Carl Woese interview (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 22:15 (2893 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 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.”
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> 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”. -Basically I believe he means evolution is multilayered not a simple progression from one animal type to another, with many facets and influences in action only some of which we know about and understand. He certainly doesn't think much of CM/NS with its simplicity.--> dhw: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, -I really don't know much more about him than his insistence evolution has to proceed in a many layered fashion to explain all of the diversity that we see. His insistence that we were missing a lot led him to discover the Archaea.-> 
> dhw: 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.-He was not opposed to doing research in evolution all of his life. He just thinks Darwin is too simplistic in his theory. I agree.