Evolutionary mechanisms

[proximity1]

Jerry Coyne - who holds the view that allopatry is required for speciation - which is not representative of the majority of evolutionary biologists.

 

http://www.huffingto..._b_1411144.html

 

http://www.the-scien...ric-speciation/

 

 

Thank you for the name and the references. Now that I see it (the second one, HuffPo) I recall that article referred to in another blog-- similar issues, similar controversy.

[overtone]

the fact that there are a number of aspects of standard theory which deserve an attention and critical examination that they are not getting and, frankly, aren't allowed to get under present circumstances

Nothing mentioned in this thread so far lacks attention, critical examination, etc.

 

And this attention is not hidden, sidelined, cloistered, ivory towered - it's in the pop science articles, the layman's press, Scientific American, the Tuesday science supplement of the NYT, the more widely read writers's works, etc.

 

Here's a quote from an article by David Quammen, reprinted in the Natalie Angier edited collection "Best Science Writing of 2009"; the subject is the evolution of cancer, cancer as an evolutionary entity, with the contagious Tasmanian Devil face cancer as example; "Weinberg" is Robert Weinberg, author of the textbook The Biology of Cancer:

Weinberg went on to explain the the process is a little more complicated than classic Darwinian selection. Darwin's version works by selefction among genetic variations that differentiate one organism from another, and in sexually reproducing species those variations are heritable. But evolution in tumor lineages occurs by that sort of selection plus another sort - selection among epigenetic modifications of DNA - - - -

- - -

- - - So [by mitosis] cancerous cell reproduction brings such changes forward into the new cells, along with the fundamental genetic changes.

 

Does that mean the tumors don't evolve? Certainly not. They do. "It's still Darwin," Weinberg said. "It's Darwin revised."

[Ophiolite]

I think the answer is that it will be discussed again and again as more and more people come accidentally into acquaintance with the fact that there are a number of aspects of standard theory which deserve an attention and critical examination that they are not getting and, frankly, aren't allowed to get under present circumstances.

Please specify which aspects are not being afforded due attention and critical examination.

 

P.S. I really don't care what these aspects are called. I'd just like to know what you think they are.

[proximity1]

Please specify which aspects are not being afforded due attention and critical examination.

 

P.S. I really don't care what these aspects are called. I'd just like to know what you think they are.

 

 

In what I mean to be a complimentary remark, not a controversial one, I'm tempted to say that I very much appreciate both that you bothered to pose such a question and also that you posed it with the Postscript you thought to add. For me, both mark a change from what I've become used to seeing in this site.

 

I opened a thread On Ontophylogenesis or "Cellular Darwinism" in which I thought I could present and discuss some of these "aspects which are not being afforded due attention and critical examination." I wonder, have you looked into that thread at all? If not, you may find there, already described, some of the things I have in mind. I've already been admonished for bringing up the topic in a different thread than that which I began. Rather than invite that again I think I have to begin by referring you to the link shown here, above. Before I mentioned "Kupiec" and "ontophylogenesis" in posts of mine, a keyword search on those terms returned zero positive repsonses--and this site is celebrating its tenth anniversary. I think that is a prima facie demonstration of the point.

[swansont]

 

I opened a thread On Ontophylogenesis or "Cellular Darwinism" in which I thought I could present and discuss some of these "aspects which are not being afforded due attention and critical examination." I wonder, have you looked into that thread at all?

!

Moderator Note

Please don't advertise speculations threads in other threads. It is against the rules

[immortal]

The two other theories or hypotheses challenging the so called neo-Darwinism or Modern Synthesis is the Neutral theory and the effect hypothesis. Both of these theories are quite different from the synthetic view and I think there is too much confusion as to which tenets of these two theories are accepted and which views are refuted. For example:- the rate of evolution and the rate of point mutations, the gradual, directional morphological adaptation of the synthetic view vs the sudden abrupt change followed by long period of stasis, is morphological change and reproductive isolation causally linked and follows one after the other or do they occur independently? The problem is there are cases where the morphological change and reproductive isolation is causally linked owing to the support of the punctuated equilibrium theory and there are examples where morphological change and reproductive isolation occur independently and are unrelated to the time of their occurrence.

