Does the Darwinian theory require modification or replacement?

Well, that depends on what you mean by "modern synthesis". I think that it should include stuff that is, y'know, modern. And that it should therefore include stuff that geneticists have known perfectly well since before I was born.If it doesn't, it's time to think of a less confusing name for it.I take "the modern synthesis"; "neo-Darwinism"; "the theory of evolution" to commonly denote Darwinism updated with knowledge of the genetic mechanisms that underlie it; not just those mechanisms which were known in 1930.

Even Humpty-Dumpty might have stopped short of using the word "modern" to mean "antiquated and superseded".However, if that's what shadow means, then I concede his point --- the things that we've known for the last forty years do indeed challenge a view which no-one has held for the last forty years, or rather they would if anyone held that view, which they don't.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

How about: "The theory of evolution"? Or just: "Genetics", which is a one-word summary of the theory.And I suggest "Darwinism" for genetics + common descent. It's still what Darwin thought of, just with more details drawn in.

NB: We don't. I've never seen any British person use the supposedly British system.

If by the "modern synthesis" you mean our current state of knowledge, then since the mechanisms we're talking about have been known about for the past four decades or more, the "modern synthesis" does not require modification in the light of these well-known facts. It would require modification in the light of new discoveries, not discoveries older than I am.

And yet she's talking about an idea which is older than I am and which so far as I know no-one disputes.So I think she's blowing smoke.In order to show that she's not, it's no use quoting her trying to make her work sound exciting and controversial --- what you need to do is find at least one proponent of "current neo-Darwinian dogma" who says that the mechanisms she's discussing do not exist.Good luck with that.Otherwise, her "current neo-Darwinian dogma" is a straw man --- a "current dogma" which is actually currently held by no-one whatsoever.You've certainly not found anything of the sort on this thread. Instead you're surrounded by advocates of "the current neo-Darwinian dogma" who rather than disputing the existence of these processes and mechanisms on the grounds that it's "not compatible" with our "dogma", instead say: "Yes, we've known about that for the past forty or fifty years, please tell us something we don't know."Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, no. The hypotheses that explain the phenomena are the physical, biochemical mechanisms that cause them to occur --- the nuts and bolts of how transposons transpose, how increased transcription increases mutation rates, and so forth. Shapiro's additional blather about intelligence in the cell adds nothing to this and is not a hypothesis, just a misleading way of describing facts discovered by other people. It has no predictive or explanatory power --- in the words of Pauli: "It's not right --- it's not even wrong". Well, they didn't. It doesn't take courage to acknowledge that; a timid acquiescence in the bleedin' obvious would do just as well. What Shapiro has is chutzpah --- he's trying to pass himself off as a radical and revolutionary with the "courage" to tell us all what we already know.Again, I would ask you to find me anyone, on this thread or elsewhere, who denies the existence of the mechanisms that he and Wright are talking about. Otherwise he is fighting against an orthodoxy that no-one in the world believes in, and which is therefore neither ortho nor a doxy.Next thing you know he'll be chiding astronomers for their hidebound insistence on geocentrism. But in order to don the mantle of Galileo it is not enough to be right. Other people must be wrong. His statement of them is vague and imprecise. Given that difficulty, I should say that "the connections between evolutionary change and ecological disruption" is something that is fairly well understood; and that "the origins of complex adaptive novelties at moments of macroevolutionary change" is a phenomenon for which there is as yet no evidence and which therefore doesn't really need an explanation. But as I say, his writing is vague and it's not completely clear what he has in mind.Also I might add that the mechanisms he points to would not in fact explain the unevidenced phenomenon of "complex adaptive novelties at moments of macroevolutionary change". He may if he chooses call known blind unthinking chemical mechanisms a form of "intelligence"; but it is a far cry from that to showing that there are also (as yet undiscovered) mechanisms in the cell which are so intelligent that they can perform intellectual feats which would baffle a team of biologists equipped with a supercomputer.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Bollocks.In a single generation, I can raise and lower my right arm. Several times. Would you say that that "does not appear to fit into the gradual change of Darwinian evolution"?Actually, you might just be confused enough to do so. But you might think about why no biologist has proposed this as a challenge to Darwinism in the course of the last 150 years. If thinking about things was the kind of thing that you did.And then you try to bolster your nonsense by quoting a paper which explicitly says how delighted Charles Darwin would have been with the results!Sheesh.

I don't see how you managed to misunderstand me so thoroughly.I did not say nor suggest nor imply that Wright and denied these mechanisms.What I said was that in order for them to be defying some neo-Darwinian orthodoxy by adducing these mechanisms, there would have to be some orthodox neo-Darwinians who denied the existence of these mechanisms.Otherwise they're not challenging the orthodox view, they're agreeing with it. The "How and Why" is the biochemistry. If Wright and Shapiro wished to claim that (for example) transposons transpose, not because of the biochemical properties that make them do so, but because of magic performed by a Transposition Fairy, then they would be unorthodox. Oh, and completely wrong. No, you are fantastically, fatuously wrong; and once more, you have completely misunderstood me.Macroevolution is well explained by the current theory. But the current theory does not need to explain "complex adaptive novelties at moments of macroevolutionary change" (note the italics) because there is no evidence whatsoever that any such thing has ever taken place.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand." --- Bertrand Russell

Indeed. So how can Shapiro be challenging the orthodox view of evolution by agreeing with what Darwin wrote back in the nineteenth century and which has never been questioned since?In order for Shapiro's views to be radical and unconventional, he would have to be disagreeing with someone. Whereas the existence of phenotypic plasticity is something that everyone agrees with.

No, of course not, don't be so silly.The way that you can tell that that isn't my position is that I never said nor implied any such thing.If you want to know what my actual position is, you would do well to read my actual posts and see what I actually wrote.

It is very hard for me to conceive of the mental state that could lead someone to produce those two sentences. However, given that you have done so, might I tactfully suggest that participation on these forums might be too difficult for you, and advise you to take up some hobby that is less intellectually taxing?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No. If he is, as you say, a scientist, I'd suggest that he take up a whole different profession, such as chicken-farming. No. Just because you're talking nonsense and so is he doesn't mean that you were talking the same nonsense.

Yes, of course. That is why I have said so very emphatically.The question is, do you deny it?If not, then you must agree that these obvious facts, well known to Darwin himself as well as to all "neo-Darwinists", do not constitute a challenge to orthodoxy but a wholehearted agreement with it.

I hope he's good with chickens.