Darwin DevolvesMichael J. BeheIntroduction Describes his early thoughts about life and how things came to be. The the story of his education and his faith, both of which were comfortable with an evolutionary development of life. Further education gave greater insight into the elegance and complexity of life. A major impact was reading Denton's "Evolution, A Theory in Crisis" He came to see great problems with the Darwinian picture and participated in discussions on Design as related more fully in Woodward's Doubts About Darwin. He wrote Darwin's Black Box and The Edge of Evolution. PART I Problems 1. The Pretense of Knowledge p15 Starts with example of polar bear, which might be presumed to be easy evolutionary steps from the brown bear, but upon examination the pathway involves mutations in 17 genes, about half the mutations damaged the function of the respective coded proteins. p18 Discussion of what Darwin knew and didn't know compared to current study of DNA. p21 Comparing to projecting economics, the 'structures of essential complexity' in biology are beyond our capacity. "concerns processes - many still unknown - that occur at the molecular level over thousands or millions of years" with multiple factors affecting them. p21 "cloaked by a thick pretense of knowledge" Gives examples of attributing to evolution complex phenomena, when that attribution adds nothing to our knowledge. Calls them "red flag" examples.
p27 Uses some of the switched advice on dietary items as examples. p31 Levels of explanation p33 Table of Levels of Explanation with discussion. p33 "It is somewhere in the level of manageably irregular explanations that we begin to trade real knowledge for a pretense of it." (has used smoking and cancer and sickle-cell trait as examples) p34 Discussion of "spandrels" citing Gould and Lewontin paper. p35 Examples of complex adaptive systems, all of which involve living things. p35-36 "In biology, patterns of mutations are the byproducts of the workings of extremely complex molecular machinery over generations, not necessarily the reverse." p36 "like all other complex functional, purposeful arrangements, the stunning sophistication of the cell is best explained by an intelligent cause." p37 About his first two books: "dealt primarily with the riddle of functional complexity in biology - that is, the need for multiple parts to cooperate with one another to accomplish some task. That's been a perennial migraine for Darwin's theory ..." p37-38 "..as with the polar bear, Darwinian evolution proceeds mainly by damaging or breaking genes, which, counterintuitively, sometimes helps survival. In other words, the mechanism is powerfully devolutionary. It promotes the rapid loss of genetic information. Laboratory experiments, field research, and theoretical studies all forcefully indicate that, as a result, random mutation and natural selection make evolution self-limiting. That is, the very same factors that promote diversity at the simpler levels of biology actively prevent it at more complex ones. Darwin's mechanism works chiefly by squandering genetic information for short-term gain." 2. Fathomless Elegance p39 Pursuing his parallel between economic forecasting and biologist who try to explain the development of living things, he gives humorous examples about how economic forecasting doesn't care about the details of mechanism, but the explanation of life's development requires the understanding of the basic mechanisms of change. p41"..Aristotle, who is actually called the 'father of biology' .. interested ... in how nature works. "the insight that, to begin to understand nature, one has to go out and closely observe it - systematically and in detail" But our understanding was stuck at the level of surface observation for thousands of years. "For example, arteries and veins could be seen in dissected animal bodies. Yet the fact that they connected to each other through tiny capillaries in a closed circulatory system escaped even the great Roman surgeon Galen,who thought that blood was pumped out by the heart to sink into the tissues, much as water in irrigation canals in his day sank into the ground. His mistaken ideas were taught for thirteen hundred years." p42 New tools can bring dramatic new discoveries.
p44 His point was to build the base for discussing the exquisite systems of life. p44 "Gearing Up", picture p46 p44 Planthopper has gears that it can spin 50,000 teeth/sec to jump hundreds of times its body length. He references National Geographic comments for emphasis. p47 "The Eyes Have It" cites Paley's discussion of eye in terms of design. Darwin's statement. Darwin had read Paley. Reversed the roles of imagination and reason - p49 Purported "flaw" of the retina being backward actually a fiber optic system that has wonderful efficiency. p50 Each cone cell has its own dedicated fiber optic cell attached to it. p51 "Magnetic Personality" Magnetotactic bacteria. Detailed discussion of the carefully controlled fabrication of a line of magnetite particles. p54 "Making Tracks" Brief review of his previous treatments of the bacterial flagellum. Discusses "twitching" cells and "gliding" cells that have "tank treads" with protein structures that rotate within cell. Rotary motors. p58 "In Control" Automated machines need detailed regulation. Mow lawn? Drive car? Needs intelligent agent to regulate. "Yet precise regulation must somehow be built into the very structure of biological subsystems." p58 Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob studied DNA regulation in E Coli, which can feed on glucose or lactose, but feed exclusively on glucose if it is present.
Monod and Jacob awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965 for this research which for the first time revealed the regulatory system of a prokaryote cell. But eukaryote cells have regulatory systems vastly more sophisticated. p60 Discussion of exons and introns p60 One discovered fruitfly gene can "yield tens of thousands of different proteins" with alternate splicing of exons. p61-62 The role of the spliceosome - a new dimension to gene regulation. Uses "enhancers" that can be close or far away in the gene, using gene folding. 63 Complex living systems that "do something" functional - teleology of systems discussed. Add examples to the eye as the paradigm of purpose. PART II Theories 3. Synthesizing Evolution p67 Discusses "Modern Evolutionary Synthesis" or "neo-Darwinian Synthesis". Includes biology that Darwin didn't know.
p68 maybe go back here and list sections p68 Brief discussion of Hutton and Lyell and Lyell's friendship with Darwin. Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism. p70 The Mockingbird's Tale. Three islands of the Galapagos have three different species, but all similar to the one on the nearest mainland of western South America. Strengthens Darwin's view of descent with modification. p71 "There is grandeur
4. Magic Numbers 5. Overextended PART III Data 6. The Family Line 7. Poison-Pill Mutations 8. Dollo's Timeless Law 9. Revenge of the Principle of Comparative Difficulty PART IV Solution 10 A Terrible Thing to Waste. The Family Line Appendix: Clarifying Perspective
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