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A striking admission that Michael Behe was right

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In Darwin Devolves.

Once again, at Current Biology:

Evolutionary novelty is difficult to define. It typically involves shifts in organismal or biochemical phenotypes that can be seen as qualitative as well as quantitative changes. In laboratory-based experimental evolution of novel phenotypes and the human domestication of crops, the majority of the mutations that lead to adaptation are loss-of-function mutations that impair or eliminate the function of genes rather than gain-of-function mutations that increase or qualitatively alter the function of proteins. Here, I speculate that easier access to loss-of-function mutations has led them to play a major role in the adaptive radiations that occur when populations have access to many unoccupied ecological niches. I discuss five possible objections to this claim: that genes can only survive if they confer benefits to the organisms that bear them, antagonistic pleiotropy, the importance of pre-existing genetic variation in populations, the danger that adaptation by breaking genes will, over long times, cause organisms to run out of genes, and the recessive nature of most loss-of-function mutations.

Andrew W. Murray, “Can gene-inactivating mutations lead to evolutionary novelty?” at Current Biology

Note: “In laboratory-based experimental evolution of novel phenotypes and the human domestication of crops, the majority of the mutations that lead to adaptation are loss-of-function mutations that impair or eliminate the function of genes rather than gain-of-function mutations that increase or qualitatively alter the function of proteins. Here, I speculate that easier access to loss-of-function mutations has led them to play a major role in the adaptive radiations that occur when populations have access to many unoccupied ecological niches.” [?]

That was precisely Behe’s point. Cell evolution is mostly about destroying complex equipment that hinders immediate survival. (The question of how the equipment came to be so complex beforehand is separate from the question of what life forms actually do when they evolve.)

Is COVID-19 some kind of truth serum? Are normal facts about nature okay now? Or will we soon hear thunder from Darwin’s Academy?

See also: Some remarkable admissions in a Current Biology editorial. So cellular evolution is not the assured result of settled science, as we’ve all been told? Well, it certainly did sound more like a catfight over there. With a similar respect for facts.

Comments
>>> the Darwinian theory There is no theory of evolution and there isn't any genetic evidence supporting the "theory". There might be a pseudo-philosophical theory of evolution, but it's not scientific.Les
October 13, 2020
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color me surprised .... Darwinian clowns got it all wrong... again ... the Darwinian theory of evolution is unscientific, absurd, ridiculous and ALWAYS WRONG.martin_r
May 19, 2020
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More confirmation of his First rule of adaptive evolution. Glad to see others acknowledge it.David P
May 19, 2020
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The paper doesn't even reference Michael Behe! Perhaps Behe should write a letter to the editor?Fasteddious
May 19, 2020
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