Starboy

In my opinion, Darwin’s theory is getting a bit long in the tooth. So much has happened since he came up with it that I can’t help but think that there has got to be something better brewing. Does anyone know of anything on the horizon?

Starboy

Secular Pinoy

The Modern Synthesis perhaps?

lpetrich

I wonder what Starboy wants. He ought to look at other recent cases of "replaced" theories to see how the "replacement" works.

Is he thinking of something like the physics of the 20th century vs. the physics of earlier centuries?

In that case, the "replacement" is essentially the discovery of supersets of Newtonian mechanics. More specifically, Newtonian mechanics is still valid as an approximation in certain circumstances, such as much of our familiar experience.

So one might look for expansions on Darwin's paradigm of descent with modification by way of natural selection, especially those that fill gaps that Darwin himself had acknowledged. And there have been several of these:

The "Modern Synthesis" of half a century ago, which demonstrated the compatibility of Mendelian genetics and Darwinism.

Modern theories of speciation and "Punctuated Equilibrium". New species originate relatively rapidly in small offshoot populations, and then change relatively little in fossilizable features over most of their existence. Stephen Jay Gould's great contribution was to show that this was completely compatible with some appropriate interpretation of Darwinism.

Sources of variation. Darwin himself confessed that the "laws of variation" were a great mystery, but that is now reasonably well-understood on the molecular level, and theories of gene and protein evolution are based on that understanding. In particular, "neutral selection" is a common feature of molecular evolution -- evolution between selectively-equivalent configurations. This again is completely consistent with a suitable interpretation of Darwinism; what happens when natural selectionc cannot "see" some differences?

Splat

Sorry starboy. It ain't fashion. Or religion.

Starboy

Really? Ever read Kuhn? In any case I guess there is such a paucity because there is probably no such thing as a theoretical biologist. Ok, with just a smidge of imagination I can come up with several possibilities:

1. A theory that combines evolution, genetics and the theory of memes. That might help to explain a great deal of the features observed with the birth and spread of religions.
2. What about a combination of molecular biology and evolution, what this theory would be to evolution thermodynamics would be to statistical mechanics.
3. Then of course there is little that helps understand how internal structures such as mitochondria or internal animal organs change or evolve.

That is just three possibilities off the top of my head. Is there anything being done or are these just too fringe?

Starboy

ZouPrime

Too fringe? I don't think so. Read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene for a start. It pretty much cover 1) and has been written in the '70 (IIRC)

Starboy

Thank you! Glad to see that not all evolutionists are Darwin robots. What is IIRC? Modern Synthesis looks interesting, is there any definitive literature? That book by Dawkins looks interesting, is it any good? Are there any theoretical biologists, other than Dawkins that is? Doesn't seem to be too many, is the field just too young?

Starboy

tronvillain

Starspun:
Actually, The Origin of Species holds up pretty well, but you might want to read Darwin's Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated. Darwin's theory has been extended and built upon, and shows no sign of being replaced.

tronvillain

Starbody:
Obviously you just haven't looked.

Secular Pinoy

The only people who use Kuhn nowadays are Postmodernists and Pseudoscientists. His theory of scientific change has little going for it, evidence wise. Einstein's revolution was not a revolution in the Kuhnian sense. So was Darwin. Or most other major scientific changes.