From “Inherited Epigenetics Produced Record Fast Evolution” (ScienceDaily, Feb. 29, 2012), we learn,
Humans kept Red Junglefowl as livestock about 8000 years ago. Evolutionarily speaking, the sudden emergence of an enormous variety of domestic fowl of different colours, shapes and sizes has occurred in record time. The traditional Darwinian explanation is that over thousands of years, people have bred properties that have arisen through random, spontaneous mutations in the chickens’ genes.
Linköping zoologists, with Daniel Nätt and Per Jensen at the forefront, demonstrate in their study that so-called epigenetic factors play a greater role than previously thought. The study was published in the journal BMC Genomics.
The most interesting aspect of this story is “traditional Darwinian explanation” – referenced by someone who actually disagrees with it:
The results suggest that domestication has led to epigenetic changes. For more than 70 % of the genes, domesticated chickens retained a higher degree of methylation. Since methylation is a much faster process than random mutations, and may occur as a result of stress and other experiences, this may explain how variation within a species can increase so dramatically in just a short time.
Nätt and Jensen’s research may lead to a review of the important foundations for the theory of evolution.
Hmmm. They don’t sound like people who are afraid for their jobs, do they ….
Epigenetics is a problem for Darwinism. Here’s why: If our researchers here are right, it can create many oddities, including the frizzle chicken, illustrated. Natural selection does not subsequently add any information.
In a natural ecology, non-starters simply get weeded out (see frizzle chicken, illustrated), and we call that natural selection. But so far as we know, all the information is still potentially available. Only some of it can be expressed in a given ecology. What then is the true source of all that information? About that, we are back to square one.
Whatever this is, it is not our local Darwin pressure group’s court-ordered, taxpayer funded evolution class.
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