@Leisureguy@ct_bergstrom I’m just an interested civilian, but symbiogenesis is pretty conventionally accepted, as is horizontal gene transfer and transposable elements. However, as I understand it, “junk DNA” is still under debate, but claims that all DNA encodes “biologically significant molecules” are vastly exaggerated.
@Leisureguy@ct_bergstrom I’m not Carl, but most of that article is filled with strawman arguments and a misunderstanding of what geneticists mean by “random”.
@Leisureguy@alexwild I couldn’t bring myself to do more than skim, but my textbook Evolution has nearly a hundred pages on the topics the author claims don’t appear in evolution textbooks.
@Leisureguy@alexwild I am Carl, and I very much appreciate you reading it so I didn’t have to.
I am always curious what the agenda is behind these mischaracterize-the-entire-field pieces about evolutionary biology. I guess Shapiro just feels like for most of his career his work was not adequately appreciated?
I read a bit, and part of his point (I think) was there are a lot of mutagenic processes that aren’t random, such as target-site biases for transposable element insertion.
But as @alexwild mentioned, I think he’s mischaracterizing what most of the field means by “random”
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