 

Neutral Theory: The Null Hypothesis of Molecular Evolution - Kimura.

 

 

Macroevolutionary trends: new perspectives on the roles of adaptation and incidental effect. - Vrba.

 

Hierarchical Approaches to Macroevolution: Recent Work on Species Selection and the "Effect Hypothesis"

 

 

May be we should adopt different models depending on the situation and the organisms that we study. On the whole all these sounds too confusing as to what is the real model of the evolutionary processes.

Edited November 23, 2012 by immortal

[PeterJ]

There is also Schroedinger's 'faux Lamarckism', which seems an attractive and sensible modification to neo-Darwinism. But blame him, not me.

[darryl88]

It is utter nonsense to deny there are no plans for an extended or new synthesis.

 

Publications calling for an extended synthesis / revised synthesis etc:

 

Auletta, G. A Paradigm Shift in Biology? Information 2010, 1, 28-59.

 

Carroll, Sean B. Evo-Devo and an Expanding Evolutionary Synthesis. Cell. 134/1, 2008.

 

Depew, David and Bruce Weber. The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution after the Modern Synthesis. Biological Theory. 6/1, 2012.

 

Edelmann, Jonathon and Michael Denton. The Uniqueness of Biological Self-Organization. Biology and Philosophy. 22/4, 2007.

 

Etxeberria, Arantza. Autopoiesis and Natural Drift: Genetic Information, Reproduction, and Evolution Revisited. Artifical Life. 10/3, 2004.

 

Gilbert, Scott and Sahorta Sarkar. Embracing Complexity: Organicism for the 21st Century. Developmental Dynamics. 219/1, 2000.

 

Gilbert, Scott, et al. Resynthesizing Evolutionary and Developmental Biology. Developmental Biology. 173/357, 1996.

 

Gilbert SF. Developmental Biology. 6th edition.

 

Hoffmeyer, Jesper. Origin of Species by Natural Translation. Petrilli, Susan, ed. Translation Translation. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003.

 

Jablonka, Eva. Extending Darwinism. Seed. October, 2008.

 

Jablonka, Eva and Marion Lamb. Evolution in Four Dimensions.

 

Karsenti, Eric. Self-Organization in Cell Biology. Nature Reviews: Molecular Cell Biology. 9/3, 2008.

 

Mattick, John. A New Paradigm for Developmental Biology. Journal of Experimental Biology. 210/9, 2007.

 

Maze, Jack, et al. The Virtual Mode: a Different Look at Species. Taxon. 54/1, 2005.

 

Muller, Gerd. Where EvoDevo Goes Beyond the Modern Synthesis.

 

Muller, Gerd and Stuart Newman, eds. Origination of Organismal Form. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003

 

Pennisi, Elizabeth. Modernizing the Modern Synthesis. Science. 321/196, 2008.

 

Pigliucci, Massimo. An Extended Synthesis for Evolutionary Biology.

 

Pigliucci, Massimo. Do We Need an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis? Evolution. 61/12, 2007.

 

Pigliucci, Massimo and Gerd Muller, eds. Evolution – the Extended Synthesis. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.

 

Ramalho-Santos, Miguel. Stem Cells as Probabilistic Self-producing Entities. BioEssays. 26/9, 2004.

 

Waddington, C. H. 1953a. Genetic assimilation of an acquired character. - Evolution, 7: 118-126.

 

Whitfield, John. Postmodern Evolution? Science. 455/281, 2008.

 

Woese, Carl. A New Biology for a New Century. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. 68/2, 2004.

 

Kauffman, Stuart A., 1993, Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford.

 

Gould, Stephen Jay, 1982, Darwinism and the Expansion of Evolutionary Theory, Science, 216:380-387.

 

Eldredge, Niles, 1985, Unfinished Synthesis: Biological Hierarchies and Modern Evolutionary Theory, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford.

 

Carroll, R. L. 2000 Towards a new evolutionary synthesis. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15, 27-32.

 

Gregory, T. R. 2005 Macroevolution and the genome. In The Evolution of the Genome (ed. T. R. Gregory), pp. 679-729. San Diego: Elsevier.

 

Johnson, N. A. & Porter, A. H. 2001 Toward a new synthesis: population genetics and evolutionary developmental biology. Genetica 112, 45-58.

 

Odling-Smee FJ, Laland KN and Feldman MW (2003) Comments on Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

 

Salthe, S. N. 1985. Evolving Hierarchical Systems: Their Structure and Representation. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

Calling for a new synthesis:

 

Rose MR, Oakley TH (2007) The new biology: Beyond the Modern Synthesis. Biol Direct 2:30.

 

Eugene Koonin, The Origin at 150: Is a new evolutionary synthesis in sight?" Trends in Genetics, 25(11), November 2009.

 

Goodwin, Brian. Beyond the Darwinian Paradigm. Ruse, Michael and Joseph Travis, eds. Evolution: the First Four Billion Years. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.

 

Goodwin, Brian. How the Leopard Changed Its Spots. New York: Scribner’s, 1994.

 

Fodor, Jerry and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini. What Darwin Got Wrong. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.

 

Kull K. 1999. Outlines for a post-Darwinian biology. - Folia Baeriana 7, 129-142.

 

Reid, Robert G. B. Biological Emergences. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.

 

Shapiro, James. A 21st Century View of Evolution: Genome System Architecture, Repetitive DNA, and Natural Genetic Engineering. Gene. 345/1, 2005.

 

Shapiro, James. Evolution: A View from the 21st Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press Science, 2011.

 

Webster, Gerald and Brian Goodwin. Form and Transformation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

 

Wasserman, Gerhard D., 1981, On the Nature of the Theory of Evolution, Philosophy of Science, 48:416-437.

 

Ho, Mae-Wan and Saunders, Peter T. (eds.), 1984, Beyond Neo-Darwinism: An Introduction to the New Evolutionary Paradigm, Academic Press, London.

 

Pollard, Jeffrey W. (ed.), 1984, Evolutionary Theory: Paths into the Future, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester and New York.

 

Weiss, Kenneth and Anne Buchanan. The Mermaid’s Tale: Four Billion Years of Cooperation in the Making of Living Things. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.

 

Margulis, L.& Sagan, D. (2002). Acquiring Genomes, A Theory of the Origin of Species. New York: Basic Books.

 

 

 

Shall we go through these publications one by one

[Ophiolite]

The point you continue to miss is that Darwin's theory has been undergoing continual extension almost since its inception. What most of us are trying to tell you is that we consider it more valuable to invest time in considering the next steps in that extension than in arguing over whether or not the extension needs a new name.

[darryl88]

The point you continue to miss is that Darwin's theory has been undergoing continual extension almost since its inception. What most of us are trying to tell you is that we consider it more valuable to invest time in considering the next steps in that extension than in arguing over whether or not the extension needs a new name.

 

 

Read over some of the dogmatic replies on this thread, and you will see two militant Darwinists denying the need for an extended synthesis, and even denying that an extended synthesis exists. The publications I have listed above shatter those claims.

 

 

As Prof Koonin and other scientists have written evolution should be characterized by the pluralism of many processes and patterns in evolution that defies any straightforward generalization, neo-Darwinism was wrong in advocating only limited mechanisms of evolution.

[immortal]

There is indeed too much confusion as to what is the real model of the evolutionary processes.

 

CHALLENGES TO THE EVOLUTIONARY SYNTHESIS

[jeskill]

It is utter nonsense to deny there are no plans for an extended or new synthesis.

 

Publications calling for an extended synthesis / revised synthesis etc:

.....

Shall we go through these publications one by one

 

When you hand in essays, do you just hand in the bibliography with a one word sentence?

[Arete]

Read over some of the dogmatic replies on this thread, and you will see me misrepresent anyone who doesn't think that 60 years of incremental change in evolutionary biology warrants a "paradigm change"and present a continuous stream of strawman arguments and The publications I have listed above shatter my strawman argument .

 

Fixed it for you. Is it possible to stop misrepresenting everything I've said yet?

 

As Prof Koonin and other scientists have written evolution should be characterized by the pluralism of many processes and patterns in evolution that defies any straightforward generalization, neo-Darwinism was wrong in advocating only limited mechanisms of evolution.

