Psychological slip (original) (raw)

On the Theory of Evolution Versus the Concept of Evolution: Three Observations

Evolution: Education and Outreach, 2011

Here we address three misconceptions stated by Rice et al. in their observations of our article Paz-y-Miño and Espinosa (Evo Edu Outreach 2:655–675, 2009), published in this journal. The five authors titled their note “The Theory of Evolution is Not an Explanation for the Origin of Life.” First, we argue that it is fallacious to believe that because the formulation of the theory of evolution, as conceived in the 1800s, did not include an explanation for the origin of life, nor of the universe, the concept of evolution would not allow us to hypothesize the possible beginnings of life and its connections to the cosmos. Not only Stanley Miller’s experiments of 1953 led scientists to envision a continuum from the inorganic world to the origin and diversification of life, but also Darwin’s own writings of 1871. Second, to dismiss the notion of Rice et al. that evolution does not provide explanations concerning the universe or the cosmos, we identify compelling scientific discussions on the topics: Zaikowski et al. (Evo Edu Outreach 1:65–73, 2008), Krauss (Evo Edu Outreach 3:193–197, 2010), Peretó et al. (Orig Life Evol Biosph 39:395–406, 2009) and Follmann and Brownson (Naturwissenschaften 96:1265–1292, 2009). Third, although we acknowledge that the term Darwinism may not be inclusive of all new discoveries in evolution, and also that creationists and Intelligent Designers hijack the term to portray evolution as ideology, we demonstrate that there is no statistical evidence suggesting that the word Darwinism interferes with public acceptance of evolution, nor does the inclusion of the origin of life or the universe within the concept of evolution. We examine the epistemological and empirical distinction between the theory of evolution and the concept of evolution and conclude that, although the distinction is important, it should not compromise scientific logic.

Controversy in Evolutionary Theory: A multilevel view of the issues

arXiv: Populations and Evolution, 2018

A conflict exists between field biologists and physiologists ("functional biologists" or "evolutionary ecologists") on the one hand and those working in molecular evolution ("evolutionary biologists" or "population geneticists") on the other concerns the relative importance of natural selection and genetic drift. This paper is concerned with this issue in the case of vertebrates such as birds, fishes, mammals, and specifically humans, and views the issue in that context from a multilevel perspective. It proposes that the resolution is that adaptive selection outcomes occurring at the organism level chain down to determine outcomes at the genome level. The multiple realizability of higher level processes at lower levels then causes the adaptive nature of such processes at the organism level to be largely hidden at the genomic level. The discussion is further related to the "negative view" of selection, the Evo-Devo and Extended Evolut...