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Richard Dawkins responds to “Die, Selfish Gene, Die”: Mere adversarial journalism

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He advises “Die, Selfish” that “The Selfish Gene is alive and well, and doesn’t appreciate “adversarial journalism”:

I have been asked to respond to an article by David Dobbs called ‘Die, selfish gene, die’[1]. It’s a fluent piece of writing featuring some interesting biological observations, but it’s fatally marred: infected by an all-too-common journalistic tendency, the adversarial urge to (presumably) boost circulation and harvest clicks by pretending to be controversial. You have a topic X, which you laudably want to pass on to your readers. But it’s not enough that X is interesting in its own right; you have to adversarialise it: yell that X is revolutionary, new, paradigm-shifting, dramatically overthrowing some Y.

I had almost finished writing this reply when Jerry Coyne – my goto guru on population genetics since the death of John Maynard Smith – posted his own much more thorough retort to Dobbs. I thought about abandoning my own effort, but was reluctant to throw away my more personal response to Dobbs’ traducing of my earlier work. Even if you don’t have time to read my article, however, do please read Jerry’s: …

Goodness! What will happen if we don’t read Jerry’s?

One wonder if Dawkins minded Dobbs referring to him in the Aeon piece as a “buffoon.” Naw, couldn’t be. He probably just wants to go head to head with the growing field of epigenetics.

See also:

Jerry Coyne: Reason people question neo-Darwinism is that it “is largely consolidated, and is correct

Ho hum, the new crop of dissenters from Darwinism shall pass too…

Comments
Peer-Reviewed Research Paper on Plant Biology Favorably Cites Intelligent Design and Challenges Darwinian Evolution - Casey Luskin December 29, 2010 Excerpt: Many of these researchers also raise the question (among others), why — even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements — all the important mutation breeding programs have come to an end in the Western World instead of eliciting a revolution in plant breeding, either by successive rounds of selective “micromutations” (cumulative selection in the sense of the modern synthesis), or by “larger mutations” … and why the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated by the almost infinite repetition of the spectra of mutant phenotypes in each and any new extensive mutagenesis experiment (as predicted) instead of regularly producing a range of new systematic species… (Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutagenesis in Physalis pubescens L. ssp. floridana: Some Further Research on Dollo’s Law and the Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology Vol. 4 (Special Issue 1): 1-21 (December 2010).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/peer-reviewed_research_paper_o042191.htmlbornagain77
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Semi Related: Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig on the Law of Recurrent Variation, pt. 1 - podcast - Dec. 9, 2013 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2013-12-09T17_31_28-08_00bornagain77
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