Richard Dawkins’s Unlikely Nemesis -- One of his own doctoral examiners at Oxford

Evolution News & Science Today ^ | 05/30/2024 | Daniel Witt

[Getready]

Didn’t read the whole post...

epigenetic control of the genome is needed....proofreading of the genetic mutations is needed....how does a genome know that it needs to have code necessary to make histones, epigenetic control of protein manufacturing, endonucleases, and proofreading and correction enzymes, reproductive system enzymes and structures...
Dawkins is mired in old simple understanding of genetic structures....it was obviously complex in the 60s-70s....but now it is exponentially more complex. The difference between a 2-D static drawing, and an intertwined 4D moving time dependant structure....

[alexander_busek]

Noble says that the genetic code is not a code, like computer program, because there are no if/then pathways in it. Rather, it is like a template or music score, which has to be interpreted.

It is a distinction without a difference.

At some point, our (human) language and propensity for using similes breaks down and/or is no longer equal to the task at hand. The discussion becomes an exercise in sophistry.

Sort of like the debate over "wave/particle duality."

Regards,

[dayglored]

Great post, thanks!

[dadfly]

good post. Lamarck is indeed back.

we get yet another confirmation of how wrong the bankrupt, anti-God, mechanistic philosophy of macro evolution (new species creation via direct genetic mutation over vast time periods) is. it’s adherents continue running themselves further on to the reef of failed human ideas, because it creates nothing and properly predicts nothing we see in experiments at the cellular level (the real world). it really is easier to think of the vast cell proteome consulting a persistent genomic database as it goes about adapting to it’s environment. it is also creating it’s environment as it goes along. life is a infinite feedback loop, each cell can do it’s own thing (uh oh, cancer). now, experiment proves the cell can store hard data in it’s own local copy of the genome. voila, it’s Lamarck (us believers never left him).

so questions: so How did the cell create itself without self-replication. and What then is restricting, channeling all this massive action? how is this incredible activity regulated and directed? how could it have designed itself based on environment when it is reacting denovo to new situations? crazy huh. still no answers or experimental proof yet from Dawkins and his crew (and there never will be because they don’t want to see anything new).

the apparent options the simple the cell has available to deal with in it’s environments is incredibly vast, basically infinite. good thing too because the universe that life can explore is potentially infinite, too, like it’s Creator. very cool. God is amazing!

[Rockingham]

The failure or inadequacy of a prominent explanatory model is essential to scientific progress. With Darwin's model and Dawkins' elaboration on it in ruins, the issue becomes what will replace them? So far, Intelligent Design is more a critique than an alternative scientific model for the existence of life.

Although wave-particle duality is deeply perplexing, there are advances. A recent Nobel Prize in physics went to three researchers who definitively refuted the so-called hidden variable explanation of quantum entanglement. That being so, consciousness has to be credited as real and worthy of scientific research.

Who knows, but a better understanding of wave-particle duality and consciousness may lead to an explanation of how living things somehow manage to make the intricate and rickety mechanisms of genetics work. A generation from now, we may have scientific proof of the soul as an immaterial but real key to how life works.

[ifinnegan]

Lamarck is not back.

Neither of these guys are in fact biologists and know little about molecular biology.

[ifinnegan]

“ It is a distinction without a difference.”

Yes.

The whole “conversation “ as described is like that.

Sophistry is a good word for it.

[ifinnegan]

Lamarck is just as much a “ bankrupt, anti-God, mechanistic philosophy.”

[dadfly]

lol. you couldn’t be more wrong, imho. Jesus all the way, never Darwin.

[ifinnegan]

Lamarck is also evolutionary.

Different mechanism.

It’s evolution too.

Why do you think Lamarckism is different philosophically than Darwinism?

[dadfly]

i’ve read Darwin, Wallace and Lamarck. completely disagree with you. Lamarck is the opposite of Darwin philosophically.

and there is nothing wrong with evolution if you’re talking about God built adaptation. it’s macro evolution where the difference is.

[ifinnegan]

You can say natural selection is “God-built.”

I’m not sure where your ideas about Lamarckism come from.

[dadfly]

ok last answer on this. i haven’t a clue about what you’re talking about still.

anyway, no one in the field thinks Lamarck and Darwin are friends. if you want to argue further why don’t you send a letter to Denis Noble. he’s obviously a Lamarck fan and an expert academic.

my training on the whole topic and theory of evolution comes from my college days in Physical/Biological Anthropology. (i’m glad you weren’t grading my final exams :)).

certainly Husbandry or Selection (Natural or Artificial) is God given and in the Bible.

[ifinnegan]

I actually graded actual biology.

Not undergraduate basket weaving anthropology.

I did take physical anthropology undergraduate lower division.

[AndyJackson]

The science

This is a garbage article written by a nitwit trying to stir up a controversy to prove a religious point, which is a logical fallacy in itself. No one with a bit of scientific integrity and knowledge says “the science.” No competent scientist uses that term because it like nails on a chalkboard. It’s a fictional entity used by fraudulent politicians to discredit dissent, like antivaxers and Russian disinformation hoaxes.

[AndyJackson]

The article is sophist garbage.

[Hot Tabasco]

Lamarckian Tube Train ping

[Chainmail]

It is important to learn as much as possible about the structure and function of the parts of the cell. Everything that we have learned so far demonstrates that the cell is stunningly complex and structured to succeed.

The part I find impossible to comprehend is that for the "autogenesis" to occur, those first cells had to have every bit of that structure from Day One and here's the fun bit: they had to have the mission to successfully divide and form two new cells.

In other words, "sex" was integral since the beginning and would form new competition for food in that primordial tide pool. How do you skeptics rationalize that?

Happenstance?

[alexander_busek]

it’s Its adherents continue running themselves further on to the reef of failed human ideas, because it creates nothing and properly predicts nothing we see in experiments at the cellular level (the real world). it really is easier to think of the vast cell proteome consulting a persistent genomic database as it goes about adapting to it’s its environment. it is also creating it’s its environment as it goes along. life is an infinite feedback loop, each cell can do it’s its own thing (uh oh, cancer). now, experiment proves the cell can store hard data in it’s its own local copy of the genome. voila, it’s Lamarck (us believers never left him). [...] the apparent options the simple the cell has available to deal with in it’s its environments is incredibly vast, basically infinite. good thing too because the universe that life can explore is potentially infinite, too, like it’s its Creator.

Dawkins and Noble are not in actual disagreement about Darwinian evolution, and Noble's version of "Lamarckianism" - q.v. "tubulins" - is a far cry from that which Lamarck, himself, ever espoused. And to twist Noble's words into some sort of an endorsement of "Intelligent Design" would be dishonest. This is all more like a "tempest in a teapot."

I think that you are reading a little too much into this article.

Regards,