Synthetic Biology

I’m doing all sorts of tricks trying to take the time to read 200 pages of discussion that took place recently in the American Government, where Craig Venter gives important and enlightening testimony, more precisely in:
Committee on Energy and Commerce

“Effects of Developments in Synthetic Genomics”

 May 27, 2010,

 Statement of Rep. Henry A. Waxman

Chairman, (see PDF)

and  in the middle comes the following thought:

Manufacturing DNA in the laboratory means adding more alternatives to those already undertaken by Matrix who did that in order to exorcise herself from the selfish gene. She used a method which, for  to explain it we can make the analogy of a monkey muddled with a coconut wanting to eat all the tasty white flesh.

 When the monkey wants to get all the white pith of the coconut he must break the shell into the largest possible number of pieces. If he breaks it only in two pieces, it will be very hard to get parts of the kernels that are left in the bottom curves. Already having little pieces where the curves and funds disappear, it is sure that the monkey will be able to remove everything and more easily in less time. For the Matrix was like a coconut representing the character of hard, inflexible and closed selfish gene that dominated her matter when she was in the shape of LUCA. To clear herself of the plague she was fragmented into its smallest bits information, in all its units of information, so that – if you give a value of 100% to the selfish gene and assume that it is broken into 100 pieces – means that each piece contains 1% of the selfish gene that is different from all other 99 bits. Putting these 100 different types of DNA to compare themselves in their selfishness and into a chaotic environment as is the terrestrial biosphere, imposing suffering on everyone, the Matrix hopes debug all leading them to clean themselves. Then just reset the DNA raking all 100 pieces that will clean the Matrix again returned to its pure state as it was when it was part of the creator of this universe.

So what Mr. Craig Venter and synthetic biology is attempting to do is get new bits that differentiated those ones the Matrix ever did here. So suddenly we are led to think:

- “You can’t do that! We shouldn’t do that! We can disrupt the whole plan of the Matrix, and certainly we will do it, because who will build the new bits are the men, who are the carriers of the selfish gene and will do so trying to meet their selfish purposes. In other words, whoever is doing this is the selfish gene, a ruse to get rid from the punishment for original sin and rebuild here on Earth their artificial paradise in the form of the circuit of the snake.”

But we can not take a decision upon a first impression without analyzing the right thing before bringing other aspects of the matter. We found that there is the selfish gene, we unmasked the devil inside us, and it seems not to be our nature to deal with the devil. In other words we want it out of us, we want to exorcise it from us. I do not know if I can speak for most men, at least I want it, and we see that people who is not saint, as the atheist Richard Dawkins, willing to declare war on the devil, the selfish gene. So we’re not overwhelmed by the demon, but predisposes us to join forces with the pure Matrix of the Creator.

Humans have suffered a lot due to their fragility and chaotic environment. It’s been a real tragedy and torture camp for most. Is as much ruthlessness necessary toward an out-of-law? The fact is that the world thinks so, the carnage is fact and it is there for everyone to see. But we must remember that it is not a fault of the creator of the universe because it is not the God of the religious, he is not magical, but natural as we do, just much more aware and powerful. Its power can not prevent their children are punished in a prison fell on their own. So, if we be able to produce portions of Biological Matrix minimizing punishment, we will be doing the will of the creator who suffers the pain of seeing their children and we are generating benefits for us. Just make sure they fit genomes where the points of chaotic biosphere are more extreme, so it softens and manage the environment for the state of order as quickly as possible.

“- Wait a moment! This state of order (for humans unaware of the Cause of the Great Fall – the false paradise of Eden), that humans have in mind is to rebuild the false paradise. It’s Brave New World under the tutelage of the Great Mother Eve, a happy setting to accommodate the fleshly body and give you all satisfaction, all pleasure, but it means disrupting the pregnancy of self-awareness within our egg-head. A haven designed to perpetuate the stupidity, closing the door to evolution, up the universe have to intervene again imposing new Great Fall.”

Well, I guess we will not this way, if we have time for to teach, if not all, at least the majority of human beings, the knowledge of the Matrix that unmasks the devil. We have the opportunity to create an environment friendlier to humans on the land of this planet, to the cosmos as a whole, the same time that we can keep free and evolving our self-consciousness. To accomplish this goal we need, to manufacture the hits to replace the chaos of accidents and errors or fill gaps in resources needed.

Finally, our fate depends on the following strategy:

“The speed of technological development to produce new species of microbial life must be less than the speed of teaching over the matrix for all people.”

So who is behind and driving the whole process will be the pure Matrix of the Creator and not the addicted Matrix infected by the selfish gene.

                                                           The End

See full article at: http://cienciadiaria.com.br

 And here’s the version of the Matrix

(translation needs correction)

A study conducted by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, shows that small molecules could have acted as a “molecular midwife” to help in building blocks of long chains of genetic material, as well as aiding in the selection of base pairs of double DNA helix. For researchers, there is evidence that, before there were enzymes of protein for the production of both small molecules present in the prebiotic Earth (before the emergence of life on the planet) would have helped in the formation of these polymers to promote their self-assembly.

During the experiments, the scientists observed that the molecule may help ethidium oligonucleotides (short fragments of a single strand of DNA or RNA) in the formation of polymers. One of the biggest challenges for obtaining a polymer is that as he grows, their tips begin to react with each other instead of forming long chains – a problem that is known as cyclization. But by using a molecule that binds between adjacent base pairs of DNA (known as Interleaved), it is possible to form short pieces of DNA and RNA to facilitate the creation of larger molecules. Now, researchers are seeking the true identity of this molecule “mother of all”, for the formation of the first genetic polymer from Earth. The molecule selfless that took the first step in triggering the complex and explosive emergence of life.

First version of the Matrix

This theme reveals how difficult was the struggle of nature to restore the descendants of LUCA here on Earth to evolution, to correct them of the addiction that took his heavenly ancestors to commit the original sin. A battle at the level of molecules where the agents of nature had to invade closed walls of fortresses where the descendants ended addicts and bring them out where the officers were waiting for us with outstretched hands to form a new and wider society.

Let’s analyze the phenomenon coldly, without impregnating it with our mystic. If you really understand what the text says, we are observing the past, before the origins of life, and we see a group of atoms connected to form a tape and we know that this molecule is the initial part of a great tape that would take later and called RNA or DNA. But even small changes the tape target, their tips are linked and form a ring. Goodbye RNA, was not this time yet. But we found another smaller group – that would inevitably bend their tips and close – and something strange happens: it appears around a small group of atoms known as ethyl molecule that grabs one end of the small molecule and preventing it from bending close, and brings other atoms connecting them at that point. It looks like the tip after some time changes its normal behavior, because now it does not attract more for the other end, and thus remains atoms added to it. Thus one day came to get a complete RNA molecule and hence the life appeared. In turn, the molecule of ethyl with his mission accomplished, quietly disappeared from the scene, does not expect reporters, television, the reward from the government, the fame of heroin, and will seek another molecule anonymous baby who help grow…

Gee … but we’re talking about atoms, a gang or random group of atoms! Atoms are sets of particles, they have no purpose, they do not move a finger unless they are lacking in energy and seek food in the form of an electron in the surface layers of other atoms. If you have a group of them acting differently, with abnormal behavior, and even more purposeful to help, the babysitting babies, midwives, it is clear they do not know what they do or why they do it. There must be some forces within or outside of them, with more power than the natural force of them, directing them. Either that or we undressed the coat of a scientist, sent Science go plant potatoes because the world is not logical.

I think only the existence of systems may explain these forces. It’s the only thing we know and proven that we know can act in the matter without being visible. An Arab who should be working and looking girlfriend suddenly fills with bomb and kills himself. An unreasonable behavior that came out of him: an invisible system known as Islam (or at least an ideological system of terrorists). Systems hierarchically higher or greater in complexity act on smaller systems outside or on their sub-systems or even the essence of a system that gives it its identity, which is the information overload of information beyond the sum of all its parts acts on its own shares. This excess of information that is not in any of the parts, resulting from the experiences of interactions between the parts is the mind’s invisible system. Just as in man there is an entity that is abstract, untouchable, called mind, which is substantially different from the body that produces it, is different from all parts of the body, but has the power to direct the body to where she decides. Atoms alone are not heroes or altruistic. Put billions of atoms connected and they form a stone, which does not move a finger, because the loose stones are pieces of a disconnected system.

