You are speaking about inside biology, among biologists themselves; not grand claims beyond biology some of them are making too, right? So you are not speaking about the Evolution Institute people, led by D.S. Wilson, if I understood correctly, even though he is trained as a biologist too.
Yes, I agree that some of what EES people are talking about isn’t “new”. There is, however, a significant chronological gap since the MES was “made”, in which “new” biological knowledge has been gained. It makes one think again about the limits of “modern” evolutionary theories, especially when universal (whether theistic or atheistic) evolutionism is apparently not a dead position nowadays.
Are you a biologist to have such passion committed to either side being “right” or “wrong”?
Think of what Darwin first proposed. There are several key aspects.
Common descent with modification (new traits)
Inheritance of traits
Natural selection favors some traits over others
The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis grew out of our later discoveries with genes mapping to traits and the effects of selection on populations & gene frequencies. Ernst Mayer, one of the players in the development of MES, wrote about some of this in his book, “The Growth of Biological Thought”. It’s a tough read but there are some gems in there.
Since that period, there have been additional discoveries and theoretical advancements made. One key area is Neutral Theory which describes how a lot of the observed variation is not subject to selection. This has impact on evolution in several ways. For example, it reveals how genomes can drift through variation and allow adaptive traits to emerge. I think this was a big extension to the body of theory.
Studies in the regulation of gene expression (and regulation of traits in general) have advanced understanding about the mechanisms available to organisms and how evolution has been facilitated. This added another layer of complexity to the systems we try to model but I wouldn’t say that these fundamentally fall into post-MES thought, compared to Neutral Theory… unless one includes Neutral Theory in the work. I think that applies to a lot of epigenetics as well. I generally see epigenetics as ‘yet another take’ on regulatory mechanisms. This is not meant to belittle the field, but to place ‘evo/dev’ and epigenetics in context. These are additional layers of regulation added to and interacting with other mechanisms previously discovered. So, not so much ‘revolutions’ but ‘step changes’ or ‘additions’. In fact, when we consider the effects of epigenetics as beneficial, adaptive traits, we come back to one of Darwin’s fundamental ideas: Natural selection favoring the retention of some traits over others.
I don’t see the core of Darwin’s theory being superseded with something significantly different. I think it’s likely that models and discoveries in the future will still come back to the basics of ‘descent with modification, some mode of inheritance of traits, and natural selection of traits’. A purely gene-centric view of evolution is gone at this point – though genes will always maintain a central role. Also gone is the idea that all the traits an organism displays are directly adaptive. So, many parts of what constituted the MES need to be extended with other mechanisms.
I suspect the next step in the game will be computer & information science modelling. That will be necessary because the math of biological regulatory networks and their responses require it. Unfortunately, what comes with massive simulation is often human incomprehensibility. Perhaps the discovery of some higher principles of organization and evolution will fall out of that work.
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T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
356
You are the one claiming that this is common place, so it isn’t up to me to find examples. Can you choose one and show how it parallels what the EES crowd is trying to do with the theory of evolution?[quote=“Al-Khalil, post:354, topic:35756”]
Yes, I agree that some of what EES people are talking about isn’t “new”. There is, however, a significant chronological gap since the MES was “made”, in which “new” biological knowledge has been gained. It makes one think again about the limits of “modern” evolutionary theories, especially when universal (whether theistic or atheistic) evolutionism is apparently not a dead position nowadays.
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That is just semantics, which is the whole problem. If the EES is no different than the currently used theory of evolution, why would it need a name change?[quote=“Al-Khalil, post:354, topic:35756”]
Are you a biologist to have such passion committed to either side being “right” or “wrong”?
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I am committed to supporting good science and pointing out bad science where it exists.
Parallels? Sorry, I don’t have time to do that for you. Look at the title of the thread & imagine if it might be the wrong place to ask for this.
It started with Darwinism. Dredge has upgraded his understanding to recognize that is a contentious & often misused or unclear term. Thus, the new thread title, which is quite easily answered: Biology doesn’t “need” that theory, it has simply arrived at it as the currently best explanation for the evidence.
Semantics are not “the whole problem,” obviously. Nor is the contrary attitude of loose usage that only serves to cloud the semantics involved admirable. I’m not planning to play with good science vs. bad science sheriffs at BioLogos!
