Evolutionary Catechism (Evolution)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 23:47 (5237 days ago) @ George Jelliss

There was a good Horizon programme on TV this evening about viruses.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00q2rdj-It mentioned the work of Eckard Wimmer who synthesised a virus.
This was back in 2002.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2122619.stm-It also featured a scientist who has located viruses in archaea in hot springs at Yellowstone Park, and who thinks viruses may have preceded the evolution of bacteria and other forms of life.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14215-
On facebook one of my Friends posted this link:
Should Evolutionary Theory Evolve?-http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/1/1/24/1/-This is about the Altenberg conference.-Quote: City University of New York evolutionary biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci insists that expanding evolutionary theory so that it captures recent insights doesn't mean throwing out 150 years of sound thinking. "We're not talking a revolution," he says. "Nobody's going to deny Darwin and all that stuff. But it has been several decades since the last time evolutionary biologists actually sat around the table, so to speak, and came up with the basic principles of their field." -Quote: There's no need to formally revisit the Modern Synthesis, argues Douglas Futuyma, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, because evolutionary theory is flexible enough to incorporate well-substantiated new ideas as they arise. "I think the evolutionary synthesis has already been extending itself almost continually for the last few decades," he says. "I'm not saying that there's nothing interesting [in the Extended Synthesis]. I just think the self-conscious labeling of it as a new point of view or a challenge to the old, most people don't buy."

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GPJ