What is Salty's 'semi-meiotic hypothesis'

That Darwinism is shortly to be abandoned may sound unlikely to some, but in fact the same view has been expressed by many:"There are some signs of this whimsical theory of Evolution soon taking another phase.""A mere glance at the history of the theory [of evolution] during the four decades that it has been before the public shows that the beginning of the end is at hand.""Today, at the dawn of the new century, nothing is more certain than that Darwinism has lost its prestige among men of science. It has seen its day and will soon be reckoned a thing of the past."Writing of "The Collapse of Evolution" (book) by Luther Tracy Townsend (1905)Writing of "The Passing of Evolution" by George Frederick Wright (1910?)"The science of twenty or thirty years ago was in high glee at the thought of having almost proved the theory of biological evolution. Today, for every careful, candid inquirer, these hopes are crushed; and with weary, reluctant sadness does modern biology now confess that the Church has probably been right all the time.""Darwinism has been definitely outgrown. As a doctrine it is merely of historical interest.""In the future, evolution will be remembered only as the crowning deception ...""The theory [of evolution] stands today positively disproved, and we will venture the prophecy that in another two decades ... the theory will take its place in the limbo of disproved tidings."There are many other more recent observations of the same kind, but I have listed these to show the that the imminent demise of evolution is no passing fancy, but a theory backed up by over a century of work, all of about the same high standard.All extracts taken from The Imminent Demise of Evolution by Glenn Morton. Those interested should follow that link for better references and more complete extracts, and also many other similar extracts up to the present.

Priceless and nicely done. Thanks for cheering me up!

I see you still insist on equating Darwinism with evolution. That is utter nonsense. Darwinism has never had any explanatory power for evolution. Macroevolution is a thing of the past. That does not mean that evolution has not occurred. It most certainly has. salty

Whenever your students asked you a question about something you said, did you insist on reasserting your statement while completely avoiding the question as you do on this forum? Just curious.FK[This message has been edited by Fedmahn Kassad, 04-24-2003]

Hi Salty,In your view, what is the difference between evolution and Darwinism.--Percy

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I am constantly being accused of making unfounded assertions.

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That is because that is what you do. That and this hero worship. And a reliance upon out of date material.

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What are you and Scott Page doing I wonder.

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In this particular thread, I am pointing out that you rely upon outdated material to draw your erroneous and purely speculative conclusions. I am pointing out how little you seem to understand about how evolution operates. etc.

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The simple truth is that no one understands evolution, not me, not you, not Scott Page...

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Please do not speak for me, JA 'salty' Davison.

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Davison:
Sexual reproduction has never been demonstrated as a macroevolutionary mechanism. In my view it never will be.

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There has got to be a clinical description of this sort of denial...

Yours is a remarkable statement especially coming from one who couldn't produce a single documented example when challenged. Go back and review that little tidbit please. salty

It seems a bit much to ask for direct observation of a speciation event driven by sexual selection, which appears to be the only evidence which will satisfy you, does it have to be naturally occurring or would a laboratory experiment showing reproductive isolation by artificial selection be sufficient? There is however a considerable body of theoretical work on the role of sexual isolation on sympatric speciat, one of the clearest examples where sexual reproduction plays a role in 'macroevolution',assuming that by that you mean speciation. There have been numerous studies on a variety of factors, such as mating song preference and hybrid lethal metabolic genes in Drosophila. There are other highly sympartic speciated populations, such as the Lake victoria cichlids and other cichlid lake populations, which provide excellent material for phylogenetic analysis. The following references are purely included as supporting material Lande R, Seehausen O, van Alphen JJ.
Mechanisms of rapid sympatric speciation by sex reversal and sexual selection in cichlid fish.
Genetica. 2001;112-113:435-43.Rice WR.
Experimental tests of the adaptive significance of sexual recombination.
Nat Rev Genet. 2002 Apr;3(4):241-51Van Doorn GS, Luttikhuizen PC, Weissing FJ.
Sexual selection at the protein level drives the extraordinary divergence of sex-related genes during sympatric speciation.
Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2001 Oct 22;268(1481):2155-61.Is this paper relevant to your semi-meiotis hypothesis?Pardo-Manuel de Villena F, Sapienza C.
Female meiosis drives karyotypic evolution in mammals.
Genetics. 2001 Nov;159(3):1179-89.(I retrospectively realised that this post breaches the etiquette for this board, so I have beefed it up a bit)[This message has been edited by Wounded King, 04-24-2003][This message has been edited by Wounded King, 04-24-2003]

Hi Salty,In your view, what is the difference between evolution and Darwinism.--Percy

Percipient, evolution was very real but is no longer in operation except at the subspecific or varietal level. Darwinism is a fable dreamed up by a couple of naturalists. At least Wallace finally abandoned the whole thing as evidenced in his last book the preface to which I quote in the Manifesto. I recommend you read it for an antidote to neoDarwinism. Of course he was in his 90s at the time and undoubtedly senile! salty

You still haven't even touched on an answer to the clear question put to you.

Hi Salty,That doesn't really help me understand the difference between evolution and Darwinism. Could you please explain?--Percy

Percipient. Evolution was the transformation of life forms from one to the next. Darwinism is an hypothesis which claims to provide the mechanism by which such transformations took place. It is probably the most tested hypothesis in the history of science. It has never been demonstrated. Nevertheless, the Darwinians maintain that it is going on all around us even as I respond to your post. Does this help explain the difference? salty

Somebody never read Darwin...nor even a basic biology text"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."
- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986"In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."
- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974Darwinism is a loaded term that encompasses more than just change over time and is used by various groups to mean different things..further references at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darwinism.htmlBut cheers to you Percipient...you did the unimaginable...you actually got salty to answer a question.[Was having trouble reading, eliminated extra carriage-returns. --Admin][This message has been edited by Admin, 04-25-2003]