The article’s title says it all: “Evolution Heresy? Epigenetics Underlies Heritable Plant Traits”
For some evolutionary biologists, just hearing the term epigenetics raises hackles. They balk at suggestions that something other than changes in DNA sequences, such as the chemical addition of methyl groups to DNA or other so-called epigenetic modifications, has a role in evolution. Yet a provocative study presented at an evolutionary biology meeting last month found that heritable changes in plant flowering time and other traits were the result of epigenetics alone, unaided by any sequence changes.
We would guess they are mostly Darwin’s men. Essentially, the neo-Darwinist is a gene fundamentalist. The allegedly compelling case for Darwinism depends—not on demonstrating that natural selection of random mutations can produce changes—but on the claim that it is responsible for all or most such changes. Once a number of causes of evolution may be considered, this faith component vanishes. Then the fact that there aren’t very many convincing demonstrations of Darwin’s mechanism, as opposed to evolution in general, looms quite large indeed.
Never forget what arch-Darwinist Dawkins told us thirty years ago (and the people heard him gladly):
“My argument will be that Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life. If I am right it means that, even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.” — p. 287, Blind Watchmaker (1986)
In short, he claims (and his claim has largely been accepted rather than examined) special treatment rights that go beyond evidence. How revealing that so many people who claim to live by evidence swallow special pleading so eagerly, and are uncomfortable with the reality of evolution.
Non-Random and Targeted Mutations (Epigentics to the level of DNA) – lifepsy video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTChu5vX1VI
“Evolution Heresy? For some evolutionary biologists, just hearing the term epigenetics raises hackles”
I suspect Pennisi is just being sensationalist, as many science writers are wont to do. None of the biologists she quotes seemed to think it was heresy and the results were reported at a large meeting on the subject filled to standing-room-only. I’ve heard suggestions of a role for epigenetics in evolution going years back. Epi modifications easily create new phenotypes that can be selected for. However ephemeral they are if they persist long enough they can be replaced by genetic modifications that create the same phenotype.
“We would guess they are mostly Darwin’s men” I think close to 50% of life scientists are women.
Dawkin’s claim is rather careless, but I dont think hes claiming that evolution deserves special treatment. Hes suggesting that the logic underlying the mechanisms for evolution is so compelling, it beats the underlying logic of other proposed explanations. I think this is outright false.
RodW
Yeah so?
For some random blog commenters, synonymous mutation is a nighmare that will not let them sleep 😯
Sorry, I am a kid in a candy store with these smileys 😉
Here is Darwinian crowd control on finding that epigenetics overturns the modern synthesis of Neo-Darwinism:
Nothing to see here – Naked Gun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjK2Oqrgic
a few notes on the ‘non-randomness’ of epigenetics:
Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century – James A. Shapiro – 2009
Excerpt (Page 12): Underlying the central dogma and conventional views of genome evolution was the idea that the genome is a stable structure that changes rarely and accidentally by chemical fluctuations (106) or replication errors. This view has had to change with the realization that maintenance of genome stability is an active cellular function and the discovery of numerous dedicated biochemical systems for restructuring DNA molecules.(107–110) Genetic change is almost always the result of cellular action on the genome. These natural processes are analogous to human genetic engineering,,, (Page 14) Genome change arises as a consequence of natural genetic engineering, not from accidents. Replication errors and DNA damage are subject to cell surveillance and correction. When DNA damage correction does produce novel genetic structures, natural genetic engineering functions, such as mutator polymerases and nonhomologous end-joining complexes, are involved. Realizing that DNA change is a biochemical process means that it is subject to regulation like other cellular activities. Thus, we expect to see genome change occurring in response to different stimuli (Table 1) and operating nonrandomly throughout the genome, guided by various types of intermolecular contacts (Table 1 of Ref. 112).
http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.ed.....0Dogma.pdf
Also of interest from the preceding paper, on page 22, is a simplified list of the ‘epigentic’ information flow in the cell that directly contradicts what was expected from the central dogma (Genetic Reductionism/modern synthesis model) of neo-Darwinism.
Shapiro on Random Mutation:
“What I ask others interested in evolution to give up is the notion of random accidental mutation.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....11144.html
Seeing Past Darwin II: James A. Shapiro – James Barham – May 2012
Excerpt: Much in our culture depends upon the public’s being made aware that Darwinian theory as standardly interpreted is intellectually bankrupt.(2) And little that I have encountered communicates this fact so well as the work of James A. Shapiro.
http://www.thebestschools.org/.....a-shapiro/
Physiology moves back onto centre stage: a new synthesis with evolutionary biology – Denis Nobel – July 2013 – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzD1daWq4ng
Here is the paper that accompanies the preceding video:
Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology – Denis Noble – 17 MAY 2013
Excerpt: The ‘Modern Synthesis’ (Neo-Darwinism) is a mid-20th century gene-centric view of evolution, based on random mutations accumulating to produce gradual change through natural selection.,,, We now know that genetic change is far from random and often not gradual.,,,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.....4/abstract
“The genome is an ‘organ of the cell’, not its dictator”
– Denis Nobel – President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences
New Research Elucidates Directed Mutation Mechanisms – Cornelius Hunter – January 7, 2013
Excerpt: mutations don’t occur randomly in the genome, but rather in the genes where they can help to address the challenge. But there is more. The gene’s single stranded DNA has certain coils and loops which expose only some of the gene’s nucleotides to mutation. So not only are certain genes targeted for mutation, but certain nucleotides within those genes are targeted in what is referred to as directed mutations.,,,
These findings contradict evolution’s prediction that mutations are random with respect to need and sometimes just happen to occur in the right place at the right time.,,,
http://darwins-god.blogspot.co.....ected.html
The Mysterious Epigenome. What lies beyond DNA – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpXs8uShFMo
“The Mysterious Epigenome: What Lies Beyond DNA” – May 2012 – podcast
http://intelligentdesign.podom.....7_28-07_00
How so?
Off topic re Alan Fox @ 3:
Wow. The bug eyed one too??? I didn’t know that…
😯
Yes We Can! Yee haw!…
😯 😯 😯
(Sorry… :D)
Mr. Fox, in the following video,,,
Modern Synthesis Of Neo-Darwinism Is False – Denis Nobel – video
http://www.metacafe.com/w/10395212
,, Dr Nobel states that around 1900 there was the integration of Mendelian (discrete) inheritance with evolutionary theory, and about the same time Weismann established what was called the Weismann barrier, which is the idea that germ cells and their genetic materials are not in anyway influenced by the organism itself or by the environment. And then about 40 years later, circa 1940, a variety of people, Julian Huxley, R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewell Wright, put things together to call it ‘The Modern Synthesis’. So what exactly is the ‘The Modern Synthesis’? It is sometimes called neo-Darwinism, and it was popularized in the book by Richard Dawkins, ‘The Selfish Gene’ in 1976. It’s main assumptions are, first of all, is that it is a gene centered view of natural selection. The process of evolution can therefore be characterized entirely by what is happening to the genome. It would be a process in which there would be accumulation of random mutations, followed by selection. (Now an important point to make here is that if that process is genuinely random, then there is nothing that physiology, or physiologists, can say about that process. That is a very important point.) The second aspect of neo-Darwinism was the impossibility of acquired characteristics (mis-called “Larmarckism”). And there is a very important distinction in Dawkins’ book ‘The Selfish Gene’ between the replicator, that is the genes, and the vehicle that carries the replicator, that is the organism or phenotype. And of course that idea was not only buttressed and supported by the Weissman barrier idea, but later on by the ‘Central Dogma’ of molecular biology. Then Dr. Nobel pauses to emphasize his point and states “All these rules have been broken!”.
,, you can pick up the rest of the talk at the two minute mark of the video I referenced, or you can watch the entire video here:
Professor Denis Noble is President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences.
Entire lecture is here:
http://www.voicesfromoxford.or.....iology/184
Phil
Please try to stay on topic. We are discussing smileys. Epigenetics is just a derail You’ll be trying to tell us next that symbiogenesis is a “Darwinist conspiracy”.
Mr. Fox, you know I was never one to stay on topic. But to go further than Denis Nobel has gone in showing just the modern synthesis to be false (as if that was not bad enough for reductive materialists), I hold that the entirety of Darwinism is unscientific and that Intelligent Design is scientific for the former has no discernible demarcation criteria so as to delineate it as truly scientific (and not a pseudo-science) whereas the later, ID (Intelligent Design), does. A very basic breakdown in Darwinian thought can be summarized in the following manner
Here are some of my notes as to neo-Darwinism having no rigid falsification criteria in mathematics so as to delineate it as a truly scientific theory:
Whereas ID does not suffer such an embarrassment as to having no rigid falsification criteria within mathematics so as to delineate it as scientific:
,, the empirical falsification criteria of ID is much easier to understand than the math is, and is as such:
Here are some of my references supporting my claim that ‘Reductive materialism (which is the main philosophy underpinning the atheistic version of neo-Darwinism) is falsified by advances quantum mechanics’:
Here are some of my references supporting my claim that ‘,,‘Randomness’ (i.e. entropic processes of the universe) are vastly more likely to destroy functional information within the cell rather than ever build it up’
,,having a empirically demonstrated direct connection between entropy and the information inherent within a cell is extremely problematic for Darwinists because of the following,,,
Thus, Darwinists are found to be postulating that entropic events, which consistently destroy information, are what are creating information in the cell. ,,, It is the equivalent in science of someone (in this case a ‘consensus of scientists’) claiming that Gravity makes things fall up instead of down, and that is not overstating the bizarre situation we find ourselves in in the least.
Here are my references supporting my claim that ‘Natural selection is ‘empty’, and to the extent that natural selection does do anything, it is found that Natural Selection reduces genetic information in an organism rather than ever creating it from scratch.’
Here are some of my references for the claim that “The atheistic/naturalistic form of neo-Darwinism, if true, would result in the epistemological failure of science itself.”
Thus, the naturalistic form of neo-Darwinism is found to be a truly laughable ‘scientific’ theory. That such a pathetic ‘scientific’ theory could gain such prominence in America is truly a sad state of affairs. Especially in a country that was first to develop the atomic bomb and land a man on the moon.
Verse and Music:
Well, bully for you, Phil. Far be it from me to disabuse you from your religious beliefs. So long as you are not advocating the suppression, burning or boiling of those that disagree with you, then carry on.
as to
That would be your ‘religious’ position Mr. Fox:
as to Darwinism being a religion instead of a science, here are a few references:
Here are a few things that are making Darwin’s followers uncomfortable:
– Epigenetics.
– Convergence (distant species share identical genetic codes).
– Orphan genes.
– Cambrian explosion.
– Every origin of life hypothesis sounds like superstition.
Evolutionists are walking on hot coals and it hurts very bad.
Does anyone what to explain why (transgenerational) epigenetic inheritance is a problem for evolutionary biology?(Or how the methyl tags get on the genes in question, which would be instructive)
Even though I’m not a “follower” of Darwin, I’m an evolutionary biologist and it’s not at all clear to me why I should be uncomfortable.
AF:
BA77:
Where have I ever advocated burning, boiling or suppressing points of view?
I am an advocate of the free exchange of ideas and information. Philip, I realise you think you have God on your side, but does He give you carte blanche to bear false witness? For shame, Philip, for shame!
Epigenetics is not a problem for Darwin.
Darwin published his hypothesis of pangenesis as the last chapter of the book Variation in Plants and Animals in 1868. According to pangenesis, the basis of hereditary characters resides within tiny cellular particles called ‘gemmules’. Gemmules then migrate from somatic to germ cells, where they collect to pass inherited characters to the next generation. Since gemmules become modified in somatic cells by conditions of life and the actions of organisms, acquired characters can be inherited.
But epigenetics is a problem for Neo-Darwinists as they have denied that any acquired characters can be inherited. The evolutionary text-books of orthodox neo-Darwinian Douglas J. Futuyma are still claiming that inheritance of acquired characters is impossible.
Mapou @ 14
Great list but you forgot one…
Multiple or poly interpretations of the genome !!!!
…. more headaches for Darwinists.
@11 That was technology, Philip. Wasn’t the science done by foreigners?
Don’t forget, Alan, on another thread, you were trying to chide me about being pedantic or some such, but were bashful about actually articulating it. I did assure you it would be OK. How am I to reform without your guidance? Oh, ‘a line in the sand’. That was it. And something about Jesus not being pedantic, I think.
Epigenetics has a lot of meanings. One is the methylation of various parts of the DNA with the effect that some genes will get expressed in different cell types and others will not. If a new methylation happens to a germ cell then a gene expression that is induced by environmental factors may be passed onto the next generation. Some may cause dramatic phenotype changes (beak sizes) while others may just affect internal dispositions (dietary habits or tendencies.)
Is this evolution? Depends on how one defines evolution. Not if the traditional definition of a change in the frequency of alleles in a gene pool is used. These methylation changes may all happen without any changes in the genome. Every generation has small random changes in the gene pool but it may not be enough to say anything of consequence happened.
Some of the epigenetic changes may be brought on by the environment and it has nothing to do whether the germ cells are affected. Thus, any morphological changes are not due to changes in the genome but in methylation patterns caused by the environment.
We are not talking of any expression of major complex new novelties here but just capabilities already available in the genome.
In the end it says nothing about Darwinian processes except that some or a lot of the examples of so-called evolution may be just epigenetic changes.