Where Darwin Went Wrong
An editorial appeared in the Jan 21 2009 issue of the New Scientist that said Darwin was wrong about a number of things. One thing he was wrong about was the Tree of Life.
Horizontal gene transfer has converted the tree into a sort of network.
"The more that genomics, bioinformatics and many other newer disciplines reveal about life, the more obvious it becomes that our present understanding is not up to the job. We now gaze on a biological world of mind-boggling complexity that exposes the shortcomings of familiar, tidy concepts such as species, gene and organism.
A particularly pertinent example is provided in this week's cover story - the uprooting of the tree of life which Darwin used as an organising principle and which has been a central tenet of biology ever since (see "Axing Darwin's tree"). Most biologists now accept that the tree is not a fact of nature - it is something we impose on nature in an attempt to make the task of understanding it more tractable. Other important bits of biology - notably development, ageing and sex - are similarly turning out to be much more involved than we ever imagined. As evolutionary biologist Michael Rose at the University of California, Irvine, told us: "The complexity of biology is comparable to quantum mechanics. " end quote
Darwin was wrong multiple times. He was wrong about the tree of life, because of Horizonatal Gene Transfer makes the tree more like a network. Darwin was wrong about randomness as an operative force driving evolution from simple to complex organisms. Randomness cannot produce new information needed to make more complex organisms as we go higher on the evolutionary scale. Perhaps the evolutionary process was directed by the 98.5% of the genome that is non-coding. Perhaps this "junk DNA" contains the code that directs evolution from simpler to more complex life forms. Darwin was wrong about the fossil record showing gradual transitions. The Fossil Record is one of discontinuities and Gaps. Why else would an entrely new theory of Punctuated Equilibrium be needed to reconcile Darwinism with the discontinuous fossil record?
(c) Copyright 2009 All rights Reserved Jeffrey Dach MD
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"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details." - Einstein
"God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done" - Newton
"Seek the truth in all things, in so far as God has granted that to human reason." - Copernicus
Science is the pursuit of truth. If the truth is we are products of Intelligent Design, then that is science. And since those who have - by far - advanced our science held that belief then even on a lowly observational basis one would lean towards this point of view. But all this precludes the elephant in the room: we have souls. And our souls tell us the truth. When we don't like it we make up religion disguised as science such as evolution and the earth is the center of the universe, etc., i.e. we are responsible to nothing.
Also, on your previous posting of this subject some moron thought I was an aardvark when clearly I'm a cat. Some scientist that!
Darwin was wrong about some important things that have come to light in the succeeding one hundred fifty or sixty years, but he was far more right about more things than anyone who came before him, and more right than many who came after.
I agree with Lonnie and Rob, though: He deserves a lot of credit for getting it as right as he did.