>Yes, work on the molecular clock hypothesis has some interesting
>ramifications for reconstructing the evolution of behaviour. Indeed, the
>molecular clock hypothesis increasingly provides mathematically
>irrefutable evidence that should silence all but the most shameless
>anti-intellectual ant-evolutionists. The charge that behavioural studies
>and molecular clock work are examples of "retrofit" analysis is
>groundless.
Can you falsify a molecular clock? Well, you have worked it out by
discrediting Popper. I guess that is one way to deal with those who oppose
you: define them out of existence! Check this out: If differences in
organisms are related only to differences in their physiological
requirements rather than some fanciful relationship to evolutionary
history, what differences would you predict to see? It is interesting to
see that universally, the more comparisons that are used in a molecular
cladistic analysis, the less certain any particular line of relationship
becomes. Why should this be true if molecular clocks are so invincible?
Why don't all the proteins in an organism give the same time for
divergence? Why do we select the clocks that give us the results we want?
Why don't we do molecular clock studies on histones or developmental genes?
And it is one thing to talk about little perturbations in the molecular
structure, little fine tunings that are being used as molecular clocks, but
this overlooks the real question, which is "Where did the molecules come
from in the beginning?" If we were to look closely at this question, we
would find that essentially all of the molecular complexity of modern
organisms was already here when the first metazoan fossils occur in the
record. This means that whatever molecular evolution means, it does not
deal with the origin of the system itself. All of the complexity of the
modern cell was already there before any record of complex life forms
existed. Thus there is no evidence for the origin of molecular complexity.
We can continue to disparage others, or we can look at the data. Any
molecular features that modern humans share with modern insects, for
example, were present in the trilobite, the first widespread metazoan
organism. That is just about everything. But this is just the beginning.
Because the posited ancestor of humans and insects not only doesn't exist,
but if it did exist, it would have been so far in the past that it would
not have had any of the features of either group today; yet we find genes
for development of cephalization, of complex eyes, and of many other
features in common for these groups. The list of "Evolutionarily
conserved" (read embarassingly similar) developmental pathways is growing
daily. Check out:
http://iubio.bio.indiana.edu/IUBio-Software%2BData/flybase/allied-data/inter
active-fly/aimain/aadevinx.htm
for a list of 40 of these, most of which include insects and man. But
there is no evidence for anything metazoan in the Precambrian. So if you
choose to believe in evolution, you do so in the face of overwelming
absence of evidence. That constitutes in my parlance a shameless
anti-intellectual ant-creationism.
Art
http://chadwicka.swau.edu