Carl Woese interview (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 12:11 (3111 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I mentioned a comment from Woese a few days ago, which offered his point of view about evolution. He thinks outside the box. The discoverer of the third branch of life: Archaea. Turns out he doesn't think much of Darwin's thoughts:-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzan-mazur/carl-woese-dies_b_2398491.html-I found this too skimpy to understand what lies behind his scepticism. Just a couple of comments:
 
QUOTE: “Our task now is to resynthesize biology; put the organism back into its environment; connect it again to its evolutionary past; and let us feel that complex flow that is organism, evolution, and environment united. The time has come for biology to enter the nonlinear world.”-I thought Darwin's theory did set the organism in its environment and did connect it - through common descent - to its evolutionary past. Perhaps you could explain what Woese means by “nonlinear”. He tells us later: “We have to try to discover the dynamic of the process of evolution, of the evolutionary process.” I'm sure we all agree that the “dynamic” needs to be discovered, but (a) he believes in evolution, and (b) what is evolution if its “complex flow” is not a linear process that leads from comparatively simple forms to increasingly complex forms? Is he simply referring to the “bush” that replaced Darwin's tree? I thought biology had long since entered that part of the world (has no biologist yet tried to explain diversity?). Not meant as a criticism, though - these are genuine questions, because you obviously know a lot more about Woese's ideas, and the interview simply doesn't tell us why, in the context of evolutionary theory, he “doesn't think much of Darwin's thoughts.” -INTERVIEWER: What are some of the “principles of life” you and your colleagues are looking to confirm? 
WOESE: If I were to tell you what principles we were looking for, there would no longer be a question.-Not much help there.-Woese's evident hostility towards Darwin, including the fact that Darwin only referred to his grandfather Erasmus (disparagingly) in one footnote, really doesn't help us much either to understand his opposition to the science. But I'm only pointing out that the article itself is not very revealing.