Just by accident I came upon a blog posting by an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota by the name of Paul  Z Myers.  I don't know him, and he doesn’t know me.  Apparently he got his panties all in a twist from one of my articles on Why Darwin Was Wrong. (left image)  I must have touched a frayed nerve, because poor PZ devoted considerable time and energy attempting  a refutation which was unsuccessful, and ended with childish name calling unbecoming of a University Professor.

Unanswered Questions About neo-Darwinism

Firstly, PZ Myers makes the statement, "there are many unanswered questions" about Darwinian Evolution.  However, he doesn't list any.  Instead he makes a number of comments attempting to discredit the questions I proposed.  What are your unanswered questions PZ?   Tell us what they are.

Here are my statements followed by PZ’s attempted rebuttals:

1) How does random change (mutation) in the genome add information to a genome to create progressively more complicated organisms? It Doesn't.

PZ Meyers: "Errors in DNA replication and recombination can produce DNA strands that are longer and contain more information than the parent strand. This is trivial." 

This comment by PZ reveals a complete lack of understanding of what it means to add information.  According to PZ Meyers, if he had a blueprint for a car, just by rearranging, deleting , or duplicating parts of the car plans, we could add the new information needed to build a nuclear power plant or a 747 Jet Plane.  Sorry PZ, but it doesn’t work that way.  It takes a whole room, full of trained engineers to draft a new set of plans for the nuclear power plant or 747 Jet.  Same for the human genome, PZ.  It can’t come up with a plan for the eye, clotting cascade or the endocrine system by rearranging the blueprints for a primitive one-celled organism that has a few ribosomes and endoplasmic reticulum.  This requires new information.  New information requires intelligent planning PZ, just like the room of engineers needed to draw up the nuclear power plant plans.

2) How is evolution able to bring about drastic changes so quickly? An example is the Cambrian Explosion. It Can't.

PZ Myers says:”His example of "quickly" is a span of about 15 million years. This may be news to some creationists, but that is a long, long time. If you're a young earth creationist, it's a period of time approximately 2,000 times longer than you believe the whole earth existed.  Dr Sachs needs to review some population genetics. We have nice algorithms that can be used to estimate how long it takes genetic changes to sweep through populations.”

A favorite ploy used by Darwinists like PZ Myers against their arch enemies, the young earth Creationists, is the  straw man argument, and a nice example is shown above.  A creationist will make the statement that the earth is 5000 years old, and then PZ will show carbon dating of fossils dating back to 100 millions years, or something like that, and expect applause from the Darwinist audience.  Yawn.

I am not a young earth creationist, and I don’t use creationist arguments.  As I said earlier, I consider valid the idea of evolution that life forms “evolved” from simpler to more complex and that we all have a common ancestor. 

My major objection, however, is that I don’t think the process of evolution could be fully explained as the random process required by neo-Darwinian Dogma.   This is really the heart of what is wrong with neo-Darwinism, and why PZ Myers  defends a scientifically bankrupt theory, while it still pays the bills at the University.

My comment about the drastic changes of the  ”Cambrian Explosion” was best said by Gerald Schroeder  who said, " 34 basic body plans that burst into being at the Cambrian, 530 million years ago, comprise all of animal life till today…Among the structures that appeared in the Cambrian were limbs, claws, eyes with optically perfect lenses, intestines. These exploded into being with no underlying hint in the fossil record that they were coming. Below them in the rock strata (i.e., older than them) are fossils of one-celled bacteria, algae, protozoans, and clumps known as the essentially structureless Ediacaran fossils of uncertain identity. How such complexities could form suddenly by random processes is an unanswered question."

These types of discontinuities found in the fossil record since Darwin’s days of 150 years ago were admitted by Darwin himself as being  damaging to his theory.  An entire new theory called Punctuated Equilibrium was invented to reconcile the discontinuitues in the fossil record with neo-Darwinism.

3) How could the first living cell arise spontaneously to get evolution started? It couldn't.

PZ Myers says: “It didn't. The first living cell would have been the product of millions (quick!) of years of chemical evolution. It did not arise spontaneously. “

Here we are given an honor.  PZ is alerting us to the latest politically correct scientific “belief” about something called abiogenesis or the origin of  one celled organisms from non-living matter.  PZ says the first life forms were created (!) by a method called “chemical evolution”.  Nowhere has this chemical evolution been actually observed,  duplicated, or even described,  and as a matter of fact, science has not a clue about how the first cell arose from non-living matter, but we are absolutely sure that it did.  This is a pure belief, which therefore qualifies as a religion,  and apparently this belief is a requirement for  associate professorship in biology.  Perhaps PZ could enlighten us further by telling us if this so called "chemical evolution" was a random or a directed process? 

PZ makes the final concluding paradoxical statement:

 “ The genetic code is not simply the product of 'random happening', nor do we need to invoke a designer to create it. It certainly is not self-evident that the universe is the product of intelligence — that is a conclusion derived from the abundant ignorance Jeffrey Dachs demonstrates in his argument.”

Notice that here, PZ is actually agreeing with me, that the genetic code, like all other codes and languages, could not have been created by random chance.  OK, this is agreed.  If we come across alphabet code or writing on the wall, we assume somebody wrote it.  It didn’t happen there by chance.

Left Image: Writing on the wall. PZ says, No need to invoke a designer. 

However, get this very next phrase.  PZ goes on to say that there is no need to invoke a designer.  In other words, just because we came across writing on the wall, we don’t have to assume somebody wrote it.  Why does he staunchly deny the designer of genetic code when all other examples of codes or alphabets have human designers?

HOW DID The Code GET THERE ? 

After conceding and giving away the “randomness explanation”,  what explanation is there?  I would suggest a designer of the coded alphabet  is the most reasonable explanation.  Apparently this is a politically incorrect position which would get one promptly booted out of the University biology department and into the cold Minnesota Night. 

Left Image Human Embryo: Who Designed This?

Not only that, but PZ now says that anyone who invokes a designer or in this case, an author,  for the writing on the wall, is an "abundantly ignorant person".  This illustrates the final phase of our typical Darwinist argument, the degeneration into childish name calling.

Random Mutation Cannot Explain Evolution

As pointed out by dissenting scientists over the years, natural selection acting upon random mutations cannot explain the evolution from simpler to more complex organisms. This is the crux of the problem with neo-Darwinist Theory.  Although this very valid objection has been raised by mainstream scientists and physicians who are interested in discovering new science to replace neo-Darwinism, this same objection has been raised by creationists who wish to replace evolution with creationism, and by intelligent design advocates who wish to advance their agenda.  

Defenders of neo-Darwinism like PZ Myers tend to lump all these people together.  They then use their nazi style intimidation tactics with personal smears intended to prevent any critque of neo-Darwinism.  A typical tactic of these fanatics is to label anyone who presents a critique of neo-Darwnism as a secret Creationist or Intelligent Designer plotting to overthrow the Public School System.  The arch enemy of PZ Myers is the Discovery Institute with people like Dembski, Dennet, Behe, Meyers and others engaged in a campaign to change the culture of America away from the scientific materialism of neo-Darwinism.  I am not a member of the Discovery Institute.  

Many Physicians Dissent for Neo-Darwinsm

Here is a list of another 300 physicians who publicly dissent from neoDarwinist Dogma.

Mainstream Scientists Who Dissent from Neo-Darwinism

1) James A Shapiro Ph.D. Professor of Microbiology University of Chicago: "Genome change arises as a consequence of natural genetic engineering, not from accidents."
2) Stanley N. Salthe Ph.D. Zoology, 1963, Columbia University.
3) Stuart Kauffman professor at the University of Calgary with a shared appointment between biological sciences and physics and astronomy.
4) Lynn Margulis Distinguished University Professor Microbial Evolution and Organelle Heredity Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts

Jeffrey Dach MD
4700 Sheridan Suite T
Hollywood Fl 33021
954 983 1443

(c) Copyright 2009 Jeffrey Dach MD All Rights Reserved

Links and References

http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/21st_Cent_View_Evol.html
A 21st Century View of evolution  by James A. Shapiro
Professor of Microbiology,
Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Chicago

McClintock recognized that genetic change is a cellular process, subject to regulation, and is not dependent on stochastic accidents. The idea of internally-generated, biologically regulated mutation has profound impacts for thinking about the process of evolution.

