Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Denis Noble (born 1936) is a British physiologist highly regarded for his work in that field (he has an FRS). Wikipedia notes his accomplishments: He is one of the pioneers of systems biology and developed the first viable mathematical model of the working heart in 1960. What the article doesn’t discuss is that Noble has spent the last period … Continue reading Denis Noble goes after Darwinian evolution again, scores own goal
What we have below (click on headline for free access) is a review in Nature by Denis Noble of a new book by Philip Ball, How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology, which has garnered good reviews and is currently #1 in rankings of books on developmental biology. The Amazon summary promises that … Continue reading Yet another misguided attempt to revise evolution
UPDATE: I forgot to add this bit from Welch’s paper about the John Templeton Foundation: It is remarkable, for example, that much of the funding for challenging current practice in evolutionary biology comes from The John Templeton Foundation (Pennisi 2016), which is committed to using science to reveal underlying purpose, and rejecting what Nagel (2012) … Continue reading Why do some scientists always claim that evolutionary biology needs urgent and serious reform?
On November 7-9 there was a special meeting of London’s Royal Society on “New Trends in Evolutionary Biology: Biological, Philosophical, and Social Science Perspectives.” I believe it was organized by Denis Noble, a physiologist who believes that modern views about evolution are ripe for a thorough revision. Many of the speakers at the meeting are part of the … Continue reading Once again: misguided calls for a thorough revamping of evolutionary biology
Mae-Wan Ho is a scientist known, to me at least, for unproductive work: dissing GMOs and biotechnology and, especially, relentlessly attacking “neo-Darwinism”, the modern theory of evolution. Ho is also head of an unfortunately named organization; as Wikipedia notes: Ho is the director of the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS), an interest group that campaigns … Continue reading Mae-Wan Ho and Suzan Mazur: the blind leading the blind about evolution
Over my whole career, but especially in the last half-dozen years or so, I’ve heard that neo-Darwinism (the modern theory of evolution) is either wrong, in a crisis, or about to undergo a profound Kuhnian paradigm shift. And it’s never happened. Neo-Darwinism gets expanded (things like the “neutral theory,” for example, were adopted and largely … Continue reading BBC Radio 4 tonight: a revolution in evolution? NOT