 

The point is you're arguing against a caricature of evolution not widely held in the field. A horde of evolutionary biologists have been chipping away at the extent of our knowledge of evolutionary processes since Darwin. The advances have been incremental, with each piece of new evidence and each new concept adding a building block to our knowledge - each new piece of evidence calls for an "extension" of our concept of evolution. The theory has been constantly changing ever since its inception. The synthesis itself is in a state of constant evolution.

 

Deciding we now need to sit around a table and decide on a new name now seems eye rollingly self important and spurious. There's no evidence that obsolete versions of the theory of evolution are holding up continued advances in our state of knowledge on it. The fact you need to call me a "militant Darwinist" and pretend I don't believe in horizontal gene transfer when I've said maybe 6 or 7 times now it's a major component of my research goes a long way to showing exactly how spurious and eye rolling it is.

 

Now, I notice you've subtly moved away from your original "new synthesis/paradigm change" position to an "extended synthesis" position. There is an important distinction between an extension of an existing theory due to the incremental addition of new evidence, and a paradigm shift due to new evidence overturning old evidence. You can't confound/equate the two.

 

Again it would be extremely helpful if you'd answer these questions: tell us how your paradigm shift will aid scientific progress and accelerate scientific discovery beyond the current regime: how will the "new synthesis" bring about understanding and investigation which isn't currently being investigated? As (assumedly) a research student, how will your thesis add to scientific understanding? What hypotheses are to be tested?

 

At the moment, it doesn't really seem like you've identified an actual impediment to current research, and the argument you're posing is largely semantic and directed towards an unrepresentative position. This is the reason I don't see the need for a "new synthesis" I believe the existing so called "paradigm" of evolutionary theory is constantly updating in step with current research, and the semantics over what it's called are unrepresentative of a "paradigm shift".

Edited November 26, 2012 by Arete

[Ringer]

It is utter nonsense to deny there are no plans for an extended or new synthesis.

 

No one has been saying that evolutionary ideas aren't being extended. You made the claims that old ideas are holding back new evidence and should be overthrown, with a new paradigm in their place. This claim is completely different from the one you are making now.

 

 

 

Shall we go through these publications one by one

 

 

You realize the more publications you cite the more evidence you give that these ideas are not new, are not ignored, or are seriously by many biologists.

[Ophiolite]

Exactly what Ringer said. Darryl you seem to be just arguing because you like the sound of your own voice and want to be disagreeable. Your original contention was that the scientific community was ignoring certain developments in evolutionary theory. This has been shown to be incorrect. Your own data show it to be incorrect. Please give it a rest.

[darryl88]

tell us how your paradigm shift will aid scientific progress and accelerate

scientific discovery beyond the current regime: how will the "new synthesis"

bring about understanding and investigation which isn't currently being

investigated?

 

Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations and denying that certain processes exist. Neo-Darwinism is very limited, but moving beyond neo-darwinism we will progress in our knowledge in evolution.

 

The current "modern synthesis" regime is very limited, it does not provide a detailed explanation of how evolution occurs, it fails to explain the relationship between the phenotype and genotype and many other things. The current evolutionary theory (modern synthesis of the 1940s) is a theory of genes, and totally lacks a theory of forms. The modern synthesis failed to explain the origin of form, so that is where evo-devo comes in and where different non-darwinian processes can explain things like this which neodarwinism failed and that is just one reason why the extended synthesis was proposed, see this paper here for some other reasons:

http://www.nespolo.cl/LECTURAS/Clase%200_Pigliucci%202007-Evolution-EES%207pp.pdf

 

 

Of course the extended synthesis is not considered even to be enough by some scientists. It appears the new synthesis is more accurate of looking at evolution, now this does not mean the old "Darwinian" mechanisms do not exist, it just means other processes exist as well in evolution, which may be more important than the "Darwinian" ones. of course the neo-darwinists deny this.

 

http://www.scielo.br...ipt=sci_arttext

 

Conclusions

 

Contrary to the established view, soft inheritance is common. Variations acquired during an individual's lifetime can be passed on through epigenetic, behavioral and symbolic inheritance. They can affect the rate and direction of evolution by introducing additional foci for selection, by revealing cryptic genetic variation, and by enhancing the generation of local genetic variations. Moreover, under conditions of stress, epigenetic control mechanisms affect genomic re-patterning, which can lead to saltational changes.