To see the real-world evolutionary importance of built-in biological mechanisms of genetic change, we have only to consider the post-WWII emergence of multiple antibiotic resistance in bacteria. This phenomenon represents the largest and best-documented evolutionary experiment in the molecular biology era. Interestingly, when antibiotic use began, we had a robust theory of how resistance would evolve by modification of existing cell components so that they were no longer antibiotic-sensitive. This theory was confirmed by laboratory experiments. Nonetheless, when the basis of naturally evolving multiple antibiotic resistance was determined, the experimentally-confirmed theory was wrong. Resistance resulted from the presence of new biochemical activities in the bacteria, encoded by new transmissible genetic systems that could accumulate additional DNA encoding these resistance activities (35).

Indeed, it is now difficult to imagine how organisms that depend upon gradual accumulation of stochastic mutations could persist in the evolutionary rat race.

http://www.idnet.com.au/files/pdf/James%20Shapiro%20Boston%20Review.PDF
A Third Way. in the Boston Review James A. Shapiro 12/22/05

Localized random mutation, selection
operating "one gene at a time" (John Maynard Smith's
formulation), and gradual modification of individual functions
are unable to provide satisfactory explanations for the molecular
data, no matter how much time for change is assumed. There are
simply too many potential degrees of freedom for random
variability and too many interconnections to account for.

The neo-Darwinian advocates claim to be scientists, and we can legitimately expect of them a more open spirit of inquiry. Instead, they assume a defensive posture of outraged orthodoxy and assert an unassailable claim to truth, which only serves to validate the Creationists' criticism that Darwinism has become more of a faith than a science. ...Dogmas and taboos may be suitable for religion, but they have no place in science

Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century
James A. Shapiro
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/index3.html?content=genome.html

Advantages of non-random searches of genome space at evolutionary crises
• Genome changes occur under stress or other conditions, when they are
most likely to prove beneficial;
• Multiple related changes can occur when a particular natural genetic
engineering system is activated;
• Rearrangement of proven genomic components increases the chance
that novel combinations will be functional;
• Targeting can increase the probability of functional integration and
reduce the risk of system damage;
• Rearrangements followed by localized changes provide opportunities
for fine tuning once novel function has been achieved.

http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/index3.html?content=genome.html

Lesson 4. Genome change arises as a consequence of natural genetic engineering, not from accidents. Replication errors and DNA damage are subject to cell surveillance and correction. When DNA damage correction does produce novel genetic structures, natural genetic engineering functions, such as mutator polymerases and non-homologous end-joining  complexes, are involved. Realizing that DNA change is a biochemical process means that it is subject to regulation like other cellular activities. Thus, we expect to see genome change occurring in response to different stimuli (Table 1) and operating non-randomly throughout  the genome, guided by various types of intermolecular contacts (Table 1 of reference 112).  These expectations open up new ways of thinking about the role of natural genetic engineering in normal life cycles and the potential for non-random processes in evolution.

There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject—evolution—with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses work in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity." Molecular biologist James Shapiro, "In the Details...What?" National Review, 19 September 1996, pp. 62–65.

"This is to be expected from the Creationists, who naturally refuse to recognize science's remarkable record of making more and more seemingly miraculous aspects of our world comprehensible to our understanding and accessible to our technology."

The point of this discussion is that our current knowledge of genetic change is fundamentally at variance with neo-Darwinist postulates. We have progressed from the Constant Genome, subject only to random, localized changes at a more or less constant mutation rate, to the Fluid Genome, subject to episodic, massive and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures. Inevitably, such a profound advance in awareness of genetic capabilities will dramatically alter our understanding of the evolutionary process. Nonetheless, neo-Darwinist writers like Dawkins continue to ignore or trivialize the new knowledge and insist on gradualism as the only path for evolutionary change.

