Evolution or Devolution?

As has been pointed out Kerner fails to take into account the fact that local decreases in entropy are not disallowed by thermodynamics. Moreover he fails to take into account that it is reproduction rather than evolution as such which deals with the actual entropy decreases.The existence of "junk DNA" is a small puzzle in evolutionary terms but it is certainly not a contradiction. The idea that 95% of the human brain is dormant is not even true.Moreover he fails to understand that evolution is not "progressive" - that is why some lineages will show what we think of as "progress" others will not - and even show what he would call "devolution" - although it is still evolution.His idea that ALL evolution is what he calls "devolution" is clearly contradicted by the fossil record. For instance maller-brained species in the genus Homo precede modern humans and more ape-like species precede them.As to Bieberich's work, from my own reading it seems likely that it refers to developmental changes and as such the only information "lost" would be that that was "restored" by the mutations created by Bieberich. Without more details it is impossible to tell whether Kerner's interpretation is correct - but I strongly suspect that it is not. Certainly Bieberich has used mice to investigate the effects of Hox genes (e.g http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmce... )

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This is in fact one of the points Kerner makes in the book. He postulates that there are several different devolutionary lines that have run their course on this planet. Some of these have run concurrently and the fossil record may actually be presenting us with artefacts representing specific types of hominid (homo erectus, homo habilis etc) who were examples of the ends of these different lines.

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However Kerner's speculation has no evidence from the fossil record. Homo habilis preceded Homo erectus which preceded Homo sapiens. Early Homo sapiens specimens (archaic Homo sapiens) had smaller brains than modern humans.So Kerner misunderstands thermodynamics and explains the fossil evidence away with speculations - what positive evidence DOES he have for his claims ?

You could tell that the paper in question does not support Kerner simply by reading the title."No Evidence of Neandertal mtDNA Contribution to Early Modern Humans"The paper explicitly states that the mtDNA results provided no evidence of Neandertal ancestry in modern human populations.Thus we still have no evidence to support Kerner's ideas of devolution.

Since the paper does not rebut any of the points I made it is reasonable to assume that you intended it as a response to my request for evidence FOR Kerner's claims.If the best you can manage is a statement that the data is not adequate to prove Kerner wrong on one minor point then I really have to ask what possible reason do you have for beleiving Kerner's claims ?

I don't think that many of the points raised here require much knowledge to answer if Kerner genuinely did present a strong case. The answers should be in the book. That no strong case has been presented for any of them (and some in the opening post have been quitely dropped) speaks volumes for the thoroughness of Kerner's work.We already know that some of the points raised are wrong or speculate against the evidence. We don't know that ANY of them are true. NONE of them have been adequately supported.