 

Evolutionary biology today has to incorporate soft inheritance, saltational changes due to systemic mutations, and various types of genetic exchange and cooperation. These all challenge the assumptions of the Modern Synthesis. We believe that rather than trying to continue to work within the framework of a Synthesis that was made in the middle of the last century, we now need a new type of evolutionary theory, one that acknowledges Darwinian, Lamarckian and saltational processes.

 

Notice the last line above - This is why the new synthesis is needed becuase neo-Darwinism (modern synthesis) DENIED that Lamarckian or saltational processes can occur, but we now have evidence that they DO occur. It is that simple. The fact that these things exists, mean evolution has moved beyond neo-darwinism.

 

 

 

 

 

Your original contention was that the scientific community was ignoring certain

developments in evolutionary theory. This has been shown to be incorrect.

 

 

I never mentioned "scientific community", indeed the scientific community is split on evolution, some advocate neo-Darwinism, some advocate the extended synthesis, some advocate a totally new synthesis etc

 

This has been shown to be incorrect

 

 

 

This is the most dishonest comment on this thread. It has NOT been shown to be incorrect, it has 100% been shown to be correct as I explained above becuase neodarwinism ignored and denied Lamarckian and saltational processes etc, but we now know they exist.

 

 

Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb have written many papers on this, one of which was titled "Soft inheritance: Challenging the Modern Synthesis".

 

 

 

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 for evolutionary biology.

 

 

As you can see neo-Darwinism DENIED any role for Lamarckian or saltational processes but we now know they exist. We are not in the 1940's era of the neo-darwinism anymore we are in the 21st century. Are you honest enough to admit this?

 

 

 

 

Kevin N. Laland, John Odling-Smee, Marcus W. Feldman and Jeremy Kendal in their paper titled Conceptual Barriers to Progress Within Evolutionary Biology on niche construction:

 

Quote: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.

 

 

 

As you can see, the neo-Darwinists have had a long history of denying certain processes and evolutionary mechanisms exist. Niche construction is another one that the neo-Darwinists denied, but we know it exists.Understand? Evolution has moved beyond neo-darwinism and I have a load of science to back this up, whilst users on here have nothing but personal opinion. As I said science is not about opinion, it is about the evidence, and we have the evidence evolution has moved beyond neo-darwinism, see the papers I have cited. Cheers.

Edited November 29, 2012 by darryl88

[darryl88]

There is indeed too much confusion as to what is the real model of the evolutionary processes.

 

CHALLENGES TO THE EVOLUTIONARY SYNTHESIS

 

I am in agreement with that comment, and I have read over that paper. Indeed Mae-Wan Ho is one of the scientists who has called for a new evolutionary synthesis since the 1980's.

 

At the end of the day however, it can safely be said that there is no agreed theory of evolution. Whilst evolution is a fact, there is no agreement on the theory of mechanisms. I have lost count of the mount of contradictory books/papers proposing different mechanisms of evolution.

Edited December 9, 2012 by darryl88

[Essay]

 

I have lost count of the mount of contradictory books/papers proposing different mechanisms of evolution.

 

I think you mean:

 

"I have lost count of the mount of books/papers proposing different complementary mechanisms of evolution."

[Ophiolite]

 

I think you mean:

 

"I have lost count of the mount of books/papers proposing different complementary mechanisms of evolution."

You have elegantly corrected the semantic and philsophical error. May I correct the grammatical error?

 

"I have lost count of the number of books/papers proposing different complementary mechanisms of evolution."

[Darryl Forests]

A major revolution is occurring in evolutionary biology. In this video the President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences, Professor Denis Noble, explains what is happening and why it is set to change the nature of biology and of the importance of physiology to that change. The lecture was given to a general audience at a major international Congress held in Suzhou China.

