b. July 15, 1928
d. December 30, 2012
“Thus, we regard as rather regrettable the conventional concatenation of Darwin’s name with evolution, because there are other modalities that must be entertained and which we regard as mandatory during the course of evolutionary time.”
“I have concerns about scientists thinking that they’re God when it comes to biology.”
“A future biology cannot be built within the conceptual superstructures of the past. The old superstructure has to be replaced by a new one before the holistic problems of biology can emerge as biology’s new mainstream.”
“I do not like people saying that atheism is based on science, because it’s not. It’s an alien invasion of science.”
- Carl Woese
Suzan Mazur: Why do you think NAI chose to give you and your team $ 8M, since you are known as a challenger of Darwinian dogma? Is NASA finally acknowledging the Darwin approach is wrong?
Carl Woese: I would hope so because that’s very clear from our NASA Astrobiology Institute grant application.
Suzan Mazur: You’ve described the “disconnect between Darwinists, who had taken over evolution, and microbiologists, who had no use for Darwinian natural selection.” Do you have anything to say about the recent decision of Huffington Post to block publication of microbiologist James Shapiro’s response to Darwinist Jerry Coyne following Coyne’s attack on Shapiro’s thinking about a reduced role for natural selection in evolution?
Carl Woese: I think that’s immoral. Science must be free to examine what it sees. If you’re going to say everyone must follow the Darwinian line, that’s not free science.
Carl Woese, evolution skeptic.
Atheism and evolutionism seem to be the antithesis of science. It is good that a good scientist is finally coming out and saying so.
A New Biology for a New Century
Just come up with a better alternative. One that explains, makes novel predictions, etc.
It’s the usual BS – somebody somewhere said something critical of evolution, therefore ID.
Have Mung or the IDiots ever tried a different tactic?
How about when they did all of that science?
No, I guess that was just their fantasy.
Glen Davidson
References don’t explain themselves. Life is short.
LoL! Your position has nothing to do with science. That is the whole point
It would probably be unscientific of me to put Glen on my ignore list. Because, you know, he always has something interesting, insightful, and original to say.
What do you say Glen. Give us a link to your most recent OP here at TSZ.
A better alternative to what, exactly?
Mung,
That which gives thee angst. It was like reading Gregory.
Saying “we don’t know” is a better alternative to evolutionism. At least it is honest and gives people the impetus to find the real answers.
Pretend like I’m really, really dumb. Adapa dumb. Pedant dumb. OMagain dumb.
As in, like seriously effing retarded with no hope of ever being like Glen dumb.
A better alternative to what, exactly?
You can’t fault me for not offering a “better alternative” to something that you can’t even actually specify, can you?
I don’t have a problem with the part at the top, directly quoted from Woese.
I have no comment on the later part (after Susan Mazur gets involved).
I don’t see how Woese’s criticisms about the dominance of molecular biology translate into skepticism about the role of natural selection in explaining adaptation.
Unless I very much misunderstand what Woese is saying, he’s not an “evolution skeptic”.
How does the elimination of the less fit, ie natural selection, explain adaptation? And how does adaptation explain universal common descent?
Mung,
If you cant understand what he’s upset about, why did you post?
Kantian Naturalist,
Are you equating adaptation to evolution?
Carl Woese was a critic of the Modern Synthesis, but without a replacement for it. He was impressed by horizontal gene transfer, so was dismissive of there being a neat treelike evolutionary tree.
But did he dismiss common ancestry? Hardly. In fact he was the one who really brought molecular evolution to bacteria. His late-1970s work on ribosomal RNA sequences, with people like Mitch Sogin, revolutionized thinking about bacterial systematics. Up to then, microbiology textbooks classified bacteria by what stained them or didn’t stained them. After then, microbiology departments had to start thinking about the actual evolutionary history of Bacteria (and Archaea).
I knew him, slightly, I heard him lecture at least once and talked to him a few times. I also know Mitch Sogin well, over many years, and other close collaborators of Carl’s such as Gary Olsen. Perhaps no one else here had that much contact with Carl (anyone else know him?). He was a towering figure whose work was of major importance. “Anti-evolution”? No way.
R.I.P. I never heard of this man. It seems clear that he questions Darwinan lines VERY CLEARLY. He says there is conflict and rejection between researchers on origins claimed to be from old school evolutionism. CLEARLY. Or is this MAZUR invention???
naw its a real interveiew. he said its IMMORAL to censor criticism of evolutionism, in part or whole,.
Well obviously thats true.
Creationists will carry his idea on morality in truth of science though evolutionist “leaders” DO NOT.
Already the year starts off well in moral and intellectual attrition of bad guy evolutionism.
Although not well for this man and those who loved or cared about him a lot.
R.I.P.
So what do you think of the 3-domain phylogeny that Woese favoured, and the methods he used to elucidate it?
Moved some comments to guano.
Woese was a skeptic of natural selection as the only drving force of evolution, and of the root of the tree of life being a true tree vs being a network with lots of HGT.
But a skeptic of evolution (that life evolved and shares common descent) he was not.
One of Woese’s ideas, that of vertical inheritance ‘crystallising out’ of a network, and thus giving tangled roots with HGT dominating, lacked a basic evolutionary logic IMO. At a certain remove, intermittent but long-preserved HGT can start to look like that’s all there is.
You evidently think that much of our current thinking about evolution is wrong, but seem unable to articulate what makes you think that.
Ah, back to “there’s no theory of evolution” again. As noted, there are several camps currently as we work towards a full understanding of the mechanism driving life. That simply means there is debate as to what a final theory should look like.
And logically if it can’t actually be specified what was Carl Woese a skeptic about, exactly?
So the point is that what you see as division is just that, but it’s also part of the process. A process that you don’t take part in by simply pointing out the fact there is a difference of opinion. The “Darwin approach” may well be wrong, but so what? Given you’ve never articulated what is right, you can take no comfort from that.
Remember that thread I started to ask if you were actually an ID supporter, that you refused to take part in? Well, I ask again, what exactly are your doubts regarding evolution? Are you a microbiologist, who has no use for Darwinian natural selection? Are you an ID supporter who thinks that life is too complex to have evolved, therefore all thoughts about evolution is basically wrong?
I made a point recently that you refused to go on record as then you may be shown to be wrong. You rejected that, but here we are. You continue to point out what you perceive as cracks without explaining your actual agenda.
Why don’t we try it another way. Mung, what aspects of ‘evolution’ as currently understood do you agree are likely correct?
It’s not just lacking in logic, it’s lacking in evidence. From the standpoint of inheritance, it’s simply a fact that cells divide much more frequently than they exchange genetic material. Inheritance is, for the most part and to an overwhelming degree, vertical rather than horizontal. When a bacterium divides, it passes along it’s entire genome. Even in situations with huge levels of exchange of genes, whether through plasmid vectors or accidental transfer of genes to viral vectors, cells still divide more often and thus, in that single instance pass along more genetic material vertically, than they do horizontally.
I think Koonin and colleagues also detected this primarily vertical trend even among the most HGT-prone populations: Seeing the Tree of Life behind the phylogenetic forest
Rumraket,
I think he meant pre-LUCA, though, and probably pre-protein coding as well. What isn’t clear is how any ‘gene-for-hire’ could increase, if all it does is help a different covalently linked unit without being tied to its fortunes.
But can he test common ancestry scientifically? Hardly
OM wants to know what is the ;problem with evolution. It isn’t evolution per se it is blind watchmaker evolution that has a problem as it makes untestable claims. So hopefully these camps working on a final ToE toss that out and start over from the beginning.
Anyone claiming that blind and mindless processes – like NS and drift- can produce the diversity of life, including protein machinery- will never formulate a scientific theory with those mechanisms as they are untestable for the task at hand
I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Dr. Woese, but my biochemistry professor was his graduate student. He spoke reverently of him.
Woese work on archaea was breathtaking.
Moved some comments to guano. Complaints about moderating decisions should be raised in the “moderation issues” thread.
And when are all of the ID scientists going to start finding the real answers? Saying that it was designed is not an answer, it is an unsubstantiated assertion. If you are serious that ID is science, and I am one who thinks that it can be, then you have to start addressing the issue of the nature of this designer and the mechanisms that he/she/they use to turn the design into reality. I know, ‘ID is only about the detection of design. The rest will follow once design has been detected.’ [followed by an eye roll and condescending harrumph]. But, since you can’t detect design without hypothesizing about the designer and its limitations, I guess we will never get there.
Done.
I don’t know enough about him to know if he tested common ancestry, but scientists are testing it all the time.
Acartia,
What methods are scientists using to test common ancestry? Do you regard looking a comparative genetics a valid test? How would you test that two distinct species share a common ancestor through reproduction?
No one knows how to test common ancestry. No one is testing it. No one knows what makes an organism what it is. Some people say organisms are a sum of their genomes and interactions with the environment. And if they ever find evidence to support that claim science will listen.
So what type of “tests” are they conducting pertaining to common ancestry?
Hahahaha, instant classic
Someone ate a whole roll of Mementos.
colewd,
Whirrrr … click … system restart in 5 … 4 … 3 …
Yes, Woese’s critcism of a treelike genealogy was focused most strongly on the period from the Origin Of Life to LUCA. Your point about a gene that helps another is a good one. If the gene were not fully linked to the other, but mostly linked, their fates might be correlated strongly enough to allow selection. Basically the mechanism would be similar to kin selection.
Joe Felsenstein,
LUCA- Last universal common ancestor.
What evidence supports the existence of a universal common ancestor? Is this just circular reasoning based on Darwin’s inference?
The universality of the genetic code is strong evidence for a common ancestor. Has nobody pointed this out to you before?
Not if the intermediates are infeasible, thus it’s stronger evidence for common design, provided there is a Creator. I suppose if one rejects that possibility, one is stuck invoking infeasible transitions (like prokaryote to eukaryote, single celled creatures to animal multicelled creatures, etc.)
Besides, the genetic code isn’t universal as there are alternate codes, and even then it’s really only the general codon table. Also various species have alternate start codons. It’s only universal when it’s not….
One can’t shove a eukaryotic gene “as is” into a prokaryote like E. Coli and expect it to make protein.
If you think I’m overstating the case, one should hear the exchange between Craig Ventner and Richard Dawkins. Ventner (a practical scientist) had his doubts….
Alan Fox,
This is the evidence? That the code is similar? What is your proposal of what LUCA looks like? Is it prokaryotic or eukaryotic? Does LUCA have multicellular structures?
Is this really the basis behind the “just so” stories were teaching our children in the name of science?
colewd,
Do you demand these details from ID?
I’ve often remarked that God could have created the Universe in order that the Universe create life on Earth. So whether there is a universal creator God or not doesn’t come into it. My claim is only that there is strong evidence for common descent from a first universal ancestor. The universal genetic code clearly fits this idea. The variations from the code that exist support this idea as they hint at how it evolved.
I’d say the evolution of Eukaryotais very well-supported with living cyanobacteria not that different from chloroplasts, lichens, sea slugs with symbionts etc.
See above and the variations are found in the places you’d expect if evolution were involved.
I do think you are overstating. Perhaps you’d post a link and an extract that supports your claim.
No, Alan, it is strong evidence for a common design. Common ancestry doesn’t explain any genetic code
It takes more than organelles to account for a eukaryote.
Good grief, the “evidence” that you accept for UCD is much weaker than the evidence that supports ID. Your alleged evidence is absent a mechanism
This is one example of evidence. I notice you didn’t say if anyone had pointed this out to you before.
I’d be least surprised to learn it was some very simple chemo-autotroph.
Of course not. This question makes me wonder…
Of course not. Multicellularity has evolved via intermediates from unicellular organisms. Again the bizarre question…
I repeat, just one example, – for me a very telling example – of the relatedness of all life on earth.
No Richie, seeing that ID does not make the claim evolutionism does it does not have to deliver the same level of detail.
Why do you guys argue when you don’t seem to understand your own position nor the position you are arguing against?
But relatedness is falsified by such things as different code translations, differing chirality and so on. The fit for common descent is narrow. “Common design” (whatever that means – as you’ve never expanded on that mantra) has no entailments. It’s unfalsifiable.
The almost universally common genetic code fits the theory that all life shares a common ancestor.