Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Richard Dawkins, Amazingly Enough, Did Get Some Things Right

If you listen to Richard Dawkins talking about the Bible, you may get the idea he sucked as a scientist but it's not true.  So ... what did he do?  Bueller??

Bueller?

Yep, he's not well-known for what he did outside the realm of the high-end geneticists.  If you know of him at all, likely you have seen the Bible-bashing Biological Boondoggle he has made out of his science.  What blew is cork is unknown and we really don't care but he did give up some novel science.

Probably most have heard of the genome of humans and maybe the genotype and that's great for getting a view of DNA and chromosomes ... but ... it doesn't explain the following:

Nature:  Worms conspire with gut microbes

This isn't some Halloween horror but rather a phenomenon which can be observed in multiple creatures in which one creature is able to exploit the capabilities of another creature and divert the other creature to serve the exploiting creature.

Dawkins' observation isn't that revolutionary ... when viewed in retrospect.  The phenotype is what we see of the genotype in terms of physical expression in the individual, behavior, etc.  Dawkins' observation is the possibility of an 'extended phenotype' to theorize how it is possible for such mechanisms to exist when the creatures are so tightly linked that, many times, one cannot live without the other.

This is theory but a number of geneticists are sufficiently excited, some thirty or so years later, to conduct a number of experiments to verify it.  There is substantial evidence for the proposal because a number of insects deposit an egg inside another insect and a complex biochemical process begins.  That process is where the geneticists get into it to discover how such a relationship can exist, how it can evolve, etc, etc.


Unknown what your theory may be for why Dawkins switched to Bible-bashing as a career or a sport after he has given what may well be a seminal work in genetics.  We don't think it's interesting but rather it's sad and it's a waste of what seems to be a high-calibre mind.


Rather than dwelling on the oddity of the fellow, his science may well turn out to be spectacular and, in some ways, it's a spiritual thing in terms of the way we feel animals feel us, how various plants affect us in unusual ways, etc.  I don't know but quite a few geneticists are trying to discover an answer and Dawkins set it in motion.  PhD geneticists I've met have been defensive of him, almost in a denial of him turning into a crusty old crank ... but he's still a crusty old crank.  Too bad, his science was good.

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