivering it to the bloodstream. This would also lead to our lung capacity becoming greatly reduced, and our rib cages shrinking. An additional layer in the retina – like cat’s eyes – could develop to help us see in poor light under water. We Read More ›

From a (paywalled) review in Science of Newton’s Apple and Other Myths About Science (Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis, Eds. Harvard 2015): Before Columbus discovered America, people believed that the world was flat. When the apple struck Newton’s head, he discovered gravity and replaced God with objective truth. Gregor Mendel was a lone genius who discovered genetics. You will probably have heard at least some of these stories—you may even have believed them—but this delightful collection of short, thought-provoking essays shows that they are all myths. So pointing out that the pop sci lore on these subjects is largely myth is now going mainstream? Used to be, earnest Christian profs wrote this stuff. They were correct, and often engaging, Read More ›

Recently, we noted the new “bold new take” book on whether Darwinism explains higher taxa (which raises the quite undaring question whle offering an equally unconvincing alternative. And a “public goods” approach to Darwinism that leads to design. Plus an attempt to separate Darwin from his mentor Malthus that sheds worse light on Darwin than Malthus. So a reader writes to ask if we have addressed Simon Conway Morris’s The Runes of Evolution: How the Universe Became Self-Aware? Yes we did: See Evolutionary biologist Simon Conway Morris on how the universe became self-aware What? Self-aware? and ET, call pretty much anywhere at THIS point. Especially call Simon Conway Morris, Cambridge, Collect. This from a review from an arts and letters Read More ›

Someone drew attention to Smithsonian paleobiologist Douglas H. Erwin‘s recent article (April 20145), offering a “public goods” approach to major evolutionary innovations: Here’s the abstract: The history of life is marked by a small number of major transitions, whether viewed from a genetic, ecological, or geological perspective. Specialists from various disciplines have focused on the packaging of information to generate new evolutionary individuals, on the expansion of ecological opportunity, or the abiotic drivers of environmental change to which organisms respond as the major drivers of these episodes. But the critical issue for understanding these major evolutionary transitions (METs) lies in the interactions between environmental, ecologic, and genetic change. Here, I propose that public goods may serve as one currency of Read More ›

A new book, The Origin of Higher Taxa by T. S. Kemp, asks, Does Darwinian evolution acting over a sufficiently long period of time really offer a complete explanation, or are unusual genetic events and particular environmental and ecological circumstances also involved? With The Origin of Higher Taxa, Tom Kemp sifts through the layers of paleobiological, genetic, and ecological evidence on a quest to answer this essential, game-changing question of biology. More. A legitimate response would be: Do you still need your job, Kemp? If so, you know that the answer is Yes. (Turns out he doesn’t still need his job, so … ) We are told, Kemp here offers a timely and original reinterpretation of how higher taxa such Read More ›

From Pos-Darwinista “If you want to understand life, don’t think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology”. – Richard Dawkins, 1991, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 112. Pos-Darwinista adds, I think he got it wrong – if we want to understand life we should and must think about genetic information. Sure, but once it’s “technology,” it is not random or without intelligence. Darwinism cannot bear that weight. But who knows, with enough name recognition, ol’ Dawkins could end up getting credit for developing the idea. See also: Dawkins becomes theistic evolutionist? and The enigma of information Follow UD News at Twitter!

Malthus was the original population bomb guy. A recent paper by Lemin Wu (June 2015) offers A Darwinian Explanation of the Malthusian Trap: Abstract: This paper shows that the Malthusian mechanism alone cannot explain the pre-industrial stagnation of living standards. Improvement in luxury technology, if faster than improvement in subsistence technology, would have kept living standards growing. The Malthusian trap is essentially a puzzle of balanced growth between the luxury sector and the subsistence sector. The author argues that balanced growth is caused by group selection in the form of biased migration. It is proven that a tiny bit of bias in migration can suppress a strong growth tendency. The theory re-explains the Malthusian trap and the prosperity of ancient Read More ›

From Godless Spellchecker: PZ Myers has a habit of publicly disagreeing with the more successful figures in the ‘atheist movement’, which would be fine normally. Disagreement is healthy. It’s just that when PZ ‘disagrees’, he tends to reach for the worst possible smears available to make his point. This behaviour has been going on for years, but has recently been distilled in its most toxic form thanks to his interactions with Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland. I urge you read about that here. Anyhow, Myers was engaging in a bout of Hitchens bashing on Twitter: Godless Spellchecker: … Darwinian evolution at work: Descent of Man division, we would guess. See also: Anything by Bach, for relief. or Devolution: Getting back Read More ›

From Evolution News & Views: #6 of Our Top Stories of 2015: Peer-Reviewed Paper Reveals Darwin’s Unavoidable Catch-22 Problem A new peer-reviewed paper in the journal Complexity presents a computational model of evolution which shows that evolving new biological structures may be deterred by an unavoidable catch-22 problem. The article by physicists David Snoke, Jeffery Cox, and Donald Petcher begins by observing that in order to produce a new system, evolution first needs to try lots of new things. It must generate many, many variations upon which natural selection can act in order to “find” something useful to retain. But that comes with a potentially fatal cost. In the scenario proposed by Darwinian theory, you’d end up with an organism Read More ›