Evolution Research - Personal Posts

The first, Classic Papers on Human Origins from Nature Magazine contains one or two introductory sentences on each of ten articles spanning the years from 1925 to 1994. The authors include Louis Leakey, Richard Leakey, Johanson, and Dart.

The second and more relevant entry is Symmetry Breaking and the Evolution of Development by A Richard Palmer.

For anyone interested, another item by Palmer - entitled Antisymmetry - is also available on the internet and begins:

"The notion of antisymmetry likely strikes most people as bizarre. How can any variation exist that is "anti-" something else? To dismiss antisymmetry as mere intellectual catnip of academic snoots would seem easy. To dismiss it too hastily would be a big mistake.

Antisymmetry is a peculiar kind of variation whose evolutionary significance is surprisingly unappreciated, no doubt in part because the term seems odd and foreboding. However, the phenomenon, with its particularly apt moniker, is actually widespread and offers the promise of valuable insights into a century-old debate about the interplay between development and evolution."

Interesting stuff!

John Latter

Books on Symmetry from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US

technorati tags: human+origins, nature, leakey, symmetry, antisymmetry, evolution

Permanent Link posted by John Latter @ 11:19 PM 0 comments

Evolution Research - Main Blog: An Error In Associating Lamarck With 'Adaptive Mutations'?

It's only a couple of months since I've been able to renew my interest in evolution but I remember during the first period (which began about 1998) how the phenomena of stationary-phase/adaptive mutations immediately caught my attention.

The extracts below are from two articles which were fairly typical of those I came across at that time while trying to find out more about John Cairns et al.'s 1988 paper, The Origin of Mutants:

Directed Mutation (Science Frontiers):

Dear reader, things have a way of working out serially. For several months, we have had in our possession a paper from Nature, by J. Cairns, of Harvard, plus some passionate correspondence stimulated by the paper. Now that the circle-forming sheep have provided a good introduction, we will jump into the fray, too.

Basically Cairns (in Nature) and B. H. Hall (in Genetics) say that organisms can respond to environmental stresses by reorganizing their genes in a purposeful way. Such "directed mutation" shifts the course of evolution in a nonrandom way.

Such a conclusion was like waving a red flag in front of the evolutionists. R. May, at the University of Oxford, complained, "The work is so flawed, I am reluctant to comment." On the other side, a University of Maryland geneticust, S. Benson, comments, "Many people have had such observations, but they have problems getting them published."

Directed Mutations: Heredity Made to Order (AAAS)

As sentences in scientific papers go, this was guaranteed to raise eyebrows: "We describe here experiments and some circumstantial evidence suggesting that bacteria can choose which mutations they should produce."

The sentence appeared in a 1988 Nature paper, "The Origin of Mutants," by John Cairns, Julie Overbaugh, and Stephan Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health. The paper inflamed passions in the genetics and evolutionary biology communities and reopened an issue that biologists had considered long settled. Must mutations arise spontaneously, independent of natural selection and without regard to their potential usefulness? the Harvard researchers asked. Or do mutations sometimes arise as a specific response to the current needs of an organism?

It was while reading items such as these that I began to wonder to what degree 'cultural conditioning' played a role in both the interpretation of, and reaction to, natural phenomena.

On the basis of "History doesn't repeat itself but psychology does" I eventually wrote a small piece for my website entitled An Error In Associating Lamarck With 'Adaptive Mutations'? which has now been posted to the Main Blog. I feel its contents are still relevant in a general sense and would welcome any comments!

John Latter

technorati tags: adaptive+mutations, directed+mutation, evolution, research, lamarck, nature, harvard, genetics, bacteria, biology, psychology, history

Permanent Link posted by John Latter @ 9:52 PM 0 comments

In yesterday's post (Re: UCSD Study Shows 'Junk' DNA Has Evolutionary Importance) I said that "only links to free full-text articles are posted in the Main Blog".

This has now been amended to include "except on those occasions where an author will supply a copy" so that Birds that make teeth (Press Release + Summary) could be posted on the Main Blog.

There are two reasons for doing this:

1) The subject matter of papers like Birds that make teeth is too relevant to ignore.
2) The RSS/XML feeds are different for each category - a subscriber to the Main Blog may not be subscribing to this one (deletes "and who can blame them?").

John Latter

technorati tags: birds, teeth, junk, dna

Permanent Link posted by John Latter @ 10:47 AM 0 comments

It's nearly 1.00 am so just a quick note to say UCSD Study Shows 'Junk' DNA Has Evolutionary Importance has been posted to the Main Blog. It contains extracts of, and links to, a press release and to the paper it references (nb only links to free full-text articles are posted in the Main Blog except on those occasions where an author will supply a copy).

