La stigmergie se manifeste dans la termitière, par le fait que le travail individuel de chaque ouvrier constructeur stimule et oriente celui du voisin.
A library does not fabricate information, it receives it from without, classifies and stores it. The medieval copyists made mistakes that altered, vitiated the texts they were supposed to reproduce. Who dares assert that their errors are the work itself?
The Pierre-Paul Grassé Project
ReplyDeletehttp://truth.1st.ug/
This project supports individuals and teams doing research against or outside of the neo-Darwinian orthodoxy in biology, by connecting them to parties that provide them with funding or services on preferential terms.
The goal is to help evolve and sustain alternatives to the neo-Darwinian synthesis. These alternatives may be scientific or not.
A method of inquiry is made valid and worthwhile by being a source for truth; it is not truth that is made valid and worthwhile by being the result of a particular method of inquiry.
Every origins account presumes evolution (by virtue of being a story about origins of the species). The account it provides is the theory for the origins.
Most contention amongst origins accounts is not about whether or not the biosphere changed from one time to another, but about how and why it occurred. —Not about whether evolution happened, but about the theory that explains it.
No theory compels merely by existing. Segregating amongst origins theories is necessarily due to reasons other than the theories themselves; reasons of æsthetics, emotion, religion, and other biasing factors.
This is not only normal, it is the only possible way to select from among contending theories.
Plurality of prevailing theories in biology is the best guarantor of the possibility that correct theories will be known. Orthodoxy may have some dubious value for education systems and scientific endeavour, but it has no value for knowledge of the truth.
Perhaps in this area biology can go no farther: the rest is metaphysics.
~ Pierre-Paul Grassé
Biology (Greek: βιος, “life”; λογος, “study”) is the study of life, not the neo-Darwinian or materialistic-scientific study of life, as orthodoxy requires.
Life defeats materalism.
A library does not fabricate information, it receives it from without, classifies and stores it. The medieval copyists made mistakes that altered, vitiated the texts they were supposed to reproduce. Who dares assert that their errors are the work itself?
ReplyDeleteAlthough everything is not as it should be, the living world is not at all chaotic and life results from a very well-defined order. As soon as some disorder, even slight, appears in an organized being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life and anarchy.
Assuming that the Darwinian hypothesis is correct, they interpret fossil data according to it; it is only logical that they should confirm it: the premises imply the conclusions. The error in method is obvious.
Bacteria, the study of which has formed a great part of the foundation of genetics and molecular biology … The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!
Bacteria, the study of which has formed a great part of the foundation of genetics and molecular biology, are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. This is why they gave rise to an infinite variety of species, called strains, which can be revealed by breeding or tests. Like Erophila verna, bacteria, despite their great production of intraspecific varieties, exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!
Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction.
Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction … This intrusion of theories has unfortunate results: it deprives observations and experiments of their objectivity, makes them biased, and, moreover, creates false problems. … Assuming that the Darwinian hypothesis is correct, they interpret fossil data according to it; it is only logical that they should confirm it: the premises imply the conclusions. The error in method is obvious.
Biologists must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses of the interpretations and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths.
Biologists must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses of the interpretations and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths. The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and the falsity of their beliefs.
But according to Darwinian doctrine and Crick’s central dogma, DNA is not only the depository and distributor of the information but its sole creator. I do not believe this to be true.
ReplyDeleteCockroaches, which are one of the most venerable living relict groups, have remained more or less unchanged since the Permian, yet they have undergone as many mutations as Drosophila, a Tertiary insect.
Evolution has not only slowed down, but with the aging of the biosphere, it has also decreased in scope and in extent. We are certain that it does not operate today as it did in the remote past. Something has changed.
Evolution has not only slowed down, but with the aging of the biosphere, it has also decreased in scope and in extent. We are certain that it does not operate today as it did in the remote past. Something has changed. It is of the utmost importance to determine what has changed; this should shed light upon the internal mechanisms of the phenomena. The structural plans no longer undergo complete reorganization; novelties are no longer plentiful. Evolution, after its last enormous effort to form the mammalian orders and man, seems to be out of breath and drowsing off.
Evolution, after its last enormous effort to form the mammalian orders and man, seems to be out of breath and drowsing off.
For millions or even billions of years, bacteria have not transgressed the structural frame within which they have always fluctuated and still do. It is a fact that microbiologists can see in their cultures species of bacteria oscillating around an intermediate form, but this does not mean that two phenomena, which are quite distinct, should be confused; the variation of the genetic code because of a DNA copy error, and evolution. To vary and to evolve are two different things; this can never be sufficiently emphasized. … Bacteria, which are both the first and the most simple living beings to have appeared, are excellent subject material for genetic and biochemical study, but they are of little evolutionary value.
For millions or even billions of years, bacteria have not transgressed the structural frame within which they have always fluctuated and still do.
How does the Darwinian mutational interpretation of evolution account for the fact that the species that have been the most stable-some of them for the last hundreds of millions of years have mutated as much as the others do? Once one has noticed microvariations (on the one hand) and specific stability (on the other), it seems very difficult to conclude that the former (microvariation) comes into play in the evolutionary process.
I do not consider the spontaneous appearance of resistance to an antibiotic in a nonresistant population of bacteria as evidence. Neither structures nor fundamental functions are involved here. This is so true that variations of this kind, although repeated millions of times, have left bacteria practically unchanged.
If one considers the great number of simultaneous, timely mutations satisfying existing needs involved in their genesis, one can not fail to be confounded by so much harmony, so many lucky coincidences, due entirely to omnipotent chance.
It follows that any explanation of the mechanism in creative evolution of the fundamental structural plans is heavily burdened with hypotheses. This should appear as an epigraph to every book on evolution.
It follows that any explanation of the mechanism in creative evolution of the fundamental structural plans is heavily burdened with hypotheses. This should appear as an epigraph to every book on evolution. The lack of direct evidence leads to the formation of pure conjectures as to the genesis of the phyla; we do not even have a basis to determine the extent to which these opinions are correct.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to note that relict species mutate as much as others do, but do not evolve, not even when they live in conditions favorable to change (diversity of environments, cosmopolitianism, large populations).
It is true that, with regard to evolution, it is not easy to have access to reality; the past does not lend itself easily to our research, and experiments do not have any hold over it.
Left to itself, DNA undergoes, during its replications in the germinal cells, the mutations so often referred to in the body of this book. But error modifies what already exists, it does not create it.
Let us not confuse creative evolution with variations in the composition of a population through circumstances. They are two distinct things, and any attempt to connect them is purely specious.
Moreover, during phylogenetic organogenesis, natural selection must be capable of foresight. Isn’t “choosing” its prime function? But the choice cannot take place without predicting the future role of the incipient organ. Without such prescience, the coordination of successive states is incomprehensible. Did Darwin take this into consideration?
Natural selection working for the continuance and welfare of animals, plants, and man himself, is seen to be the grand law which organizes the living universe. So the Darwinians, who fancied they had exorcized finalism and transcendency but forgot to analyze critically the idea of natural selection, failed to see its implications or metaphysical consequences. They thought they were absolved from giving any finalization or deistic interpretation by decreeing that on earth all is but deceptive appearances; finality is a sham, guided evolution illusory.
Natural selection working for the continuance and welfare of animals, plants, and man himself, is seen to be the grand law which organizes the living universe. So the Darwinians, who fancied they had exorcized finalism and transcendency but forgot to analyze critically the idea of natural selection, failed to see its implications or metaphysical consequences. They thought they were absolved from giving any finalization or deistic interpretation by decreeing that on earth all is but deceptive appearances; finality is a sham, guided evolution illusory. How is it possible to understand such an attitude? We cannot pretend that nature (with a capital or a small “n”) copies man, the latest of its creations. So we are forced to admit, according to the Darwinian view, that nature acts blindly, unintelligently, but by an infinitely benevolent good fortune builds mechanisms so intricate that we have not even finished with analysis of their structure and have not the slightest insight of the physical principles and functioning of some of them.
Once one has noticed microvariations (on the one hand) and specific stability (on the other), it seems very difficult to conclude that the former (microvariation) comes into play in the evolutionary process. … To vary and to evolve are two different things; this can never be sufficiently emphasized.
Perhaps in this area biology can go no farther: the rest is metaphysics.
ReplyDeleteSo we are forced to admit, according to the Darwinian view, that nature acts blindly, unintelligently, but by an infinitely benevolent good fortune builds mechanisms so intricate that we have not even finished with analysis of their structure and have not the slightest insight of the physical principles and functioning of some of them.
Some contemporary biologists, as soon as they observe a mutation, talk about evolution. They are implicitly supporting the following syllogism: mutations are the only evolutionary variations, all living beings undergo mutations, therefore all living beings evolve. … To vary and to evolve are two different things; this can never be sufficiently emphasized.
Some contemporary biologists, as soon as they observe a mutation, talk about evolution. They are implicitly supporting the following syllogism: mutations are the only evolutionary variations, all living beings undergo mutations, therefore all living beings evolve. This logical scheme is, however, unacceptable … because its conclusion does not agree with the facts. … No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution. … To vary and to evolve are two different things; this can never be sufficiently emphasized.
The fruitfly (drosophila melanogaster), the favorite pet insect of the geneticists, whose geographical, biotropical, urban, and rural genotypes are now known inside out, seems not to have changed since the remotest times.
The genic differences noted between separate populations of the same species that are so often presented as evidence of ongoing evolution are, above all, a case of the adjustment of a population to its habitat and of the effects of genetic drift. The fruitfly (drosophila melanogaster), the favorite pet insect of the geneticists, whose geographical, biotropical, urban, and rural genotypes are now known inside out, seems not to have changed since the remotest times.
The lack of direct evidence leads to the formation of pure conjectures as to the genesis of the phyla; we do not even have a basis to determine the extent to which these opinions are correct.
The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: a single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur.
The struggle is unremitting, as the statistics prove. The evolutionary effect is nonexistent. Morphologically and physiologically, both hare and lynx remain unchanged.
There is no law against day dreaming, but science must not indulge in it.
To vary and to evolve are two different things; this can never be sufficiently emphasized.
ReplyDeleteWe fully understand Darwin’s fears and wonder what they would have been … But we note that he does not overcome any of the obstacles raised against his doctrine by “reality.”
We fully understand Darwin’s fears and wonder what they would have been, had he been confronted with the anatomical and cytological complexity that is revealed by modern biology; he would have been even more worried had he known that selection cannot create anything on its own. … But we note that he does not overcome any of the obstacles raised against his doctrine by “reality.”
We repeatedly hear that chance is all-powerful. Statements are insufficient. Evidence must be produced.
What is the use of their unceasing mutations, if they do not change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect.
What scientist would venture to estimate the chances of such a cascade, such an avalanche, of coordinated and mutually adjusted chance occurrences? The odds are infinitesimal. Please remember, too, that the case of the ant lion is not at all an exceptional one, chosen to support a thesis; such an accumulation of adaptations and coaptations is the rule.