(Shapiro, 1997 Boston Review: Is Darwin in the Details? A Debate)

http://www.sosmin.com/evolution.html
University of Chicago biochemist James Shapiro wrote, "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations" (National Review, 9/16/96).

Cell Development Shows Evolutionary Pattern .
The following text was published in The New York Times, November 10, 1996. by James A. Shapiro

To the Editor: I find myself quoted in Michael J. Behe's Op-Ed article questioning Darwinian explanations for cellular evolution (Oct. 29), leaving the impression that I share his call for a return to religious explanations. This is not my position.

Darwinism and creationism are not the only ways to think about sources of biological function and diversity. The virtue of science is its ability to evolve concepts that render ''miraculous'' aspects of the world comprehensible.

Molecular biology has uncovered complexity in genome structure and cellular function. It has also revealed biochemical systems that cells use to restructure DNA molecules in ways that resemble our own genetic engineering. These systems introduce potentials for rapid genome reorganization and biological feedback into the evolutionary process.

Scientists have the task of exploring how far the operation of natural genetic engineering systems can provide novel ways to account for biological adaptations not explained by random mutation and selection.

James A. Shapiro
Professor of Microbiology
at the University of Chicago.
Chicago, Nov. 5, 1996

Against The Grain: 'There are strong indications of intelligent design'
Interview by Nick Jackson
Thursday, 8 February 2007 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/against-the-grain-there-are-strong-indications-of-intelligent-design-435417.html

http://www.whither-progress.org/pages/evolution.php
Major Changes in Evolution Theory

INTRODUCTION

http://darwin-legend.org/html/Soren-Lovtrups-Rebuttal-of-Darwinism.htm
Søren Løvtrup's Rebuttal of Darwinism
Hiram Caton
Søren Løvtrup. Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth. Croom Helm, Kent, England. 1987.

http://www.randommutation.com/darwinianevolution.htm
How to Do Your Own Darwinian Evolution Experiments with the Random Mutation Generator

You don't have to take anyone else's word for it - you can use the Random Mutation Generator to find out for yourself how Darwinian evolution really works.

by Perry S. Marshall

Microbiologist James A. Shapiro of the University of Chicago has done extensive research on this very question and has published a number of papers confirming that yes, there is an adaptation mechanism in DNA that is marvelously sophisticated. Mr. Shapiro has discovered that a protozoa, subjected to extreme environmental stress, can splice its own DNA into over 100,000 pieces (!), re-arrange them in a highly systematic fashion, producing new protozoa that inherit a new set of characteristics.

In other words DNA can be likened to a computer program that re-writes itself on the fly. In fact this is how our own immune systems adapt to a nearly infinite range of possible threats and ward off attackers - through this kind of sophisticated adaptation.

Mr. Shapiro published a fascinating paper in the Journal of Biological Physics called "A 21st Century View of Evolution." In this paper, the failed "Random Mutation" view is discarded and replaced with a much more sophisticated, engineered process. Instead of seeing DNA as a static database that is acted on by outside random forces, it is now seen as being more like a intelligent operating system that repairs files, corrects errors, and adapts to changing circumstances. It's nothing short of amazing.

Shapiro's work clearly shows that evolution, however it may be understood, is anything but a random process.

http://raytractors.blogspot.com/2008/12/james-shapiro.html
I looked, and the quote is accurate. at least Ray got that one right, even if he DID use it out of context Questioning the adequacy of Darwinian theory is something quite different from challenging the evidence for evolution. Our best defense against Creationism is a vital scientific study of evolutionary processes using the most complete molecular and biological information we can obtain. I attach a paper I published on this a number of years ago. You can find other, more technical papers on my web site.

Jim Shapiro

Unintelligent Evolution 
William A. Dembski
Conceptual Foundations of Science
Baylor UniversityWaco, Texas 76798 
Talk presented at the annual American Academy of Religion meeting, San Antonio, November 22, 2004

http://www.evanwiggs.com/articles/reasons.html#camexp
The late Stephen J. Gould, an ardent evolutionist and Marxist, said this about the fossil record: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.” S.J. Gould, Evolution’s Erratic Pace, Natural History 86(5): 14, 1977.

