Evolution
Ancestral genetic variation essential for rapid evolution of Darwin’s finches
Robert J. Marks on “machines with minds” vs. the real-life dweebs in his evolutionary programming:
At Evolution News: Conservation of Information — The Theorems
Domesticated Rice: the Power of Artificial Selection.
I suspect that almost every week there’s at least one article published somewhere that undermines Darwinian theory. Now using the term, ‘Darwinian theory’, might ruffle some people’s feathers. Yet, without Darwinian theory, neo-Darwinism makes no sense; it lacks any intellectual foundation. And, so, here we are inching towards the 200th anniversary of Origin of Species and 21st-Century evolutionary biologists remain saddled with 19th-Century thinking. With that said, this “week’s” article comes from Phys.Org and it offers a newer understanding of rice domestication. We find out that the results of an international collaboration “suggest that the emergence of cultivated rice from wild rice plants is the result of three gene mutations that make the seeds (i.e. the grains of rice) fall Read More ›
At Phys.org: Chinese fossils show human middle ear evolved from fish gills
At Skeptic: Why Christians Should Accept the Theory of Evolution
Larry Arnhart writes: American Christian fundamentalists reject Darwinian evolution for at least two reasons. The first is their belief that the Bible has revealed a clear teaching about the divine creation of the world that denies Darwinian evolution. The second reason is their belief that Darwinian evolution contradicts the foundational principle of the American creed that human beings have been created equal and endowed with rights by their Creator, as affirmed in the Declaration of Independence. In this article I will argue that both beliefs are mistaken, and that Christians should all accept the theory of evolution. American Christian fundamentalists reject Darwinian evolution for at least two reasons. The first is their belief that the Bible has revealed a clear Read More ›
At Quanta: Brain-Signal Proteins Evolved Before Animals Did
At Sci-News: Chromatin First Evolved in Ancient Microbes 1-2 Billion Years Ago, New Research Suggests
The Death of Neutral Theory
In today’s Nature, we find this article: “Synonymous mutations in representative yeast genes are mostly strongly non-neutral.” They investigated what effect “synonymous, nonsynonymous and nonsense” mutations involving “21 endogenous genes” would have on yeast. The fitness levels of synonymous and nonsynonymous fell in equal (though not ‘identical’) measure–around 75%. I don’t have access to the article itself, only the abstract. The abstract begins thusly: Synonymous mutations in protein-coding genes do not alter protein sequences and are thus generally presumed to be neutral or nearly neutral[1,2,3,4,5] 1 through 5 are citations. Who are they: Kimura, King and Jukes, Nei and Kumar, Li and Dan Graur. The heavyweights of neutral theory. The abstract ends: The strong non-neutrality of most synonymous mutations, if Read More ›