But then, what’s and where’s the system that exists in that area at that soup of mud, leading a group of atoms to abnormal behavior? Nobody goes to see because there is not any system; everyone swears that there is no system there.

As a result, we are tempted to see small groups of atoms as if they were thinking entities with piracy! It is fashionable to say that genes have roles, which have knowledge of the future, because these other piles of atoms possess the ultimate purpose of self-perpetuation! Researches stopped themselves, totally to seek external forces to the atoms, gave personality to them. Lost his mind! We were laughing by the religious because they believe they know where the forces comes from forces: God.

There is a complete system, very big, huge even, in a shapeless mass of very tiny cells. I refer to the genetic code within a morula or blastulae in the middle of amniotic soup from which will develop a human being. The human being is the system that is driving the behavior of atoms within that soup, but there are no human beings inside the small egg. He was transfigured, decoded, and placed as a molecule composed of atoms within the amorphous mass. So if we have a proven solution here on Earth, why we should issue identity cards for molecules or demote God from the heights to come here and be playing with mud? Why not seek a larger system out of the soup?!

It was the conclusion I arrived at Amazon. When crouched turning mud of the swamp, thinking the system, I lit this little light, I thought about it, let the mud and looked up, searching the surrounding area, risking an investigator to look into the heavens … I never went back to the mud to find the answers to the origins of life. Surely they were not there, like my father and mother were not in person inside the tiny egg from my early days.

So … if I fight for this idea, now I at least must to suggest who’s the unknown system and where the system are.

 When the scientific text says “A major challenge to obtain a polymer is that as he grows, their tips begin to react with each other instead of forming long chains – a problem that is known to cyclisation.” We can understand it in the language of the Matrix. Prior to remember that “polymer” atoms are connected together to form a tape, as if it were a worm and they came together because the sun’s energy and substance of the earth’s core inoculate the atoms of light particles called photons, which are units of information from the LUCA’s Matrix/DNA. These photons are trying to create a body to incarnate itself as software, as we try to do a more advanced computer hardware to operate the latest software more developed than before. The photons act as subversive agents of a foreign regime on the particles of atoms leading them to connect in new ways. But photons inherited from LUCA are the supreme selfishness and so when they have aligned atoms sufficient to unite the two ends of the worm to they attempt transform it into a ring.

 Benzene, a simple compound cyclic.

The most primitive ring chemical benzene was discovered by Kekulée while traveling in a carriage and started to sleep but as the bumps of the carriage made her body dancing he dreamed of dancing atoms and forming wheels and cirandas. Suddenly he shouted to the coachman to stop, left the train, raised his arms to the heavens and shouted to the world: “I found the Benzene.” And gave an affectionate slap on the rump of the horse by saying “thanks buddy, to your trot! When we arrive you will have the best alfalfa ad and a week of vacation!”

Forming the ring LUCA’s genes closed the system, have retreated inside of him as the turtle is retreating into the shell inside and prepare to live eternally thermodynamic their paradise. But Nature does not want that, she has a mission far greater reach than just be balls or hard balls around in the sky, so she has to open those tips to add more atoms that are needed to build more complex systems and let them open to evolve. When she breaks up a ring it is called by chemists of “cyclization” and see an example:

 Ring opening metathesis Polymerisation

See details on Wikipedia. You see as a closed ring, when involved in a substance catalyst in a laboratory, it becomes an open line as a worm? Now for an opposite example, when a chain of atoms in the form of line – or open system – makes its points and sticking to react to form a ring, closed system:

Dieckmann condensation

In the scientists’ experiment the agent of Nature to correct the heirs of LUCA was a molecule of ethidium, which would be in place above the base-ROH. I think this example is not quite appropriate, but this haste cannot find another (if you have time you have a mission to help me with the opportunity to learn by yourself (a)). For as the text says: “… small molecules could have acted as a” molecular midwife “to help in building blocks of long chains of genetic material” – the action of ethidium molecule is not to attack and break rings after they were closed but she acts before the two ends of the chain of atoms come together, inserting these new tips atoms selected to fulfill a plan consisting of a larger and more complex. Therefore, the molecule of ethidium functions more as missionaries and psychologists dealing with young people seeking to become addicted trying to convince them to follow another path. Or as the message of the Matrix tries to transmit a healthier naturalist message to the young that lost the religious faith of parents and is about to be captured in the network transmitted by the theories of materialistic nihilism.

It said: “Now, researchers are seeking the true identity of this molecule” mother of all “, for the formation of the first genetic polymer from Earth. The molecule selfless that took the first step in triggering the complex and explosive emergence of life.” Well, that name “molecule of life”, or “mother of all” are advertising resources to enhance the materialist theory of abiogenesis. Believe that there would be a molecule or midwife creator of life? But will they have forgotten what lies behind the true meaning of the word “Life”? It is the most complex thing existing in these regions of the universe, an extraordinary engineering that we can never imitate, then who created this fantastic thing would have been a handful of atoms more stupid than a rock?! Now common! Anyway, I prefer the reasoning of Matrix Theory which suggests that many different molecules as agents for polymerization, these molecules are out pieces of the circuit LUCA ion affinity looking for other molecules that contain snippets of the past with neighbors, so as a Chinese arrived in New York will not seek to live in the Turkish quarter but the neighborhood that contains his countrymen from China.

Another issue related to this and what is fashionable eco is the fact that the industrial laboratory techniques discover how close lines or rings rather as open rings in rows, and the results of these experiments are materials such as nylon, polyethylene, etc.. A technique known as “Ring-opening metathesis polymerization of cycloalkenes” has important petrochemicals. Hence we can understand why some of these products are toxic pollutants or non-degradable, since we are creating new chemical compounds that can be deadly to those formed naturally, for both closed rings and opened molecules that would be used by evolution.

See here some useful definitions:

In chemistry, a cyclic compound is a compound in which a number of carbon atoms are connected into a loop or ring. [1] Benzene is a well known example. The term “polycyclic” is used when more than one ring form a molecule such as in naphthalene, and the term macrocycle is used for a ring containing more than a dozen atoms.

An organic chemical reaction that forms a cycle, i.e., produces a cyclic molecule from a non-cyclic compound is called cyclization reaction. A generic example to understand this type of reaction is the cyclization of hexane cyclohexane. An example of the cyclization reaction produces the Dieckmann condensation.

Regards,
Louis Morelli 

Synthetic Biology

Source: http://scicollege.net/archives/120

See article on Guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form

Craig Venter creates synthetic life form

Major milestone in the history of science and giant step for mankind!

In my opinion, what Venter did was skip the chapter initiated by Oparin and theoretically experienced by Mulley / Urey which consists in seeking the reduction of atmospheric and terrestrial conditions at the level that was four billion years ago to see if from the abiotic matter we obtain the basic components of life. This research is a bit abandoned because all that does not take the following evolutionary steps alone, i.e., amino acids encountered in Urey experiment are inert and do not bind polymers to form the next step, which would be the proteins. Besides the Urey’s amino acids are not the amino acids used by life. Then Craig chose to observe a genome done and copy it, taking atoms, combining them into amino acids and other components, etc..  Inserting the synthetic genome into a bacterium, it was reproduced by passing the synthetic genome of Craig to its offspring, which now must be offspring of the mother bacteria and father Craig. This offspring will have other offspring indefinitely, so a new species appeared on Earth, carrying a sign of Cain on his forehead, which are the four watermarks in the genome. Fantastic! But …

Most atheists and critics of religion came running to the media asking: “And now what about creationism? Huh?

In my case I immediately asked: “How are the Theory of Matrix / Universal DNA now? Huh? Does it come time to put everything in the trash and remove me from the scene? “

Of course, this event will require me to restudy the theory and compares it with the new situation. But it seems to me beforehand that the theory suffers no shock, on the contrary, it seems to leave the episode further strengthened. The Theory suggests that the atoms on the surface of the Earth are available to be penetrated by photons coming from solar energy, such that photons are bits of information from LUCA. The ultimate goal of the photon-genes is to replicate the system from which they came, as if the Chinese immigrants in New York, had enough money and material, would create a neighborhood to live replicating the environment of China, to the extent that would allow the materials and conditions of New York. Now Craig Venter used the surface atoms, which contains LUCA immigrants come from – which is the Earth plus the sun to form a proto-system. What he did was just replace the large environment – which also is produced by LUCA, like we produce all the medicine in the monitoring of the pregnant woman and then the delivery room. Craig did in 10 years the work that nature took billions of years to do in the last period of biogenesis, when she already had the ingredients.

But I think we could play a trick on Craig, just as Louis Pasteur got the advocates of the theory of spontaneous generation. Pasteur sterilized and hermetically sealed vials containing the material which said generating life forms like microbes. Was not generated anything, proving that the vital principles came through the air or something else. Likewise we could try to collect atoms in a certain region of the deep Earth that did not touch neither they nor their neighbors, with solar energy but which have not been otherwise achieved by substances that rise from the core of the planet. In our Matrix’s language, these atoms would be sterile, the vital principles comes from something else. We would give these atoms to Craig and ask him to repeat the experience. If the Theory of Matrix / Universal DNA are correct, he could never copy the genome. Had the same problem of the researchers in the lab trying to add pieces of polymers or proteins for small molecules that form in nature and should evolve into RNA or DNA but instead, when they reach a certain point, its two ends are attracted to bend and connect to form a closed ring forever.  Why? For simple atoms has its own attraction forces that deterministically leads to connect to specific atoms also constitute simple arrangements that result in rocks, water, inorganic things. But the atoms used by Venter are special, they contain the vital principle. We would have closed the bottle, proving that Craig’s material is sterile. It should be Pasteur in the head!

However, we will continue analyzing it all, is too recent for definitive conclusions.

Regards,
Louis Morelli

Newton’s theory of gravitation may have to be modified after a team of astrophysicists discovered that satellite galaxies bordering the Milky Way are breaking the laws of physics.

The researchers, including Dr Helmut Jerjen of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, studied dwarf galaxy companions to the Milky Way and found a number of problems with conventional explanations of their behaviour. The issues they found; the relative scarcity of the satellite galaxies, the distribution, rotation and make up of the systems, suggest that in space, the fundamental principles of physics have been misunderstood.

Photograph by Mischa Schirmer, University of Bonn.

“Our studies of satellite galaxies have revealed some astonishing phenomena,” said Dr Jerjen. “First of all, there is something wrong about their distribution. Standard Cold Dark Matter theory tells us the satellites should be uniformly arranged around their mother galaxy, but this is not what we see. In fact, they all lie more or less in the same plane – they are forming some sort of disc in the sky.”

The research team has also been able to show that the satellite galaxies rotate in the same direction around the Milky Way – like the planets revolve around the sun. The researchers say this can only be explained if the satellites were created a long time ago through collisions between younger galaxies.

“But there is a catch to this picture. Theoretical calculations tell us that such tidal satellites created cannot contain any dark matter. This stands in contradiction to another observation – that the stars in these satellites are moving much faster than predicted by Gravitational Law. If classical physics holds it must be attributed to the presence of dark matter,” said Dr Jerjen.

 This contradiction has lead the research team of astrophysicists from ANU and the Universities of Bonn and Vienna to the conclusion that when it comes to satellite galaxies the fundamental principles of physics have been misunderstood.

“A possible solution to this contradiction would be to reject Newton’s classical theory of gravitation. We might live in a non-Newton universe. And if this is true, then our observations could be explained without dark matter. This conclusion has far-reaching consequences for fundamental physics and for cosmological theories,” he said. “The Stromlo Missing Satellites Survey project at ANU will perform crucial tests to verify this subtle hint nature threw at us.”

It would not be the first time that Newton’s theory of gravitation has needed to be modified over the last century. It has previously happened three times; when high velocities are involved (Special Theory of Relativity), in the proximity of large masses (theory of General Relativity) and on sub-atomic scales (through quantum mechanics). The research team’s findings have been published in two papers this month in The Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Contact: Dr Helmut Jerjen – (02) 6125 8038 Martyn Pearce, ANU Media Office – (02) 6125 5575 / 0416 249 245

Source: The Australian National University

( ok, now we need to check these informations facing our models)

The theoretical models of the Matrix / DNA do my head buzzing with new ideas all the time about building machines and functional structures. I believe that those who come to study these models feel the same. But, alone, poor, having to work 60 hours a week as a taxi-driver in New York to pay my bills and spend a few months each year in the jungle developing my studies, I do not even like riding a workshop, a laboratory, let alone do courses in mechanical / electronic practice to execute these projects. This could only be done in groups, communities, each coming with only the will and commitment of allegiance. I believe in the good will of the people (my hands are extended and my heart open to add more human bodies in this great cause), I think we should start giving an opportunity to trust everyone regardless of race, color, religion, sex, status social, etc., thus beginning to trust anyone, which I don’t know the past, but any lack of respect or act falsely cut relations and on your way with good wishes. The Matrix / DNA sends a message: we are all descendants of LUCA, a single copy of the Matrix / DNA that made choices and mistakes when he became the building block of astronomical systems, which was punished by entropy, broke up into bits in the form of billions pairs of nucleotides, composing billions of DNAs and living beings, each containing a bit of mistake, each being a unique and trend setting out for that are inter-related, if in conflict, to make the chaotic environment, suffer the consequences of their messages, learn to be less radical in its specific tendency, and thus start to accept and consider the personalities of the other bits, finally learning that the union of the bits is crucial for them to regain freedom to exist and evolve, that unity is strength and transforms the environment into chaos order cozy, and so will all be amalgamated building groups of bits bigger, until finally all become one, a new form of Universal Matrix, corrected by the trend that made it fall from the sky and dragging in the mud of the Earth. This is the Great Cause of Humanity, so commences trusting, accepting, trying to help, never disturbing, never uniting me to see something that prevent or delay the advance of the next, because that would end in my own prejudice. So my intention may seem a pipe dream and a kind of altruism, but in the end, this goal will be accomplished by Matrix Self-Conscious that exists in humanity at a future day, for good or ill, in pain if you do not learn it, and without pain if it is intelligent, and actually is a selfish goal in the sense that I search through it the fulfillment of my happiness. If a single human being is delayed or impeded in their specific mission, all of us, when we are only a Matrix / DNA returning to the open doors of evolution, be born defective, crippled. Who pays for a duck baby when born crippled are the genes that built it, because all the paternal and maternal genes ascend to the head, will be the neurons of one brain, and thus become one consciência. That’s post, I intend this topic go recording ideas as they arise for the construction of machinery, tools, structures, architectures, whatever it is to help improve our lives. One of the oldest ideas came when I visited an exhibition, the Cosmic Room, a Brazilian plastic artist, who was in the Oval Office every velvety dark blue and when we shall now begin to hear the songs of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Contact of the Third Kind, and we ball spinning in space in the middle of the room, led by mechanical arms that are almost invisible in the dark room. Sensational! But the artist has no new worldview to defend, so the balls rotate, move, without transmitting any model smart orderly, just convey the feeling that we are floating in the Cosmos distributed chaotically. Imagine what we could do by bringing together the worldview of the Matrix / DNA with those technical resources! While we should staying in the Cosmos we will be within a living cell at the same time, functioning as each star represents the same function as an organelle also could do … but the parts are transformed into molecules representing the same nucleotide system and also represents the human body’s organs, or even the main parts of an engine, since the Matrix / DNA is also a perpetual motion! Six, seven, in one! Beyond this Cosmic Room traveling the world being exposed in shopping malls, museums, schools, could make a thumbnail of her bare tank fitting, and all schools in the world would need a unit to introduce students! I have the brochures with photos of the Cosmic Room and if I can expose them here, are impressive. So I will open the following projects as they arise and leave them in the air for possible future developments and waiting for your membership and comments. Remember that our society in these projects can even surrender monetary profits, whether to reapply for new projects or be given the fate that each partner wants, but above all is an activity to help billions of our brothers who are currently on the street the bitterness, and ultimately helpong ourselves.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 1) The Cosmic Room xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWatch a video on Vimeo’s website, on a model of the solar system works done with gears, which we can use many ideas. I posted a comment under the video trying to contact the author. Video address: http://www.vimeo.com/11196472 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

2) Aquarium about Natural Universal History xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 3) The Factory Automatic and Auto-Recyclable Matrix /DNAxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAbout it already has an article published in this website, somewhere back there, I will bring to us when you have time.

Interesting article published at Wired Magazine, under the title “Evolution’s New Foe: Timid School Administrators” (you can see it at

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/evolution-controversy/comment-page-1/#comments

Following the article are the coments and I am trying to participate. Below the posts for which I answered till now:

Posted by: tahos | 04/23/10 | 11:06 am |

Evolution belongs in philosophy and religion classes alongside creation. The “science” of evolution is tenuous and controversial, and should be explained as such. Presenting it as scientific fact rather than speculation and at best theory does the scientific method a disservice and establishes a pattern of thinking in young people that is dangerous and close-minded.

This is coming from someone who spent several years as a research scientist (cell and molecular biology).

Posted by: Morelli | 04/25/10 | 7:06 am |

Tahos: You should be right saying that “The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution establishes a pattern of thinking in young people that is dangerous and close-minded”. Transformation of some species by Darwin’s three postulates – VSI: Variation, Selection, Inheritance – is a fact. But the fact finishes here. There are thousands of data showing that there is genetic variation, some of them are selected because produces better adaptation and then, is naturally selected. But these proved transformations do not means that Evolution is a Universal Law and the Darwin postulates means Evolution. Let’s see a sample: about reptiles the transformations went from lizards to crocodiles to dinosaurs. After reptiles there are mammals. But… for sure, mammals did not come from dinosaurs. Then, they say: “a meteorite came from the sky killing the dinosaurs, then, evolution departure from smaller reptiles to mammals.” Oh, com’ on! What about lions, elephant, eagles, whales… every developed giant from each species are going to extinction. In the future we will need a lot of tales about meteorites!
There is the possibility that smaller reptiles evolved to mammals. There are a lot of fossil showing animals that are half reptiles/half mammals. It is “almost” certainly that reptiles evolved to mammals. But, there are no observations of occurrence and not a proved link. Then, the “almost” is not a scientific statement yet. And it is almost certainly that the Darwin’s transformations do not explain the occurrence. It explains the variations or to say “evolution” from smaller to bigger, but the bigger were a dead end, then there were no evolution if the final result was not evolution.
The transformations from reptiles to mammals – and maybe from primates to human beings – need another kind of universal postulates. The Darwinian three postulates are not enough. Here is the danger, brilliant pointed out by you. These students, like the neo-Darwinians, will be closed –minded, turning around a non-complete natural process, then, they never will be able to find the whole picture.
I have a theory that suggests new explanations for these topics. But my theory has – besides the three Darwinian postulates – four more postulates, that came from Cosmological Evolution and physical ancestral thermodynamics systems. The theory suggests that Darwin’s theory is only half of the whole history. If these people become close-minded they never will get the whole picture. You are right.

Posted by: danielpauldavis | 04/23/10 | 2:52 pm |

”If you’re not looking to teach children the best science, that harms their education.” Crick and Watson really believed they were proving their atheism when they discovered the double-helix DNA molecule. What they actually did was prove that random assembly of ANY life was impossible because that double-helix structure required that EVERY DNA molecule be laevorotary: have the hydrogen atom on the left side. Any molecule with the hydrogen atom on the right side would stop all molecular processes at that point and kill the cell (which is what strychnine is all about.) While every atheist and evolutionist likes to point to Miller’s experiments about random DNA production, they always leave out two facts of that experiment. The first is that Miller, et al. included a trap to separate any formed molecules from the rest of the mix before they disassembled as spontaneously as they assembled. Second is that all the molecules were–being random–randomly laevorotary and dextrarotary. In other words, the experiment proved that intelligence was absolutely required for any life to actually exist. Without that intelligence separating the molecules from the mix AND separating laevo- from dextra rotary, inorganic chemistry could never become organic chemistry.

Posted by: Morelli | 04/25/10 | 7:52 am |

danielpauldavis, You said: “In other words, the experiment proved that intelligence was absolutely required for any life to actually exist. Without that intelligence separating the molecules from the mix AND separating laevo- from dextra rotary, inorganic chemistry could never become organic chemistry.”
I don’t agree, I think there is a natural mechanism that does not requires intelligence. If you go to my website you will see a model of a closed system (which seems to be the building block of astronomic systems). In a closed system, the flow of energy begins clockwise and at the top down ( in a watch this should be the mark of 6 hours); the flow goes to 12 and then is shared in two flows; one flow goes back towards 6 and another flow go normally to 1. Then, this flow designs the complete circumference, going to 6. It means that a face is shared into two half faces. Every time you have a complete left face, the flow will build the right one, obeying the bi-lateral symmetry.
Now, going back to DNA. The fundamental unit of information or the building block of DNA is the left/right pair of nucleotides. But, the nucleotides are exact a copy of the astronomic building block. Then, when you have the left nucleotide, and there are enough ingredients around, the flow of energy that goes through the left side falls to the surrounding soup building the right side. No intelligence is required here.

Posted by: Morelli | 04/26/10 | 5:53 am |

cardshoot,
You said: “Your argument is flawed from its start because evolution didn’t have to follow the path you expound.”

My answer: The path that I expound is the same of Wikipedia: “It is likely that cynodonts were at least partially if not completely warm-blooded, covered with hair, which would have insulated them and helped to maintain a high body temperature. The mammal-like structure of cynodonts hints that all mammals have descended from a single group of eucynodonts.” And cynodonts is still a reptile, the size of a alligator and not dinossaur. Are you saying that evolution did not follow from alligators to dinossaurs?! It should be the opposite?

You said: “You’re right in that mammals didn’t evolve from dinosaurs, but your implication that evolution is wrong based on that premise is wrong.”

My answer: “I am not saying that evolution is wrong. I am saying that the Darwin’s theory based upon those three variables is not complete for explaining the history of evolution of biological systems (aka, living beings).

And maybe, the idea of evolution is controversial. If I am a small microbe living inside a pregnant womb, watching the transformations that happen with the fetus, certainly I should believe that evolution is whole picture. But it is not: it is a process of reproduction. Then, we are like microbes watching the transformations of Cosmos and living beings. But… is not scientific established that are watching the supreme process. Maybe we are seeing the evolution inside a process of reproduction… the reproduction of that something that triggered the start of the Universe. Who knows? Maybe this Universe is only a cosmic egg and here is being nurtured the son of something beyond the Universe. You can call it God, no problem with that. My theoretical models are suggesting that it is a natural system, non able to do magic, and suggesting that this Universe is a genetic production. But, Science has no data for deciding this question, yet.

You said: “Your idea of what happened due to the meteor impact that wiped out the dinosaurs is mistaken also. Mammals already existed at that point in time but were small creatures.”

My answer: “I know that. I am suggesting that nature does not need meteorites for applying a natural law, observed at each species: every creature that evolves in a wrong way, not supported by the parallel evolution of the environment, becomes extinct, no matter if it last a long time. It is because the creature super-specializes in a way of existence, becomes a closed system itself, a branch of the evolutionary tree that has no future. it is happen with whales, the giant of the oceans, with the lions, the giant of the jungle, with eagles, the giant of the sky… But the deep explanation is a mechanism inherited from our ancestral physical thermodynamic non-living systems, which I cannot expose here.”

You said: “I have no idea where you are coming up with these wild ideas unless you have been taking as gospel the stories of someone else as little informed on the topics as you are”

My answer: “That’s just the danger behind the teaching of Evolution to children. You should a good sample. You did not pay attention when I said that the Darwin’s theory and the neo-Darwinian theory does not explains the history of evolution because it is not complete. This idea is so strange for you that you mistakenly understood “non-complete” as “wrong”. It is totally different. You did not pay attention when I said that the history of evolution is not explained only by three variables, but, seven variables. The normal, natural, rational reaction here should be: “What?! I never heard something like that! Are you dreaming? But… how did you get there? Which are the four variables that we don’t know?!”

Then you go straight to conclusions: wild idea, gospel, you are not informed… that’s just the reaction of the Inquisitors facing Galileo, the Islamic religious facing evolution theory, the scientific establishment facing Boltzmann, etc. Our children nurtured in these textbooks are going to the same way. Ok, maybe the Modern Evolution Theory explains everything, then, will have no problem with the textbooks. But…I am telling you: I was not educated in a scientific school, and then I have the theory of evolution, biogenesis, Big Bang, gravity, under suspicions. I am reasonable informed about modern scientific data, from physics to chemistry to biology, etc. But I was living in Amazon jungle, the Nature there is suggesting a lot of things, mechanisms and processes which can build a bigger evolutionary theory. Why every scientific minded person that I tried to explain the theory does not want to hear? No one of them has showed a scientific data that is contradictory with any detail of the whole theory. Explanation? Close-minded. That’s the danger pointed out brilliantly by tahos ( 04/23/10 | 11:06 am).

Posted by: cardshoot | 04/26/10 | 6:55 pm |

@morelli
I’m not going to try to teach you how evolution works but to set you straight on an aspect or three of it where you seem to be looking at it from the wrong viewpoint.

1st. The answer to the question of whether evolution went from crocodiles to dinosaurs or from dinosaurs to crocodiles is neither. They are two different branches of a family tree that originated with a long distant common ancestor. And you can add mammals into that family tree also, but that doesn’t mean that mammals evolved from dinosaurs or crocodiles. It only means that they had at some point in the distant past the same ancestor.

2nd. The meteor and aftermath causing the death or extinction of the large dinosaurs doesn’t have to explain the death of other large organisms and in itself might only be partially responsible for the extinction. But before the meteor impact there were big dinosaurs and shortly afterwards there weren’t any more as evidenced in the fossil record. If other animals go extinct it doesn’t have to be from a meteor strike; it could easily be another factor causing it and you don’t have to resort to a meteor impact to explain them. But when you have a boundry layer left by a meteor that is a distinct dividing point between there being large dinosaurs and there not being large dinosaurs in the fossil record it is pretty likely that the meteor impact had something to do with it. There were other extinction events and theories about what caused them too, just look up extinction events. They seem to drive or cause a temporary speeding up of evolution.
3rd Major evolutionary change takes time on a timescale that you cannot personally observe in real time in any major way in a group of organisms, other than microorganisms, partially due the time between generations and the time a characteristic in a portion of a population actually becomes a determining factor in survival of the individuals in the population.

As far as Darwin’s theory being wrong or not complete enough because it is based on three principles, I can give one principle that explains all evolution. Populations of organisms change over time due to the genetic differences within the population affecting the reproductive success of descendents. But to see what the modern theory of evolution is look up ‘modern evolutionary synthesis.’ Neo-Darwinism originated in the late 1800’s so it isn’t really pertient except people continue to use term and confuse it with modern evolutionary synthesis.

As far as the theory of evolution causing people to be closed-minded, being closed-minded isn’t necessarily a bad thing when the thing someone is wanting you to open your mind to is without merit( or unprovable). I am not going to entertain for a moment that the sun is really a giant ball of Jello. I am absolutely closed-minded to that idea, at least until someone goes there and brings back a bowlful.

Posted by: Morelli | 04/27/10 | 4:03 am |

cardshoot

You said: “I’m not going to try to teach you how evolution works but to set you straight on an aspect or three of it where you seem to be looking at it from the wrong viewpoint.”

My answer: “To me it seems that you are looking how evolution works not by the wrong viewpoint, but from a non complete one. Darwinian evolution or even modern evolutionary synthesis is about micro-evolution, only about biological systems evolution. But the process of Evolution – the mechanisms of this process – was not created by the stupid matter of Earth and not beginning in a deep ocean mixed soup. Before that the matter in this Universe was under the principles of Cosmological Evolution and from this dimensions are coming the mechanisms. In that time we had the so (and mistakenly) called non-living systems, like atoms, stellar, galaxies systems. The planet Earth and its matter is a production from the cosmological laws and mechanisms, then, if we want really understand any natural mechanism here at our biosphere, we need to understand its origins from the sky. Because evolution as transformation among species ( and not variations and selection of individuals inside the specie) have used the Gold punctuation jumps, and these jumps are influences from the forces coming from systems hierarchy superior, like the immediate astronomic system to which our planet belongs. The transformation from a reptile (cynodonts?) to a mammal is all about the sexual reproductive process: till reptile every species lay eggs out, at cynodonts happened the big jump that built the extraordinary engeenery of womb and pregnancy. Which was and where were the forces in Nature, in the environment or in the reptile itself, which made this spectacular transformation?

When I am telling about the danger of a non-complete knowledge closing the mind that denies the search for the whole picture is just about this. Evolution is a fact, period. We know the formula VSI, and it explains everything. So, from now to the infinite we have only to search the data that completes the history of evolution, and fighting those that does not believe in it. We stops using our mind searching alternatives to evolution, which is correct, like you said, we are not going to think that the sun is a ball of Jello. But… we have fossil telling the history about the skeleton transformation from reptiles to mammals. We don’t have fossil about the soft anatomy of reptiles transforming to mammals. And VSI is not enough for to explain it. Which motive leads a reptile to develop the modern reproductive process, the stage of pregnancy, if the new state means a big sacrifice, losing abilities to survivor and to hunt? How could natural selection to choose the worst adaptive intermediate creatures? These kind of questions does not appears in a brain of a trained evolutionist.

The modern theory of evolution has broken evolution in two separated blocks- Cosmological Evolution, from the big Bang to 10 billion years ago and Biological Evolution in the last 3,7 billion years – with no links, no connection between them, so, for to fill the big abysm between then, we appeals to variations by chance. This could be a mythos, the principles of a religion, the not-to-be-magical-thinking.

I am not a scientist but I learned a lot myself about natural philosophy, studying from Hippocrates to Euclides to Mendel to Darwin, they were not scientists also, merely natural philosophers trying to apply the scientific method isolated at very hard and poor circumstances. While Darwin spent 4 years observing small details like the birds, I spent seven years isolated in the jungle observing the bigger details, trying to understand macro-evolution. But is impossible getting reasonable answers if we do not consider the sun’s light and the astronomic context influencing biological evolution. Then we have new ideas, new theoretical models, even the surprising event when we have a theoretical model of an astronomic system where we can see, only among the connections among spheres and vortices in the sky, a system that lays eggs out and at the same time keep the eggs inside showing a thermodynamic structure identical the modern mammals womb. But, if it is thru, then, the mechanisms of atoms, galaxies need be increased upon the three Darwinian variables for to explaining the whole picture, included how and why a reptile became mammal.

It is not interesting from the natural systems viewpoint, loosing time with the meteorite influencing living species at that time. From the controversy around 1860-1960 among Maxwell’s demon, Szilard’s cost of information, Brillouin’s positions about dissipation, Bennett’s positions, etc., we knows today that any system that gets information beyond the limits of its physical possibilities, will pay the hard price for discarding it. Obtaining information does not cost ( at least in the path from alligators to dinosaurs if the environment is properly), forgetting it is the problem. It happens with any system, be it atoms, stellar, galaxies, plants or a human body. So, the pathways of evolution that leads the first reptiles to dinosaurs and then, going back to an alligator for to follow the path to mammals were obeying thermodynamic laws, macro-evolution laws, because the dinosaur had to forgetting the wrong informations they got. The pregnancy phenomena, the womb anatomy were written in the stars, thermodynamically, billion years before life’s origins, and those mechanisms are inside us, at our genetics, and above us, surrounding us, modeling the planets environment. It does not need religion, neither supreme intelligence, neither creationism nor Intelligent Designer for to explain Evolution, but, it does not need also the atheist mythos of Nature variations by chance selected for evolution. Open-mind, continuing to search at larger horizons, this is the right thing to teach our beloved children. But, ok, if you are parent and want another way, it is not me that will try to change your mind. I expose this theory trying to change informations, to see critical thinking against the theory, because, I am sure, my worldview is not complete either.

Posted by: Morelli | 04/27/10 | 4:24 am |

cardshoot ,

Correction: Instead “Gold punctuation” I wanted to write about the Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldrege punctuated equilibria theory. Sorry.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/evolution-controversy/comment-page-2/#comment-107706#ixzz0mI12OjWU

 (Matter of study today, Wed, April, 14, 2010)The Phi number (1,618…) is related to growth of bodies and the golden ratio about natural anatomy. The models of Matrix/DNA are suggesting a surprising explanation but, sorry, the article under evolution is in the Portuguese section and there is nobody for making a translation of it and I have no time for). By the way, two words:1)      Really the number 1,618 is related to growth because it is the number that the flow of energy/information of a circuit of a given complete system begins to share creating the replication function. It is observable in the model of the software of a perfect closed system, at Function 4 and Function 5. So, growth is an effect, and not a cause;

2)      The reason that is called the golden ratio is because the flow of information in a given system when reaches this genetic charge of 1,618 triggers the process of bi-lateral symmetry, replicating the right side of a face having as model the left side (chyrolarity).

Please, see the video at http://vimeo.com/9953368    (New field opened to investigation and we need experts in Mathematics). Please, see the article un Portuguese “Espetacular Vídeo com o Código Matemático do Universo Decifrado pela Matriz/DNA”)

( Matter of study today, Wed, April 14, 2010)

http://complex.upf.es/~josep/research.html

Hypercycles were initially proposed by Manfred Eigen in the 1970’s, and opened a novel framework to study the matter self-organization in the context of the origins of life in prebiotic evolution. One of the most important evolutionary properties of the hypercycle is that this system allows to overcome the Eigen’s error catastrophe transition, which is present in earlier replicators, which have a quasispecies distribution. Eigen (1971) argued that primitive genomes must have been segmented (consisting of physically unlinked genes) and that these single genes would had the tendency to compete with one other so, consequently, some mechanism ensuring their coexistence was needed.

My Comments:

Eighen has almost touched the formula of Matrix/DNA when thinking about unlinked genes and filling the necessity of a system’s circuit for linking them, which he called (hypercycles). His problem was he forgot to look the entire state of the world that was envolved in the life’s origins, notably the astronomic world (maybe due the wrong vision of Nebular Theory). The mechanisms that leads de single genes (probably they were terrestrial atoms populated by photons coming from sun’s radiation and Earth’s nucleus radiation, beeing that those photons made the atoms combinating in the same way that the astronomic building block is combinated) to the tendency to compete with one other is clear seen in the Matrix/DNA model of the software of a closed system and in the model of LUCA as astronomic hardware, I think.

(opened field for research)

CLOSEMINDED SCIENCE

Examining the negative aspects of the social dynamics of science.

http://amasci.com/weird/wclose.html

and this:

RIDICULED DISCOVERERS,

VINDICATED MAVERICKS

Important issue published in the article below, I am recording for studying later and doing already some comments by Matrix/DNA Theory – which are in red. As we know, Matrix/DNA Theory is a new interpretation of Evolution, then, the “post-darwinism”.   

Article published in The Global Spiral

http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10914/Default.aspx

 ( The Global Spiral  is an e-publication of Metanexus Institute. Through articles, essays, book reviews, and news, the Global Spiral  explores humanity’s most profound questions and challenges.)

By William Grassie -

A review of Ecological Developmental Biology: Integrating Epigenetics, Medicine, and Evolution,
By Scott F. Gilbert and David Epel (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer 2009).

As a combatant in the evolution wars here in the United States and abroad, I have penned and processed quite a few papers on the interpretation of evolution.¹ This means also reviewing the vast literature in evolutionary psychology, particularly its attempts to explain religious behaviors.² I am convinced that most of what is transmitted and consumed in the way of popular accounts of genetics and evolution by and for philosophers, theologians, and lay readers is pretty much bunk. This is not a question of whether evolution is true. The weight of the evidence for evolution is conclusive. The mythological literalism of the Young Earth Creationist is delusional and Intelligent Design is more of the same confusion.³ That is not what this review is about. The problem is that the popular accounts of how evolution and genetics actually work are so simplistic as to be misleading. These popular accounts then serve as the basis for philosophical and theological interpretations of evolution and genetics, so we, the philosophers and theologians, are getting the current state-of-the-science wrong. The simplistic views of evolution and genetics are also uncritically adopted in the emerging field of evolutionary psychology, where they are applied to understanding human behavior, including religious behavior. I have nothing against evolutionary psychology in principle; it is just that the paradigm being applied is too simplistic. And if it is not true of plants and animals, it certainly will not be true for complex human cultures.

Ecological Developmental Biology, the new textbook⁴ by biologists Scott F. Gilbert and David Epel⁵ is the antidote to these deficits in the public understanding and scholarly interpretation of biology. And while biologists and their students should certainly read this book, I want to make the case in this review for why philosophers, theologians, bioethicists, environmentalists, and evolutionary psychologists should be required to read this book. Anyone who purports to teach and interpret evolution and genetics to the public should read this remarkable book. Indeed, policy-makers and homemakers will find much relevant to public health and safety in these pages.

∞

The book is divided into three parts, involving ten chapters, a philosophical coda, and four appendices. Unlike most biology textbooks, this book actually has a plot and a dramatic denouement. Unique also is that Ecological Developmental Biology includes an insightful history of the evolution of evolution, which as a discipline has itself sometimes been “red in tooth and claw.” An outsider might otherwise have no idea about the interesting scientific and ideological battles waged within the field. Moreover, since the book is intended for a heterogeneous audience across the biological sciences, it carefully explains its vocabulary and contains numerous charts, diagrams, and photographs. This is important since the languages of science are not the languages of philosophy and theology. (It is amazing how many humanists in the academe have not cracked open a science book since high school.)

Part one examines “Environmental Signals and Normal Development,” which will charm the reader with many details of strange and familiar species that change their phenotype based on their environment. In chapter one, we learn how the environment signals an organism to develop different phenotypes. In chapter two, we learn how other organisms, for instance predators or siblings, also affect gene expression in the maturation of organisms. (Matrix notes: The Luca that’s encrypted in the planet, driving evolution throught environment, has as predator allways the following shape of a given shape. As the predator of a teenager is the adult, the predator of a planet is the pulsar, the predator of Function 4 is the Finction 5, etc. Why the environment signals an organism to develop different phenotypes? The answer is: since LUCA is being reproduced he controls the future anatomy of a given specie. But, since that any individual existing where there is no system yet, have free-will and its behaviour is going out of the planned reproduction, the Matrix uses real predators for doing the tasks of the next shape. In other words: the predator is allways an aberration of the next evolutionary step, used for to correct any misleading of the currently top evolutionary specie).   Chapter three explores the central role of symbiosis and co-development in the life of species. In chapter four, we learn of embryonic defense mechanisms.

Why should one care about these disciplinary details? The full story will not be apparent until part three, the coda, and the appendices, but Gilbert and Epel mention early on that genetics has been the dominant paradigm in biology since World War II. There has been a “marked antipathy against the notion of phenotypic plasticity and the inheritance of nonallelic phenotypic variations…” (8) They write:

…the environment is not merely a filter that selects existing variations. Rather, it is a source of variation. The environment contains signals that can enable a developing organism to produce a phenotype that will increase its fitness in that particular environment. This isn’t the view of life usually presented in today’s textbooks or popular presentations of biology (8). ( Matrix notes: these signals come from the system hierarcly superior to the surrounding environment. Ex: surrounding environment: Earth’s surface or biosphere; superior system: the astronomic building block. Note that it is not superior in complexity, since it is an ancestor, but it is superior in force, size, influence: it is being reproduced and every specie is merely a piece used in this reproduction process.)

The authors call this dominant view “geneticism.” James Watson, who won the Noble Prize for his part in discovering the Double Helix, writes:

We used to think our fate was in the stars. Now we know in large measure, our fate is in our genes”

( Matrix’s notes: “But,… but…, where came from the genes, if not from the “stars” and its systems? They were created here? I don’t believe and the models of Matrix makes sense. Where was the fate ( the future shape and identity) of any human embryo, if not in its parents?)  

Watson here is giving expression to genetic determinism, the myth of the “master molecule.” He has been aided and abetted in promoting these misconceptions by Richard Dawkins and a host of others. We learn that genetic determinism is a fallacy.⁶ We might just as well talk about environmental determinism. The distinction between nature and nurture is a false dichotomy in biology. It is nature-nurture and nurture-nature all the way down to the level of gene encoding and expression. Gilbert and Epel write:

In standard embryology, the focus has always been on the internal dynamics through which the genes of an individual’s cell nuclei produce the phenotype of the organism. Within the past century, we have discovered that cell-cell communication is the key to this phenomenon. By itself, the genetic information in a cell’s nucleus cannot directly produce the many differentiated cell types in a multicellular organism; cells must interact, reciprocally instructing each other as they differentiate (9).

It is not just cell-to-cell interactions that effect the differentiation of cell types in multicellular organisms, but all kinds of environmental factors as well. There are temperature-dependent pathways, nutritional-dependent pathways, pressure-dependent pathways, predator-induced pathways, maternal-care dependent pathways, and conspecific dependent pathways (the effects of siblings and close relatives). Depending on the kind of species, these environmental determinants can radically change how an individual looks, acts, and whether and when it develops into a male or female adult. Some of these environmentally induced changes in gene expression are heritable, passed on to the next generation, in violation of the “Central Dogma” still found in biology textbooks today. And that’s just the first two chapters of this book. All of this is normal biology and there are plenty of entertaining examples.

Chapter three we learn of developmental symbiosis. Far from being competitive, much of evolution is about cooperation. You need only consider your own body, a multicellular collaboration of trillions of eukaryotic cells coming in some 214 tissue types which began once upon a time as a single, undifferentiated zygote in your mother’s womb. However, it is estimated that 90 percent of the cells in your body, by number not mass, perhaps as many as 100 trillion (10¹⁴) are not “yours” at all, but are a rich ecosystem of up to 1000 different microbial species living in your intestines (98).⁷ These bacteria not only provide a number of nutritional benefits to us, as we do for them by consuming three-square meals per day, they also help regulate gene expression in the development of intestinal cells.

The boundaries of identity in modern biology are up for grabs. Whatever the individual organism may be, it is not contained within the boundaries of epidermis, membranes, or genomes. The individual is always internally and externally composite and interactive. The individual is always an interdependent variable. The organism is a “social construction.”

My favorite example from Gilbert and Epel’s book is the protozoan Myxotricha paradoxa, a symbiont found in the gut of an Australian termite, which helps in digesting cellulose. M. paradoxa, however, is itself a symbiont, containing within its cell membrane the separately replicating genomes of a protist and three species of bacteria (97).⁸ All of life is Anima paradoxa.

It would be nice to have a simple theory of evolution, as Darwin has provided in his elegant algorithm, but the catechism of random drift, universal struggle, survival, reproduction, and differential selection just doesn’t hack it anymore.⁹ It is time to embrace complexity, symbiosis, multi-level selection, contextuality, and as we will see, even some aspects of Lamarckianism.¹⁰ Along the way we can banish the geneticist dogma of “selfish genes,” because genes do absolutely nothing by themselves. Indeed, it is equally valid and descriptively accurate to talk about “sharing genes.”¹¹

Part two examines ecological developmental biology and diseases and it is here that the regulators, policy-makers, and homemakers should pay close attention, because birth defects, cancer rates, infertility, and intersexuality, as they relate to environmental pollutants take center stage. Chapter six on endocrine disruptors is particularly disturbing and worthy of careful study, because pollutants affect development differently at different stages. Most product safety testing, for instance, does not test the impact of chemicals on fetus development, but as we learn, the presence of trace chemicals in the environment can have dramatic impact on gene expression differentially at different stages in the development of embryos or young adults. This book documents the dramatic rise of testicular cancer, breast cancer, and hypospadias (deformity of the penis), all accompanied by an equally dramatic drop in sperm count (214). Such disorders are not primarily “genetic” in origin, but thought to be caused by endocrine disruptors in the environment altering gene expression, i.e., epigenetic. Compounds found in soy products (estrogenic chemicals), pesticides, herbicides (atrazine), sunscreen (4-MBC), plastics (bisphenol A or BPA), and electronics (polychlorinated biphenyls) are all thought to be involved in endocrine disruption in humans and other species. Note that all of these chemicals affect organisms differentially at different stages of development. Note also that some of these effects have been demonstrated to be transgenerational, i.e., the phenotypic effects are passed on to the next generation. It seems we are threatening our health, our fertility, and our survival with the proliferation of certain chemicals in our environment.

∞

Part two, however, is a side story to the main thesis, which the authors begin in part three – “Toward a Developmental Evolutionary Synthesis.” This section will most interest philosophers and theologians who try to interpret evolution, because it is here that Gilbert and Epel develop the idea that Neo-Darwinism – the combination of Darwinian natural selection with modern genetics also known as the Modern Synthesis – is no longer adequate biology. Chapter eight provides the history and theoretical background. Chapter nine argues that “without the integration of developmental genetics and developmental plasticity into [evolution], evolutionary biology has no complete theory of variation” (323). Here they focus on developmental regulatory genes (e.g., Hox complex). In chapter ten, they propose a “New Synthesis” between environment, development, and evolution.

The book contains four appendices of special interest: two are historical and two are technical. Appendices A and C are the historical pieces, fascinating essays that review the collapse of developmental biology in continental Europe (the indirect results of Stalinism and Nazism) and how developmental biology was written out of the Modern Synthesis in post-war Anglo-American science. These essays are fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses at how ideologies and history impact the making of science and meaning in the modern world.

Appendices B and D are technical discussions of the molecular level processes by which epigenetic changes occur in the development of an organism (i.e., changes in the DNA that alter the expression of the gene rather than the DNA sequence of the gene) and how these epigenetic changes can then be passed on as inheritable traits (i.e., what Eva Jablonka has called “Neo-Lamarckianism”). It turns out that gene function can be deleted more easily by altering its expression (epigenetics) than by altering its sequence (genetics).

I must confess that a lot of this technical material was very hard for me to follow given that I am not formally trained in biology. Fortunately, I was able to get a memorable tutorial on DNA methylation from my daughter, Maisy Grassie, now a second-year student in veterinary medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Both the institution and my daughter are wonderful examples of Lamarckian evolutionary processes at work in human culture. That human culture evolves in a Lamarckian pattern throws a wrench in evolutionary psychology, which tries to explain complex cultural formations through the lenses of survival and reproduction.

∞

The real gem in Gilbert and Epel’s book, and the reason I am writing this review, is the coda entitled “Philosophical Concerns Raised by Ecological Developmental Biology.” If nothing else the philosophers and theologians really need to read this section, because it opens up the territory for much more realistic and productive reflections on the interpretation and meaning of evolution and genetics than we are normally exposed to in the popular and scholarly literature. This section is divided up into discussions of ontology, pedagogy, epistemology, and ethics. The longest section is on ontology, proving once again that metaphysics is politics by other means. How we interpret evolution has implications for everything from political economy to childrearing to religion.

The first problem in reconceptualizing ontology in light of the New Synthesis is that the individual has disappeared. “Individuality is illusionary,” write the authors. There is no spatial definition of an organism simply “contained” in an epidermis, a membrane, or a genome. “At the very least,” write the authors, “the prevalence of polyphenisms and reaction norms instructed by environmental agents abolishes any notion of a genetic determinism” (404). Actually I suppose many examples of genetic determinism remain – for instance, cystic fibrosis or Tay-Sachs disease – but these are now the exceptions and not the rule.

The authors favor integrative philosophical traditions, discussing the Buddhist concepts of co-dependent origination and no-self, and focusing especially on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, along with the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty. They understand the organism to be “the concrete, fleshy nexus integrating (in time and space) the internal networks of developmental genetic interactions with the external networks of ecological interactions” (409). All processes are context specific and are examples of reciprocal induction. They quote Donna Haraway: “relationships are the smallest possible pattern for analysis” (410).¹²

Emergence, which has always been “normative in developmental biology,” is now normative in our understanding of evolution as well as in the new ontology. There can no longer be simple reductionistic explanations of complex phenomena:

Entities need to be thought of in terms of several geometries at the same time. They are defined by the braiding of down-top and top-down (as well as lateral and temporal) networks built from patterns of reciprocal causation (410).

Our understanding of competition and cooperation in nature is also due for revision. “[D]evelopmental symbioses are no longer relegated to marginal exceptional cases,” write the authors. “Rather, they are the norm” (404).

How we conceive of nature is a magic mirror for human society.¹³ The Anglo-American tradition of evolutionary biology finds in nature the ontology of Smith, Locke, Mills, and Hobbes. “Just as the wooden pencil was created from self-interested individuals, so was the tree from which the wood came.”

The tradition of embryology, however, was oriented toward the European continent and found its philosophical underpinnings in the emergent forms of Immanuel Kant and Wolfgang Goethe. Embryology embraced both mechanistic and teleological views of the organism. “Interdependence, harmony, and integration” is “a different perspective on nature than the autonomous, competitive nature of classical evolutionary biology.” Gilbert and Epel are not promoting an either/or choice, rather “in addition to Locke and Hobbes, we have Kant and Goethe” (406).

Group selection theory, an “outlier” in Anglo-American biology, is now central to any adequate evolutionary theory:

Both traditional evolutionary biology and existentialism grow from the soil of Hobbesian competition and individuality. While ecological developmental biology similarly postulates that we are defined, in part, by the “other,” it depicts our identities as becoming with the “other.” (407)

The authors have given us a new dialectics of nature: process and relations, emergence and reduction, self and no-self, individuals and groups, cooperation and competition. If that seems like a muddle, it is because that is what life turns out to be. As Whitehead warned:

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, Seek simplicity and distrust it.¹⁴

It is time to jettison the simplicity of the Darwinian algorithm and geneticism. Life is a “social construction” of interdependent variables. This insight provides a much more interesting possibility space for doing constructive and realistic philosophies and theologies of nature than we have been led to believe was the case by the sometimes shrill proponents of ultra-orthodox Darwinism.¹⁵

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All of this has implications for education and research. In terms of pedagogy, Gilbert and Epel call for the integration of developmental biology into the teaching of evolution, genetics, ecology, and medicine. While I can appreciate the integration of developmental biology in these other disciplines, I would also be interested in how the pedagogy itself, as opposed to the content thereof, might actually be transformed by these insights.

In terms of epistemology and methodology, Gilbert and Epel suggest that we get away from using model systems. They note that six model systems have dominated biological research – the fly Drosophila, the frog Xenopus, the nematode Caenorhabditis, the mammal Mus, the bird Gallus, and the zebrafish Danio – and that each was selected for laboratory studies in part because of the absence of major environmental factors, so of course biologists failed to understand the ubiquitous role of the environment in gene expression and evolution (412). They pose a series of research questions:

What does evolution look like when the proper unit of analysis is not the individual but the relationship (at each different level)? What does evolution look like when selection may be on ‘teams’ of organisms and on the relationships between these teams? What does natural selection mean when the environment is not only an agent that selects adaptive phenotypes but also contains agents that help instruct the formation of adaptive phenotypes (and may undergo changes itself because of it?) Moreover, how do we revise our views about the environment and evolution when germline DNA methylation can effect the transmission of environmentally induced characters from one generation to the next? (414)

Finally, Gilbert and Epel wonder about the ethical and policy implications of the New Synthesis. Policy gets short shrift here, though they address those implications elsewhere in the book. They cite here only one example: 88 percent of breast cancer is thought to be caused by the environment. The so-called “cancer genes” BRCA1 and BRCA2, account for only 5 to 10 percent of breast tumors. They warn that “Our emphasis on the genetic component of this disease appears to be dangerously misplaced” (415).

I wonder whether we might enlarge this policy discussion substantially, including not only public health and safety, but ways that the New Synthesis might help address problems in the “science wars,” as well as the problem of general science literacy. The relational and process ontology explored here is much more conducive to romantic and even comic readings of evolution than the Stoic and existentialist interpretations promoted today.¹⁶

The take-home message and the ethical bottom line is that the stories that scientists tell matter! We need new and better stories about nature:

Scientists have a moral imperative to tell accurate stories. Scientific stories must always fall within the limits of the existing data. Evolutionary narratives are the most critical stories in biology, in science, and perhaps in Western civilization, so we had better get them in line with the biological data (415).

This brings me back to my opening observation. Many of the public interpreters of evolution are doing a disservice to the current state of the science and therefore also to our ontologies, our epistemologies, our pedagogies, and our ethics. These oracles of science are then read and debated by philosophers and theologians, replicating the distortions and distorting our interpretations. It is time to give Richard Dawkins a rest and read something new that is, if not revolutionary, at least evolutionary in our understanding of biological complexity and the theory thereof.¹⁷

“The image of man affects the nature of man,” observed Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel. “We become what we think of ourselves” (415). We cannot avoid the Naturalistic Fallacy; the only question is how to relate the “Is” and the “Ought.” Let’s be sure we use science to the best of our ability to get the “Is” of nature as accurate as possible, because we will surely morph that “Is” into political economy, social policies, behavioral norms, and child-rearing practices. Gilbert and Epel note that “If we think of ourselves as killer apes, certain behavioral phenotypes are acceptable that would not be socially allowed if we view humans as the current apex of an evolutionary trend towards cooperation” (415).

Gilbert and Epel are not just specialists in the intricacies of biology, but reveal themselves to be sage philosophers: “One has to know what is true in order to do what is good” (416). The truth of our planet, however, is changing rapidly and dramatically, as humans engage in large-scale environmental engineering and prepare to embark upon large-scale genetic engineering of the other species and ourselves. Humans are a Lamarckian wildcard in the Epic of Evolution. Our thoughts about nature not only transform our human nature, they are literally transforming our planet and therefore also the future evolution of all life. We live in the Anthropocene, a new era in evolution in which humans dominate the biosphere with unknown consequences. The authors call for an “ethics of flourishing and well-becoming” adequate for the Anthropocene:

Ecological developmental biology fosters an ethic that can integrate both selfishness and otherness, as one might expect of a discipline where self and other mutually construct each other (417).

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So I am bullish on Scott Gilbert and David Epel’s remarkable book, Ecological Developmental Biology (2009). My only problem is that it needs a better marketing strategy in our information-saturated world if it is going to have the impact they envision within and outside the guild. “Eco-evo-devo” won’t get very far. Better to sin more boldly and simply declare “Post-Darwinism” in this the two hundredth anniversary year of Charles Darwin’s birth and the hundred-fiftieth anniversary year of The Origin of Species. It seems to me that Post-Darwinism is a better designation for the New Synthesis and for what comes after Neo-Darwinism, by which I mean no disrespect for Charles Darwin, a remarkable scientist and human being, but surely evolution has evolved and we better, too.

Post-Darwinism does not mean that “Darwin is passé.” On the contrary, his name and ideas are appropriately enshrined in the very title, a title which is also a warning. The elegant simplicity of the Darwinian algorithm is misleading, as is the geneticism of Neo-Darwinism. Life is a “social construction” in innumerable, context specific biochemical, multicelluar, and ecological niches. There is even more grandeur in this new view of life!