Gould later stated: “The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary states between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediated in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.”  S.J. Gould, in Evolution Now: A Century after Darwin, ed. John Maynard Smith, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1982)

Again Gould said: “I regard the failure to find a clear ‘vector of progress’ in life’s history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record.”  S.J. Gould, The Ediacaran Experiment, Natural History 93(2): 14-23, Feb. 1984

“But we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”

James Shapiro, Stuart Kauffman, and Lynn Margulis have raised similar doubts. But what are their alternatives? Certainly not intelligent design. Shapiro places his hopes in what he calls “natural genetic engineering”; in other words, organisms design themselves. But Shapiro has no account of how organisms of sufficient complexity can arise in the first place to do their own genetic engineering. As for Kauffman, he places his hopes in laws of self-organization and complexity. Yet a decade after he published At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (publication date 1995), Kauffman is still searching for those laws. And as for Lynn Margulis, she places her hopes in symbiogenesis, where the driving force behind evolution becomes organisms coming together to hybridize and thereby increase biological complexity. Though Margulis has argued effectively that symbiogenesis plays some role in biological evolution, she is far from showing that it is the missing key. In short, the proposals on the table for shoring up Darwinian theory with still other blind material mechanisms are even more speculative than what they are trying to shore up.

http://www.nbi.dk/~natphil/salthe/Critique_of_Natural_Select_.pdf
Analysis and critique of the concept of Natural Selection (and of the
neoDarwinian theory of evolution) in respect (Part 1) to its suitability as part of Modernism’s origination myth, as well as (Part 2) of its ability to explain organic evolution (update March, 2006) S.N. Salthe

Stanley N. Salthe
Ph.D. Zoology, 1963, Columbia University.
Professor Emeritus, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York Visiting Scientist in Biological Sciences, Binghamton University
Associate Researcher of the Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies of the University of Copenhagen.

So, with current neoDarwinian theory, we can claim that it does not model evolution, only short term survival from one generation to the next.

As to its ability to explain the evolution of organisms (as opposed to the evolution of gene systems), it has not, after some 60 years of development, delivered a very convincing mechanism. It cannot explain origins, or the actual presence of forms and behaviors. It can generally explain only the evolution of adaptive differences as results of historical contingency, for only one or two traits at a time. It is limited to historical explanations, as it acknowledges no evolutionary tendencies that are not the result of accident preserved in genetic information. History is the source of everything in this theory, and that is just too simplistic to be plausible in a complex material world. I think it could be said that, were there another theory of organic evolution, the neoDarwinian one, fraught with problems as it is, would have more  trouble surviving than it does.  As it is, it is the “only game in town”, largely because of the competitive activities of the  neoDarwinians themselves.

As added support for the viewpoint projected herein, I cite two of Richard Lewontin’s works. First, his The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, (1974, Columbia University Press) has a discussion of the effects of linkage disequilibrium among genetic loci on the process of
selection that makes it seem highly unlikely that selection could be very effective in improving a trait using a more realistic model of the genome than is usually used. Recently he has produced a paper for the Santa Fe Bulletin [Volume 18 (1), Winter, 2003] which raises four  complications”
to the theory of natural selection that seem to me to cripple it altogether. For the mathematically inclined, there is also Fred Hoyle’s work, posthumously published as Mathematics of Evolution , Acorn Enterprises, 1999

Biology theory

     (Non-mathematical) Biology theory, focusing on development and evolution, and their relationship. I use operational definitions for development (predictable directional change) and evolution (the irreversible accumulation of historical information = individuation), which allows these concepts to be generalized.

