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Biotech Science

Pittsburgh Professors Challenge Darwin 193

Posted by Zonk from the friday's-right-for-fighting dept.
Syberghost writes "Darwin's Theory of Evolution comes under an interesting attack from an American anthropologist and an Italian biochemist, according to an article from University of Pittsburgh's school newspaper. In a nutshell, Schwartz and Maresca argue that change is not gradual as Darwin stated, but comes rapidly in response to drastic mutations caused by shifting environmental conditions."
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Pittsburgh Professors Challenge Darwin More

Pittsburgh Professors Challenge Darwin

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  • Pardon my ignorance but (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BitterAndDrunk ( 799378 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @05:49PM (#14690525) Homepage Journal
    Isn't that simply punctuated equilibrium? I'd thought it was already considered part of current evolutionary theory. I'm a neophyte so I'm probably way off; someone correct me. (and no FSM references please; they're already hack and it's under a year old)
    • I have read their original research, put this clearly seems to be a new form of Gould's and Eldredge's theory [wikipedia.org].
    • Yes, punctuated equilibrium. For the uninitiated, imagine a differentiable manifold called 'utility'. Evolution drives to maximize utility, but it's easy to get stuck in local maxima. That's when an ecosystem is in equilibrium. It takes drastic environmental change to knock everyone out of that local maximum and maybe look for a new one.

      On another note, Darwin supports his theory of evolution. He looks like a monkey! [wikipedia.org]

      • Re:Pardon my ignorance but (Score:4, Insightful)

        by the gnat ( 153162 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:19PM (#14690796)
        It takes drastic environmental change to knock everyone out of that local maximum and maybe look for a new one.

        I've never been clear on the distinction between P.U. and catastrophism (not in the Velikovsky sense, though). When I first learned about the fossil record, a major point was the mass extinctions that have occurred throughout history. The "Cambrian explosion" is thought to have followed the extinction of >80% of all species, where entire phyla were wiped out. Perhaps not coincidentally, all modern phyla were present in the Cambrian era. (If memory serves there were several even worse extinctions that followed.) The naive but obvious conclusion I drew from this is that massive changes in ecosystem and depopulation of niches increased the potential for adaptive radiation as organisms moved into new niches. This would also mean that more mutations might yield an increase in fitness, since what determines fitness would be so drastically different. In a stable ecosystem, in contrast, niches don't get emptied or added and hence populations stay more static.

        Is this part of the modern evolutionary theory? (I am a biophysicist, but I don't know much about evolutionary theory.)
        • In a stable ecosystem, in contrast, niches don't get emptied or added and hence populations stay more static.

          But the earth isn't that static. Ice ages, volcanos, forest fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like can all dramatically change an ecosystem. Moreover, consider that a mutation in one species, once it becomes widely propogated, might trigger a stress on a predator or prey of that species. PU is small-scale, catastrophism is large; catastrophism is also more likely to wipe out all members
        • I'm a mathematician, not a biologist. But I've studied all sorts of models of evolutionary development as part of a computational class in the philosophy of life and artificial life. From what I've gathered, your insights are indeed a part of modern evolutionary theory. However, the theory is very fragmented. As I mentioned, there are many competing models for evolutionary development that fit within the known empirical data. They're all nice models, but more information is needed before any one of the
        • David Raup proposed that an environment that was too stable could lead to extinction when it finally changed. Organisms fed a diet of change will be able to adapt to change while those given a static environment will not. This isn't really an answer to your question (or even a proven theory), but relevant perhaps...

      • imagine a differentiable manifold

        You aren't a mathematics student by any chance are you? I hope to god you are otherwise I shall lose all faith in the human race...
      • Darwin, theory of evolution, I sense an obligatory post coming...

        Punctuated Design!
        ... No, doesn't make sense.

        Intelligent Punctuation!
        ... No, not on slashdot.

        Designed Equilibrium!
        ... Ah, there it is!

    • Re:Pardon my ignorance but (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @05:54PM (#14690587) Journal
      I agree with your analysis. How is this new at all? We've know for decades that simple mutation-and-selection doesn't drive change anywhere near fast enough to account for history. The current theory as I know it as a layman is that occasional periods of rapid change are needed, and no biologist has believed in "Darwinian" evolution for generations.

      I suspect these fellows have some interesting new postulate, and the Pitt News just got it wrong.

      • It's not news, it's a PR piece. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TCQuad ( 537187 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:01PM (#14690649)
        I suspect these fellows have some interesting new postulate, and the Pitt News just got it wrong.

