Been reading recently many scientific publications which claim neo-Darwinism (modern synthesis) is either outdated, wrong or in some cases "crumbled" or "dead" due to recent discoveries in science. Here are some of these publications, and they all seem to be calling for a totally new evolutionary synthesis beyond neo-Darwinism or an extended synthesis.
Eugene Koonin
Eugene Koonin, The Origin at 150: Is a new evolutionary synthesis in sight?" Trends in Genetics, 25(11), November 2009, pp. 473-475 and Eugene Koonin, Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics, Nucleic Acids Research, 37(4), 2009, pp. 1011-1034
Writes:
Koonin also states in the above paper "The edifice of the modern synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair".
Eugene Koonin, in his research paper, titled "Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics", published 12 Feb 2009, says:
"Now, 50 years after the consolidation of the Modern Synthesis, evolutionary biology undoubtedly faces a new major challenge and, at the same time, the prospect of a new conceptual breakthrough"....."By contrast, the insistence on adaptation being the primary mode of evolution that is apparent in the Origin, but especially in the Modern Synthesis, became deeply suspicious if not outright obsolete, making room for a new worldview that gives much more prominence to non-adaptive processes"......"Collectively, the developments in evolutionary genomics and systems biology outlined here seem to suggest that, although at present only isolated elements of a new, 'postmodern' synthesis of evolutionary biology are starting to be formulated, such a synthesis is indeed feasible. Moreover, it is likely to assume definitive shape long before Darwin's 250th anniversary"
His papers can be read here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784144/ and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651812/
Michael Rose and Todd Oakley
Michael R Rose and Todd H Oakley, in their research paper, titled "The new biology: beyond the Modern Synthesis" published on 24 November 2007 wrote:
"The last third of the 20th Century featured an accumulation of research findings that severely challenged the assumptions of the "Modern Synthesis" which provided the foundations for most biological research during that century. The foundations of that "Modernist" biology had thus largely crumbled by the start of the 21st Century. This in turn raises the question of foundations for biology in the 21st Century".
See their section in the paper titled "Dead parts of the Modern Synthesis" http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/30/
Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb
Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb have written many papers, one of which was titled "Soft inheritance: Challenging the Modern Synthesis".
According to the paper:
Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders
Mae Wan Ho and Peter Saunders in their paper Beyond neo-Darwinism an epigenetic approach to evolution write:
We argue that the basic neo-Darwinian framework the natural selection of random mutations is insufficient to account for evolution. The role of natural selection is itself limited: it cannot adequately explain the diversity of populations or of species; nor can it account for the origin of new species or for major evolutionary change. The evidence suggests on the one hand that most genetic changes are irrelevant to evolution; and on the other, that a relative lack of natural selection may be the prerequisite for major evolutionary advance.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022519379901917
Lynn Margulis
On the role of natural selection in evolution.
Question: And you don't believe that natural selection is the answer?
Margulis: "This is the issue I have with neo-Darwinists: They teach that what is generating novetly is the accumulation of random mutations in DNA, in a direct set by natural selection. If you want bigger eggs, you keep selecting the gens that are laying the biggest eggs, and you get bigger and bigger eggs. But you also get hens with defective feathers and wobbly legs. Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create."
http://discover.coverleaf.com/discovermagazine/201104?pg=68#pg70
Kevin N. Laland, John Odling-Smee et al.
Kevin N. Laland, John Odling-Smee, Marcus W. Feldman and Jeremy Kendal on niche construction:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093243/
J. B. Edelmann and M. J. Denton
J. B. Edelmann and M. J. Denton write in their "The uniqueness of biological self-organization: challenging the Darwinian paradigm" how the neo-Darwinists have ignored self-organization which is an important factor in evolution. http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/philbio/readings/edelmann.biologicalselforganization.2007.pdf
James A. Shapiro
James Shapiro in his book Evolution: A View from the 21st Century proposes an important new paradigm for understanding biological evolution, the core organizing principle of biology. Shapiro introduces crucial new molecular evidence that tests the conventional scientific view of evolution based on the neo-Darwinian synthesis, shows why this view is inadequate to today's evidence, and presents a compelling alternative view of the evolutionary process that reflects the shift in life sciences towards a more information- and systems-based approach. Shapiro integrates advances in symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and saltationism into a unified approach that views evolutionary change as an active cell process, regulated epigenetically and capable of making rapid large changes by horizontal DNA transfer, inter-specific hybridization, whole genome doubling, symbiogenesis, or massive genome restructuring.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Non-Darwinian_evolution
Any opinions about any of these scientific publications? Would you agree that neo-Darwinism is outdated, incomplete, crumbled or dead? Are we seeing a totally new synthesis of evolution emerging?
Eugene Koonin
Eugene Koonin, The Origin at 150: Is a new evolutionary synthesis in sight?" Trends in Genetics, 25(11), November 2009, pp. 473-475 and Eugene Koonin, Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics, Nucleic Acids Research, 37(4), 2009, pp. 1011-1034
Writes:
In the post-genomic era, all the major tenets of the modern synthesis have been, if not outright overturned, replaced by a new and incomparably more complex vision of the key aspects of evolution.
The discovery of pervasive HGT and the overall dynamics
of the genetic universe destroys not only the tree of life as we
knew it but also another central tenet of the modern synthesis
inherited from Darwin, namely gradualism. In a
world dominated by HGT, gene duplication, gene loss and
such momentous events as endosymbiosis, the idea of evolution
being driven primarily by infinitesimal heritable
changes in the Darwinian tradition has become untenable.
Equally outdated is the (neo-) Darwinian notion of the
adaptive nature of evolution; clearly, genomes show very
little if any signs of optimal design, and random drift
constrained by purifying in all likelihood contributes
(much) more to genome evolution than Darwinian selection.
Koonin also states in the above paper "The edifice of the modern synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair".
Eugene Koonin, in his research paper, titled "Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics", published 12 Feb 2009, says:
"Now, 50 years after the consolidation of the Modern Synthesis, evolutionary biology undoubtedly faces a new major challenge and, at the same time, the prospect of a new conceptual breakthrough"....."By contrast, the insistence on adaptation being the primary mode of evolution that is apparent in the Origin, but especially in the Modern Synthesis, became deeply suspicious if not outright obsolete, making room for a new worldview that gives much more prominence to non-adaptive processes"......"Collectively, the developments in evolutionary genomics and systems biology outlined here seem to suggest that, although at present only isolated elements of a new, 'postmodern' synthesis of evolutionary biology are starting to be formulated, such a synthesis is indeed feasible. Moreover, it is likely to assume definitive shape long before Darwin's 250th anniversary"
His papers can be read here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784144/ and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651812/
Michael Rose and Todd Oakley
Michael R Rose and Todd H Oakley, in their research paper, titled "The new biology: beyond the Modern Synthesis" published on 24 November 2007 wrote:
"The last third of the 20th Century featured an accumulation of research findings that severely challenged the assumptions of the "Modern Synthesis" which provided the foundations for most biological research during that century. The foundations of that "Modernist" biology had thus largely crumbled by the start of the 21st Century. This in turn raises the question of foundations for biology in the 21st Century".
See their section in the paper titled "Dead parts of the Modern Synthesis" http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/30/
Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb
Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb have written many papers, one of which was titled "Soft inheritance: Challenging the Modern Synthesis".
According to the paper:
This paper presents some of the recent challenges to theModern Synthesis of evolutionary theory, which has dominated evolutionary thinking for the last sixty years. The focus of the paper is the challenge of soft inheritance - the idea that variations that arise during development can beinherited. There is ample evidence showing that phenotypic variations that are independent of variations in DNA sequence, and targeted DNA changes that are guided by epigenetic control systems, are important sources ofhereditary variation, and hence can contribute to evolutionary changes. Furthermore, under certain conditions, themechanisms underlying epigenetic inheritance can also lead to saltational changes that reorganize the epigenome. These discoveries are clearly incompatible with the tenets of the Modern Synthesis, which denied any significant role for Lamarckian and saltational processes. In view of the data that support soft inheritance, as well as other challenges to the Modern Synthesis, it is concluded that that synthesis no longer offers a satisfactory theoretical framework forevolutionary biology.
Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders
Mae Wan Ho and Peter Saunders in their paper Beyond neo-Darwinism an epigenetic approach to evolution write:
We argue that the basic neo-Darwinian framework the natural selection of random mutations is insufficient to account for evolution. The role of natural selection is itself limited: it cannot adequately explain the diversity of populations or of species; nor can it account for the origin of new species or for major evolutionary change. The evidence suggests on the one hand that most genetic changes are irrelevant to evolution; and on the other, that a relative lack of natural selection may be the prerequisite for major evolutionary advance.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022519379901917
Lynn Margulis
On the role of natural selection in evolution.
Question: And you don't believe that natural selection is the answer?
Margulis: "This is the issue I have with neo-Darwinists: They teach that what is generating novetly is the accumulation of random mutations in DNA, in a direct set by natural selection. If you want bigger eggs, you keep selecting the gens that are laying the biggest eggs, and you get bigger and bigger eggs. But you also get hens with defective feathers and wobbly legs. Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create."
http://discover.coverleaf.com/discovermagazine/201104?pg=68#pg70
Kevin N. Laland, John Odling-Smee et al.
Kevin N. Laland, John Odling-Smee, Marcus W. Feldman and Jeremy Kendal on niche construction:
In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change, "niche construction". This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology, and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is stubbornly difficult to reconcile with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093243/
J. B. Edelmann and M. J. Denton
J. B. Edelmann and M. J. Denton write in their "The uniqueness of biological self-organization: challenging the Darwinian paradigm" how the neo-Darwinists have ignored self-organization which is an important factor in evolution. http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/philbio/readings/edelmann.biologicalselforganization.2007.pdf
James A. Shapiro
James Shapiro in his book Evolution: A View from the 21st Century proposes an important new paradigm for understanding biological evolution, the core organizing principle of biology. Shapiro introduces crucial new molecular evidence that tests the conventional scientific view of evolution based on the neo-Darwinian synthesis, shows why this view is inadequate to today's evidence, and presents a compelling alternative view of the evolutionary process that reflects the shift in life sciences towards a more information- and systems-based approach. Shapiro integrates advances in symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and saltationism into a unified approach that views evolutionary change as an active cell process, regulated epigenetically and capable of making rapid large changes by horizontal DNA transfer, inter-specific hybridization, whole genome doubling, symbiogenesis, or massive genome restructuring.
James A. Shapiro in his book Evolution: A View from the 21st Century (2011) has written that evolutionary mechanisms such as horizontal gene transfer, symbiogenesis, whole genome doubling and natural genetic engineering are all non-Darwinian and can not be fitted into the modern evolutionary synthesis as the modern synthesis is still working in a Darwinian framework. Shapiro believes many of these mechanisms fit better with a saltationist school rather than Darwin's strict advocacy of gradualism via "numerous, successive, slight variations". Shapiro also claims that natural selection's importance for evolution has been hugely overstated.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Non-Darwinian_evolution
Any opinions about any of these scientific publications? Would you agree that neo-Darwinism is outdated, incomplete, crumbled or dead? Are we seeing a totally new synthesis of evolution emerging?