Alternative to Darwin: morphic resonance, saltationism, LUCA and the theory of a person's propensity to violence

Charles Darwin published his famous theory of species evolution in 1859. The discovery of a scientist is not

in the very presence of the evolution of species: it was clear before Darwin. The idea that new species correspond to each new geological layer, the descendants of previous organisms, was not new. By the 19th century, scientists understood that the Earth is the ancient world, many species of which have already gone from birth to extinction and therefore do not exist today.

Charles Darwin

In addition, Darwin did not claim statuspopularization of the science of evolution. 15 years before the publication of The Origin of Species, the naturalist Robert Chambers anonymously published The Traces of Natural Theory of Creation, which became a bestseller. Darwinian theory did not “invent” evolution, but made natural selection its driving force. And Darwin suggested that evolution is long and gradual.

Natural selection –– The process of evolution, due to which the number of the most adapted individuals with successful mutations grows in the population, while individuals with unfavorable signs die.

Almost all modern scientists disagree withDarwinian thesis that natural selection is the only “stable” mechanism of evolution that has been in effect throughout the history of life on Earth. It turns out that random factors play an equally important role.

Richard Dawkins has become famous as a popularizer of science.and an atheist. In his book, Rising to the Peak of the Incredible, published in 1996, Dawkins writes that most evolutionary concepts ignore a simple fact: there are more ways to fail in a game of survival than to be simply unsuitable. The history of the development of species is confusing and not always stably dependent on mutated or mutated mutations.

Ways of development

Dawkins himself advanced his own theory of evolution,which he called "the theory of the selfish gene." Later, the scientist stated that the choice of the epithet “selfish” was not entirely correct, because he anthropomorphized what, in fact, is just a collection of chemicals. The alternative was the word "immortal" (in English. Immortal - "High Tech").

Richard Dawkins

Man, like any living creature, is onlythe carrier of a set of genes, and if nature is interested in something, it is not individuals, but a specific gene that is surviving. A population or a species can survive only if individuals behave in accordance with "gene" interests, reproduce and distribute their DNA. Dawkins writes that life is “bytes, bytes, and bytes of encoded information.”

Dawkins theory seems to be similar toDarwinian natural selection, but the key difference is in the levels of this selection. If for Darwin, who did not know about the existence of genes, the strongest survives - with potentially “weak” genes, then for Dawkins even a weak man will pass to the next stage, but with better DNA.

Despite the "selfishness" of genes, their owners,on the contrary, they show altruism, not aggression. Dawkins proposes the theory of kin-selection: close relatives, whose genes are similar, behave “benevolently” to each other and are ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of survival of relatives with similar genes.

The main thing is to believe

Scientific theories require good theoretical andempirical support is the work of scientists. The task of ordinary people is to understand the principle of argumentation and make a decision about its persuasiveness. Developing and adopting a rational explanation of evolution is a laborious process for both parties. 15% of the world's population follows the path of least resistance.

Much Alternative Evolution Theoriesis a colorful myth, not supported by experience. If you do not want to waste time on creating your own theory of evolution, you can join those that mankind already has.

Morphic resonance. All living things have the ability totelepathy and have collective memory. So say the followers of Rupert Sheldrake, who invented the theory of morphic resonance in 1981. She explains evolution by the desire of individual atoms to interact with each other, to form uniform systems and, ultimately, complex life forms. At the same time, the collective field seeks to expand, and therefore makes the mind an instrument of its distribution.

Progressive creationism. Having created the world in six days, God rested onseventh. So says the Scripture, on which Christians of the whole world rely. Nevertheless, the Book of Genesis does not specify exactly how long these very "days" lasted. The creative process of God could last for millions of years, during which time he created the first representatives of certain species, which then developed under the action (the theory does not completely deny Darwinism) of natural selection. But at the same time, according to the views of supporters of progressive creationism, man was created simultaneously, without the help of primates.
Theistic evolution. This theory was the first reaction of the Christianworld on Darwin’s theory. An attempt to rethink the Bible in accordance with evolutionary theories raises questions among scholars and believers. However, theistic evolutionists do not give up the attempt. They are trying to build a new picture of the process of evolution based on biblical theses, or, on the contrary, re-interpret Scripture.

