Evolution: A new theory (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 13, 2012, 15:33 (4426 days ago) @ dhw


> I've read this review a couple of times, and still don't know what it's getting at ... possibly the reviewer's fault, though probably mine. Twice in the above passage he refers to relevance without saying in what way these forces/processes are relevant. He concedes that living embryos are much more complex than nonliving materials, and so even if the "motifs" are strikingly similar, it's presumably the differences (or extra complexities) that make the difference, so to speak. Why, then, are similarities to nonliving forms important to our understanding of evolution and speciation? And would evolution have been possible if physical processes hadn't been mobilized? And how does all this explain the Cambrian Explosion? David, do you understand what it's all about? Or is not worth the effort to understand?-A quote from the background press release:-"Evolution is commonly thought to take place opportunistically, by small steps, with each change persisting, or not, based on its functional advantage. Newman's alternative model is based on recent inferences about the genetics of the single-celled ancestors of the animals and, more surprisingly, the physics of "middle-scale" materials.-Animal bodies and the embryos that generate them exhibit an assortment of recurrent "morphological motifs" which, on the evidence of the fossil record, first appeared more than a half billion years ago. During embryonic development of present-day animals, cells arrange themselves into tissues having non-mixing layers and interior cavities. Embryos contain patterned arrangements of cell types with which they may form segments, exoskeletons and blood vessels. Developing bodies go on to fold, elongate, and extend appendages, and in some species, generate endoskeletons with repeating elements (e.g., the human hand). -These developmental motifs are strikingly similar to the forms assumed by nonliving condensed, chemically active, viscoelastic materials when they are organized by relevant physical forces and effects, although the mechanisms that generate the motifs in living embryos are typically much more complex. Newman proposes that the ancestors of the present-day animals acquired these forms when ancient single-celled organisms came to reside in multicellular clusters and physical processes relevant to matter at this new (for cellular life) spatial scale were immediately mobilized."-To summarize: this is quasi scientific philosophy stating that early forms, as the cells clustered mimicked the geology around them. Weird, but this is what gets published today. On the other hand, some weird proposals are really a road to true reality. How to prove? I have no idea.