In an attempt to frustrate rethinking evolution.
From Suzan Mazur at Huffington Post:
Six months after announcing the November 2016 Royal Society evolution meeting on this page and a half dozen or so stories later, over one-third of the seats for the event still remain vacant — and the tickets are free! But that’s easily explained, because the zoologists ultimately decided to “hog” the show.
It didn’t have to be so. A lineup of speakers who truly represent the paradigm shift underway in evolution science would have quickly filled up the house. Instead, organizers went with essentially an evo-devo reunion on plasticity and niche construction — rehashed themes of Altenberg! from eight years ago minus most of the stars of that conference. And they made sure to exclude, for instance, experts on viruses — the largest part of the biosphere — at a time when Zika continues to prove it can downsize the human brain in a flash and could have done the reverse at some point in evolutionary time. So how can the November proceedings possibly be considered a credible meeting on the latest “trends” in evolutionary science?
Aside from some of the organizers and Jim Shapiro and Doug Futuyma — there’s no big-name recognition. A number of prominent scientists I’ve spoken with who have not been asked to present but hope to get a word in edgewise have told me they nevertheless still plan to attend.
Other irritations are that the meeting is largely another Anglo-Amercian affair and there’s an absence of women who are stars in science, aside from Eva Jablonka and she’s considered somewhat at the conservative end of the discussion. More.
Yes, it’s a disappointment. I am not sure it is a defeat.

Frightened crats will soon discover is that it is much easier to unstuff the genie than to restuff it.
Just admitting that there is something wrong is disastrous for entrenched timeservers.
I remember back when I started this beat about 15 years ago. Royal Society would never have dreamed of admitting that anything was wrong. One guy (2008) got over-balconied just for trying to defend Darwinism (it was not then thought to need any defense). Even to suggest that it did was dangerously wrong.
Now they are dipping their tippy toes into the water. Eventually, they will need to take the plunge, but let’s keep the bath sheets, robes, hot drinks, and crying towels handy in the meantime.
See also: Royal Society announces guest list for Extended Synthesis meet
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Animals have sex. When they do genes are recombined. There are errors in this recombination which are expressed phenotypically. If those new expressions are beneficial they will be inherited, if they are not benficial they will fail to be inherited.
If I said this to any of the zoologists, microbiologists, biologists, or whatever, at this conference they would agree. If they did not, I, and the other people at the conferance would be surprised.
This process of course leads to variation, and depending upon the environment, selects for the most beneficial variation. Again, if anyone at this conferance disagreed with this I would be surprised.
The disagreement resides in the relative importance of each method of evolution, not in evolution itself.
Its an anglo-American affair because thats where the intellectual ferment is. Its irrelevant if women are there unless its on purpose. paradigm shifts won’t shift with quotas. it gets in the way. in fact its a big problem in academia today. interference with the right people by affirmative action policy and philosophy and instinct.
The big point is that there is need of new ideas to replace old ones. its coming from the threat of iD/YEC and so a reaction to show its liberal enough to correct things but hold to the faith.
They must be super sensitive and must maintain control over intellectual direction.
Its a step forward and is a dip with that step.
I think UD is right to promote it.
rvb8, its been known for quite a while, as Walter Remine relates in this following interview, that sexual reproduction severely limits genetic variability rather than enhances it as Darwinists had originally thought.
This following study concurs:
Moreover, mutations of genes are not randomly distributed between the parental chromosomes as was presupposed in Darwinian thought:
In fact, “It is difficult (if not impossible) to find a genome change operator that is truly random in its action within the DNA of the cell where it works”
As well, it is now known that it is the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism as Darwinists had falsely presupposed (because of their antiquated reductive materialistic foundation):
Simply put, the modern synthesis is, despite desperate attempts by neo-Darwinists to resuscitate its now rotting corpse, dead:
Apparently UB’s comments in a previous thread on this same topic were prophetically correct:
Regarding UB’s second statement:
Perhaps in this case ‘necessary’ is not as accurate as ‘entertaining’. 🙂
For example, see the following related case: