As most readers, contributors of this globally dynamic PhysForum on creation-evolution issues, may have known: I have spent considerable time reading and writing on Why neo-Darwinists, sophists, have launched an all-out assault on lay creationists and detractors, for their each (identity) religious (or secular) beliefs -- please see Sam Harris “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason” (2004); Richard Dawkins “The God Delusion: [
]); Christopher Hitchens “God is not Great: How Religion poisons Everything” (2007); Victor Stenger “God: The Failed Hypothesis” (2007); etc.
Being an independent student of science (especially biology, biotechnology, biomedicine) and philosophy issues, I have been very diligent in reading and scrutinizing the works of these extraordinary public intellectuals, nihilists cum atheists; and reexamining their origins of nihilisms & atheisms against their each personal scholastic training, learning, and reasoning, in and from, their polemically deep-seated & misguided anti-religious rants, scholastic indiscretions & sophistries, in science-philosophy issues of today; and their each palaver, academic irrationalism & transgressions; and the consequences that they have had raised, shrilled, mis-challenged, and caused
Among these self-proclaimed nihilists cum atheists, it was the (now retired) Oxford armchair ethologist Richard Dawkins -- being the most vocal sophist of them all since the publication of his first pseudo-genetic book “The Selfish Gene” (1976) -- who has had indeed (since the 1990s) inspired the equally-pseudoscientific sophist, Intelligent Design-creationist, anti-evolutionary detractor cum Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, so as to launch an attack on the 19th-century great naturalist Darwinism -- instead of the 20th-century pseudo-genetics Dawkinsism! -- Please see Behe’s 1996 first book “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution” and subsequently “The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism” (2007); and thereafter was followed by other pseudoscientific ID-creationists, sophists books, including Jonathan Wells “Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong” (2000); and Stephen Meyer “Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design” (2009); etc.
Even the cognitive psychologists-trained philosophers, scientists-turned-sophists Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, have had gotten their target of criticism & attack wrong: especially in their latest book “
In the history of our modern science & religion issues and scholarships, there have been a long list of famous/infamous
.
are those visionaries who would understand the boundaries, limits & consequences of their new found knowledge, wisdom & visions (implicit as in faith & religion; and/or explicit as in science & technology, etc); whereas
are those self-blindsided ignoramuses (by their own egotism) who would be too hubris or arrogant,
as those that have had been often raised and discussed in these open and dynamic Creation/Evolution PhysForum threads, since 2005!? -- [
-- who are always arguing passing each other for their very poverty & irrelevancy in scholarships, especially in their pseudo science-religion and/or creation-evolution issues --
: for their each palaver & irrationalism in our common, universal, worldwide science-philosophy issues of today and beyond!?
Time and again, among these pseudoscientific (nor evolutionary nor inspirational nor theological) scholarships, Dawkinsism is the most outstanding, fantastic, ballistic, bombastic, repulsive, implosive & depressive of them all, as I recently found out more -- the Achilles heels of Dawkinsism, so to speak --
and now, let me repost it (with edits) hereunder, for your convenience: “Altruism can be explained by natural selection -- RE: Resuscitating neo-Darwinism, the "evolutionary geneticism-memeism" par excellence of the 20th century -- or, How "altruism" has been oversubscribed by NS, to even beyond Darwin's original intent (1859)!?” (NatureNewsUK; September 2, 2010).
[Quoting Mong’s 9/2/10 comments on NatureNewsUK -- as listed in September Dialogues #1 & #4; & expanded in October Dialogue #1 -- with edits & expansions in red & in parenthesis below:]
RE: Resuscitating neo-Darwinism, the "evolutionary geneticism-memeism" par excellence of the 20th century -- or, How "altruism" has been oversubscribed by NS, to even beyond Darwin's original intent (1859)!?
