It is evident that we are wasting far too much time interpreting each other’s words. So let’s cut to the chase. One thing you have said, that I haven’t misinterpreted, is that Shapiro is a “kook”. And you have implied throughout that he presents false science, bad science, etc. That’s your claim. So it would make sense for you to show where his science is false or bad. And you can’t show that if your only source for what he says is what his critics say about him. You can show it only by reference to his writings. So if you want to convince anyone that his science is false, bad, you are going to have to refer to his writings.
I suggested a writing which I have here, and which is at least in part (not entirely, because there is much technical stuff in it) accessible in meaning to a non-scientist with a decent layman’s understanding of basic chemistry and biology. There are many non-scientists here in these discussions, and therefore it makes sense to use such a work rather than some technical article of his which may be completely beyond the understanding of non-scientists here. So I again, I suggest that you make your case from statements offered in his book.
But if you don’t want to take the time to do that, I don’t fault you. We all have time constraints – as do I, which is why I am going to exit this discussion now. I may return, in a few weeks, if you eventually discuss what Shapiro has actually written, with passages and page numbers so everyone can follow. But for now I have teaching and writing to do. See you sometime down the road, and thanks for the exchange.
To save us both time, it would be useful for you to cite what you think it Shapiro’s best claim and at least one paper he cites as evidence for that claim.
You’re the one who made the claim about Shapiro, not me. You said he was a nut and that his science was bad. In my field, we don’t make claims like that without having read the author’s work. Let me know what you find when you’ve actually read him. Happy reading.
We like Larry because he is a delightful curmudgeon who doesn’t easily suffer fools. Larry keeps up on all the latest research in the field and accurately describes the consensus opinion, and he is definitely qualified to do that.
Hi Eddie
Just for the record I have read Shapiro’s book and had a few email exchanges with him. I was very interested in his work when I saw the problems with current evolutionary theory as mutation did not seem like a good solution for ordering sequences that are elements of DNA and proteins.
He was very gracious in his exchanges with me and also had a group of scientists he was collaborating with such as Eugene Koonin. All that being said I don’t think he really has a solution for how new functional information (complex DNA/protein) sequences are formed.
I agree with Koonin, who Shapiro collaborates with, that neutral theory should be the null hypothesis. The only proposal I have seen that really challenges the null is design or conscious intelligence which has issues as a scientific hypothesis.
Because it’s precisely neo-Darwinism which is falsified if organisms can rewrite their own genomes in response to environmental stress. “The modern theory of evolution” may allow things that neo-Darwinism did not.
Does Shapiro agree with this? If so, then I agree that the departure from mainstream thinking is not as great as he makes out. If not, you and Shapiro need to have a talk about what the data indicate. That’s a conversation for you two scientists. I have no opinion on the matter, as I haven’t studied the bacteria in the lab, the way Shapiro has, and the way you presumably have (or presumably you wouldn’t be correcting Shapiro).
I’m impressed that you took the time to write to Shapiro and give his ideas a chance. Not everyone reacts to him that way. Some read an article or two of his, and declare him wrong on everything based on purported errors on some things; others declare him wrong without having read him at all.
You may be right that Shapiro does not have a solution for how new functional information arises. I make no claim that Shapiro is correct. I just think his book is interesting and, if even only 10% correct, worth reading by people who claim to know a great deal about how evolution works.
swamidass
(S. Joshua Swamidass)
Split this topic
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Tell that to Ken Miller, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and Eugenie Scott, whose conception of how evolution works, based on their culture-war statements anyway, is essentially neo-Darwinian. Listen to Stuart Newman’s comments (I referenced the interview elsewhere here) on the Dover trial, which was in 2005, much later than 1968! He thought the whole presentation of evolution there was out-of-date neo-Darwinism. You spend too much time among specialists and not enough time out on the streets, it seems. Out on the streets, where people’s impressions of evolution come from NOVA TV specials, Ken Miller, Bill Nye’s kids’ TV show, popular books, science fiction, etc., neo-Darwinism is still the prevailing popular conception of evolution.
In any case, I was merely reporting on why Shapiro thought his view of evolution was not neo-Darwinian. I was using Shapiro’s own terminology – you can find it in his book. I didn’t introduce the term gratuitously, or even to pick a fight with neo-Darwinism. I was describing what Shapiro says.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve carefully read Dawkins’s and Miller’s books. Their basic view of evolution is classical neo-Darwinism. You’re welcome to invite them here and ask them to explain why they have presented such an outdated view of evolution in their popular books. It would be amusing to watch people here interrogate them, rather than me, for a change.
You’re not even trying to listen. I use the term in context, for historical purposes or to distinguish the views of particular people. I have made no claim at all that every evolutionary theorist today is a pure neo-Darwinian. I have not even claimed that most evolutionary theorists today are pure neo-Darwinians. But there is no question that the popular conception of evolution, at least up to and including the time of the Dover trial, has been mainly neo-Darwinian. Stuart Newman is an evo-devo guy, not a neo-Darwinian, and he has characterized the Dover discussion in the same way. So I’m not making this stuff up.
I have asked Miller. He would say he was simplifying for a lay audience. Dawkins would say that Darwinism is atheism, and is not the biological theory of evolution.