        From the banner at the top of the site, the Pitt News is a student newspaper. Student newspapers quite often do little fluff pieces on professors in various departments.
        • When I was there I only read it for the Police blogs. They were the best part.

          I can't really see it matching the Washington Post or New York Times any time soon.

          Sean D.

      • "We've know for decades that simple mutation-and-selection doesn't drive change anywhere near fast enough to account for history. The current theory as I know it as a layman is that occasional periods of rapid change are needed, and no biologist has believed in "Darwinian" evolution for generations."

        You've pretty much got most of that wrong. First of all, observed rates of morphological change are many times FASTER than even the fastest transition in the fossil record. The problem isn't that changes happe

    • Yes, it's just punctuated equilibrium, and it's been discussed quite a lot for many years and really doesn't contradict Darwinism at all. No one is suggesting that evolution happens via "saltation" - when genomes makea radical shifts in one generation. Large random changes in a genome are just about guaranteed to be nonviable. The only thing that is even apparently controversial (it really isn't) is whether the rate of change is hihgly variable or not.

      Dawrwinism proposes that such powerful evolutionar

    • Re:Pardon my ignorance but (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gansch ( 939712 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:32PM (#14690888)
      Although this is similar to punctuated equilibria, it is not appear to be identical. In punctuated equilibria, there are periods of statis with little evolution of new species, interspersed with periods of rapid speciation in many species. This theory seems to apply more to single species, in which the number of individuals with a recessive mutation reach some sort of critical mass, at which time the recessive trait manifests itself and speciation occurs.
    • MrFlibbs' highly rated comment above is suggesting that this theory says environmental stresses could lead to simultaneous mutations in different members of the same species, and the species wouldn't necessarily need a common ancestor for each individual gene. That's certainly different from punctuated equilibrium.

      There's nothing in the article that leads me to that reading, though, so yeah, either MrFlibb read the actual research and found something more than the article, or this sounds like total crap.
      • Not unless the stressor is a mutagen, certain chemical insults or radiation for example.

        Environmental stress leads to changes in selective pressure (not in mutation), and often to changes in the traits subject to significant directional selective pressure. This acts on the ongoing background (and relatively constant) mutation rate, to drive divergence from the existing means and toward some new equilibrium, and you get rapid evolutionary divergence from the parent population.

        Also, there is nothing in exist
        • Environmental stress leads to changes in selective pressure (not in mutation)

          Heat shock proteins, released during times of stress, can increase mutation rates. There are a number of types of environmental stress, outside of chemical or radiological insults, which can influence mutation rates.

          This acts on the ongoing background (and relatively constant) mutation rate

          I realize that some very respectable researchers have asserted a fairly constant mutation rate, but the hypervariable regions of viruses (along
        • Yes, totally.
          Also, there is nothing in existing evolutionary theory that restricts speciation in a small or stressed population to a single common ancestor.
          Wouldn't any individual gene be traceable to a common ancestor? Unless the identical mutation occurred twice? (And that's the subject of this imaginary theory that MrFlibs accidentally read into the bad science writing)
      • If thats all they are saying, then what is all this stuff about "challenging evolution" or dogmatism and all this other nonsense. At most, this guy is presenting a new mechanism for variation wherein certain "good trick" stressors cause similar mutations in certain circumstances. Frankly, sounds pretty implausible to me, but even if it were true, I don't see how we get from there to "indoctrination" and al this othre nonsense. This guy sounds like a bit of a crackpot as far as his rhetoric goes.

    • I wrote a reply to that effect: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Morosoph ( 693565 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @07:35PM (#14691303) Homepage Journal
      Given the modern controversy over the role of natural selection, the article is misleading, and the headline is wrong.

      The professor hasn't challenged evolution by natural selection, but rather gradualism, as did Steven J. Gould. Darwin did posit gradualism, so an accurate headline would have been to say that the professor had challenged Darwin. As it is, it appears that it is the theory of evolution, rather than the detail of Charles Darwin's theories that is being challenged.

      The article is to be commended upon the elucidation of the "dual mutation theory"; is it a shame that it did not make clearer that this theory restores natural selection to the driving seat.

      This is important, since responsible editing that promotes truth over political advantage should seek avoid false inferences from being drawn by the less sophisticated.

      Faithfully,

      • Gould did not challenge gradualism. He challenged phyletic gradualism. And actually he wasn't really even the big force that made that view obsolete. It was genetics, which discovered that the vast majority of DNA is non-coding, and so actual changes to the coding portions would come in fits and starts rather than at a consistent steady pace.

        But of course, creationists and ID theorists never tell you THAT part of the story. Just that Gould supposedly called into question all of evolution and showed that
    • FTA:

      "If you look at the fossil record, organisms didn't gain new items like teeth and jaws gradually," Schwartz said. "It's not like fish developed bony teeth one piece at a time. It happened suddenly."

      BitterAndDrunk said:

      "Isn't that simply punctuated equilibrium?"

      Bingo! Stephen would be quite pround of you. =)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibriu m [wikipedia.org]
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould [wikipedia.org]

    • What sounds wrong to me is the claim that since cells protect themselves against change, they won't change slowly over time. It's well documented that radiation and chemicals can cause mutations, despite whatver protective measures the cells have. It's those mutations that have been thought to drive evolution. I'm not a paleontologist or anything, but it seems that all these guys are saying is that there are additional environmental stressors that might contribute to sudden change. As others have noted, thi
  • Shifting environmental conditions which are, of course, controlled by the Intelligent Designer, allowing Him... I'm sorry, uh, it to create all these diverse forms of life in just six thousand... oops, did it again, sorry, a few million years. (Seriously, though, did you read some of the comments posted on that page that TFA is on? Yikes!)

    • I RTFA... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Spy der Mann ( 805235 )
      This theory states that on radical environment conditions, some naturally-produced "mutation inhibitors" are reduced, creating mutations in large populations. These mutations are invisible, i.e. in the form of recessive genes, until two individuals with the same gene have an offspring.

      Of course, nothing guarantees that the offspring won't be a horrible mutant and die because of an "unknown disease".

      • Re:I RTFA... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by usrusr ( 654450 )
        while this is interesting, don't we, as double-helix driven beings, have a lot of dormant genes that are only triggered by extreme environmental conditions?

        these things could mutate over hundreds of generations without ever harming individual fitness and then suddenly get triggered, exposing a shitload of mutations at once, spread in different variations over the whole population.

        Those new findings would only strengthen an already strong mechanism.
    • There's some crazy, crazy, irrational people out there. I'm not sure they aren't growing innumbers as well.

      Welcome to the new dark ages....

  • Misleading, sensationalist headline. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Friday February 10, 2006 @05:50PM (#14690532)

    The title of TFA reads, "Professor Challenges Evolution", when in fact he is doing nothing of the sort.

    From TFA:
    Schwartz refuted Darwin's theory of gradual evolution in organisms with one that states that evolution occurs quickly and suddenly as the result of cell mutations.
    While Schwartz is challenging a specific premise of evolutionary doctrine, he is by no means refuting the entire theory. Apparently, Nan Ama Sarfo felt the story would be read more if it appeared to jump on the anti-evolution ID bandwagon.

    Shame on you, Nan.

    • Re:Misleading, sensationalist headline. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by greginnj ( 891863 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:19PM (#14690789) Homepage Journal
      Shame on you, Nan.
      Don't blame Nan, the prof set her up:
      "Darwinism's presence in science is so overwhelming," Schwartz said. "For the longest time, there was no room for alternative thinking among the scientific community."
      Point one, he's feeding her the extremism, she isn't including it herself. Second, his second line is complete and utter bs. As others have noted, this warm-over of punctuated equilibria is a challenge to Natural Selection as the mechanism of evolution, not to evolution itself. Doing science is always about challenging the previous order -- it's only the stuff that's new and different that even gets published.

      But why is he doing this? Here's a clue:
      Jeffrey Schwartz -- a Pitt professor in the department of anthropology and the department of history and philosophy of science ...
      Hmm, interesting fields he's in. Just like Steve Fuller did in the Dover ID trial, some people in philosophy of science have a vested interest in creating the appearance of warring camps of ideas rather than evidence-based epistemology. To paraphrase them, 'science is about persuading people, not proving ideas'.

      One more thing,Schwartz has been pushing this idea for 6 years, it's not new news even for him:

      Book Review published in 7/2000 [macrodevelopment.org]
      • "As others have noted, this warm-over of punctuated equilibria is a challenge to Natural Selection as the mechanism of evolution, not to evolution itself. "

        I'm not sure what side you are on, but it needs to be made clear that punctuated equilibrium DOES NOT challenge natural selection as the mechanism for evolution. Punctuated equilibrium simply refines the time scales over which natural selection works.

        If, for example, the Great Rift Valley in Africa warmed significantly over a few hundred thousand years,
        • Thanks for the detailed response. As for 'not being sure what side [I'm] on', it's one of those history/philosophy of science gags; you're supposed to be paradigm neutral. I understand the mechanism and math of punctuated equilibrium pretty well; I thought that in the last 20 years or so it's become the generally-accepted view. As I noted in another post:

          Most users of the term 'Natural Selection' use it to refer to classic, gradualist, longer-and-longer-necked-giraffes, selection; in other words, Darwin



      •   Pardon my ignorance, but can't all three theories be true, in that all of them (and likely other things we don't understand yet) be driving forces of evolution?