Preamble: Since the 1940s, despite Modern Synthesis (MS) of neo-Darwinism par excellence; the then new synthesis of one natural selection (NS) theory, which is contrary to Darwin's 1859 original intent -- by irrelevantly stitching together of Darwinism (the top-down or gross observations of macro-evolution of adult organisms: from geological fossils, species morphology, somatic modifications, variations, etc) and Mendelism (the bottom-up or specific organic characterizations of micro-evolution: from peas pollinations, heredity, genetics, growth, development, etc) -- whereas by modern interdisciplinary scientific analysis, the 1859 great naturalist's NS theory -- a "long argument" (as Darwin
himself put it) that is primarily derived from the then massive global taxonomy
of life organisms (and fossils) by Darwin and his British associates of the 19th
century -- had had not been scientifically or conclusively proven to be predictive of and for any then unresolved organic characterizations of the generally sexual "blending of inheritance" in gametes (the seeds of fertilization of egg by sperm or the contemporaneous but independent experiments, observations, statistics of Mendelian genetics [thereof]: a field study that was completely unknown to
Darwin and his associates or detractors of the time), and the organic germ-line "transmission of heredity" therein and thereof, in and by their adult organism "somatic forms and functions" -- or the more specific characterizations of organism behaviorisms, in general; or the personalities in humans, in particular; etc in the then massive surveys and observations of the natural and life history and philosophy on Earth.
In retrospect, without presenting any specific organic mechanisms of the life species on Earth, the great naturalist's NS long narrative-argument for the then encompassing view of "evolution in nature" was soon "dead on arrival" within the next 2 decades of fierce, passionate, intellectual and spiritual, academic debates -- at the height of the Victorian pastime. Even Darwin himself -- with his subsequent
prolific writings on "The variation of animals and plants under domestication" (1868), "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" (1871), and "Inheritance" (1881), etc -- seemed to have been unable to conclusively resolve the then query of organic evolution in germ-line or heredity issues, let alone the [then unheard of or unrecognized] Mendelian genetics; or the
social and cultural issues of the 19th-century [socio-intellectual & spiritual] high time!
Consequently, the Darwinian NS theory (since published in 1859) could not have had been attempted to account, characterize, or predict all the elements, forces, events, phenomena, etc in the cosmic evolution -- or creations religious or otherwise -- processes of the Universe above and beyond; especially those organic processes or mechanisms of the quantum evolutionary forces, elements, developments, etc that have had made up the organic universe and its dynamism, in and within each of the life entities and spirits or energies on Earth (including those in and of humans or
ants, etc). Therefore, the long NS narrative/argument/theory is not the whole
evolutionary theory or history of the observable evolutionary processes on Earth, at all; nor whether could it be used, so as to subscribe or explain the internal organic evolutionary processes or developmental mechanisms of inheritance or heredity, in and of any living organisms, at all -- such as, the Mendelian genetics; the linguistics or psyche; or the thinking processes of our mind or even an ant's mind, etc!
By current evolutionary metacognitive and scientific analysis, both Darwinism and Mendelism (D&M) should not have had been irrelatively commingled since the 1940s -- by uncritically using the NS theory so as to describe, dictate, explain, or predict the outcomes of organic genetics -- as one Darwinism-over-Mendelism (DoM) thesis, the DoM synthesis that has had been fossilized in the MS above!?
In reality; with the benefits of hindsight, and the current advances in interdisciplinary sciences and natural philosophy, both D&M are 2 very different and independent lines of evolutionary thinking -- in modern biology and genetics -- today and beyond; and that both D&M are dynamically, scientifically, and characteristically
opposing each other in thinking sense -- as in the gross/macro vs. micro/quantum observations of any biological evolutions as defined above, especially since the 19th century of D&M originated in Europe in and from their tirelessly and separately working on these 2 evolutionary lines of thinking, in life species taxonomy and heredity, that are very dynamic and independent of each other's thinking, observations, and identifications in modern biology and genetics, respectively -- and analogically, that both D&M are just as polar opposite to each other as those 2 evolutionary lines of thinking in "general relativity" and "quantum mechanics" of the 20th-century cosmic and quantum physics, respectively; as both GR&QM are just as independent and polar opposite to each other as ever, even today and beyond!?
