Neo Darwin disproved?

[Vaccine]

I'd like to think this peer reviewed article would change people but I somehow doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure next year many professors will be teaching students about neo darwinism in spite of this:

"In this article, I will show
that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis
(often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/pdf

 

[HitchSlap]

I'd like to think this peer reviewed article would change people but I somehow doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure next year many professors will be teaching students about neo darwinism in spite of this:

"In this article, I will show
that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis
(often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/pdf

Do you feel that "Neo-Darwinism" is the only evolutionary concept being taught by professors?

 

[sfs]

I'd like to think this peer reviewed article would change people but I somehow doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure next year many professors will be teaching students about neo darwinism in spite of this:

"In this article, I will show
that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis
(often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/pdf

Change people to what? To accepting that there's more to evolution than the founders of the Modern Synthesis realized? Possibly, but everyone in evolutionary biology already knows that. Most evolutionary biologists would think that Noble -- who is not an evolutionary biologist -- considerably overstates his case here, but even if he's completely right, so what?

 

[Loudmouth]

I'd like to think this peer reviewed article would change people but I somehow doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure next year many professors will be teaching students about neo darwinism in spite of this:

"In this article, I will show
that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis
(often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/pdf

Once you get rid of Noble's hyperbole, what you are left with are rare and minor mechanisms that are dwarfed by the mechanisms described by the Modern Synthesis. Noble fails to show that the mechanisms described by the Modern Synthesis do not exist.

 

[[serious]]

I'm reminded of the blatant and unabashed hyperbole of the ENCODE project in their press releases. I imagine this is much the same.

Now, before I dive into the paper itself, could the title have read equally well, "some heritable characteristics may not be described solely by genetic sequence"?

If so, welcome to cutting edge research of the 1980s.

Maybe it could read, "examples of horizontal gene transfer exist". Well, that did shake up our understanding of evolution 50 years ago, but I don't think Noble has substantially expanded on it's role.

Maybe he means, "certain point mutations are more likely than others" Well, I don't know exactly who first figured that out and when, but it's been known for a LONG time.

 

[[serious]]

Here's an alternate challenge. Can you show me any specific claim in his paper that has been known about for a decade or less and can't be found in college level biology texts. Because if we've known about them for years and are teaching it to undergrads, it isn't so much of overthrowing modern synthesis, as part of modern synthesis.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'd like to think this peer reviewed article would change people but I somehow doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure next year many professors will be teaching students about neo darwinism in spite of this:

"In this article, I will show
that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis
(often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/pdf

This does not look like a peer reviewed paper. In fact it claims that it is a lecture on the title page. Second after just a rough scan it seems to be hyping the effects of epigenetics. It in no way implies that evolution did not happen. I am sure that the author supports the idea of common descent that so many creationists hate. Epigenetics is a very hot field right now. But as [serious] informed you, Project ENCODE was also hyped when it first came out. Creationists grabbed at those straws and are still grasping at them today even though it has been shown that quite a bit of DNA is still junk.

 

[Loudmouth]

I tried to find a good analogy. Sadly, I could only come up with this one . . .

In my part of the US, most geologists and meteorologists would say that the water in our rivers and lakes comes from storms that originate over the Pacific.

A young whipper-snapper . . . let's call him Noble . . . comes in and points out that jet airplanes flying over the area also produce moisture that could precipitate and fall to the ground. He concludes that this completely falsifies the idea that the water in the rivers and lakes comes from storms that start in the Pacific. Noble thinks that by finding a different source for 0.00000000001% of the water that he has falsified the source for 99.9999999999% of the water.

This is the situation we have with the subjects the real Noble is talking about. Epigenetics plays little to no role in long term evolutionary change in complex animals like humans. It is the equivalent of condensed jet exhaust compared to the massive storms that come in from the pacific. Pointing out small sources that lie outside of tranditional neo-Darwinian mechanisms in no way falsifies those mechanisms, nor does it take away the importance of Neo-Darwinism to explain the overwhelming majority of changes seen in populations of complex eukaryotes over time.

 

[HitchSlap]

Our venerable OP seems to have left the building, comrades.

 

[[serious]]

When the OP totally disproves the basis of modern biology, how could he NOT drop the mic?

 

[Vaccine]

When the OP totally disproves the basis of modern biology, how could he NOT drop the mic?

I wonder what causes you to think that? I post a peer review article from oxford and you think I doubt evolution theory?

 

[Loudmouth]

I wonder what causes you to think that? I post a peer review article from oxford and you think I doubt evolution theory?

What would ever make us think that . . .

"I'd like to think this peer reviewed article would change people but I somehow doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure next year many professors will be teaching students about neo darwinism in spite of this:"--Vaccine

 

[Loudmouth]

Helium Baloons Disprove Gravity!!!!!

 

[HitchSlap]

Helium Baloons Disprove Gravity!!!!!

Yeah, but I bet you that professors will still teach gravity next year!

 

[Loudmouth]

Yeah, but I bet you that professors will still teach gravity next year!

They will never give up their religion of mass attraction. If they gave up gravity, they would have to believe in Leprechauns, and that scares them.

 

[Vaccine]

Just as I thought, your beliefs are immune to any evidence.

 

[Loudmouth]

Just as I thought, your beliefs are immune to any evidence.

My beliefs are that the mechanisms Noble is speaking of comprise a tiny, tiny portion of the overall change that occurs in evolution, at least for complex eukaryote lineages.

I don't see how my beliefs are wrong since that is exactly the case.

 

[Loudmouth]

oops

 

[HitchSlap]

Just as I thought, your beliefs are immune to any evidence.

nah, more like, immune to cdesign proponentsists crackpottery in sheep's clothing.

 

[Vaccine]

My beliefs are that the mechanisms Noble is speaking of comprise a tiny, tiny portion of the overall change that occurs in evolution.

I don't see how my beliefs are wrong since that is exactly the case.

nah, more like, immune to cdesign proponentsists crackpottery in sheep's clothing.

Oxford department of physiology anatomy and genetics......Crackpot? Good to know.