        SB

      • "Darwinism's presence in science is so overwhelming," Schwartz said. "For the longest time, there was no room for alternative thinking among the scientific community."

        Point one, he's feeding her the extremism, she isn't including it herself. Second, his second line is complete and utter bs. As others have noted, this warm-over of punctuated equilibria is a challenge to Natural Selection as the mechanism of evolution, not to evolution itself.

        I seem to disctinctly remember Richard Dawkins attacking Pu

  • Damn Professors! (Score:5, Funny)

    by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @05:56PM (#14690609)
    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is it with these Pittsburgh professors repudiating the open source core of Mac OS X? Darwin is a solid UNIX foundation for a great operating system; if these professors can't see that, they must not understand how intelligently designed it is!
    • I don't find that so objectionable, but the article portrays it as though they're repudiating my favorite graphical email client, which really seems to overstate their real claims.

      • RTFA (Score:3, Funny)

        by LightningBolt! ( 664763 )
        Their not repudiating Evolution! They're simply saying that it runs faster on "Schwartz and Maresca" than it does on Darwin. Although the article doesn't say it, I'm pretty sure "Schartz and Maresca" is a Linux distro, a.k.a. "S&M Linux".

  • Before this devolves into an ID blast-fest ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MrFlibbs ( 945469 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @05:56PM (#14690610)
    ... please RTFA. All the guy is saying is that sudden changes are brought about by environmental stress creating recessive genes, and these bring about rapid changes in a population after the recessives start combining in offspring.

    The only feature of classic Darwinism that he's refuting is about a single organism's offspring being the only one with the new trait. Interesting notion, but hardly revolutionary.

  • -1, deceptive headline (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stoutlimb ( 143245 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @05:57PM (#14690613)
    How much more inflammatory can one get? The article should read "Scientists debate the details of how evolution happens." Talk about being deliberately inflammatory.
    • I'm equally fed up of these sensationalised headlines.

      Please, everyone, email Zonk at games@slashdot.org and tell him to stop doing this. This is just too annoying.
    • ......"Scientists debate the details of how evolution happens." ......

      True science involves experimentation thereby exploring the underlying laws of nature. Until a few hundred years or so ago, scientific philosophers debated about how fast light went, how things fall, the nature and position of the planets alongside with how many Angels could dance on the head of a pin etc. Then a few daring individuals did experiments that shattered, to the great chagrin and fierce resistance of these "scientists", many
      • Evolution and ID are philosophical or religious notions of how things came to be, but are not science, since neither have been nor can be demonstrated or refuted by experiment.

        Evolution could have been refuted by contradictory finds in the fossil record. Recent discoveries of ERV insertions in primate DNA could have blown common descent out of the water. Instead, ERV insertion observations added yet more compelling evidence for primate evolution, including humans.

        Lying about evolution and lying about scie
        • .....Evolution could have been refuted.... ....Evolution could have been refuted....

          Neither evolution, creationism or ID have been proved or refuted by repeatable EXPERIMENTS, such as are done in other branches of science. All of them are philosophies, not science. You may be more comfortable with one of these, but NONE of them are supported and tested in the LABORATORY, such as other real sciences are. REAL science is repeatable. Einstein's theories seemed far out when first put forth, but have been EXPERI
          • .....Evolution could have been refuted.... ....Evolution could have been refuted....

            Yes "could have been". As in the potential existed. But it wasn't refuted, because the evidence didn't contradict it.

            Neither evolution, creationism or ID have been proved or refuted by repeatable EXPERIMENTS,

            No amount of "experimenting" will "prove" any explanation in science. Absolutely nothing in science is ever proven. Claiming that evolution is not science because it cannot be "proven" only demonstrates that you are
            • ....No amount of "experimenting" will "prove" any explanation in science. Absolutely nothing in science is ever proven......

              Experimentation by definition IS science. If a theory cannot be tested by experiment, it is a philosophy. Until a few centuries ago, philosophers argued back and forth about beliefs. After that, real science, based on experiments came to be, PROVED over and over again which beliefs were true. Philosophers and religious teachers speculate and argue, but Scientists try to discover TRUTH
              • What a strange definition of science. And which scientific theories do you think have ever been "proved"?

                Your use of capital letters is very convincing, but the idea that "science" excludes evolutionary biology, geology, cosmology and linguistics (and the other historical sciences) is a strange one. All these endeavours make testable, falsifiable predictions and are therefore science by any reasonable definition.
                • ....And which scientific theories do you think have ever been "proved"...

