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The Evolution Revolution: Why Thinking People Are Rethinking the Theory of Evolution
Why Thinking People are Rethinking the Theory of Evolution is there evidence for evolution? We’ve all been educated about evolution -- about the fact that all living species have evolved from some primitive, single-celled life form, and the theory that it happened by means of random mutations and natural selection. Surprisingly, in this groundbreaking book Dr. Lee Spetner offers compelling evidence that the data we have supports neither the theory nor the fact of evolution. Instead, the data actually supports an entirely different theory, which, if correct, will have far-reaching consequences for humanity and revolutionize scientific research and education. This book is a must-read for any thinking person.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published November 6, 2014
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February 19, 2016
I reviewed this book and really stepped in it...
No, not because of the book itself, although the extra whiff of the author's religious interests probably intensified the reaction, but because of current scientific debate raging over evolution.
Here is my original review after finishing the book:
There is no evidence supporting evolution, in the sense of the action of natural selection on random mutations. It can't be observed, nor can it be shown that beneficial mutation stacked on beneficial mutation has a reasonable probability of occurrence. Therefore "the theory of evolution" is a story but not properly a theory, as it doesn't meet the criteria to be called a theory.
That doesn't mean, though, that evolution doesn't occur. There is evolution, in the sense of population change. It works by a different mechanism.
Scientists who believe in random mutation, common descent (from a single simple cell or organism) and natural selection are called neo-Darwinists. That's because in Darwin's day, DNA hadn't been discovered. Subsequent to its discovery, the major paradigm has been that random mutations of the DNA and the action of natural selection on them is the modus operandi of evolution.
Life is characterized by information, and information is encoded into the DNA. Neo-Darwinists believe information builds up toward greater complexity through evolution (in the sense of random mutations, common descent, and natural selection).
DNA doesn't only transmit information to the next generation; that isn't its only function. DNA also runs the cell. Nothing would happen without DNA.
There is DNA in the genome above and beyond that which is seen to be operative. Its function wasn't known, and so it was sometimes called "junk DNA."
Now it seems that there are mechanisms in place that suppress the activity of what had been known as junk DNA. Sometimes, environmental stress serves to trigger processes that disable the suppressing factor, so that some previously inactive DNA then becomes active. In other words, there are changes in the genome--albeit no new information.
And those changes in the genome are heritable. That is, they occur in the gametes as well as the other cells.
When one hears of such things, Lamarckism comes to mind: the discredited theory that changes acquired during one's lifetime are passed on to the next generation. For instance, the giraffe had less food available on the ground and had to stretch its neck for the high leaves, whereupon its offspring gets the longer neck as well. The difference is that now a mechanism for changes is known.
It is known that population change occurs and that it occurs relatively rapidly, as opposed to over the eons. I first encountered such a description of evolution in reading in Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion about foxes showing signs of domestication into dog-like creatures in only eight generations.
But it seems that the picture of evolution as possibly rapid and recent coexists with the evolution that takes place over the long run. According to Spetner, the population changes that occur in the short run and can be observed are considered by neo-Darwinists to be microevolution, while they consider macroevolution--that which is presumed to occur over eons via random mutation and natural selection--to be the real thing.
These thoughts occurred to me while I was studying The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined and what Steven Pinker had to say about changes in populations of people, but he, whom I presume is an avid neo-Darwinist, reassured me there was no evidence of such biological evolution (no evidence of changes in groups other than cultural).
Spetner provides numerous examples of recent evolutionary population changes. He also has a chapter in which he refutes all the common arguments for the standard neo-Darwinian paradigm.
I noticed that some of the neo-Darwinian claims are based on ignorance of the function of some apspect (i.e., we don't know the function of this DNA, or of this or that vestigial organ, therefore we assume it has no function and thus constitutes proof of an earlier status as a more primitive organism), while subsequently the function has been discovered. I thought that was ironic in light of the claim that religion is based on ignorance so has lost its role as knowledge has replaced ignorance.
I won't try to recount all the counterarguments. Just one more: There can be no phylogenetic tree that supports the neo-Darwinian picture, since plants or animals that look alike can be, in their DNA, more like the creature from which they adapted than each other.
Oh, and how the development of bacterial resistance, which is said to show how random mutations lead to evolution, does show random mutation and natural selection, but selection for less specificity, i.e., the degrading, not adding, of information, so could never lead to the build-up of information.
Spetner hypothesizes that the evolution we can observe and that takes place by mechanisms that can be studied constitutes the only evolution there is.
This thinking, which addresses how the whole shebang, including "the environment" and everything in it can work together, appeals to me. This sort of thinking moves away from the narrowly "human-centric." For example it addresses the concept of primates as "bees:" See the first block quote in my review of Guy Deutscher's Through the Language Glass.
My husband, who's more scientifically oriented, would try to tell me about what he was learning, but it always sounded to me like creationism. So he finally prevailed on me to read this book. Suffice it to say that this book does not prove creationism. On the other hand, it does not prove atheism, either. Apparently, the theory of evolution (standard paradigm) fell upon a social and political climate in which it was accepted (as gospel, one might say), whereas it may not have been at a later point. Spetner argues that there is no other discipline that is called science that would accept the sorts of rationales accepted in biology.
