Stephen Meyer’s approach in Darwin’s Doubt vindicated in recent fruit fly study
Steve Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt, is thought to be vindicated by a paper published in 2017, “Experimental test and refutation of a classic case of molecular adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster” (Nature Ecology and Evolution). The paper “begins with a perceptive statement about what ought to be required when establishing some genetic evolutionary pathway: Identifying the genetic basis for adaptive differences between species requires explicit tests of historical hypotheses concerning the effects of past changes in gene sequence on molecular function, organismal phenotype and fitness.” It proceeded to apply that approach to whether fruit flies became able to digest alcohol via natural selection acting on random mutation. Apparently, it didn’t: “Our experiments strongly refute the predictions of the adaptive ADH Read More ›