John A. (Salty) Davison - The Case For Instant Evolution

Many of the comments indicate that the senders are not familiar with my other papers. I recommend going to my home page Retired Service | The University of Vermont If this message gets through I will try to play catch-up with some of the comments. salty

To understnd my perspective it is important to realize that I have rejected sexual reproduction as a macroevolutionary mechsanism. I also see no compelling evidence that micromutations (base pair substitutions) have played any significnt role in speciation. It is true that I have described population genetics as a "smokescreen". It is without foundation to assume populations are important in evolution. All genetic changes, evolutionary or not, result from changes of the genetic potential of individual organisms. If a new life form can reproduce it will. It is as simple as that. Most important, all macroevolution has apparently stopped, a conclusion reached by Robert Broom, Julian Huxley, Pierre Grasse and myself. We are faced then with trying to reconstruct how evolution did occur. That is the substance of the semi-meiotic hypothesis which I first proposed in 1984. I still adhere to it as the only apparent alternative to Darwinian gradualism. I also am both a Creationist and an Evolutionist. It is only from this dual perspective that one can possibly deal with Intelligent Design. I particularly recommend my 2000 paper "Ontogeny, Phylogeny and the Origin of Biological Information". Sorry I couldn't respond sooner but I had a problem with my password. salty

With respect to karyotype differences in mice, I specifically indicated in the Manifesto that all such rearrangements need not result in speciation. The fact remains, that the most obvious features that distinguish us from our primate relatives resides in the restructuring of otherwise very similar if not identical chromosomal elements. In short, we are distinguished by position effects. This is exactly what Goldschmidt proposed in 1940. What we are witnessing in evolutionary science is a conflict between the atheist Darwinians, who deny any role for purpose or design and at the other extreme the fundamentalists who tend to deny evolution altogether. I have tried to present a compromise view, apparently with little success. I will keep trying however. salty

I have been very specific as to the source of biological information and written a paper about it. "Ontogeny, Phylogeny and the Origin of Biological Information. It is on my home page. For those who choose not to read it, I have suggested that the information has been present from very early on in the evolutionary process, thereby comparing evolution with ontogeny where the information is also present from the very beginning. In both cases I have suggested that the information is expressed by derepression from a large yet limited storehouse of available information. This concept can go a long way toward explaining what has been (erroneously) assumed to be convergent evolution. Information must have a source and there is virtually no evidence that new information has been added during the differentiation of the genera Pan,Gorilla,Pongo and Homo. In fact I can't think of an example demonstrating the addition of meaningful new specific information anywhere. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. For those who choose not to read the Manifesto, you will find my core convictions summarized in the three published papers on my home page. I hesitate to answer questions that I have already dealt with in those three short papers. If in my papers, I have misrepresented factual material please call that to my attention. I never pretended to be perfect. salty

I define a Darwinist as someone who denies purpose and plan in evolution and who therefore must by definition rely on random chance and undirected mutations as the driving forces in evolution. There is not a single example of such mechanisms producing anything beyond the level of subspecies just as Goldschmidt claimed in 1940. Also, let me ask a question for a change. How can Nature, being all that has been somehow created, become the Creator? I cannot imagine a more ridiculous demonstration of circular reasoning. The real issues here have nothing to do with evolution. They have to do with the way man regards his position in the universe. Gould claimed intelligence was an evolutionary accident. My response in the Manifesto was that it was SOME accident. Mayr described himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Darwinian. Such statements have no place in any serious discussion of one of the greatest mysteries in all of science - organic evolution. The simple facts are that know one knows anything about the forces that have produced organic diversity. No one knows how or even how many times life has arisen. No one that is except the Darwinians who unhesitatingly ascribe everything to their own God. The Great God Chance. I find it amusing that they will attack Creationists as religious fanatics while they blandly go on worshiping someting for which not a scintilla of evidence exists. I join with Leo S. Berg,probably the greatest russian zoologist of his time. There is no place for chance in either ontogeny or phylogeny. I anticipate an attack on Berg. Don't disappoint me. salty

Dear Forum administrator, I agree. I learned a long time ago that "You can lead a man to the literature but you cannot make him read (or comprehend) it." salty