According to Spetner, neo-Darwinism purports to say how life arose and how new information gets added. His hypothesis is not explaining the former, and I don't think he is addressing the latter in this book, either.
Problem explanations in this review are mine, not the author's. He does not hide what he thinks via lack of clarity, nor does he mince words.
I thought of giving this book four stars, but since it's going to impact my thinking, I decided on five.
December 3, 2015 article in the New York Times: Parents May Pass Down More Than Just Genes, Study Suggests
I am going to add the link from comment 49 below. In the link a scientist actually deals with the author's hypotheses instead of polemicizing. The author does have hypotheses. To repeat, his book itself is scientific, not religious. http://wasdarwinwrong.com/kortho36.htm
However it seems to me the main issue is not this author. The main issue is whether evolution occurs by gene-based random mutation in the context of natural selection, or whether the environment is having a larger role, that is, an impact beyond natural selection. It seems more and more scientists think that is the case, while the defenders of neo-Darwinism tend to tar them all with the same brush: creationism.
And yes, they sometimes call themselves neo-Darwinists, even Dawkins. Another term for neo-Darwinism is "the modern synthesis." They do seem to talk about information and complexity. I haven't heard anyone speaking of the build-up of information but complexity, yes.
I will not likely be focusing on evolutionary biology in my reading, as that is not my main thrust. [I did ace two semesters of freshman biology plus the lab, and I got invited to return as a lab assistant in my sophomore year, but I left school to celebrate my part of the youth revolution; when I returned, it was not in biology.] But I'll watch the news to see what develops.
Whatever the deficiencies of this particular author (about whom objectivity was in short supply), reviewing the book and experiencing the reactions was a shock. I heard elements of straw-man and ad hominem in many responses; chest-pounding displays too. But those aren't occasioned only by this particular author. It is everywhere on this controversy of proponents of the modern synthesis versus dissenters. That's what I meant by saying I'd stepped in it. Stepped right in the middle of it. The shrillness and over-the-top reactions may not prove anything but sound to me like weakness.
The paradigm may be shifting. We can all watch and see what emerges.
An example of what I'm talking about in saying the issue isn't limited to this author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeqEB...
Here is a polemical response to the above, to show how it goes and maybe relieve potential responders of the imperative to make your own: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress....
First of three discussions with the man in the first video and Dawkins and others. Includes links to the other two videos. (There's a link to a long paper that doesn't work. I have it if you'd like.) http://www.voicesfromoxford.org/video...
No, not because of the book itself, although the extra whiff of the author's religious interests probably intensified the reaction, but because of current scientific debate raging over evolution.
Here is my original review after finishing the book:
There is no evidence supporting evolution, in the sense of the action of natural selection on random mutations. It can't be observed, nor can it be shown that beneficial mutation stacked on beneficial mutation has a reasonable probability of occurrence. Therefore "the theory of evolution" is a story but not properly a theory, as it doesn't meet the criteria to be called a theory.
That doesn't mean, though, that evolution doesn't occur. There is evolution, in the sense of population change. It works by a different mechanism.
Scientists who believe in random mutation, common descent (from a single simple cell or organism) and natural selection are called neo-Darwinists. That's because in Darwin's day, DNA hadn't been discovered. Subsequent to its discovery, the major paradigm has been that random mutations of the DNA and the action of natural selection on them is the modus operandi of evolution.
Life is characterized by information, and information is encoded into the DNA. Neo-Darwinists believe information builds up toward greater complexity through evolution (in the sense of random mutations, common descent, and natural selection).
DNA doesn't only transmit information to the next generation; that isn't its only function. DNA also runs the cell. Nothing would happen without DNA.
There is DNA in the genome above and beyond that which is seen to be operative. Its function wasn't known, and so it was sometimes called "junk DNA."
Now it seems that there are mechanisms in place that suppress the activity of what had been known as junk DNA. Sometimes, environmental stress serves to trigger processes that disable the suppressing factor, so that some previously inactive DNA then becomes active. In other words, there are changes in the genome--albeit no new information.
And those changes in the genome are heritable. That is, they occur in the gametes as well as the other cells.
When one hears of such things, Lamarckism comes to mind: the discredited theory that changes acquired during one's lifetime are passed on to the next generation. For instance, the giraffe had less food available on the ground and had to stretch its neck for the high leaves, whereupon its offspring gets the longer neck as well. The difference is that now a mechanism for changes is known.
It is known that population change occurs and that it occurs relatively rapidly, as opposed to over the eons. I first encountered such a description of evolution in reading in Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion about foxes showing signs of domestication into dog-like creatures in only eight generations.
But it seems that the picture of evolution as possibly rapid and recent coexists with the evolution that takes place over the long run. According to Spetner, the population changes that occur in the short run and can be observed are considered by neo-Darwinists to be microevolution, while they consider macroevolution--that which is presumed to occur over eons via random mutation and natural selection--to be the real thing.