Antidarvinists

Anti-scientific theories do not go beyondmetaphysical research and do not require empirical verification: Sheldrake did not try to discover the “fields” postulated by his theory, and followers of theistic evolution cannot go back in time to verify the biblical plots. But there are scientific concepts that sharply contradict Darwinism.

Orthogenesis. Evolution - the result of internal impulsesorganisms that determine the development of species. The vector of the evolutionary process cannot be brought down by natural selection — all changes are predetermined by the direction of variability in itself.
Neo-Marmarism. Followers of Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Frenchnaturalist of the XVIII century, linking the evolution with the original installation to survive. If Darwinism calls the species changes random, neo-Marmarism allows them as special adaptation mechanisms. The theory changes the cause and effect in some places: the external conditions do not determine whether the acquired mutation will remain in the organism, and the change of some trait inside the species is “ordered”.
Saltationism. Darwinian doctrine of slow and gradualevolution is denied within the framework of saltationist theories. In Latin, “saltus” means “leap,” and, according to supporters of this concept, a species change occurs due to dramatic changes within the species. In just a few generations, from a single parent species, a new, different and isolated species may appear.
Mutationism. Like saltationism, this concept considersspontaneous changes at the microevolutionary level are the basis of evolution in general. Natural selection is merely a factor that acts as a sieve, passing or not passing species with new, distinctive mutations.

Despite the abundance of concepts that unitesets of the following theories, Darwinism remains the dominant direction of evolutionism. In accordance with it, scientists continue to develop other theories that refine the process of evolution, for example, man.

Self-cultivated man

The principle of simplicity of scientific theory says: the laconic it is, the more truthful it is. From this it follows that for all living species there must be one evolutionary mechanism that is valid for them. But there are theories that take for axiom the “chosenness” of the human race.

Richard Wangham

Richard Wangham, a British primatologist from Harvard,created his own theory of human evolution. In his book “The Paradox of Goodness: A Strange Connection Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution” (in English, “The Goodnes Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between the philosophical question about the nature of man –– our aggressiveness combined with cooperation.

Our closest chimpanzee relative has noonly cute, anthropomorphic external features. They are similar to human and group aggression, growing at the sight of invaders or lonely “strangers”. Like humans, chimpanzees harass those representatives of their own species who differ from most of the pack. Relying on behaviorist research, in the book “Demonic Males” (in English Demonic Males - “High-Tech”), Rangem described a person as being evolutionarily inheriting aggressiveness and propensity to violence.

It is assumed that people learned how to make a fire 800 thousand years ago, and this event was the beginning of a rapid human development. Wangem proved that the countdown should be kept from the “2 million years ago” mark.

Conversations around a campfire are not a romantic image, but a common human habit of building communication. It is believed that the evening dialogues of hunters have a beneficial effect on the development of language and speech.

Wangem released another work, “To light a fire. How cooking made us human ”in 2009, where he put forward the theory that it was a diverse diet of cooked foods that facilitated the production of various beneficial elements. The fire itself allowed the ancestors of man to stay awake longer.

The scientist concluded: through the use of fire, human reactive aggression is supplanted by communication. This hypothesis works for all animals that are amenable to domestication. Thus, foxes, bred from domesticated foxes at a distance from wild relatives, less likely to bite approaching people. New generations have shortened the muzzle, and mating periods no longer depend on the time of year.

Selection does not stand aside. The breeders of domestic foxes did not cross aggressive individuals with more friendly ones, thus eliminating the initially undesirable feature for posterity. Wangem made the assumption that people, joining together in groups, killed aggressive congeners. So, the mankind applied a selective method even before being engaged in breeding animals.

Bushmen who live in South Africa and leadway of life of hunter-gatherers, exist without any statehood. Anthropologist Richard Lee describes a case where one person killed several members of a tribe, for which he himself was not driven out, but was ambushed. The logic of evolution is that women prefer to look for quieter men to live together.

Domestication is an effective mechanism for evolution,but not the only one possible for humans. Researchers put forward other theories that explain how our ancestors began to differ from other primates. But these theories have no meaning for other species: the path of the individual was individual, and no one can repeat it even with external stimulus from scientists. Science is focused on finding hypotheses that are effective for all living organisms.

Meet Luke

Despite the abundance of scientific hypotheses about the "engine"evolution, many non-scientists agree with scientists only about animals. Man is the result of directed creation. Moreover, 8% of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science agree with these people. Genetics has its own answer to the question of human elitism.

Scientists have discovered that genes are a clear marker.kinship species. The more synonymous the DNA strands, the more likely it is that the organisms in question originate from the same ancestor. Moreover, genetically all living things –– animals, plants, fungi –– have similar sets of genes. For example, in humans and chimpanzees, 99% of genes coincide, and the famous banana test shows a 50 percent similarity. This is because all the organic objects of the Earth go back to the same creature. His name is Luke.

LUCA –– abbreviation for “last universal commonancestor ”, the last universal common ancestor. It is assumed that it appeared on Earth after 0.4 billion years after its final formation, and 2.4 billion years ago gave rise to two evolutionary branches –– archaea and bacteria, cell-free and cellular organisms.

The protoorganism lived near hydrothermalsources like some extremophiles. Learn about the details of life and metabolic features of the body is not yet, although scientists are working in this direction. A biologist from the Heinrich-Heine-University of Düsseldorf, William Martin, searches for the “ancestor” genes. He has a principle: a gene must occur in at least two groups of archaea and two –– bacteria.

Scientists examined 6.1 million DNA proteins. Of these, 11,000 occur in both archaea and bacteria, but only 355 exhibit structural homology — a protein occurs in two or more types of archaea and bacteria. Most likely, they were in the DNA of LUCA. At the same time, most of these genes have already been deciphered and understood: science knows about the function of the 294 proteins found.

Judging by these 294 DNA fragments, LUCA lived without oxygen (anaerobic), received organics from inorganics (chemolitoautotrophic) and preferred high temperatures.

LUCA could not synthesize amino acids: he most likely received them from the environment, where chemical processes did not subside. He was not an autonomous living system and depended on the abiotic reactions of the world around him. In addition, it is not known how exactly LUCA appeared. Scientists suggest that it was not the only living organism of those times, but it certainly became the cause of all the current organic matter.

LUCA is an important element of synthetic theoryevolution (TES), the project of combining the postulates of Darwin's theory and Gendel Mendel - the mechanism of natural selection and the results of genetic variation and heredity. As a result, STE believes that the main mechanism is not selection, but the ability of an organism to mutate.

STE operates with concepts of micro and macroevolution. Microevolution is based on mutations of individuals, which are either transmitted to descendants or drop out for a variety of reasons. It is governed by population size, “waves of life” and gene drift. As a result, either the entire gene pool of the species changes, or the changed individuals are isolated as the first representatives of the new species.

Favorable symptoms may not go todescendants. In order for a stable trait to emerge, there must be genes that influence it. Their activity level is determined by nucleotides inherited from their parents and in vivo factors. The "favorable" and inherited gene of the past generation may be lost in the next one.

Gene drift –– factor of gene dynamics in the population, whichleads to a change in the genotype. This changes the frequency of the appearance of a gene under the influence of accidents: the population size, its age and sex composition, food supply, the level of competition.

Macroevolution captures not species, but childbirth, troopsor classes. It has no special mechanisms, and evolution proceeds through the process of microevolution. Macroevolutionary generalizes the general picture of changes in different generations, draws a line under the processes of microevolution.

Philosopher of Science Karl Popper called the theoryevolutionary selection by tautology and a metaphysical research program. It sets the field for research, but does not become an answer to the question about the engine of evolution. Darwin explained a small fragment from the whole system of evolution, but his theory cannot claim to be an evolutionary metanarrative status: science must develop new concepts that complement existing theories. Nevertheless, the Darwinian theory of natural selection still remains the hypothesis in which most people who believe in evolution generally believe.