Here:
Evolutionary Science ‘Stuck’ on Wrong Track, Situation ‘Out of Control’
…
František Baluška, a native of Slovakia, is founder and editor-in-chief of two scientific journals, Plant Signaling & Behavior and Communicative & Integrative Biology (Landes Bioscience, publisher) where more of his provocative thinking can be found. Freedom in science is crucial, he says, and we need “open-minded” journals.
A decade ago Baluška began organizing international conferences on plant neurobiology as well. His thinking about “plant intelligence” has been partly inspired by Lynn Margulis, specifically her paper “The Conscious Cell.”
The theme of plant intelligence was more recently explored in a magazine article by Michael Pollan in which Baluška is cited as well as Darwin’s 1880 observation that the plant root tip “acts like the brain of some of the lower animals.”
In our conversation that follows, Baluška touches on the role of viruses in plant evolution and in evolution in general. Baluška says “[s]ynapses in very early evolution may have been induced by repetitive viral infections” because viruses can manipulate cells to form cell-cell adhesions.
It must be stuck on wrong track if Jerry Coyne has anything to do with it.
See also: Jerry Coyne must need the ink, attacks journalist Suzan Mazur
Mazur is the author of The Origin of Life Circus and The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry , both valuable insights into fact (vs. anger).
Follow UD News at Twitter!