This find challenges the hypothesis that all snakes living across the world today evolved from extreme burrowers, because the vision genes lost in scolecophidians are present in most other living snakes. The researchers say it would be extremely unlikely for such genetic deficiencies to have been reversed through evolution.
Tag: Darwin Devolves (book)
Some thoughts from a reader on Behe’s vindication at Lehigh
Remember, these same authors wrote a scathing review of Darwin Devolves in the journal Evolution. Now, somehow, they must hold their position of opposing Darwin Devolves, while presenting compelling evidence to support Darwin Devolves. Quite a conundrum!
Mike Behe’s Darwin Devolves thesis aired at Quanta?
The thesis of Darwin Devolves is that most adaptation/evolution is due to loss of genes (devolution). The Quanta article seems to agree that loss of genes is a major means of the development of life.
Darwin Devolves: Darwinists see evolution as bottom up; Michael Behe sees it as top down
Scambray: “the polar bear, Behe writes, “adjusted to its harsh environment mainly by degrading its genes that its ancestors already possessed. Despite its impressive abilities, rather than evolving, it has adapted predominately by devolving.”
A striking admission that Michael Behe was right
What he is saying is precisely Behe’s point in Darwin Devolves. 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.)
Researchers: Whales took to water by LOSING genes
But isn’t that the kind of thing the villain Michael Behe argues in Darwin Devolves?
Behe was right: Bacteria eject flagella to avoid starvation
Here’s an example of what Michael Behe is (actually) talking about in Darwin Devolves The evolution strategy “Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain”: Eleven authors writing in PLOS Biology found that “γ-proteobacteria eject their polar flagella under nutrient depletion, retaining flagellar motor relic structures.” When there’s Read More…
A review of Behe’s Darwin Devolves that looks at what Behe actually says
In a review, one reviewer has decided to talk about what Michael Behe actually says in Darwin Devolves. For example, In a section called “The Blind Metaphor,” Behe notes: “The primary way by which natural selection makes evolution self-limiting is by promoting poison-pill mutations. Whatever genetic alterations that help an organism survive and reproduce better Read More…
Science Mag’s hit on Michael Behe’s new book Darwin Devolves avoids his main point
In American Association for the Advancement of Science’s magazine, Science, we read, In the grand scheme of evolution, mutations serve only to break structures and degrade functions, Behe argues. He allows that mutation and natural selection can explain species- and genus-level diversification, but only through the degradation of genes. Something else, he insists, is required for Read More…