On June 28, Stephen Buryani published an article in the Guardian called “Do we need a new theory of evolution?” His answer was a definite “yes,” implying that new discoveries had rendered modern evolutionary theory obsolete, needing replacement by something else.
The article was a train wreck, full of claims that were long known, distortions of the importance of what “new” things were claimed, and outright mistakes. I wrote a critique on this site, and then Brian and Deborah Charlesworth and I wrote a letter to the Guardian that was published. Doug Futuyma wrote an excellent critique that wasn’t published, and Brian Charlesworth noted some of the more egregious errors: Doug’s letter and those errors went into a separate post.
Now Jon Perry, a science education consultant who makes nice videos about evolution (see them at his website “Genetics & Evolution Stated Casually“) has produced a very good 15-minute video critique of Buranyi’s article, which I’ve posted below.
You can see at the outset how the Guardian article confused and misled the layperson about evolution: a teacher panicked when she saw the article and wrote Perry to see if the textbook description of modern evolutionary ideas really were “wrong”. No, the textbooks weren’t wrong, and Perry shows why.
Perry takes a few examples touted by Buranyi as baffling—the evolution of the eye, the wing and feathers, for example—and uses published evidence (which he shows) to show that we do understand how these features may have evolved. Buryani didn’t do his homework; Perry did.
Perry also explains what the “Modern Evolutionary Synthesis” is, describing how it began and where you can find its origins. He also mentions the Templeton Foundation as a funder of the movement to show the moribund nature of evolution, and I get a mention in connection with Templeton at 9:00 (“I do mean to get all Jerry Coyne-y on you all, but the funding source of an organization can influence its message, so this really is a fact worth noting—and for some reason, the Guardian article neglected to do so.” (I’m not sure what “getting all Jerry Coyne-y” means, but I hope it’s not an insult!)
Finally, Perry describes the “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis” (EES), which is the gentler name for the “Evolution is Dead” movement. He takes up one area of the EES, “plasticity”, and shows that Buryani gets some of it right and some of it wrong, including the claim that it’s ignored in modern evolution texts (it’s not; it’s part of “evolutionary orthodoxy”).
Do watch the video; it’s excellent and Perry simply demolishes Buryani’s article. It’s a video rebuttal, and I wish the Guardian could mention it somehow.
