Re: A revolution in the field of evolution

On Apr 10, 9:26 pm, "limitationsofscience"
<limitationofscie...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 10, 9:15 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

limitationsofscience wrote:
by H. Allen Orr October 24, 2005 Carroll, Sean; "Endless Forms Most
Beautiful" (Evo Devo (Evolutionary Developmental Biology); Evo devo.

Nice review. I can't shake the idea that you think something in this
review invalidates our current understanding of evolution. If that's so,
what?

[snip]

Is this the SOMETHING in the shaking idea?

Evo-Devo or Evolutionary Developmental Biology is an emerging new
discipline that integrates Evolution and Development. Evo-Devo shows
why neo-Darwinism is incomplete. by Gert Korthof

Evo-devo was not included in the neo-Darwinian Synthesis, so it is an
extension (not an alternative for neo-Darwinism).

No doubt Evo-Devo belongs to mainstream science, but still somebody
has to construct a new Evolutionary Synthesis.

A concise introduction to evo-devo is Shaping Life. Genes, Embryos and
Evolution by evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith (1998).

The 'Manifesto' of this new discipline is: Wallace Arthur (2000) The
Origin of Animal Body Plans. In his Biased Embryos and Evolution
(2004) (review: Science) Arthur develops into a full-blown critic of
the 'neo-Darwinian Synthesis'. This paperback (233 pages) is written
for a wider audience (without the technicalities but with the concepts
and illustrations) and aims at a new inclusive 'Synthesis' from the
point of view of evo-devo.

The best-illustrated attractive accessible evo-devo introduction is
written by the pioneer and leader of the evo-devo field Sean Carroll
(2001, 2004) From DNA to Diversity. Molecular Genetics and the
Evolution of Animal Design (review: Science). Carroll (2005) Endless
Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of
the Animal Kingdom (15) is a personal account of the development and
significance of the evo-devo field for the general reader. Carroll
explains why the discovery of genes that control the development of
the embryo revealed an unexpected unity in animal design.

Furthermore, there is no better source for discovering the causes of
evolutionary innovations in the animal kingdom. For anyone exploring
evo-devo a study of modern developmental biology is recommended.

The best background reading is Enrico Coen (1999) The Art of Genes
(review: Nature) because it focuses on teaching the concepts of
development - how an adult organism is made from an egg.

For all the scientific details but still accessible, read Walter
Gehring (1998) Master Control Genes in Development and Evolution - The
Homeobox Story (reviews: Nature, Science).

In 2006 appeared Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development by Nobel
Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. The emphasis is on the
genetics of development; short but interesting discussion of
evolutionary aspects (reviews: American Scientist, Nature).

The most recent evo-devo is Wallace Arthur (2006) Creatures of
Accident. The Rise of the Animal Kingdom, in which he argues that
Natural Selection alone does not explain how complex creatures arise
from simple ones. The importance of the divergence of replicated parts
has been seriously underplayed in popular literature on evolution
(review: Nature, Skeptic).

Origination of Organismal Form Beyond the Gene in Developmental and
Evolutionary Biology, Edited by Gerd B. Müller and Stuart A. Newman.

Drawing on work from developmental biology, paleontology,
developmental and population genetics, cancer research, physics, and
theoretical biology, this book explores the multiple factors
responsible for the origination of biological form.

It examines the essential problems of morphological evolution

why, for example, the basic body plans of nearly all metazoans arose
within a relatively short time span, why similar morphological design
motifs appear in phylogenetically independent lineages, and how new
structural elements are added to the body plan of a given phylogenetic
lineage.

It also examines discordances between genetic and phenotypic change,
the physical determinants of morphogenesis, and the role of epigenetic
processes in evolution. The book discusses these and other topics
within the framework of evolutionary developmental biology, a new
research agenda that concerns the interaction of development and
evolution in the generation of biological form. By placing epigenetic
processes, rather than gene sequence and gene expression changes, at
the center of morphological origination, this book points the way to a
more comprehensive theory of evolution.

Gerd B. Müller is Professor and Head of the Department of Theoretical
Biology at the University of Vienna. He is a coeditor of Origination
of Organismal Form (MIT Press, 2003) and Environment, Development,
Evolution (MIT Press, 2003).

Stuart A. Newman is Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at New York
Medical College.

You left a few things out of your original post. First was a link to
the New Yorker Review that Orr wrote:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/24/051024crbo_books1

The second thing you left out was his conclusion:

"The Darwinian revolution was certainly something like this: one could
not look at biology in the same way after Darwin. And the Modern
Synthesis, the second defining moment in the history of evolutionary
biology, came close: it's hard to think of evolution in the same way
once you know that it has to obey the laws of Mendel's genetics.
But evo devo doesn't seem quite in this league. The ideas that Carroll
champions wouldn't undermine other, more traditional, ways of thinking
of evolution. Even in the evo-devo account, change in animal form
still involves change in DNA sequence and change in Darwinian fitness-
just as evolutionary biologists assumed in all their equations over
the past half-century. So it's hard to see how evo devo could supplant
these other approaches."

This reminds me of something you said to Jason Spaceman (Who shares
stories from current publications with a link to the source.)

"Write your own garbage for a change instead of quoting from the
paper."


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