                  -> The theories of electrodynamics, which have resulted in all the wonderful gadgets, such as the computer you are now reading this on. -> The theory of nuclear fission, which has resulted in weapons that could destroy mankind.
                  -> The theories behind the chemical reactions of both life and non-life, that make possible the modern materials all around you.
                  -> Einstein theories and quantum theories have been experimentally verif

  • Punctuated Equilibrium (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CODiNE ( 27417 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @05:58PM (#14690625) Homepage
    As has already been posted, this is a well known theory and as far as I know what the currently accepted evolutionary model suggests.

    I think the point he's making is that it's simply not being taught. I know plenty of people (especially on Slashdot) who still believe the old "millions of years of small gradual changes" bit. Natural selection and gradual modification MAKE SENSE to most people and seems fairly persuasive, but it's not really what happened. Honestly I think it's a bit of bait 'n switch... explain evolution one way to a person, then later on "Oh by the way nobody really believes that."
    • And I know lots of people who still think that momentum = mass * velocity. Maybe we should write an article saying that I've proved physics wrong because schools teach it incorrectly. Or maybe we should realise that people learn things in stages - simplistic explanation first.
    • "I know plenty of people (especially on Slashdot) who still believe the old "millions of years of small gradual changes" bit."

      There's nothing substantially wrong with that statement at all, as long as no one thinks that "gradual" means "evenly paced morphologic change." In terms of actual adaptive change, evolution is still the accumulation of small changes no matter how you slice it. There are certainly some seemingly major jumps, but these are in fact themselves fairly simple in terms of the complexity
  • Obviously when changes happen, they happen rapidly via mutations. However, over time all these mutations "add up" so to speak, so Darwinism as we know it is still very much at work.

    I highly doubt that one day we were born from a monkey with exactly the same mutations that are present in us all today - over time things just worked out this way.

    Perhaps someone who isn't still drunk from last night can better explain where I'm coming from? :)
    • ......Perhaps someone who isn't still drunk from last night can better explain where I'm coming from.....

      There are basically two choices, but both are BELIEFS you can choose from.

      One is: The path of your origins is "out of the goo by way of the zoo to you".

      The other is: Your ancestors were put here by a transcendent Creator God who has a purpose for your existence.

      Neither of the above can be "proved", but you may believe one or the other. Many, if not most people still believe the latter is more satisfying.
      • There are basically two choices, but both are BELIEFS you can choose from.

        False dichotomy. Also misrepresents the status of evolution, which is well-supported by a mountain of evidence.

        One is: The path of your origins is "out of the goo by way of the zoo to you".

        Hopelessly oversimplified statement of the theory of evolution.

        The other is: Your ancestors were put here by a transcendent Creator God who has a purpose for your existence.

        Why is this mutually exclusive with evolution? Why is this the only other
      • "Neither of the above can be "proved", but you may believe one or the other. "

        Common descent is proven, sorry. If you are not an ape, descended from other apes, then what are ape molars doing in your mouth? How come you have exactly the same number of hair folicles as an ape? Why do you have the same sort of rotational shoulder that is unique to apes? And so on. You can't escape placing humanity, as well as every other creature, into a single tree of descent. The evidence converges from so many differ
        • ....If you are not an ape, descended from other apes, then what are ape molars doing in your mouth?....

          Yes and my Honda descended from a Ford some time ago. If you are a car, how come you have four wheels, steering mechanism and some kind of engine etc? Common characteristics in no way proves descent. If any thing this tends to show that whoever DESIGNED the ape used some similar components for you and me to accomplish the task of chewing food. Human designers do that all the time -- re-use operational comp
          • It's interesting that you brought up the example of cars, because of course cars do not and cannot be made to fit into a tree of descent with modification like living things. With cars, features and traits can spread across lineages without any regard to time and space connections being necessary between models. That's the sort of thing that designers do. And that's completely absent, in every regard, from biological life.

            In biological life, we end up with patterns that are necessarily linked in both tim
            • ....They just happened to pick the exact same number of hair follicles....

              Living things are much more diverse than manmade devices, but nevertheless have many common design features. The underlying chemistry of life with its DNA codes is a tried and true design, just as 4 wheels are in an automobile. The very nature of bio-identification, such as fingerprints, iris scans and the blood vessels in the palm of your hands depend on the uniqueness of each individual. The structure of hemoglobin is similar in al
              • "Living things are much more diverse than manmade devices, but nevertheless have many common design features."

