This is a classic story of devolution, where an organism thrives by losing information, as Michael Behe explains in Darwin Devolves. Devolution is a form of evolution; it just isn’t glitzy.
Tag: devolution
Researchers: Whales took to water by LOSING genes
But isn’t that the kind of thing the villain Michael Behe argues in Darwin Devolves?
Bird “goes extinct” twice
Note that loss of the ability to fly is treated in this story as a form of evolution, as if the loss resulted in greater complexity rather than less. As if it wasn’t fatal when the island was inundated. But it enables evolutionary biologists to say that “evolution happened.”
Eric Metaxas interviews Michael Behe
Media personality and author Eric Metaxas talked to him in his university’s home town in Pennsylvania: Eric Metaxas interviews biochemist Michael Behe on “the new science about DNA that challenges evolution” as told in Behe’s book, Darwin Devolves Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,561 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) 9:50 am EST #1 in Developmental Biology (Books) Read More…
Michael Behe responds to the critics at his university, Parts 2 and 3
Contra Lang and Rice, it’s preposterous to say that the data “are more than sufficient to convince any open minded skeptic that unguided evolution is capable of generating complex systems.” Unless one defines a skeptic of Darwin’s theory (the most prominent proposed “unguided” explanation) as closed-minded, a quick visit to the library will disabuse one of that notion.
Michael Behe’s response to Lehigh colleagues’ criticism
If Behe’s critics were right, new life forms would be popping into existence all the time.
Darwin vs the polar bear ;)
Michael Behe, author of Darwin Devolves, responds to claims that he has misunderstood the polar bear: This is the first in a series of posts responding to the extended critique of Darwin Devolves by Richard Lenski at his blog, Telliamed Revisited. Professor Lenski is perhaps the most qualified scientist in the world to analyze the 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…
How Darwinism misled biologists about lichens
They spent a lot of time ridiculing what they should have been studying. They ridiculed the now commonly accepted idea that a lichen was algae and fungi living as if they were one organism: The very notion of different organisms living so closely with—or within—each other was unheard of. That they should coexist to their Read More…
Worms challenge idea that complexity just arises from simplicity
Maybe it’s the other way around in many cases.
Devolution: African elephants survive by shedding their tusks
A classic in devolution, actually. In Mozambique, it is estimated that 90% of the elephants have been slaughtered for ivory to finance a civil war that ended in 1992. But tuskless elephants seem more likely to survive: Hunting gave elephants that didn’t grow tusks a biological advantage in Gorongosa. Recent figures suggest that about a Read More…
Huge study shows yeasts evolve by reducing their complexity
Not by adding to it. Everyone seems to be talking about devolution (“reductive evolution”) these days. From ScienceDaily: “This is the first large genome project like this that actually looks at hundreds of different eukaryotic species, not different individuals or isolates of the same species,” says Chris Todd Hittinger, a UW-Madison genetics professor and one Read More…