Thus, in the 19th-century evolutionary science-discovery nutshell:
Although the great naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-82) did not inspire Mendel's
peas-plant experiments and his only one scientific statistical analysis and report in "Experiments in plant hybridization" (1865), it was the incidental, low-key botanist, scientist, priest Gregor Mendel (1822-84) who actually shed light on the then persistently query of the organic "blending of inheritance" or the "mechanisms of heredity" in [and by living] organisms, that Darwin had missed in his long argument of NS, in his 1859 evolutionary masterpiece treatise "The Origin of Species"!
1) Edward O Wilson -- the world-renowned (now retired) Harvard myrmecologist (an expert on ant species and colonies; not erudite in anthropology or sociology, let alone biochemistry or genetics) -- has (since the 1970s) been attempting to apply the NS theory in his extensive studies of ants and their "eusocial" behaviors, worldwide; and he had even attempted to extrapolate his supreme ethology of the "ant colonies and behaviorisms" to the "human societies and conditions" in such a biology-ecology-[ethology] inspired term that he coined as "sociobiology" in 1975; but to no avail, as he was indeed greeted with very surprised, bitter/sweet, "cold and wet" reactions and commotions among his academic colleagues: the instant protests of his sociobiology thesis -- a new and extended synthesis of the MS that he had hoped to use and serve as a "leap of faith" doctrine (ie, from ant behaviorism to Wilsonian
[ant]-anthropocentricism, so to speak); or a "consilience" of "[ant] nest-working" (please see definitions in Commentary 3 below) of all the studies of human organisms in biology, sociology, anthropology, cultures, etc into one "straight-jacketed" DoM sociobiology, or the NS dogma, that Wilson had had inspirationally derived from the MS above -- and was met with vehement rejections and criticisms from most of his erudite scholars and professionals, in the humanities and social sciences alike!
Even today, Wilson's anthropomorphism of myrmecology still persists; that's why it has prompted a series of my own "long argument" (in defense of both D&M legacies and integrities) comments, as expressed herein and under. Meanwhile, along with and in this neo-Darwinist, pseudoscientific evolutionary line of thinking and writing; coincidently, the aforementioned and abused MS-DoM-NS dogma, has had also (since the 1970s) inspired Richard Dawkins -- the now equally-renowned (and also retired) Oxford armchair ethologist (an expert on animal behaviorisms; but not a trained biochemist or geneticist [or anthropologist]) -- so as to launch a first-ever fad/bad science writing industry: the neo-Darwinist, reductionist, sophist, pseudo-genetic "evolutionary geneticism and memeism" par excellence of the 20th
century; as one pseudo-genetic fantasy and rhetoric writing that Dawkins has had
managed to initiate, introduce, and popularize worldwide; in his 1976 best-selling neo-Darwinist egoism or "gene-centrism" or "simpleton-DNA-replicator" reductionism-[viral] behaviorism-[gene selectionism or the over-theorized &
over-modernized NS dogmatism] first book "The Selfish Gene"!
2) The above "altruism or eusociality" study-analysis by Nowak, et al (presumably constructed under Wilson's direction; or at best, along his neo-Darwinist line of thinking) is no exception at all; it is just as controversial as ever, with no ends (or any proposed scientific mechanisms) in sight; but it merely represents yet another evermore rhetoric and sophist propagation of the NS theory -- as one that is devoid of any specific organic mechanisms at all -- as Darwin first published it, in his masterpiece "The Origin of Species" in 1859!
Even today -- in the 21st century -- won't the neo-Darwinists, myrmecologists, ethologists have had read or updated or learned from their concurrent, impressive, and massive research works of the "evodevo" (evolutionary and developmental) molecular biologists, geneticists, embryologists, entomologists, physiologists (experts in insect and vertebrate physiology alike), etc since the 1980s!?
By modern biological evodevo studies, theories, and analysis: the key to the formation or organization and function of an ant colony or eusociality, lies primarily in the biological and genetic makeup and viable functions and communicative operations of its queen -- the mother ant, so to speak -- and her vital capacity to reproduce offspring; and thereafter, to biochemically and continuously control and modulate her progenies -- especially the worker ants whom she has rendered sterile -- by her
supreme repertoire of pheromones, or her vital, functional, neural, somatic, communicative biochemical signals and senses, within her brooding colony -- or by her ant linguistics, so to speak; as one that is silent but effective nonetheless; as it has had been originated, evolved, forged, and endowed by the cretaceous geo-biochemical forces and elements, over 100 million years ago on Earth! -- [Please see my seminal book "Gods, Genes, Conscience" especially Chapter 2 The Universal Elements of Life, and Chapter 3 The Physicochemical basis of Life; linked below.]
3) As a result, the worker ants are born reproductively-deprived; and forever rendered sterile by their mother-queen biochemically, so as to be consistently induced and responsive to serve their only queen for life; single-mindedly, obediently, coordinately, protectively, and tirelessly the way they are; within their each own species-specific (SS) colony or society or "nest-work" of ants -- and not to be misconstrued as their being able to act/work/defend "altruistically" in anyway of "self-sacrifice" for others "at will" or in any kind of participatory "kin selection" politics, at all; within their each own SS colony of genetically-related worker/soldier ant species and their biochemically-endowed and communicated behaviors!?
These eusocial and hierarchical SS ant behaviors are established on and by the fact that if the colony queen-mother perishes -- or to be experimentally removed -- the whole nest-work of her offspring ants, will soon disorient, disorganize, disband, disintegrate -- and perish, too! In other words, the worker/soldier ants will not coordinately function or cooperatively survive by themselves alone as a "society" while without the lifetime presence and communicative signals, responses, and senses of and from their SS mother-queen, at all! Thus, this Wilsonian cum Dawkinsian pseudoscientific neo-Darwinist, reductionist, sophist sociobiology of ants, and their behaviors should not have had been senselessly and carelessly attempted, so as to extrapolate them to the evermore complex studies of human biology, physiology, genetics, psychology, sociology, etc; let alone the human cultures, societies, civilizations, consciousness, conscience, etc as Wilson, et al have had done in Commentary 1 above!
Furthermore, the neo-Darwinists attempted extrapolation of nest-work of ants and of evolutionary geneticism-memeism to the human biology, genetics, and behaviorisms, is simply a clear violation of the basic taxonomy of species and of genetics that both D&M have had respectively and independently helped to establish and advance, in and through their evolutionary lines of thinking during the 19th-century Europe; as one that I first pointed out in my Preamble above. Such a neo-Darwinists' gross -- or cross-animal kingdom-wise and/or [cross-organism] species-wise -- extrapolations of the irrelevant biological phenomena and organic data and behaviorisms, to and among the unrelated species and behaviorisms -- such as those in humans and in ants, as discussed above -- have had not only betrayed both the 19th-century D&M legacies and integrities; the evolutionary geneticism-memeism inspired by the MS-DoM-NS dogma, has had also violated the neo-Darwinists' own basic training and learning, in science and technology, and in the pursuits of their own evolutionary lines of academic research and education; as those that have had been established long ago, since the Industrial Revolutions in the 18th-century England and Europe; in the 19th-century USA; and beyond, worldwide, since the late 20th century!?
4) Besides, since the 1960s, the SS pheromone-communicated behaviors in ants (or in any other eusocial insects or even in bacteria or slime molds, etc) have had all too often been mistakenly, persistently, and insensibly "anthropomorphized" by those eager 20th-century neo-Darwinists, myrmecologists, ethologists, psycholinguists, etc worldwide; as they all have had been too busy in attempts, so as to advance their then revitalized NS dogma, that they had had co-opted, incorporated, and formalized -- as one DoM pseudoscientific and pseudo-genetic thesis or geneticism-memeism -- as derived from the MS above!?
Consequently, to apply the [neo-Darwinist or] NS [turned] dogmatic theory of behaviorisms in ethology or anthropology or psychology or myrmecology nowadays -- as Wilson, et al have had been trying to do in the study-analysis above; and in his sociobiology consilience before, since the 1970s -- is to resurrect the 19th-century phrenology in neuroscience of the 21st century, today and beyond!?
5) Last, but not least -- and most poignantly -- it is no surprise that such a neo-Darwinist dogma-inspired, anthropocentric-myrmecologist, ethologist-bias syndrome has had institutionally set in, probably taken root, contracted, infected, taken for granted, and permeated within the then Harvard "evolutionary biology" psyche; presumably since the 1980s, at a time when the (now) still controversial "evolutionary psychology" has had been sowed, fertilized, gestated, germinated, and radiated therein and thereof, at Harvard and later elsewhere, worldwide!? Whereas -- only recently -- has had such an insidious, pervasive, cancerous, inflammatory, and costly neo-Darwinist, ethologist-bias syndrome, been unveiled, investigated, diagnosed, and forced to be characterized, identified, and announced publicly (with the helps of those young brave honest whistleblowers -- [now, that's self-sacrifice for
science or ethology to be specific] -- from the bottom up) at such a traditionally authoritative, highly esteemed, externally unrivalled, unchecked, uncritical, but conventional Harvard-MIT neo-Darwinist, artificial intelligence or armchair cognitive psycholinguist-bias dominancy/malignancy in scholarship, research, and influence worldwide: an academic malignancy that seems to have had escaped any close internal or external scrutiny, at all; perhaps, since the 1960s when the then neo-Darwinist "gene centrality" concept in evolutionary biology and psychology (in science and technology) has had grown and become preeminence at Harvard -- or the subsequent neo-Darwinist-bias syndrome towards genetic determinism and armchair sophistry in psycholinguistics at Harvard-MIT complex, has had been at once transgressed, impressed, energized, inspired, and stimulated by the then young Harvard professor (now retired) cum Nobel laureate (1962) James D Watson; by his
previously reported research prowess, competitiveness, and experiences in biology, biochemistry, and biophysics, in the then post-WWII England and Europe; as he depicted in his 1968 competitive and impressive DNA molecular structure-discovery memoir "The Double Helix"!?
Caveat lector: Nowadays -- especially in the 21st century -- especially to the benefits of continuing, sustaining, and promoting scientific integrity and transparency in and within the high research academia; and to the trusts of the general science-philosophy or "Nature" readership, it is obligatory that all the research works conducted by any neo-Darwinists, sophists (young or old) who couldn't or wouldn't be able to present their works in or by any specific, organic, biochemical terms and processes, and/or any evodevo genetic/epigenetic, biological/physiological characterizations, identifications, classifications, etc shall subject themselves to the close and open scrutiny -- internally and externally alike -- in consistence with the constantly-updated general academic, sociopolitical, and scientific standards, protocols, ethics, conducts, and passions -- for truths and consequences -- especially in the common worldwide pursuits of the universal, scientific, and technological excellence; integrity; objective truth and justice; etc of today and beyond!?
[Ergo, without a comprehension of the “organic origins & their evolutionary developments” or the evodevo “genetics” of life species, there would be no "evolution” -- or “natural selection” in as much and as eloquent and as rhetoric a term as Darwin had had attempted in 1859 above -- that could be used to accurately subscribe or predict or dictate the organo-biochemically interconnected, viable, multiplying cellular & molecular life entities, their formations, organizations, patterns, forces, and processes on Earth, at all. The MS of DoM or neo-Darwinism of the 20th century is the utmost sophistry in modern biology of today, post 19th-century D&M
speaking & critical thinking in science and technology of today and beyond!?
As such, and metaphorically speaking, evodevo biology is the “engine” of evolution in general; whereas the Mendelian genetics is the organic (germ line) mechanisms of all the Lamarckian (1744-1829), Darwinian (1809-82) & Wallacean (1823-1913) global (LDW) observations & interpretations of evolution in nature -- or the organic inheritance or the biochemical basis of heredity in and for living & evolving organisms -- that the great naturalists, morphological or paleontological evolutionists LDW had all missed: in their then impressive and massive global surveys of organisms; or of the flora and fauna, since the 18th-century taxonomy, and the 19th-century paleontology -- or the classification of fossil organisms in relation to the then more established geology -- on Earth!
Thus, in conclusion: By doing an intellectual or historical justice to all the great, diligent naturalists, zoologists, botanists, evolutionists, et al of the Victorian high time and elsewhere in the 19th-century Europe: It is now clear and ascertained that 1) since the 1980s -- almost a century after Darwin’s passing -- most hard-working molecular biologists, biochemists, geneticists, et all of nowadays will attest, and have all shown, that evodevo genetics is the engine (or the organic mechanisms) of evolution in nature, especially in molecular biology & genetics of today and beyond; and 2) that the physicist-trained, turned-botanist, the Augustinian priest Gregor Mendel (1822-84) -- who may now be liken to the British engineer James Watt (1736-1819) of the foundational Industrial Revolution in England; and to the Serbia-born inventor, electrical engineer Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) of the Second Industrial
Revolution in USA -- Mendel is the indisputable father of the Genetic Revolution
in Europe, a field study that he (in 1856-63) quietly started and pursued when
studying & experimenting on the sweet peas -- a subject of his local, agricultural interest & expediency; and of his scientific germ-line heredity (in seeds) inquiry, ingenuity, and luck of the time & place; in this very accidental peas-plant genetics-discovery history -- especially in such a peas study in evodevo botany had had occurred, experimented, analyzed, and unveiled, in and from his then 19th-century, lonesome, monastery garden & library at Brunn, Moravia, Europe (please see Preamble above); and 3) that the MS of neo-Darwinism and its derivatives thereof (since the 1940s), such as, “population geneticism,” “group or kin selectionism,” sociobiology & consilience, reductionism of geneticism & memeism, ethologist-bias anthropomorphism, armchair-psycholinguistics, etc are all pseudoscientific and pseudo-genetic sophistries & scientism of the 20th century, post 19th-century D&M
naturalism and evolutionary science; and 4) that evodevo genetics -- and not the MS of neo-Darwinism or of evolutionary rhetorical geneticism-memeism -- is the organo-biochemically driving forces & processes of evolution on Earth: especially in the processes that had had been accrued and sparked since the formation & evolution of the Precambrian biosphere, geochemistry, biochemistry, biogenesis, and vital biodiversity of flora and fauna over 600 million years ago; and now that 5) all these evodevo geo-biochemical elements & processes -- and not the rhetorical NS
dogmatism of geneticism & viral memeism -- are being increasingly, consistently, and cooperatively investigated, tested, and even bio-engineered in modern biology, ecology, biomedicine, neuroscience, food industry, etc: via cellular & genetic engineering and biotechnology of today and beyond -- all post 20th-century neo-Darwinists obscurantism & sophistries in science and technology issues, that had had indeed lasted and persisted (especially heightened in the 1960s as observed above) for almost a century: in and of the very neo-Darwinists waste time; misuse & misguidance of their very reductionist intellects, self-denial (repressed) emotions & counterrevolutionary pseudoscientific hubris, arrogance & excesses; in our increasingly critical and scientific thinking of today and beyond, since the 19th-century D&M in Europe (please see Preamble & Commentary 1 above)! -- Quod erat demonstrandum!?]
Thank you all for your kind attention and cooperation in this matter. Happy reading, scrutinizing, introspecting, and enlightening worldwide! :)
