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Embryologist Jonathan Wells on biology’s quiet revolution

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About time.

Remember the pond scum that smashes its genome into over 225k parts, then rebuilds it? Keep remembering.

Further to Embryologist Jonathan Wells on Icons of Evolution (Six of the icons of evolution we all learned in school (maybe under court order), in homage to Darwin—which turned out to be bunk),

Here’s his take on how embryology is changing the game:

Recently, biologists Jeffrey Toretsky and Peter Wright published a scientific review article about transient functional compartments inside cells (but not enclosed in membranes) that they call “assemblages,” many of which are composed of IDPs. According to a news report in ScienceDaily, the authors are “issuing a call to investigators from various backgrounds, from biophysics to cell biology, to focus their attention on the role of these formations.”

I second that. Although Toretsky and Wright do not get into larger issues in their article, their work is part of a quiet but far-reaching revolution in biology–one that is discrediting the notion that “DNA makes RNA makes protein make us,” and along with it the “securely founded” Darwinism of Jacques Monod. If something other than DNA determines an organism’s RNAs and proteins, then that “something”–not DNA mutations–is the source of raw materials for evolution. Indeed, the evidence from embryology is consistent with this: No matter how much we mutate the DNA of a fruit fly embryo, the only possible outcomes are a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. Natural selection cannot produce anything from these raw materials except a fruit fly. Not a housefly, a dragonfly, or a butterfly.

So it is not true that biologists know all the basic features of living cells and are merely filling in the details. Nor is it true that Darwinian evolution is a settled scientific “fact,” as its defenders claim. Huge unanswered questions remain, and they will only be answered by going beyond the discredited myth that “DNA makes RNA makes protein makes us.” More.

The discredited myth he refers to is a key doctrine of modern Darwinism.

Most of the really interesting research today is non-Darwinian, irrespective of whatever rubbish researchers must emit (convincingly emote?) in order to get publication or funding. Horizontal gene transfer, epigenetics, stasis, fantastically (probably irreducibly) complex systems, are examples, just for starters.

File:A small cup of coffee.JPG Pop science Darwinism (“See! Chimps think just like people!”) is mainly good around here for a coffee post now, not a point of engagement. We know we’re not going to get much insight from people who actually cannot process the thought: If so, then why are they still panhooting in the trees? Such people merely redouble their efforts to discern abstract thought in creatures whose life prompts no need of it.

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Comments
I am looking for information on whether differences in early embryogenesis contradicts belief in a common ancestor for the animal phyla. Since initial cleavage patterns and cell movements in embryos differ between insects and vertebrates, doesn't that contradict the Darwinist prediction that insects and vertebrates had a common multicellular (worm-like) ancestor? Are there any on-line (or other) references that discuss this?Jim Smith
September 11, 2014
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Semi related: Body Wonders at the Cellular Level - September 9, 2014 Excerpt: Two scientists won the Lasker Prize,, for discovering how cellular machines in the endoplasmic reticulum help assemble and fold proteins.,, One of the researchers, Kazutoshi Mori, described her feelings at the wonder of discovery: "We wanted to find the molecular machinery that allows one component of the cell to talk to another. There was virtually nothing known about what was taking place.,,, The deeper we dove, however, the more complex it became and the more beautiful it became.… We discovered machinery by which the cell has the capacity to fold the protein properly and pathway by which this happened. We mapped the components of the pathway and everything turned out to be more exciting than we could have hoped for." http://crev.info/2014/09/body-wonders-cellular-level/bornagain77
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OT: O'Leary is going to start a series on the mind: Darwin's "Horrid Doubt": The Mind - Denyse O'Leary September 11, 2014 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/darwins_horrid089691.htmlbornagain77
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