Burgy
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From: Paul A. Nelson, INTERNET:pnelson2@ix.netcom.com
TO: John W. Burgeson, 73531,1501
(unknown), INTERNET:BHARPER@POSTBOX.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU
DATE: 11/10/95 10:43 AM
RE: Some literature suggestions re NS, etc.
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From: pnelson2@ix.netcom.com (Paul A. Nelson )
Subject: Some literature suggestions re NS, etc.
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To: bharper@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu
Guys:
I neglected to mention in the following that if either of you wanted to
post this to the reflector, other people there may find it useful.
An attachment follows:
Brian and Burgy:
I noticed from scanning the reflector web site that you two are discussing
the sufficiency of neo-Darwinian mechanisms (in particular, natural selection),
and that the work of Ho, Saunders, and others had come up with a request
for citations to the literature.
Hope you don't mind me nebbing in, but I thought I could help:
One of the best recent papers in this area is from the noted Australian
molecular biologist (Australian National University) and evolutionist George Miklos:
What then does this all encompassing theory of evolution predict?
Given a handful of postulates, such as random mutations, and
selection coefficients, it will predict changes in allele
frequencies over time. Is this what a grand theory of evolution
ought to be about? Does this help us understand the evolution of
the human brain or why Cambrian arthropods were so diverse, or how
the B cell lineage and the immunoglobin superfamily allowed the
evolution of the immune system, or why the evolution of myelin and
keratin-type intermediate filaments provided springboards for
nervous systems and feather and scale development, or indeed why
the evolution of the neural crest was one of the great
breakthroughs in vertebrate evolution? No.
I believe that the failure of the modern synthesis to cope with
the origins of complexity is evident in natural populations. As
MacIntyre (1991) pointed out: "The impetus given to evolutionary
biology by the great neo-Darwinians of the mid 20th century was
due largely to an implicit promise, that population genetic models
would be sufficient to explain the empirical data collected from
laboratory and natural populations. For a while this seemed to be
the case...Very quickly, the relationship between empirical data
and theory became uneasy, then frantic, and finally schizoid as
the failure of neo-Darwinian populations genetics to explain the
patterns of allozymes in most species led, in large part, to the
development of Kimura's neutral theory. The resulting polemics
between selectionists and neutralists did little to restore
confidence that population genetics could make evolutionary
biology a truly predictive science."
It should be clear to the reader that the modern synthesis tells
us nothing about where innovations are likely to come from. If
the data do not fit the inexorable production line of slightly
modified intermediate forms, then the data are immediately called
into question. One would imagine that a new plan of attack would
perhaps be formulated. Not so. The neo-Darwinists revert to the
same task, namely collecting further data from populations at a
finer and finer level hoping that in some mysterious way analysis
of present day levels of variation will unlock the mysteries of
the past. Lewontin (1982) described this undertaking as the "find
'em and grind 'em" school of electrophoresis where dozens of
genes, in scores of species and hundreds of populations, were
assayed for heterozygosities. It has now been transformed into
the somewhat more high-tech "find 'em and sequence 'em" college of
variation in natural populations but the underlying malaise is
still present. The practitioners seem incapable of realizing that
their avenue of inquiry is itself the source of the problem -- it
is no more and no less than allelic bookkeeping. ... The modern
synthesis moved evolution theory into a mathemetical siding from
which there has been no return. Here is a theory which, as I have
shown in this essay, does not touch upon any level of detail or
mechanism that impinges on large scale evolutionary complexity or
novelty.
(From "Emergence of organizational complexities during metazoan evolution:
perspectives from molecular biology, palaeontology and neo-Darwinism,"
_Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists_ 15 [1993]: 7-41,
ISSN 0810-8889; pp. 28-29.)
When, about a year ago, I attended the origin of body plans meeting at Indiana
University, stacks of this paper were waiting for the participants on a table
in the main reception area. Miklos himself spoke later at that meeting, and
made these (and other) points even more bluntly.
If you guys can't find this journal, let me know, and I'll mail you a copy
of the article.
Here's a selection of other literature, from the past decade or so (drawn from
a vastly larger body of work), that bears on the sufficiency of neo-Darwinism.
I had already pulled together this list for a friend, so had it sitting around.
Perhaps you will find it useful.
- Donn Rosen, "Darwin's Demon," _Systematic Zoology_ 27 (1978): 370-373.
Donn Rosen was, until his untimely early death from cancer, an
evolutionary systematist (specialization: fishes) at the American Museum of
Natural History in NY. In "Darwin's Demon," a review of a book on natural
selection, Rosen explains why population genetics and natural selection theory
fail to explain the central puzzles of evolution, in particular, the origin of
new genetic information. He writes:
The theory of natural selection is so entrenched in the fabric of
evolutionary biology that its axiomatic nature has been virtually
overlooked. From time to time biologists and philosophers have
expressed their concern about the scientific usefulness of the
theory. That their concern was justified is indicated by the
retreat of the selectionists to a seemingly fortified position
which rejected Darwin's original concept as a creative force in
the origin of new species and redefined natural selection in terms
of population genetics. (p. 370)
- M.W. Ho and P.T. Saunders, "Beyond neo-Darwinism -- An Epigenetic
Approach to Evolution," _Jl. Theor. Biol._ 78 (1979): 573-591.
