13
Nov

Prediction: self-promoting hype meets interdisciplinary ignorance

   Posted by: dhcsoul   in Odds & Sods

in Pharyngula [Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal] PZ Myers writes about a recent press release from Princeton:
“Unfortunately, the puff piece writer and the scientists involved seem incapable of actually explaining what they found, which makes me extremely suspicious.
….
Anyway, I’ll be looking for the paper. My bet would be that it says nothing like the claims made for it by the press release, or that it will be an embarrassing error of interpretation by the authors.:
The target of his disbelief was also discussed in a recent thread on friendfeed:
Geoff Schultz (friend of Louis Gray) posted a link
Princeton Team Challenges Darwin: Evolution Not Random?
Princeton Team Challenges Darwin: Evolution Not Random?
3 hours ago – via Bookmarklet
I can’t really understand what their theory actually is, but I’m skeptical that it
presents a challenge to our understanding of the role of randomness is evolution.
Randomness is just supposed to describe some of the ways DNA changes over time,
not the way the organism works. – j1m
.
.
I had asked Jonathan Eisen about this http://phylogenomics.blogspot…., who pointed me
to the discussion at Pharyngula http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn… The consensus appears
to be that it’s unsupported hype. – Ruchira S. Datta
This key sentence seems nonsensical to me: “The discovery answers an age-old
questionthat has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be
so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random.” Evolution is anything but
random. Mutation is random, but evolution is directed by differential fitness, which is
definitely not random.- Benjy Weinberger
Yeah, that’s the basic mistake as I understand it. – j1m
I would assume the creationism vs. evolution debate is not either/or. For those who
have some religion, it can be safely assumed that evolution could be directed -
essentiallyas a tool of creation. – Louis Gray
I suspect that PZ Meyers (in the second piece referenced by Ruchira) is correct in
saying; “The other problem that often occurs is that one of the investigators opens his
mouth and reveals that he is completely out of his depth, and that the team has absolutely
no conception of how evolution actually works. This time, there is no exception.” – You
The researchers should perhaps go have a look at some of Chilean biologists
Humberto Maturana & Francisco Varela (circa 1973) on Autopoiesis [structures,
based on an externalflow of molecules and energy, produce the components which,
in turn, continue to maintainthe organized bounded structure that gives rise to these components]. Nor is it any surprise that a viable system exhibits homeostasis. – You

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