These thoughts occurred to me while I was studying The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined and what Steven Pinker had to say about changes in populations of people, but he, whom I presume is an avid neo-Darwinist, reassured me there was no evidence of such biological evolution (no evidence of changes in groups other than cultural).
Spetner provides numerous examples of recent evolutionary population changes. He also has a chapter in which he refutes all the common arguments for the standard neo-Darwinian paradigm.
I noticed that some of the neo-Darwinian claims are based on ignorance of the function of some apspect (i.e., we don't know the function of this DNA, or of this or that vestigial organ, therefore we assume it has no function and thus constitutes proof of an earlier status as a more primitive organism), while subsequently the function has been discovered. I thought that was ironic in light of the claim that religion is based on ignorance so has lost its role as knowledge has replaced ignorance.
I won't try to recount all the counterarguments. Just one more: There can be no phylogenetic tree that supports the neo-Darwinian picture, since plants or animals that look alike can be, in their DNA, more like the creature from which they adapted than each other.
Oh, and how the development of bacterial resistance, which is said to show how random mutations lead to evolution, does show random mutation and natural selection, but selection for less specificity, i.e., the degrading, not adding, of information, so could never lead to the build-up of information.
Spetner hypothesizes that the evolution we can observe and that takes place by mechanisms that can be studied constitutes the only evolution there is.
This thinking, which addresses how the whole shebang, including "the environment" and everything in it can work together, appeals to me. This sort of thinking moves away from the narrowly "human-centric." For example it addresses the concept of primates as "bees:" See the first block quote in my review of Guy Deutscher's Through the Language Glass.
My husband, who's more scientifically oriented, would try to tell me about what he was learning, but it always sounded to me like creationism. So he finally prevailed on me to read this book. Suffice it to say that this book does not prove creationism. On the other hand, it does not prove atheism, either. Apparently, the theory of evolution (standard paradigm) fell upon a social and political climate in which it was accepted (as gospel, one might say), whereas it may not have been at a later point. Spetner argues that there is no other discipline that is called science that would accept the sorts of rationales accepted in biology.
According to Spetner, neo-Darwinism purports to say how life arose and how new information gets added. His hypothesis is not explaining the former, and I don't think he is addressing the latter in this book, either.
Problem explanations in this review are mine, not the author's. He does not hide what he thinks via lack of clarity, nor does he mince words.
I thought of giving this book four stars, but since it's going to impact my thinking, I decided on five.
December 3, 2015 article in the New York Times: Parents May Pass Down More Than Just Genes, Study Suggests
I am going to add the link from comment 49 below. In the link a scientist actually deals with the author's hypotheses instead of polemicizing. The author does have hypotheses. To repeat, his book itself is scientific, not religious. http://wasdarwinwrong.com/kortho36.htm
However it seems to me the main issue is not this author. The main issue is whether evolution occurs by gene-based random mutation in the context of natural selection, or whether the environment is having a larger role, that is, an impact beyond natural selection. It seems more and more scientists think that is the case, while the defenders of neo-Darwinism tend to tar them all with the same brush: creationism.
And yes, they sometimes call themselves neo-Darwinists, even Dawkins. Another term for neo-Darwinism is "the modern synthesis." They do seem to talk about information and complexity. I haven't heard anyone speaking of the build-up of information but complexity, yes.
I will not likely be focusing on evolutionary biology in my reading, as that is not my main thrust. [I did ace two semesters of freshman biology plus the lab, and I got invited to return as a lab assistant in my sophomore year, but I left school to celebrate my part of the youth revolution; when I returned, it was not in biology.] But I'll watch the news to see what develops.
Whatever the deficiencies of this particular author (about whom objectivity was in short supply), reviewing the book and experiencing the reactions was a shock. I heard elements of straw-man and ad hominem in many responses; chest-pounding displays too. But those aren't occasioned only by this particular author. It is everywhere on this controversy of proponents of the modern synthesis versus dissenters. That's what I meant by saying I'd stepped in it. Stepped right in the middle of it. The shrillness and over-the-top reactions may not prove anything but sound to me like weakness.
The paradigm may be shifting. We can all watch and see what emerges.
An example of what I'm talking about in saying the issue isn't limited to this author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeqEB...
Here is a polemical response to the above, to show how it goes and maybe relieve potential responders of the imperative to make your own: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress....
First of three discussions with the man in the first video and Dawkins and others. Includes links to the other two videos. (There's a link to a long paper that doesn't work. I have it if you'd like.) http://www.voicesfromoxford.org/video...
February 24, 2018
It was interesting, but a bit repetitive. I suspect that he deliberately wrote it at a lower reading level than I would have hoped. I appreciated the clarity. I liked his non-random evolutionary hypothesis, but need to look up his sources. I also want to look into horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotes as well as crypto-genes. I'd recommend it to people unless they are looking for a book pitched to someone scientifically literate (this is more for the general reader).
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews