Does the Darwinian theory require modification or replacement?

Please see my Message 457.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is this all bs.?

This is the information I have been trying to obtain since I began on this board.
Science does not know the "CAUSATIVE FACTORS" of what is labeled Natural Selection. It only knows the outcome correct?

I was citing the paper by Perez to contradict miobiogirl's assertion that what Ho writes is bs. This paper is actually citing the paper written by Ho. To me this demonstrates some qualifed scientists do accept Ho as revelant and not a "nutbag".As far as epilgenetics goes, I do not fully understand it, but in the papers I have been reading the authors are saying "epigenetics" and other means of organismatic change may well be beyond the current theory, and there is a need for a new theory.I think non-random may be directed, but in what way I cannot say.

papers by Massimo Pigliucci do indicate that the modern synthesis does need a radical modification.

the more modifications and corrections to the MS the more I see that the scientists are acknowledging evolution is information driven, not random.

He is a well known atheist apologist and defintely not a "creationist", but his summary paper "An Extended Synthesis for Evolutionary Biology"(2009,( sorry I don't have a link) is quite interesting.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The paper is a summary entitled "An Extended Synthesis for Evolutionary biology" 2009. I don't have a link.In the paper he says that the MS does not adequately deal with the following:1. Evo-Devo
2. An expanded theory of Heridity
3. Elements of the Complexity theory
4. Ideas about evolability
5. Revaulation of Selection.He also asks as did Shapiro, Is there once and for all a discontinuity of some sort between micro and macroevolution.He also asks whether evolutionary change is always gradual.
Is natural selection the only organizing principle producing biological complexity?
He also states "...living cells, tissues, and tissue systems are endowed with the ability to react systemically, and often adaptively, to changes in the enviroment--both in the classic sense of the external enviroment and in the sense of internal, genetic, and developmkental enviroments."Sounds alot like Shapiro.He also states;
"If mechanisms such as facilitation and accomodation are more frequent than previously imagined, then one of the consequences for evolutionary theory is that the gradual evolution described by MS-type population genetics models will not always account for macroevolutionary change on paleontological time scales."He also states "All in all, then, the transition from the MS to the ES is generating some serious rethinking of the relative role of natural selection in evolution, although the original Darwinian principle, like that of common descent, will remain a crucial component of our understanding of evolution (despite some exaggerated claims to the contrary (Reid 2007)He also states "Accordingly, evidence is now accumulating that the predictive power of short term observations of evolutionary change (such as the classic examples of industrial melanism) is not strong at all when extrapolated over temporal scales that are orders of magnitude larger (Eldredge & Gould 1972: Gould 2002). Evolutionary stasis, nonrandom origination of evolutionary novelties in time and space, and species selection are just some of the macroevolutionary phenomena that a view of evolution limilted to the MS is simply ill equipped to deal with (Jablonski 2000, 2008)Not to be a cynic but it appears Mr. Pigliucci, an active atheist apologist is in fact telling us that we need to revaulate the MS.This looks alot like engineering rather than random, nonplanned accidential changes.So yes Granny, I won't let REALITY get in the way of my religious fantasy. But perhaps your Athesim is your fantasy. I guess we can agree to disagree.

I mean it in the way shapiro in his paper " Mobile DNA and evolution in the 21st century" has described it; This seems to me more sophisficated that random mutation and natural selection.
I read Pigliucci as advocating the new ES reducing the role of natural selection. It seems to show some type of planned information in evolution that to some may indicate a planned evolutionary process.

Shapiro and Pigliucci and finding that evolution is much more complicated then the MS describes it.
Creationism does not require a radical change. If in fact the information systems are more complicated than the MS and micro and macroevolution are driven by two different programs then it may well be that in the future it will be recognized that all things were planned to great specificty.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why did Pigliucci see the need for him to write about what he sees as a need for an ES?

But don't you see, or do agree not to see, that this is a very different system than random mutation and natural slection? Pigliucci cannot use those terms because he is an Atheist dedicated to the BELIEF not scientific fact that evolution cannot be planned.Shapiro has the intestinal fortitude to say what his research reveals, not what the protectors of the MS say you must say. If these "modifications" did require a significant change in the MS would you acknowledge that Manny? You will never accept the possibility that these modifications might change the theory significantly, so in a way you are being as pig headed as you accuse me of being. This may be off thread, but I would like to know what Catholic dogma you refer to as being falsified by known facts.

The assumption that "reality is real" has nothing to do with how evoultion came about or how it works.If evolution is in fact planned by a Creator, how does this change how Science investigates what has and is happening.If the Unvierse and all in it was created by a Supernatural Being, that does not in any way negate the scientific findings.
It only negates the belief of SECULAR HUMANISM that decrees all scientific findings must be natural, not Supernatural.So "Reality is real" is not affected by whether it is created by a Supernatural Being, or it started by natural means.

Shapiro is not a creationist and he is who I cited for the information issue.

Why would the fact that evolution is planned by a Creator invalidate date all of the evolutionary scientific findings?If natural selection is planned, if random mutation for fitness is not correct, would the evoution theory be abandoned by science, or would the theory be changed to accept this fact?