 

Please watch the video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJhotrNeYGE

 

Things discussed in the video:

 

1. DNA is not the sole transmitter of inheritance
2. The central dogma of molecular biology has been broken, genomes are not isolated from organism or the environment. Transmission of information is not one way.
3. Gradual accumulations of mutations is not the cause of speciation
4. Proteins did not all evolve via gradual mutation

 

Here is his scientific paper

Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology

Abstract:

The "Modern Synthesis" (Neo-Darwinism) is a mid-twentieth century gene-centric view of evolution, based on random mutations accumulating to produce gradual change through natural selection. Any role of physiological function in influencing genetic inheritance was excluded. The organism became a mere carrier of the real objects of selection: its genes. We now know that genetic change is far from random and often not gradual. Molecular genetics and genome sequencing have deconstructed this unnecessarily restrictive view of evolution in a way that reintroduces physiological function and interactions with the environment as factors influencing the speed and nature of inherited change. Acquired characteristics can be inherited, and in a few but growing number of cases that inheritance has now been shown to be robust for many generations. The twenty-first century can look forward to a new synthesis that will reintegrate physiology with evolutionary biology.

 

 

http://ep.physoc.org/content/early/2013/04/12/expphysiol.2012.071134.full.pdf+html

 

As Noble has explained in his video and scientific paper, all assumptions of Neo-Darwinism have been disproven.

 

Please watch the video, and read his paper.

 

Any comments?

 

 

 

[Unity+]

I would have to say that the professor makes great points about the fallacies(well, not in a negative connotation, but in a way to express the mistakes that Dawkins has made) on how Richard Dawkins seems to make an incorrect image of genetic material.

 

One great point is how Richard Dawkins seems to credit DNA for the production of organisms, but DNA is not functional without the organism itself. This is important to bring to attention because an experiment done within the 19th century produced results that stated that within heated environments and with the existence of water that genetic material could be produced, however this is irrelevant to the existence of life because the genetic material would not form an organism and would stay inactive unless within organisms.

 

I also find another point important about how genetic material is random in formation and has some specific patterns within the mutation when comparing it to the organism's environment. This point brings to rest the common fallacy that there is a randomized even within the mutations that occur within organisms.

[CharonY]

Well, the basic tenets are not that terribly surprising for people in the field as the last 20-30 years have seen massive increase in our knowledge in molecular biology. The "modern" synthesis, however, has been derived sometime in the 40s. Since then people have more or less constantly poking holes into it (not the way that creationisms would like to have it, but that is another topic). In fact, the knowledge about molecular components and interactions have exploded to such an amount that so far it has been more or less impossible to integrate everything into a smooth framework. This is to no little extent also due to the fact that for many components we do not clearly know functions and, more importantly, modes of interactions and how these can result in certain biological outcomes.

Noble is by no means the first to propose a new synthesis of evolutionary biology, his focus appears to be more on the physiological side (and there are even a couple of threads about this on this forum). But my feeling is that we need to fill quite some more gaps to have a truly integrative view on evolution. I would not state that any of the views are blatantly incorrect, it depends a lot on the system under investigation and the scope of the conclusions you want to draw.

The reason being that biology is bloody complex and with our current knowledge a singly focused perspective is just not going to cut it.

[Unity+]

Well, the basic tenets are not that terribly surprising for people in the field as the last 20-30 years have seen massive increase in our knowledge in molecular biology. The "modern" synthesis, however, has been derived sometime in the 40s. Since then people have more or less constantly poking holes into it (not the way that creationisms would like to have it, but that is another topic). In fact, the knowledge about molecular components and interactions have exploded to such an amount that so far it has been more or less impossible to integrate everything into a smooth framework. This is to no little extent also due to the fact that for many components we do not clearly know functions and, more importantly, modes of interactions and how these can result in certain biological outcomes.

Noble is by no means the first to propose a new synthesis of evolutionary biology, his focus appears to be more on the physiological side (and there are even a couple of threads about this on this forum). But my feeling is that we need to fill quite some more gaps to have a truly integrative view on evolution. I would not state that any of the views are blatantly incorrect, it depends a lot on the system under investigation and the scope of the conclusions you want to draw.

The reason being that biology is bloody complex and with our current knowledge a singly focused perspective is just not going to cut it.

There are many views of Creationism, which one are you referring to? If you are referring to the most stereotypical version of it then okay, but there are many views of creationism that you would have to specify the specific on you are referring to.

[CharonY]

Pretty much any form that disputes the occurrence of evolution.

[Unity+]

Pretty much any form that disputes the occurrence of evolution.

Fair enough.