Problems with evolution? Submit your questions.

I don't like the expression "rely on natural selection." However, natural selection would be as much involved here as with anything else.I don't have a time machine to go back and see what happened. And I'm not even a biologist. However, assuming that symbiosis was involved, it is most likely that there were casual symbiotic unions that formed. At some stage a change occurred which might have been a relatively small DNA change, such as allowed the two components of such a symbiotic union to synchronize their reproductive activity, so that the next generation inherited a similar symbiotic structure.We see a big change, in terms of the effect on the biosphere. But we cannot rule out that it might well have occurred in small genetic steps.You can't even conclude that it was a unique event. Something similar might have happened on many occasion, with only one line surviving through the background of natural selection.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

I'm sorry to see it, mike, but you seem to have lost your wizness.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

I'm not concerned with what you believe. That's for you to decide. It's the quality of your arguments that I find troubling.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Personally, I am not a pan-selectionist. I tend to think that there is too much emphasis placed on selection. However, even those who do emphasize selection usually avoid talking in terms of "rely on natural selection." I haven't read Lane's paper, so I'm going by your quotes from it.The idea that one organism jumped inside another, leading to a sudden transition, is surely mistaken. There had to be a lot of mutual adaptation before that was possible, and natural selection would have been involved in that mutual adaptation.If the point you are making is that endosymbiosis doesn't quite fit in the typical neo-Darwinist picture, then I agree with that. And most neo-Darwinists would probably also agree. I don't see that as a problem with evolution.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

You also posted that in another thread. I responded there (Message 235).

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

I'm getting a "page not found" error on that link.A google search did turn up http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf which I presume is the same paper (perhaps an early draft).Count me as skeptical. I've seen these kinds of reports before, but attempts to replicate them usually fail.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

I agree that's a bad criticism. Science doesn't have to wait for mechanism.Bem's results show an effect only a little better than chance. If he had shown a far stronger effect, and if others could reproduce it, then this would be good science.As it is, however, the effects reported are marginal though they test as significant. My concern would be on whether there were methodological errors that allowed a bias to creep in.As for whether the journal should have accepted the paper - I leave that to the editors. It's not entirely unreasonable to publish uncertain results, and then expect other scientists to attempt to replicate the work. The journal cannot be expected to run its own lab and attempt to replicate before accepting. On the other hand, there's a long history of such psychic claims, with marginally positive results. And there's an equally long history of failure to replicate such claims. I'll admit to being surprised that the paper was accepted.Incidentally, Jerry Coyne has posted about this on his blog: Psychic paper provokes backlash

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Jesus was a liberal hippie