Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: SunkenCiv
Phenomena like self-organization, epigenetics and plasticity intruded in ways that were complementary to, and sometimes contradictory to, natural selection. Then there was niche construction to consider--where organisms invent their habitats (burrows, bird nests, bee hives, etc.) rather than being selected by their fitness to pre-existing ones. And also punctuated evolution, abrupt transitions in the fossil record, and the even more puzzling episodes of stasis.

The reason conservatives are going extinct is because they think this utterly wrong and meaningless HS provides "evidence" of the "falsification" of evolutionary theories. This guy could almost word for word write the same thing about the power of crystals or some such and he we be decried as a new age leftist moonbat. Write gibberish about paleontology, and presto, he is a genius.

7 posted on 11/11/2008 6:05:35 PM PST by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: AndyJackson
BTW, nonsense generating idiot here is Suzan Mazur. Stuart Newman's research would appear to be quite sound. From his abstract:

...multicellular forms during the explosive radiation of animal body plans in the middle Cambrian, approximately 530 million years ago, could have explored an extensive morphospace without concomitant genotypic change or selection for adaptation. The morphologically plastic body plans and organ forms ... would subsequently have been stabilized and consolidated by natural selection and genetic drift.

His point is that multicelluar organisms could have formed through cells "just sticking together" in a multitude of ways allowed by certain predisposition. But some of these arrangements were more fit for their environment and genetic drift that "locked in" these preferred forms occurred.

This is not anti-evolutionary, but merely expands a model by which multi-cellular organisms might have evolved.

9 posted on 11/11/2008 6:15:28 PM PST by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson