From: Chuck Austerberry (cfauster@creighton.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 17 2003 - 23:26:28 EST
Dear Colleagues:
I just get the asa-list digest, so perhaps others have announced this already. If so, IMHO for some it still might be worth reading my take on the issue :).
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From: Editor <editor@METANEXUS.NET>
Subject: [NEWS] Online Discussion: Darwin in the Genome: An Online Chat with Lynn Caporale, Thursday, November 20th, 9:00 - 10:00pm Eastern
To: NEWS@LISTSERV.METANEXUS.NET
Thursday, November 20th, 2003
9:00 - 10:00pm Eastern
http://www.iscid.org/lynn-caporale.php
ISCID is pleased to announce an online chat with the author of _Darwin in
the Genome_ , Lynn Caporale. In her latest book _Darwin in the Genome_
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071378227/iscid-20> , Caporale
offers an exciting new theory that sees past both the ideas of a purely
random model of evolution, and the alternative of the action of an external
designer, to reveal a more comprehensible mechanism at work. A mechanism
that looks startlingly strategic and purposeful, and yet is consistent with
the basic Darwinian framework. Simply put: Not all mutations are random
accidents. In the struggle for survival,from pathogens to flowers, birds to
orangutans, baker's yeast to human beings,the fittest genomes become
effective strategists, responding to, and in fact anticipating, challenges
and opportunities in their environments.
Lynn Caporale received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of
California at Berkeley. After teaching and doing research at New York
University, Memorial/Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University,
and Georgetown University Medical School, she moved to Merck Research
Laboratories, where she spent over a decade focused on the discovery of new
medicines.
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I haven't read the book, but I did go to the amazon.com site. Here are the concluding sentences from the book's editorial synopsis:
"Most importantly, by exploring the genome and its evolutionary strategies in wonderful detail, Caporale disperses the nagging doubt that natural selection could have produced human life unassisted. Indeed, the exciting work going on right now in this area opens our minds to this possibility and strengthens the Darwinian paradigm."
Given the book's apparent acceptance of Darwinian natural selection ("unassisted," even), I'm a little surprised that ISCID is so interested. Perhaps ISCID's interest in this comes from the possibility of scientifically demonstrating that not all mutations are random, at least not in every conceivable probability distribution (i.e., might be non-random with respect to genomic region, but random with respect to whether or not a coding reading frame is shifted by the mutation in that region).
In my opinion, there is a big difference between:
1) natural selection favoring genomes in which mutations have a (slightly) better chance of being advantageous (or perhaps a bit lower chance of being detrimental), and
2) scientific evidence that an intelligent designer must have arranged the genomes and/or be directing the mutations that modify them.
I believe in a Creator who may act via genetic mutations, but I don't expect to be able to scientifically detect such action through some sort of non-randomness in the mutations. In any case, this is not the first time that factors influencing types of mutations and where they occur in the genome have been viewed by ID advocates as evidence of design. In "Chromosome rearrangements and transposable elements" (Ann. Rev. of Genetics Vol. 36, pp. 389-410, 2002) Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig and Heinz Saedler of the Max-Planck Institute in Cologne, Germany note that rapid evolutionary jumps might be facilitated by transposon-mediated genome rearrangements. They emphasize that some transposons integrate preferentially in certain kinds of DNA sequences and/or chromatin structures, and thus that certain chromosome rearrangements which follow those transposition events are more likely than others. There is nothing entirely new or really problematic with that. The problematic ID theory c!
omes in via their conclusion that genome rearrangements leading to biological diversification and speciation are therefore "predetermined" instead of "accidental." Personally I don't think either term, "predetermined" or "accidental," is necessary or helpful in this case. It seems pretty far-fetched to regard mutational hotspots, coldspots, lukewarm spots, etc. in a genome as scientific evidence for a designer.
Cheers.
Chuck Austerberry
-- Charles (Chuck) F. Austerberry, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biology Hixson-Lied Science Building Room 438 Creighton University 2500 California Plaza Omaha, NE 68178Voice: (402)-280-2154 FAX: (402)-280-5595 e-mail: cfauster@creighton.edu web: http://puffin.creighton.edu/Austerberry
Nebraska Religious Coalition for Science Education http://nrcse.creighton.edu
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