The Nature of Mutations

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[This message has been edited by Admin, 05-21-2003]

I have not the foggiest except we see only sexual reproduction (with very few exceptions) today. Correlated with that has been the cessation of speciation. Evolution, like growth, differentiation and ontogeny generally, has proven to be a self-limiting process. For details, read my paper with the same title. salty

Phospho makes a good point. It was originally raised by Mivart in Darwin's own day. What is the origin of incipient structures? How can selection produce something that isn't there yet. My view is that, just as in ontogeny, the information for all of evolution has been present from very early on. Just as in ontogeny, it has been derepressed by devices about which we know nothing. This idea is not entirely new with me as it was suggested first by Leo Berg in his book "Nomogenesis or Evolution by Law". Later, Grasse inferred the same. In any event, evolution remains a great mystery, but then so does gravity! salty

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[This message has been edited by Admin, 05-22-2003]

The resident loony's Manifesto is being discussed at Brainstorms over at ISCID. Please join in. salty

Excuse me, but they haven't laid a glove on me or Peter Borger. They have been too busy attacking one another. If ICID didn't think I had something to offer, they wouldn't have put it on brainstorms. What I can't understand, however, is how can an organization claiming to further ID continue to tolerate the Darwinian myth. As for Borger supporting me let me quote Samuel Johnson "The applause of a single human being is of great consequnce". I understand you banned Borger. Why?

MM, thanks for the clarification. I just asssumed you were in charge. salty

Thank you MM. Are they all Darwinians? Is there a creationist among them? The title of this forum is Creation versus Evolution. As you may have noticed I convinced Terry to add Or Both to his forum. Is it conceivable that this forum could do the same? In any event, that is my position and recommendation. salty

I don't think mutation at any speed ever had anything to do with evolution. Evolution (past tense) was driven by internal preformed mechanisms about which virtually nothing is known except that they must have existed. In other words, I agree with Leo Berg, Pierre Grasse and Otto Schindewolf. Chance had nothing whatsoever to do with evolution just as it has nothing whatsoever to do with ontogeny except perhaps to damage it, a role it may also have played in evolution. Just as many ontogenetic events end in death, so many evolutionary events have led to extinction. I hope this heresy doesn't disappoint you. salty

Berg makes no mention of either Oparin or the mythical organic soup. He does refer favorably to early anti-Darwinian papers by Richard B. Goldschmidt. He also quotes directly the antiDarwinians Henry Fairfield Osborn and Reginald C. Punnett and of course William Bateson. I have read the works of these authors and they have convinced me of the total failure of the Darwinian model. It has explained absolutely nothing and of course, based as it is on chance, has no predictive value. As such it does not even qualify as a scientific hypothesis. I also have no idea what you mean by quasi Lamarckian. As for Darcy Thompson, whom I greatly admire, listen to what he has to say in the introduction to the 1969 english translation of Nomogenesis. "I need go no further, nor say one word more, to show that Professor Berg holds views of his own, with many of which many of us are lttle likely to agree." I regard that as a cheap shot. Of course Berg was now dead. It reminds me of another cheap shot by Stephen J. Gould. In the forward to the english translation of Schindewolf's book, after identifying Schindewolf as the greatest paleontologist of his day, Gould found it necessary to describe Schindewolf's conclusions as "spectacularly flawed". Of course Schindewolf was also dead. But to get back to Berg for a moment. Dobzhansky wrote the forward to the 1969 translation of Nomogenesis and had this to say. "The assumption of inherent purposiveness remains, however, the Achilles heel of nomogenesis, as it is of any theory of evolution not based on natural selection." Between Gould, Thompson and Dobzhansky, I am surprised anyone bothered to read the works of Schindewolf and Berg. Well this biologist did and I regard them as probably the two greatest contributors to the evolutionary literature, followed in no particular order by Broom, Goldschmidt, Punnett, Osborn, Bateson, Grasse and the many others who saw through the Darwinian myth long ago.

Mr. P. Please don't confuse my conversations with my obvious enemies on some forum dominated by Darwinians with my published papers. It is evcforum which has set the standard for civility. That is why I continue to interact with Trainor's group as he would never tolerate the venom that is the hallmark here. If you can ban Borger you don't need me. salty

Berg of course believed in a highly polyphyletic origin for life which is hardly a Darwinian view. Much of what he believed I find difficult to understand, but his convictions about phylogenetic acceleration and preformation I find convincing, especially since they were independently offered by Grasse. Incidentally, semi-meiosis is hardly mythical. It is exactly how certain flagellates in the genus Spirotrichosoma reproduce. There may be many other examples yet to be discovered. What has not yet been demonstrated is the experimental transformation of any species through the agency of sexual reproduction. Until it is I will continue to remain convinced that the several independent inventions of sex-determining devices were to stabilize species and certainly not to create them. If the sole purpose of sexual reproduction is to transmit and support genetic diversity, why does it involve two steps going first from 2N to 4N before proceeding through Meiosis 1 to 2N and then to 1N via Meiosis 2? The simplest way to produce haploid gametes would be to have synapsis followed by a single reduction division, yet that is not the way gametogenesis proceeds. What we are observing is the historical origin of the process which evolved in two steps. Obviously, the first meiotic division, which is a perfectly valid form of diploid repreduction, had to preceed the second division. In other words, every time we observe meiosis we are observing a manifestation of the semi-meiotic hypothesis. What you describe as a myth has been known for over a century. Its evolutionary significance has, however, only recently been disclosed. salty

I am still waiting for an explanation as to who banned Borger and why? salty

Mr. P There is a difference between praising ones predecessors for realizing the futility of Darwinism and denigrating an author's views in an introduction or a foreward to his work. I am sure that Berg, Broom, Grasse and especially Goldschmidt are not rolling over in their graves as you suggest. Dobzhansky, Thompson and Gould should be doing the rolling for the shameful way they dealt with Berg and Schindewolf. I hope you realize that no one has even the vaguest notion of how macroevolution took place. I also do not think that the only alternative to Darwinism is biblical Creationism. I am on record as dismissing any religious text as having evolutionary significance. The mindless polarization persists nevertheless. Also, if you can't invite Borger back you can forget about my further participation. I need at least one ally on this forum. If the only way you can deal with critics is through ridicule and removal, this forum should close its doors, or perhaps do as they do over at brainstorms and squabble with one another. All I see is GROUPTHINK. salty

Mr. P. As usual, reading comprehension is the difficulty. M.J.D. White in no uncertain language made it very clear that many, including virtually all the chromosome rearrangements in Drosophila, were not produced through sexual reproduction. After presenting three of his unmistakable quotations, which I can only assume you dismiss, I offer my conclusion: "I submit that if they were not produced sexually, there remains only one other conceivable way they could have been produced and that is semi-meiotically as I have indicated. If there is another way, I can only hope that someone will enlighten me!" Furthermore, I have never maintained that one cannot produce chromosome rearrangements through sexual reproduction and I resent your inferences. Also, the reasons I have not published any conclusions verifying the semi-meiotic hypothesis are of no concern to you or anyone else. I have never published a paper about which I had any reservations and I am not about to start now. I know how certain members of this forum loathe my use of direct quotation as it leaves no question of what the source meant and we can't have that of course. So I leave you with one from Oscar Wilde :"If you tell the truth you can be certain, sooner or later, to be found out". salty