1 Like
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
358
It’s a bit like using the term “Newtonism” or “Einsteinism” to describe gravity.[quote=“Al-Khalil, post:357, topic:35756”]
Semantics are not “the whole problem,” obviously.
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Mathematics isn’t a science in that way. It has theorems, not theories. It’s not analogous.
To which other specific sciences are you referring? You claimed that there were many.
If you don’t have the time to do it, is it appropriate for you to make such a claim?
Claiming that you would be doing it for Taq doesn’t make sense, because you should be doing it because you made a claim that there are parallels and it is your responsibility to support it.
“you should be doing it because you made a claim that there are parallels…”
Check the record. Try the Search function. Use the term “parallel”. Who made which claim/demand to answer?
Aside to others: are these people actually suggesting that scientific theories (including but of course not limited to evolution) cannot be extended, neither in biology nor any other natural science, even in principle?!
The whole topic and thread wreaks of “Philosophy of Science Mumbo Jumbo”. There must be better topics for which one might fall on their sword …
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
363
Let’s take just one of those as an example.
EES prediction: novel phenotypic variants will frequently be directional and functional
This prediction requires the redefinition of what a random mutation is. It is, at its heart, a semantic argument. Mutations have always been defined as being random with respect to fitness. The EES crowd tries to redefine random with respect to position in the genome, mutation rates, and other features. I have seen this technique in multiple papers, such as those by Shapiro. When you look at the actual mechanisms driving what they call directional mutations they always turn out to be random mutations with respect to fitness, at least all of the examples I have seen.
We could go through a lot more of those examples, but obviously this thread isn’t about EES.
This is another example of: ToE is absolutely right, but when opinions differ, each proponent is right - difference means someone may be wrong. And you accuse the other side of indulging in semantics - when in fact semantics rules the entire controversy. If some biologist are wrong and engaging in semantics, than not all biologists agree on ToE, and this places the theory in a non-dogmatic place. Where is your scientific data and calculations that rebut Shapiro? In my world of science, peer criticism is not so easily dismissed. Perhaps you have published experimental data that shows Shapiro (for this argument) is wrong and you have made a clear and unambiguous correlation between random mutations, fitness and selection. I would anticipate more semantics, waffle and insistence that you must be right cause you say so.
Biology deals with all life on earth, and the subject matter is arguable the most complicated one that can confront the natural sciences.
The current paradigm (I shorten this to ToE to avoid more arguments on semantics) is woefully inadequate to deal with biology as I have stated in 1).
All of the sciences have begun with simplistic paradigms and moved to improved ones with time (joke coming : all science has evolved, so here comes Darwin )
Obviously I would welcome any effort that poses questions to the current paradigm, including the notions put forward by the EES website; I am convinced that all questions and doubt may eventually lead to an improved theoretical basis for biology - but the specifics are for the community of biologists. I have found some comments on directed development interesting, but this seems to upset other biologist, so I prefer they sort each other amongst themselves.
Thus and thusly, I object to ToE been given, or ascribed, theological significance.
These people (I’m pretty sure that I speak accurately for others here) are actually suggesting that EES is mostly rhetoric and not mechanistic, which your comments confirm in spades.
None of us are denying that scientific theories are extended by new empirical advances.
I made the response Curtis on a specific question. As I understand it, you do not accept Adam, and in all probability you may overlay your understanding of ToE on biblical teachings (ie you may have other novel theological views). I would not anticipate a non-aggressive response from you to my general points.
Put in another way, I do not think ToE is sufficiently advanced as a theory of the physical sciences to warrant its inclusion of theological discussions of Christian beliefs and teachings - which are to me Orthodox theology. I have come to understand there are many other outlooks, many of which to me are in-orthodox, and I regard these as personal choices by people such as youself.
I’m pretty sure my response was not aggressive: I was asking you to clarify your response so I can understand it better.
The reason for my confusion, I think, is that there are a number of aspects of ToE that are not in dispute. Common descent, for example, is not going to go away, nor is the importance of natural selection acting on both beneficial and deleterious mutations in adapting species to their environments, nor is the substantial size of the human ancestral population. Nothing I’ve seen proposed in the EES casts any doubt on these aspects of evolution.
For some people those conclusions have theological significance. If they don’t for you, great. Or if you don’t accept input from any scientific field into theology, also fine. What I don’t understand is rejecting the inclusion of conclusions from some parts evolutionary biology into theological discussions, based on uncertainty in other parts of the field.
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