Researching the possibility of an internal evolutionary mechanism necessarily has to take the psychology of conventional evolutionary theory into account. The use of terms such as 'junk dna', for example, can be quite telling. Indeed, the above press release begins with:

"Genetic material derisively called "junk" DNA because..." (my emphasis - I'll be posting more on this topic)

Finally, an extract from yesterday's Another 'Topsy-Turvy' day in Cyberspace):

... and I also came across an interesting press release entitled 'Birds that make teeth' which begins:

Gone does not necessarily mean forgotten, especially in biology. A recent finding by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues from the University of Manchester have found new evidence that the ability to form previously lost organs - in this case, teeth - can be maintained millions of years after the last known ancestor possessed them."

The rest of the article can be found here and I've also posted the Abstract of the paper the press release refers to in Wanted Papers (here) - it would be so much easier if every journal relating to evolution were open-access! :)

Today I received a copy of the paper from John F. Fallon (one of the authors). If anyone is interested his email address can be found here (email me via my profile page if you need any help or advice).

Goodnight!

John Latter

technorati tags: junk+dna, dna, internal, evolutionary, mechanism, psychology, biology, birds, teeth, theory, conventional

Permanent Link posted by John Latter @ 12:32 AM 0 comments

From last Friday's "Re: Info wanted on two intriguing 'Lamarckian' experiments":

"In the next few days I hope to post both here and in the Main Blog a brief description of how that interest [in how evolutionary changes may or may not occur] came into being and why I'm researching such an 'unpopular' subject as the possibility of a testable internal evolutionary mechanism."

Well, I did manage to put pen to paper today but almost as quickly had to put it down again: Technorati have stopped indexing at least one of the 'Categories' (General Evo News) which may require the time-consuming process of relocating it to a new url.

The short amount of time I did spend on writing "a brief description of how that interest came into being (etc.)" did make me realize, however, that more thought is required than I had at first anticipated. The reasons for this will hopefully be self-evident when the first of the posts on this topic appears. It is, therefore, a case of 'Watch this Space'!

On the plus side today: Darwinism's Rules of Reasoning: Phillip Johnson on Pierre Grasse was posted to the Main Blog and I also came across an interesting press release entitled 'Birds that make teeth' which begins:

"Gone does not necessarily mean forgotten, especially in biology. A recent finding by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues from the University of Manchester have found new evidence that the ability to form previously lost organs - in this case, teeth - can be maintained millions of years after the last known ancestor possessed them."

The rest of the article can be found here and I've also posted the Abstract of the paper the press release refers to in Wanted Papers (here) - it would be so much easier if every journal relating to evolution were open-access! :)

John Latter

technorati tags: lamarckian, internal, evolutionary, mechanism, darwinism, phillip+johnson, grasse, birds, teeth, biology, university, wisconsin, madison, organs, ancestor, evolution, manchester

Permanent Link posted by John Latter @ 12:42 AM 1 comments

After posting 'Beyond Belief: Intelligent Design (Audio)' earlier this evening I remembered an article I had posted to the evomech forum some years ago entitled "Grasse, Behe, and Irreducible Complexity" (which I've now posted to the Main Blog in this post's title link).

It describes how Dr Pierre-Paul Grasse ('considered to have been one of the most eminent of French zoologists') thought irreducible complexity to be another indication of 'internal factors' being involved in how evolutionary changes occur while others are currently arguing the case for external ones!

John Latter

Related terms: Zoology and Evolution

technorati tags: intelligent+design, irreducible+complexity, evolution, behe, grasse, zoology, internal+factors, john+latter

Permanent Link posted by John Latter @ 1:17 AM 0 comments

Just before connecting to the internet this evening I turned on the radio and caught the closing comments of a BBC Radio4 weekly show called Beyond Belief (homepage). This program 'explores religion and its place in today's world' and this week featured a discussion on Intelligent Design.

Earlier in the day I posted US Scientists enlist clergy in evolution battle in the General Evo News category and I thought it might make a change to listen to familiar arguments from a European perspective.

The audio file (Realplayer) can be downloaded directly from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/realmedia/beyond_belief/beyond_20060220.ram

Alternatively, visit the program's homepage and use the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page.

While I'm here, Beyond Belief won the 2005 Sony Speech Award for the program Islam and Women which may be of interest to anyone who has read Evolution: The Horse Whisperer, Richard Dawkins, and Danish Cartoons (which also appears here in the Main Blog).

The audio file of Islam and Women is available here (or from the drop-down menu as above):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/realmedia/beyond_belief/beyond_20040920.ram

John Latter

technorati tags: evolution, intelligent+design, audio, radio4, bbc, religion, islam, women, sony, speech+award, john+latter

Permanent Link posted by John Latter @ 5:42 PM 0 comments