                Common design features are not at all demanded by design (since design demands nothing in particular at all: that's why it's useless as an explanation), but they are absolutely demanded by common descent. And not just similarities: a very very specific pattern of similarities.

                "The underlying chemistry of life with its DNA codes is a tried and true design, just as 4 wheels are in an automobile."

                The

  • I liked this theory bettery... (Score:4, Informative)

    by rdwald ( 831442 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:03PM (#14690671)
    ...when Gould came up with it 20 years ago.

    Seriously, is the author of TFA a moron or what? Punctuated Equilibria is not the same as "Science is wrong!!!11one"

  • this poor researcher (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrpeebles ( 853978 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:06PM (#14690696)
    Can you imagine how this poor guy must feel? You try to publish some paper (I don't know how important it is), the popular press picks up on it and headlines it with "Professor challenges evolution." I for one know that if this happened to a friend of mine, I would tease them about it for YEARS.
    • Actually as others have pointed, it's the professors fault, and (afaics) we should be feeling sorry for the student who wrote the paper.

      "Darwinism's presence in science is so overwhelming," Schwartz said. "For the longest time, there was no room for alternative thinking among the scientific community."
          -- the prof who published the paper

  • Poppycock (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:07PM (#14690705)
    The concept that the idea of rapid change is a revolutionary attack on Darwinism is poppycock.

    Darwin's thesis is in two parts - that evolution occurs, and that the mechanism is natural selection. The first part is not under any scientific debate. The second part, the proposal that natural selection is the mechanism has been understood to be not the best mechanism for the process of evolution has been understood for nearly 100 years. Darwin did not understand genes, genetics, nor the mechanisms of genetic drift that occur within populations. This knowedge postdates Darwin's original work.

    The understanding of evolutionary mechanism works at the level of genes, and populations whereas Darwinism was concerned mainly with species.

    This view of the mechanism of evolution is widely misunderstood in the creationistic and anti-evolution communities, and ignorant articles often appear trying to discredit evolution based on a fundamental misappropriation of the topic.

    It's a shame that this sort of article was published on Slashdot - it shows a great ignorance of the topic.

    • I was getting so sick of the BS that a while before the (southern) summer holidays I dragged my ancient but previously unopened The Origin of Species out of my bookshelves as occasional train reading, now 90% done.

      When Darwin wrote it, heritability was clearly accepted as a fact, but nobody was close to thinking about the mechanisms in any more detail than an almost prurient interest in the diversity of mechanisms for reproduction.

      Over and over Darwin emphasises that variation necessarily precedes selection

  • Why is it one or the other (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Swisssushi ( 817358 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:17PM (#14690778) Homepage
    As with so many arguments in society and science, people almost always need to choose one side or the other. In the evolutionary theory debates, the battle between the gradual change camp and the punctuated equilibrium camp has been going on for a long long time. As an antro major, we discussed both ideas in class, but really never talked about "what if it's both". The idea that change is always gradual has its merits in that biology is always trying little experiments in adaptation (e.g. mutations). Most don't work, but some get to hang around and eventually get expressed rather regularly in a population. Then, under a specific stressor, those organisms with that trait suddenly have an advantage over their brethren. The ones without this nifty trait die off leaving the ones with the trait. This gets seen as a sudden adaptation in the fossil record, even though the development of the trait was gradual. In general, biology doesn't work fast enough to respond to rapid environmental stressors. Biology of different organisms work along the same time lines as the organism's reproductive cycles. Bacteria can change more quickly than apes because bacteria reproduce much more quickly, but relative to the organisms themselves, the changes are slow.
    • "In the evolutionary theory debates, the battle between the gradual change camp and the punctuated equilibrium camp has been going on for a long long time. As an antro major, we discussed both ideas in class, but really never talked about 'what if it's both'."

      Gould and Eldredge explicitly stated that punctuated equilibrium and gradualism are not mutually exclusive. It's actually a little bit funnier than that. When Gould and Eldredge came out with punctuated equilibrium, those that they pegged as gradu

    • Bacteria can change more quickly than apes because bacteria reproduce much more quickly, but relative to the organisms themselves, the changes are slow.

      Just a technicality, that's not the full picture: An additional reason bacteria can change more quickly than cellular organisms is that they can actually absorb and exchange genes directly. Thus even a single bacterium can within its own lifetime "evolve" quite dramatically, in a way that has no parallel in complex life forms like apes ... it's a totally d

  • ID will miss the lesson (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MuNansen ( 833037 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:24PM (#14690831)
    What's funny is that this article is a great example of how evolution isn't a dogma. The scientific community is constantly seeking to improve or amend it. Insteal the ID'ers (funny how close that is to "idolaters") will just use the headline "Scientists disprove Evolution."
    • Insteal the ID'ers (funny how close that is to "idolaters") will just use the headline "Scientists disprove Evolution."

