Year: 2022

IN THE LAST 50 YEARS, we have learned an enormous amount about molecular genetics. Much of what we now know deepens our understanding of the process of evolution. However, synthesizing this vast body of information from numerous silos into a coherent whole is a daunting task. Fortunately, some brave souls have undertaken this task. And by leaving the safety of their foxholes, have become a target of attacks from many sides. View in LinkedIn

SADLY, science is riddled with both old and new examples of innovative --heretical -- ideas that evoked an often vicious outcry from fellow scientists. Think: prions (Stanley Prusiner); think: jumping genes (Barbara McKlintock; think: synthetic life (Craig Venter). Paradigm shifts appear to be as painful today as they were for Copernicus, Kepler and Darwin. But Thomas Kuhn convincingly tells us that scientific progress is a discontinuous and often painful process. https://lnkd.in/et98Sus View in LinkedIn

OPTION #1. "The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process." https://lnkd.in/eWQrjgq View in LinkedIn

OPTION #2. "The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation." https://lnkd.in/eWQrjgq View in LinkedIn

"NEO-DARWINISM ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis." https://lnkd.in/eWQrjgq View in LinkedIn

OPTION #3. "Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process." https://lnkd.in/eWQrjgq View in LinkedIn

EVOLVING CONCEPTS. "The susceptibility of hereditary mechanisms to biological influences was a matter of intense debate in the late 18th and 19th centuries. With the twin triumphs of Mechanism over Vitalism and Darwinism over Lamarckism in the first half of the 20th century, the Weismann idea of the segregated germ plasm directing the actions of the cell and organism in a hard-wired fashion has been the prevailing view." https://lnkd.in/eFS9cuj View in LinkedIn

THE MODERN SYNTHESIS. "Ever since the formulation of the neo-Darwinist Modern Synthesis evolutionary theory in the 1930s and 1940s, it has been an article of faith that hereditary variation results from stochastic copying errors and unavoidable damage to the genome. In this perspective, the genome is a “read-only memory” (ROM) data storage system passed on from one generation to the next." https://lnkd.in/eFS9cuj View in LinkedIn

ADVANCES IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY. "In the past 60 years, since the structure of DNA was elucidated, molecular biologists have studied the basic mechanisms of long-term genome change. They have discovered a wide array of proofreading and damage repair biochemical systems that remove copying errors and correct DNA damage. At the same time, they have revealed an amazing and wholly unanticipated array of cellular and molecular systems that operate to generate genome variability, both temporary and structural." https://lnkd.in/eFS9cuj View in LinkedIn

GENOME VARIATION. "As we begin the second decade of the 21st century, accumulating empirical evidence has thus shifted the perspective on genome variation to that of an active inscription process changing the information passed on to future generations." http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people/view/james-a-shapiro View in LinkedIn