Chapter category: Evolution
The Frame for New Hypotheses of Evolution
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: A Chemist's View of the Origins, Evolution and Unfolding of Life
Edited by: Christian SchwabeISBN: 1-58706-044-2
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Chapter authors:
Christian Schwabe
How does one present any new idea, which is in principle impossible to proof? Hypotheses are self-limiting and an old paradigm of evolution will fall victim to its errors in logic. In biology in particular (because it is so close to our skin), old paradigms tend to exchange fundamental guidelines of science for political correctness and technological expedience. Not for scientific restrictions, but for political reasons would it be difficult to find an unbiased jury for the proposal that humans might be of various origins and, in part because of methodological convenience, the computer-oriented molecular biologists would (and do) enthusiastically ignore the evidence that protein structures may not bear a parametric relationship to genealogy. Science, culture, and vested interests tend to fuse as paradigms age and, off and on, the science must be extracted from this matrix and held to the light to see whether it holds up on its own. To that extent one must have clear ideas about what can be known, what constitutes evidence, what are truly dependent variables, as opposed to wishful thinking induced by emotional needs. Ah, but mathematical models will help, unemotional mathematics will brush out the rubbish of prejudices and human sentimentality, or will it?
Mathematical models that describe and predict the inanimate world quite well are actually of little value in the system of deterministic chaos that governs biology. The answers one can expect from mathematical approaches to evolution (in contrast to my earlier perception) cannot be narrowed to less than the surface of the chaotic attractor of the system which is a little like watching evolution on earth from a satellite.1 The limits of the attractor surface are given by the initial conditions which are not knowable in sufficient detail.2 Empiricism can help, after all our laws of science by and large are the results of repeated observations.
Fossils and chemistry would be stretching correlations within a Darwinian framework but that relation is the substance of the new hypothesis. Chemistry is part of the logical core of biology, which will become more obvious when speciation is considered in the Genomic Potential Hypothesis. It is, like all of evolution, about molecules that self-organize without the help of anything but other molecules, i.e., chemistry.
Additional chapters from this book:
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: Introduction
Christian Schwabe
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis is a biochemists' view of the origin, evolution, and development of life. Large numbers are second nature to a biochemist an...
Quintessence
Christian Schwabe
Steven Weinberg once said that the complexity of physics today reaches very close to the edge of the human intellect.1 Where would that leave us, the bioch...
Experiments in Evolution
Christian Schwabe
Conceptual science interfaces with the experimental world as predictions emanate from the internal logic of a paradigm. Hypotheses concerning the origin and unfolding...
Molecular Geneology
Christian Schwabe
Is it rational to expect proteins such as insulin, relaxin, hemoglobin, or cytochrome to have followed the evolutionary route of the organisms from which they were taken? Of course it is , but...
On the Evolution of Humans
Christian Schwabe
Ancient bones are somewhat like wind vanes that show from which direction a particular hypothesis breezes across the fossil field. If a paradigm is useful one should ...
The Invariance Concept
Christian Schwabe
Tucked away, if it were possible, within the hollow of the tip of a dart gun needle aimed at man or beast one could make a memorable discovery. Just a moment after sk...
Natura non facit saltum (Nature does nothing in jumps)
Christian Schwabe
Latin is intimidating, and people tend to defer to anything expressed in that venerable language. Of all the errors chiseled into our cultural foundation in Latin, th...
Thoughts on Multi-Cellularity: How Nature got Around Darwin
Christian Schwabe
Reproductive success is the ultimate criterion for survival in the Darwinian paradigm, and since micro-organisms are undisputed champions of reproduction the countles...
Development of Biological Potential
Christian Schwabe
Should development come after speciation? Yes, of course, in the new model it is natural, one produces the Anlage and develops it to its potential. The word evolution...
The Origins of Species
Christian Schwabe
There was never a time on earth when only one kind, one species, existed. At least there is no evidence to that effect and a plausible extension of that simple though...
The Condensation of Life
Christian Schwabe
The course of biogenesis was carved into molecular structures by the events of the primeval initiation of our universe. The speed at which pure energy segregated into...
Our Young Planet: One is not a Choice
Christian Schwabe
The old model begins with one origin and the biochemist knows that to be impossible. The scientific basis for the genomist’s position has been discussed and will...
The Origin of Complexity
Christian Schwabe
Clearly, molecular complexity was a precondition for biogenesis. Contiguous molecular structures are monkey bars for electrons that provide the stream of energy requi...
Genomism and the Nature Trail
Christian Schwabe
As genes move into the center of a hypothesis one needs an "ism" to refer to the background of ideas that make up the new model. Thus, as the term Darwinism...
The Frame for New Hypotheses of Evolution
Christian Schwabe
How does one present any new idea, which is in principle impossible to proof? Hypotheses are self-limiting and an old paradigm of evolution will fall victim to its er...
Life in a Tenuous Universe
Christian Schwabe
The question is, do we live independent of the shape of our universe, or are we an intimate partner as well as a beneficiary of its peculiar structure and its awesome...