      Indeed, I've seen creationists making this exact claim on conservative discussion forums. One creationist even said that he was going to add Professor Schwartz to a list that he was compiling of scientists who agree that evolution is "religious dogma" (this stemmed from a previous discussion where he claimed that "thousands" of scientists would agree to such a statement but absolutely refu

  • Actual article by Schwartz and Maresca (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bowling Moses ( 591924 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @06:26PM (#14690846) Journal
    The actual article is available from The Anatomical Record Part B: The New Anatomist" [wiley.com] volume 289B, Issue 1 , Pages 38 - 46. The abstract's free, although the article itself may require a subscription or university account. The flareup seems to be with this sentence in the abstract (I haven't read more yet): "In evolutionary terms, extreme spikes in environmental stress make possible the emergence of new genetic and consequent developmental and epigenetic networks, and thus also the emergence of potentially new morphological traits, without invoking geographic or other isolating mechanisms." In other words, a change in the environment puts organisms under extreme stress, overloading the ability of various DNA repair mechanisms to counteract DNA damage and mutation, occasionally resulting in novel, beneficial mutations. Several other posters have already said this really isn't anything new, for instance it's known that some bacteria actively mutate their DNA in response to extreme environmental stress. The author (Schwartz) may be hyping his claims some, but really it looks like a case of the reporter going gonzo, and might be a creationist yahoo to boot.
    • ......for instance it's known that some bacteria actively mutate their DNA in response to extreme environmental stress....

      Even when they do, they are basically still the same bacteria. An e-coli or coccus may adapt to stress, but they still remain one or the other even though both have adapted to survive. No distinct new type of bacteria is created that might have some of the best traits of either.
    • Read the quotes from the guy. It looks like he's the one going gonzo: all these quotes about "dogmatism" and "I've disproved Darwin bwahahaha!"

      At best, what he describes is one of MANY known engines of variation in genomes. The idea that discovering a mechanism of increased variation is a challenge to the idea of natural selection is utterly absurd. This really sounds like the case of a US crackpot who is hyping beyond recognition the otherwise perfectly mainstream work of an Italian scientist.
  • I mean, what else are you going to develop for? OpenSolaris? I think NOT!

  • Luria and Delbruck (Score:2, Informative)

    by milamber3 ( 173273 )
    Wasn't this whole debate put to rest in the luria and Delbruck experiments where they showed random mutation leads to resistance not acquired immunity? Basically showing that the enviromental condition doesn't lead to the evolution it's all random.

  • Whether or not you consider evolution to... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Expert Determination ( 950523 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @07:27PM (#14691246)
    ...be "gradual" or "sudden" is a function of the granularity you work at. If you take a broad overview of evolutionary history then it looks very gradual. An expert in bivalves might consider the lengthening of a shell by 2mm in a time too small to discern from the fossil record as something sudden whereas most people, in particular those studying evolution for the first time, would be entirely justified in considering the change to be gradual. So please, if you're going to argue about this, define your terms.
    • Wish I had mod points. (To clarify, I'd mod this comment +1, Insightful.)

      I believe that the biggest impediment to understanding evolution is that people can't wrap their heads around the time scales involved. Even punctuated equilibrum argues that it takes millenia (thousands of generations) for macro changes to occur.

  • Not a challenge at all (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 955301 ( 209856 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @08:13PM (#14691520) Journal
    Please, stop with the sensationalism.

    All this means is that the size of a step in a particular direction an animal can take can be large to accomodate a large environmental impulse. But most environmental changes are gradual and therefore most responses are as well. Otherwise there would be big oscillations, e.g., an ostrich has a parakeet which has a penguin, etc.

    Control system 101. The guy just thinks the steps can be greater than we imagine. Makes sense since we don't get many opporunities to experience significant changes.

  • One tooth at a time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gorrepati ( 866378 )
    It is common knowledge that Darwins theory does not specifically goes into details, but gives a general framework to think evolution of organisms in. Though it is not proved, people in the community have a sense that some mutations are not gradual, and evolution does not solve some problems twice. Genetic code contains a lot of junk, but people do feel that junk has a purpose like memory about past problems. Coming to the funny part, as this guy states about evolution, fish did not ever try to grow one
  • Stephen J. Gould whoops with triumph in his grave.
  • SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!
    Be at the Pennsylvania state fairgrounds!

    As the Deadly duo

    The Pittsburgh Professors
    challenge the
    Father of Modern Biology

    Charles Darwin
    to a handicap grudge match in the steel cage.

