Epigenetics, revisited; new exciting studies (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 29, 2011, 19:59 (4782 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: I still don't understand why he [Darwin] made his theory "absolutely" dependent on gradualism. You say you "fully understand it", so I'd be truly grateful if you would explain it to me!-DAVID: I think the difference between you and I and our interpretation of Darwin is organ vs. organism. Both of us agree that evolution occurred. And we see epigenetic effects and punctuated equilibrium (pe) as a source for sudden jumps in phenotype of species. So the gradualism for species is in doubt. [...]-[...] I don't think that goes slowly, liver construction, that is. It must appear in jumps to work at all. That is the issue of irreducible complexity I've raised. I think I understand Darwin, I don't think he could have understood, with his lack of what we know now, the underlying problems of how evolution works.-I don't see any difference between our interpretations of Darwin. You have used the liver as an example of a complex organ, and he used the eye, and what baffles me is his assertion that if these organs were not the product of "numerous, successive, slight modifications" his theory would "absolutely break down". You and I agree that modern research suggests these organs were not the product of slight modifications but, as you say, of "jumps" ... the very process which Darwin says will wreck his theory. But how does it wreck his theory? It only wrecks the single strand of gradualism, not the overall pattern of evolution (all forms of life descending from earlier forms, adaptations and mutations, natural selection), so why, why, oh why did he think gradualism was all-important?
 
(Maybe this is boring, but at present you and I seem to be the only folk left in the universe, so I'll keep badgering you!)