      I am a critic of Darwinian evolutionary theory -- which was my own erstwhile field of specialization in biology. My opposition is fundamentally to its sole reliance on competition as an explanatory principle (in a background of chance). Aside from being a bit thin in the face of complex systems, it has the disadvantage, in the mythological context of explaining where we come from, of reducing all evolution to the effects of competition. I see this as morally vicious, if understandable in the genealogical sense that it serves as a myth congenial to Capitalism. Motivated thus, I have found that upon close examination there are many limitations on the power of Darwinian explanations. For example, it would appear that population genetics theory has been (for over 60 years) limited, IN GENERAL, to modeling changes only in single traits (see "Analysis and Critique of the Concept of Natural Selection" [here]). This limitation is no conceptual problem if we place Darwinian explanation in the context of developmentalism (see below), but then natural selection can no longer be the sole factor in evolution, but must function as a handmaiden to self-organizing processes, as suggested by David Depew and BruceWeber in Darwinism Evolving.

      I note further that the idea of natural selection must be among the fittest of ideas in our social climate. It has spread from evolutionary biology to immunology, developmental biology, psychology, economics, philosophy of science, sociology, information science, etc. It appears to be an idea that can adapt to any material whatever, driving out, in the process, ideas that were native in the various discourses (like instructional models in immunology). Being materially empty, it appears capable of explaining almost anything, and so we need to be cautious about its use. Is it a Borgesian cognitive poison?

http://www.pssiinternational.com/list.pdf
Physicians and Surgeons who dissent from Darwinism

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2114

Doubts Over Evolution Mount With Over 300 Scientists Expressing Skepticism With Central Tenet of Darwin's Theory
By: Staff Discovery Institute April 1, 2004

SEATTLE – Since Discovery Institute first published its statement of dissent from Darwin in 2001, more than 300 scientists have courageously stepped forward and signed onto a growing list of scientists of all disciplines voicing their skepticism over the central tenets of Darwin’s theory of evolution and urging “careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

“A growing number of scientists around the world no longer believe that natural selection or chemistry, alone, can explain the origins of life, and while they are still a minority, they are a growing minority,” said Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute. “It is an important day in science when biologists are bold enough to challenge one of the leading theories in their profession.”

During recent decades, new scientific evidence from many scientific disciplines such as cosmology, physics, biology, "artificial intelligence" research, and others have caused scientists to begin questioning Darwinism’s central tenet of natural selection and studying the evidence supporting it in greater detail.

The full statement signed by the biologists reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

“Darwin’s shrillest defenders continue to claim there is no scientific debate and no legitimate scientists who question neo-Darwinian evolution and yet again that claim is shown to be false,” said John West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.

The list, started in 2001, continues to grow on a weekly basis. Biologists who have signed the list include prominent scientists such as evolutionary biologist and textbook author Dr. Stanley Salthe, and Giuseppe Sermonti the Editor of Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum. The list of biologists also includes scientists from Princeton, Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Ohio State University, Purdue and University of Washington among others.

About Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute promotes ideas in the common sense tradition of representative government, the free market and individual liberty. Current projects include work in technology, science and culture, the economy, transportation, and the bi-national region of "Cascadia." Visit Discovery online: www.discovery.org.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman06/kauffman06_index.html
STUART A. KAUFFMAN is a professor at the University of Calgary with a shared appointment between biological sciences and physics and astronomy. He is also the leader of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics (IBI) which conducts leading-edge interdisciplinary research in systems biology.

Dr. Kauffman is also an emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, a MacArthur Fellow and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is the author of The Origins of Order, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization, and Investigations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/margulis/

Lynn Margulis is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983, received from William J. Clinton the Presidential Medal of Science in 1999. The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., announced in 1998 that it will permanently archive her papers. She was a faculty mentor at Boston University for 22 years.

She does, however, hold a negative view of certain interpretations of Neo-Darwinism, excessively focused on inter-organismic competition, as she believes that history will ultimately judge them as comprising "a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon Biology."[6] She also believes that proponents of the standard theory "wallow in their zoological, capitalistic, competitive, cost-benefit interpretation of Darwin - having mistaken him... Neo-Darwinism, which insists on (the slow accrual of mutations by gene-level natural selection), is a complete funk."[7]