    It promises to be a match the world will never forget as high flying theories and hard core evidence are used to bash each others skulls in.
    The Violence! The Pain! The pure Savagery! This match is not for the faint of heart, only come if you want pure action.
    Ticket are on sale RIGHT NOW

  • Seems like a good time to discuss misconceptions (Score:3, Informative)

    by plunge ( 27239 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @04:49AM (#14693380)
    This article, in a word, is bunk. The claims this guy is making are goofy and demonstrably misinformed about what evolutionary theory is.

    Some basic background:

    Punk eek was opposed to phyletic uniformatism/gradualism (which many consider to have been a cheap straw man anyway). This was a debate over macroevolutionary history: the patterns of large scale morphological and species change. Contrary to popular opinion, macroevolutionary change is subject to all sorts of different forces: things like large scale, genetic drift, extinction events, and so on. No biologist claims that natural selection is the only factor in the particular history of life on earth.

    This guy is is not talking about things on the scale of punk eek. He's talking about things on the scale of microevolution, and what he's proposing seems to be a form of saltationism. At best, he's attacking a purported gradualism in actual mutation rates (which itself is nonsense: it's mainstream genetics that different species have all sorts of different mutation rates as well as different rates of morphological change). But for all the rhetoric, nothing he says that's actually correct is even slightly revolutionary. At best, he's proposing another mechanism for variation: variation that involves "good tricks" in a certain genomic sequence that environmental stressors can make happen in many different individuals at once. But variation of ANY sort still just provides the raw material for natural selection to work on. And without natural selection at work, mutation would still be just ultimately random garbage. It's only by placing mutations through the sieve of actually being expressed in individuals that any information about the environment can be imprinted onto a given gene pool. That's the only way we know of that random jostling can be transformed into functional movement. For the mutations to somehow "predict" or "will themselves" to happen in certain linked ways that have a non-random purpose requires some other mechanism, and this guy proposes nothing.

    And that's me being the most charitable. Most of the rest of what the guy says is just total nonsense. For instance, he implies that cellular repair systems resist mutation (heck, he even speaks about whether they "willingly" resist change or not!). Well... yes. But they fail. All the time. Most everyone reading this has recent and unique several mutations, right now. And that's not even to mention that you'd have to be grossly misinformed about Darwin to think that "Darwins theory" says ANYTHING about genetic mutation. Darwin hadn't a clue what genes or DNA or the rest of it even were! All he spoke about was the differential success of different variations. Of course, what Darwin thought is irrelevant trivia to what is true in biology, but still, this guy is just showing both his ignorance and his obsession with the idea that Darwin is some sort of "high priest" whom he is fighting against.

    Now consider this: "according to Schwartz, mutations occur recessively and are passed unknowingly until the mutation saturates the population. Then, when members of the population receive two copies of the mutation, the trait appears suddenly."

    Either the reporter got this wrong, or this guy is really misinformed. Mutations can be recessive or dominant. Nothing about them makes them occur "recessively" only. While the scenario he describes can and does happen (recessive traits that don't really start appearing in force in a population until they become near fixed), nothing about it is particularly revolutionary. And something with complex functionality and specification like fully formed "teeth" is not going to evolve completely out of sight, unexpressed, and then burst onto the scene all at once. That, kids, is called saltation, and while big saltationist jumps can certainly happen (and can spring out via the recessive/dominant pathway), they are very very very unlikely to ever hit upon something functional and useful. Remember: only the actual testing

  • Evolution of theories (Score:3, Insightful)

    by VincenzoRomano ( 881055 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @05:48AM (#14693497) Homepage Journal
    I think that none should trash any theory, unless there are some clear evidences and, much better, when there is one theory able to provide answers when the other ones cannot.
    Evolution theory seems to be quite reasonable because it seems to rely on very few postulates when compared to other theories.
    If other theories need fewer postulates and provide more answers, then chances there are that they will succeed.
    I'd suggest a quick read of "The Fabric of reality" [penguin.co.uk] by David Deutsch [wikipedia.org] for deeper details about this philosophy.
    In any case theories about evolution are themselves subject to evolution whenever the objective is to provide answers.
  • There's hardly any subject that weeds out the people who can think from those who can't more effectively.

    Darwin based his theory on morphological observations long before the genetic mechanisms were first postulated. Darwin couldn't even have defined "rate of change" within the modern view. I was reading about rare blood types just the other day.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type [wikipedia.org]

    Rare blood types can cause supply problems for blood banks and hospitals. For example, U-negative and Duffy-negative are tw

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