Biology vs evolution: approaches to religion

On The Turning Tide

Post: December 9, 2013 10:20 pm
Author: Benjamin Grant Purzycki, John H. Shaver

Excerpt: “Jay has worked tirelessly to keep the conversation going and this year’s sessions included three sections with presenters whose work represents cutting edge research and innovative theoretical perspectives.”

My comment: Behind the scenes, however, Jay has worked almost ceaselessly to prevent the dissemination of any new information that conflicts with his claim that “Random mutations are the substrates on which directional natural selection works.”

In the context of biology vs evolution, it is now known that “Ecological variation is the raw material by which natural selection can drive evolutionary divergence [1–4].”Despite the overwhelming experimental evidence to support that fact

Jay R. Feierman wrote: It is very sad for me to see that when several different people on this group, all with doctorate degrees, tell you that you are not correct, you don’t consider that they might be telling you something helpful. Instead, you respond with arrogance and ignorance. I’ll add my voice to the other people on this group who have told you that you are not correct in terms of your understanding of what “variation” means in Darwinian biological evolution and what is doing the selecting. Variation is not nutrient availability and the something that is doing the selecting is not the individual organism.

Previously, Feierman argued against this fact: “It is now perfectly clear that this statement and any statement or inference like it is WRONG: Random mutations are the substrates upon which directional natural selection acts.”

He wrote: I am absolutely certain that if you showed this statement to any professor of biology or genetics in any accredited university anywhere in the world that 100% of them would say that “Random mutations are the substrate upon which directional natural selection acts” is a correct and true statement. 

Therein lies the problem. Feierman seems to believe that others would say the same thing he has been saying or inferring for many years, despite the fact that no experimental evidence has ever supported claims of mutation-initiated natural selection in the context of mutation-driven evolution. Instead, all experimental evidence has continued to prove that “Ecological variation is the raw material by which natural selection can drive evolutionary divergence [1–4].”

However, several recent attempts to disseminate accurate information have failed because Feierman is the moderator of the ISHE’s human ethology yahoo group and he blocks posts from me that offer accurate representations of what is currently known. For example, this is a post he blocked when I submitted it yesterday (12/9/13) at 1:54 P.M. in response to this thread: Time to rethink the neural mechanisms of learning and memory

Learning, memory, and behavior are clearly due to odor associations in nematodes that exemplify de novo creation in 3 ways.

1. de novo creation of olfactory receptor genes
2. de novo creation of species-specific blends of pheromones
3. de novo creation of the first teeth.

See for example: System-wide Rewiring Underlies Behavioral Differences in Predatory and Bacterial-Feeding Nematodes

The new way of thinking about the neural mechanisms of learning and memory is to think in the context of adaptations to the environment, which are required. This new way of thinking exemplifies what has been learned about the molecular epigenetics of cause and effect. The conserved molecular mechanisms refute all aspects of mutation-initiated natural selection and support de novo gene creation and the manifestations of newly created genes in species from microbes to man.

Experimental evidence of conserved molecular mechanisms also established the fact that “Ecological variation is the raw material by which natural selection can drive evolutionary divergence [1–4].” It’s time to think about that fact — as many others have been doing during the past 49 years — ever since the well-known Creationist, Theodosious Dobzhansky wrote:  “…the only worthwhile biology is molecular biology. All else is “bird watching” or “butterfly collecting.” Bird watching and butterfly collecting are occupations manifestly unworthy of serious scientists!”

Bird watching, for example, has led to no new thinking about the neural mechanisms of learning and memory, and it never will. It is simply not possible to learn anything about the biology of behavior by watching birds. Thus, the question “What about birds?” can be answered simply, and the answer is “Who cares” unless you are interested in discussing the molecular biology of their behavior, which can be placed into the context of learning, memory, and behavior in nematodes, whales, and all the other species that I have posted about during the past few months.