[Marxism] (fwd) Darwin and molecular biology

[Les Schaffer]

[ for Einde ]




Ken Ranney wrote:
> While reading the description of the steps in the manufacture of 
> collagen in MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF THE CELL ( Alberts, Bruce et al, 
> [Garland Science 2008], 1186-1188), I was struck by an argument which 
> makes a serious challenge to Darwin's fundamental theorem. This is 
> expressed in the following: "Natural selection can act only by the 
> preservation and accumulation of infinitesimally small inherited 
> modifications, each profitable to the preserved being;" (Darwin, 
> Charles, The Origin of Species, ed. Gillian Beer, (Oxford University 
> Press, 1996), 79.). As a result of the contradictions between what 
> Darwin wrote and what appears in MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF THE CELL, I felt 
> compelled to develop an argument whose last paragraph follows:
>

Darwin's theory is concerned with the evolution of species and this 
selection operates primarily at the level of the reproductive success of 
the individual. It is a long time since I read Darwin but I seem to 
recall thet he said nothing about the underlying mechanisms leading to 
reproductive success, which isn't surprising as the basics of genetics 
only became widely known long after his death and molecular biology was 
completely unknown at that time.

Given that Dariwin based his theory on the empirical evidence at the 
macro level of the effects of genetic and molecular processes that he 
knew nothing of, I fail to see what relevance such processes might have 
on the validity of Darwin's fundamental insight.

You give no indication whether you are an interested layperson or a 
specialist in fields relevant to evolutionary biology, so I therefore 
have no idea how seriously I should take your thesis or whether it's 
worth reading your document.

Perhaps you could summarise your argument here.

Einde O'Callaghan