Mae-Wan Ho (genetics and development) and her husband Peter Saunders
(mathematical biology) are English biologists who have been among the most
perceptive critics of neo-Darwinism in the past couple of decades. Both are
loosely affiliated with the anti- or non-Darwinian "structuralist" school
(e.g., Brian Goodwin, Gerry Webster, Giuseppe Sermonti) which is far stronger
in England, Europe and Japan than it is in the United States. This _Jl of
Theoretical Biology_ piece was an early manifesto by Ho and Saunders, followed
up by their book _Beyond Neo-Darwinism_ (Academic Press, 1984).
- Ronald Brady, "Dogma and Doubt," _Biological Journal of the Linnean Society_
17 (1982): 79-96.
Ron Brady is a philosopher of biology who has influenced many of the
"transformed" cladists at both the American and British (London) Museums of
Natural History. He himself came into arguments about natural selection by
reading, and befriending, the late lawyer Norman Macbeth, author of _Darwin
Retried_. Macbeth used to tell a great story about Brady's 1979 article on
natural selection ("Natural selection and the criteria by which a theory is
judged") being censored from the library of an Ivy League university. This
1982 article updates the 1979 arguments.
- John F. McDonald, "The Molecular Basis of Adaptation," _Annual Review of
Ecology and Systematics_ 14 (1983): 77-102.
John McDonald is a geneticist at the Univ. of Georgia who works on
transposable elements and the cross-species transfer of genes as possible
mechanisms of evolution. He was led to these inquiries in part by realizing
that ordinary variation is hopelessly insufficient for macroevolution. See,
in particular, the "great Darwinian paradox" on pp. 92-93 of this paper.
- David Lambert, "Population genetics and the 'third view' of evolution,"
_Tuatara_ 27: 121-26.
David Lambert is an evolutionary geneticist in New Zealand, and is also
loosely affiliated with the structuralist school. This paper points out that
population genetics, the heart of neo-Darwinism, simply fails to address what
evolution is all about: the transformation of form (and complexity).
"Population genetics," he concludes, "is not a tool to investigate evolution."
- John A. Endler and Tracy McLellan, "The processes of evolution: toward a
newer synthesis," _Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics_ 19 (1988):
395-421.
John Endler is a geneticist and expert on natural selection at the
University of California, Santa Barbara. His 1986 book, _Natural Selection in
the Wild_ (Princeton), is in many respects my favorite discussion of
selection, because Endler points out (quite correctly, I think) that selection
is only a frequency-changing mechanism: it is not, at bottom, creative. The
real source of evolutionary novelty remains undiscovered. In this annual
review, Endler explains just how little is know about the mechanisms of
evolution.
- Bernard John and George L.G. Miklos, _The Eukaryote Genome in Development
and Evolution_ (London: Allen & Unwin, 1988).
Bernard John is, along with George Miklos, a feisty Australian
evolutionary geneticist who totally rejects the neo-Darwinian approach to
biological explanation. Several chapters in this book (esp. toward its end)
are relevant. Here's a sample: "It is when one attempts to examine the
molecular basis of morphogenesis that the irrelevance of neo-Darwinian
theory is put into real perspective. This theory can predict what it is likely
to survive once it has appeared, but it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to
say about the origin of change" (p. 336). [Heck, I wouldn't even say that
neo-Darwinism predicts what will survive. It doesn't -- extinction, for instance,
is explained entirely post hoc.]
- A.D. Bradshaw, The Croonian Lecture 1991: Genostasis and the limits to
evolution. _Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B_ 333 (1991): 289-305.
Bradshaw is an English botanist who studies evolution. Bradshaw explains
that evolutionists don't really know where new functions come from -- "we know
very little about the processes by which mutation leads to new function. By
contrast, the degree to which mutations lead to lethal effects is very evident" (p. 300)
-- and that, more often than not, nothing one would want to call "evolution" is occurring
in nature.
- H. Allen Orr and Jerry A. Coyne, "The genetics of adaptation: a
reassessment," _The American Naturalist_ 140:725-742.
At a meeting in the summer of 1993, when I asked David Raup
for recent gossip from the University of Chicago ev bio department, he said,
"Well, Jerry Coyne has discovered macroevolution." Coyne is one of the
world's leading authorities on speciation, but in this article he says, heck,
we don't really understand the genetic basis of adaptation. "We conclude --
unexpectedly -- that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its
theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak,
and there is no doubt that mutations of large effect are sometimes important
in adaptation" (p. 726). Note that this conclusion (mutations of large effect
are important) is deductive, not experimental. Orr and Coyne can't see that
mutations of small effect do the job.
Hope that's helpful.
All the best,
Paul Nelson
--waolighmhiahiijvoyngyjxlhmfghk--