They agree that gene duplication is included in microevolution. From their paper:
Current microevolutionary thinking assumes that observed types of genetic change (from single
base substitutions to gene duplications) are sufficient to explain all evolutionary events, past
and present. Such changes are considered as having occurred during evolution in a temporally
homogeneous way. Microevolution does intersect with mechanisms of GRN change at the level of change within cis-regulatory modules. But attempting to explain an aspect of animal evolution that depends on one kind of network alteration by adducing evidence from an aspect that depends on another can be fundamentally misleading.
I won’t generalize to everyone here. But let’s look at the latest remark of T. aquaticus under another discussion. I had written that there existed disagreement regarding evolutionary mechanisms – disagreement which you have just admitted can be salutary. So you and I agree. But T. aquaticus doesn’t, apparently. His reaction to the existence of disagreement among evolutionary theorists was this:
“There are wrong scientists in every field. Pointing to scientists who are wrong is a waste of time.”
Do you see the difference? You are saying that it was good in the long run for some scientists to push the envelope regarding developmental constraints, because it advanced the field. Aquaticus is saying that the people who disagree with the consensus are wrong, so we don’t need to bother to listen to them.
(And lest you say that I took Aquaticus’s remarks out of context, he was fully aware – or should have been, since I repeated it often enough – that I was not saying that any particular group of scientists was right, but only that disagreement existed among the experts. But every time I say that, he sneers at those who represent the disagreement; and he isn’t the only one here who does that.)
More pedantry. In the Arts, people are trained to meet the other person halfway on points of usage like this. Apparently in Biology they are trained to fight to the death over whether a piece of writing should be called an “article” or something else. How petty biologists must be, if they are all like you! But I don’t think they all are. I think you are a particularly quarrelsome example of the breed.
“There are wrong scientists in every field. Pointing to scientists who are wrong is a waste of time.”
But then interpret this to mean:
I really don’t see the connection, especially after finding the context behind his quote. He was replying to you making the trivial point that “there exist differing views”, and (correctly) pointed out that a trivial example of this is that some scientists in every field are wrong, in other words you’ll almost always be able to find at least 1 scientist in a field that disagrees with any given detail of that field. That alone is not surprising - it’s a waste of time. Why don’t you ask @T_aquaticus if you actually believes that we shouldn’t bother listening to anyone who disagrees with any given consensus? I suspect you already know that he doesn’t believe that, so I have to wonder why you would suggest it in the first place.
I don’t have the money if they are behind a paywall. Provide me links to free copies, and I’ll gladly read them, out of interest. They won’t affect my main point one way or the other. The review/comment adequately established that evolutionary theorists disagree over mechanisms.
Yes, I understand this, and I agree; but when he wrote that passage, T. aquaticus knew perfectly well that I was not saying: “Because there exists one oddball scientist who disagrees with everyone else on the planet, we are obligated to treat his view as equally important.” He knows – or should know – that I was speaking of disagreement among scientists about mechanisms generally. I have given plenty of examples to him and to others, of legitimate, not crank, disagreement among experts. I have mentioned, for example, that cosmologists disagree on the percentage of matter in the universe that is “dark.” One is not automatically a crank merely for proposing a different percentage than someone else. And one is not automatically a crank for suggesting that the mechanisms of microevolution (a la standard population genetics) might not be adequate to explain all evolutionary change.
You knew immediately what the Coyne-Erwin dispute was about, but you had to explain it to T. aquaticus. But why did he need the explanation? Why was the discussion new to him? I’ve been reading about the discussion, in different forms, for years now. If he is unfamiliar with the dispute, that calls into question his judgment when he dismisses any disputes over evolutionary mechanism as coming from cranks or people who are just plain wrong. Erwin is not a crank or an incompetent. Even if Shapiro is.
I have the impression that T. aquaticus does not read nearly as broadly in evolutionary theory as you do. And this is what irritates me – the population genetics provincialism of this place. I’m used to reading evolutionary theorists like Gould, who have a vast, wide, and deep view of the whole history of evolutionary theorizing. I don’t see anything like Gould’s mastery of the big picture questions in any of the replies I get here. You’re the first person here who has mentioned actually attending conferences of evolutionary theorists, listening to papers by Wagner and Newman, etc. If I were a biologist, I would make evolutionary theory my specialty, and I would be attending lots of such conferences, and reading all the “big picture” books and articles I could get my hands on. But that’s not what I see here.
So you’re doubling down on your claim that you genuinely believe that @T_aquaticus thinks that anyone who disagrees with any scientific consensus is automatically a crank to be ignored? Really? Or are you admitting that you constructed a straw man of his position when you quoted him at me?
I’m not commenting on what he thinks; I can’t read his mind. I’m commenting on what he writes here. And when I write thousands of words to him and to several other people here to make clear that I am not talking narrowly about just Shapiro, and not talking at all about ID people or creationists, but am merely noting the existence of disagreements over various aspects of mechanism among legitimate, published, evolutionary theorists – disagreements which you admit to exist – and he gives a quick retort about not having to pay attention to scientists who are “wrong,” he is not responding justly or fairly to what I mean. Or does he think that Wagner, Newman, and scores of other legitimate evolutionary theorists are as wrong as Shapiro is, and should be ignored? I can’t tell; all I know is that I said that evolutionary theorists sometimes have pointed disputes over the adequacy of various mechanisms, and over the weighting of mechanisms, and he spoke in response of scientists who are “wrong.” He didn’t say, “Yes, I agree that there are disagreements among evolutionary theorists over mechanism, and some of those disagreements are legitimate and healthy for science, but some of them come from cranks.” He simply jumped to justify ignoring scientists who were “wrong,” without any qualification or caveats. So his manner of response in that case was gauntlet-throwing and non-productive. That’s all I have to say on this point.
That’s a complete misrepresentation of my position. You simply point to disagreement as if it were important. It’s not. What’s important is who is right and who is wrong.
I didn’t say that all disagreements were of equal value. I said that disagreements regarding evolutionary mechanism, disagreements among fully qualified experts, exist. Do you accept this as a fact?
Evograd already explained the gist of it to you.
Why do you want my discussion of the science – which would be secondhand – when you can get it from the horse’s mouth? Erwin’s original article is available to you. Evograd and others have provided the link. Once I have got hold of a free copy, I’ll read it. But there is nothing to stop you from reading it immediately, if you want to know what Erwin means and what Coyne was objecting to. Frankly, I’m surprised that someone who claims as much knowledge of evolution as you do didn’t already know of Erwin’s article and Coyne’s response.