I find nothing resembling a cheap shot in my recent posts. Darwinists DO worship chance. I don't know a single Darwinist who would even conceive that evolution was (past tense) a guided process. I don't know one who would agree that evolution is finished. I don't know one who could in his wildest imagination imagine evolution without sexual reproduction. I don't know a Darwinian who would ever abandon his conviction that there was no purpose in evolution and that man was nothing but an accident. It is obvious that I am wasting my time just as did the following partial list of great scientist.William Bateson, Leo Berg, Robert Broom, Pierre Grasse, Alexander Petrunkevitch, R.C. Punnett, Richard B. Goldschmidt, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and I will end this list with probably the greatest paleontologist that ever lived. Otto Schindewolf. I find it amusing that I should be regarded as ignorant of armchair theoreticians like Sewell Wright, Sir Ronald Fisher, and J.B.S. Haldane, not to mention Richard Dawkins, Ernst Mayr and Stephen J. Gould. I know all about them. The only one who ever considered Goldschmidt seriously was Sewell Wright, God bless him. My heroes were,to a man, real scientists either at the laboratory bench or dirtying their hands in the field somewhere. Also please note that the ones I just identified were professional evolutionists whose major scientific contributions were to further the Darwinian myth. Yes myth! The ones I earlier listed were, without exception scientists who achieved fame in their various fields of expertise, whether it was paleontology, experimental genetics, taxonomy, or zoogeography. It is very revealing that they, in contrast with the professional evolutionists, wrote one or a few works that in each instance and often independently totally exposed the failure of Darwinism in no uncertain terms. I am happy to include myself with some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. As I said in the Manifesto, I am the dwarf standing on the shoulders of (several) giants. If you find my language unacceptable you can always ban me. I've exiled myself from the mainstream anyway so it really doesn't matter that much. If you don't find it necessary to ban me, rest assured that I will continue to do everything in my power to restore the reputations and the contributions of those searchers for the truth that I most respect. salty

Thank you. I don't have a theory. I have proposed the semi-meiotic hypothesis. It, unlike the Darwinian hypothesis, has to my knowledge not yet been tested. The Darwinian hypothesis has been critically tested innumerable times and has yet to be substantiated as a device leading to speciation. It is interesting to note that Schindewolf maintained that evolution was not an experimental science. He may have been correct. I just don't know. salty

Thank you. I don't have a theory. I have proposed the semi-meiotic hypothesis. It, unlike the Darwinian hypothesis, has to my knowledge not yet been tested. The Darwinian hypothesis has been critically tested innumerable times and has yet to be substantiated as a device leading to speciation. It is interesting to note that Schindewolf maintained that evolution was not an experimental science. He may have been correct. I just don't know. salty

The flagellate protozoon Spirotrichosoma reproduces semi-meiotically exactly as I have proposed. Male parthenogenetically conceived turkeys also are produced semi-meiotically. It is true that we do not see this mode of reproduction currently. That, among other reasons is why I have proposed that macroevolution is no longer in progress. Robert Broom, Julian Huxley and Pierre Grasse have also indicated the same. One of the most remarkable statements in all of the evolutionary literature is that by the author of "Evolution; The Modern Synthesis". On page 571 he clearly maintains that evolution has come to a full stop and even specifies when the stop occurred. It is no wonder that the Darwinians have elected to ignore this lapse by one of their own! There is also no doubt that Huxley got this idea from the anti-Darwinian paleontologist Robert Broom. He wisely neglected to acknowledge his source. I am convinced that sexual reproduction cannot support macrevolutionary progress which is why I was forced to propose the semi-meiotic mechanism to which I still adhere. salty

Dear paulk, There is no universal mechanism for sex determination. Since those different modes cannot be homologized, I proposed that a primary role for the sexual mode was to stabilize species and bring macroevolution to a stop. The Russian cytogeneticist N.N. Vorontsov was the first to call attention to this problem. I cited him in my 1984 and 1993 papers as well as in the Manifesto. I have speculated that the semi-meiotic and the sexual modes could have coexisted during periods of adaptive radiation. Today, with few exceptions sexual reproduction is the standard mode. When and how these changes took place I cannot say. salty

I have repeatedly restricted the semi-meiotic hypothesis to diploid organism, chiefly animals. Of course haploids like bacteria are evolving. I never denied that. It is also evident that they do not practice meiosis, so they certainly can't practice semi-meiosis! salty salty

Dear mammuthus, If you had read a little further you would have found that I described myself as a dwarf standing on the shoulders of several great men. Believe me when I say I am humbled by the great mystery of evolution. That is more than I can say for some of the Darwinians I have encountered. salty

I'm not sure what the problem is. I was referring to the time it takes for a particular genetic change (mutation) to take place. Of course I don't believe that speciation results from the accumulation of micromutations. I believe that speciation results from single transformations of heterozygous chromosome reorganizations into homozygous form as a result of the fact that, in the first meiotic division, the sister (identical) strands always remain together. In short, I believe that organisms do not themselves change, but rather that they produce in single steps new species as their offspring. Please note that all this must be put in the past tense since it apparently is no longer occurring. I know this sounds crazy but "instant speciation" is precisely what the semi-meiotic hypothesis predicts. I hope this helps. salty

I don't know where someone got the idea that I am protected by Ilion or Terry. Ilion recently banned me. Apparently he doesn't care for evolutionists of any stripe. As for Terry, I don't think it is very charitable to pick on Terry. Terry has been a very civil and tolerant manager of the Forum. As a matter of fact, I think I may be able to ultimately convert Terry to my Creationist/Evolutionist brand of science. In any event, Terry, at my suggestion, added OR BOTH?? to the title of the forum! salty