https://evolutionnews.org/2023/05/new-book-puts-richard-dawkinss-selfish-genes-in-the-icu/

"Biologist Richard Dawkins came to prominence in 1976 with his book The Selfish Gene. Nearly half a century later, we’re entitled to wonder how the work has held up. In his recent book, Selfish Genes in ICU?, Dr. Michael Jarvis considers that question, asking whether recent findings in biology match the predictions of Dawkins’s selfish gene concept.

"Jarvis, who holds a PhD in biology from the University of Cape Town (where he focused on zoology), takes his reader on a historical journey. He first describes the origin of the universe and the history of Earth, and moves on to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Here, he outlines four key points in The Origin of Species, while paying special attention to one challenge Darwin faced: the Cambrian explosion. From there, Jarvis describes Dawkins’s selfish gene concept — the idea that a gene can be seen as a “selfish unit” that exploits an organism to carry out its own process of replication. Stated another way, the selfish gene concept holds that natural selection takes place at the gene level.

"In subsequent chapters Jarvis dives into some discoveries that (spoiler alert!) don’t really match with the selfish gene idea. Jarvis does a nice job of laying out the evidence so that the reader can decide what to think.

***

"In the past some scientists suggested that the human eye retina was actually a poor design. Richard Dawkins proposed this argument. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker he concluded that the vertebrate eye is functionally sub-optimal because the retina photoreceptors are oriented away from incoming light.

"Jarvis addresses head-on this frequently repeated claim of poor design. He goes on to cite recent discoveries and explains how this new research affects our understanding of the purported “sub-optimal” design. He notes that our retinas contain special Müller cells which funnel light through the optic nerve onto the retina, compensating for any loss of vision related to the “backwards wiring” of the vertebrate retina:

"Research by Amichai Labin and Erez Riba from Israel’s internationally recognized Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa has shown that the surface of the retina also has so-called Müller cells. These cells not only compensate for the light sensitive receptors being “back to front.” Their function actually results in vision being better than it would have been if the light sensitive cells had been the so-called “right-way round.”

***

"In the final chapters of the book, Dr. Jarvis updates his reader on what the last twenty years have revealed about evolution. His focus here is on the study of epigenetics, orphan genes, Hox genes, mitochondrial DNA, and directed mutagenesis, all shedding light on how genes evolve and whether or not they are units of selection. Throughout, he argues that these recently discovered genetic features don’t fit the selfish gene concept.

"Here’s one example from the field of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of mechanisms that change gene expression but that are not heritable. Epigenetic mechanisms allow for both behavior and the environment to affect how a gene works. Here’s the problem epigenetics poses for selfish genes: if a gene is the unit of selection, what benefit does a non-heritable change that is only evidenced in the organism have for the unit of selection? Why would such a mechanism ever be selected in the first place? Hence, epigenetics only makes sense in a system-wide context.

"Let’s look at one more of Jarvis’s examples: master regulatory genes, aka Hox genes. These genes have the purpose of being master regulators within a system context. Their activation and function depend upon upstream and downstream genes respectively. A master regulatory gene is helpless without its system context. How then could such a gene be a unit of selection? Do master regulatory genes really desire to reproduce more than they do to serve the organism? Is there evidence for that? Definitely not.

"In gentle fashion, Jarvis lays out numerous pieces of evidence that jeopardize Dawkins’s view that genes are selfish and act as the units of selection. That makes this book the perfect gift for an inquisitive friend who might not be familiar with some of the recent challenges to Dawkins’s ideas.

"Jarvis concludes that “selfish genes are in the ICU” and he encourages the reader to place recent discoveries into what he calls a melting pot — a place where many different people and ideas exist and often produce something new. He concludes with a question to the reader: “Are you and I ready for a new theory of evolution that may be as difficult to accept as were the revelations of Albert Einstein?'”

Comment: Dawkins was a master writer with thin understanding of the current research. He was killed long ago.

https://ecoevocommunity.nature.com/posts/more-obsolete-dawkinsian-evidence-for-evolution

"The protein molecules that form the structure of the TTSS are very similar to components of the flagellar motor. To the evolutionist it is clear that TTSS components were commandeered for a new, but not wholly unrelated, function when the flagellar motor evolved…Evidently, crucial components of the flagellar motor were already in place and working before the flagellar motor evolved.

"Thus, Dawkins viewed the injectisome as an evolutionary precursor for the flagellar motor.

"In the Cell paper published just a few day ago, a group of Chinese researchers published an atomic-level structure of the bacterial flagellar motor and compared it to the injectisome. These structures are shown in the figure below (kindly provided by Yonqun Zhu).

"Although the flagellum has been proposed to be the evolutionary ancestor of T3SSs, the structure of the flagellar motor is significantly different from that of the T3SS basal body.... the flagellar rod has few contacts with the LP ring to facilitate its high-speed rotation and torque transmission. In addition, unlike the C24-symmetric inner membrane ring assembled by PrgH and PrgK in the Salmonella T3SS, the MS ring of the flagellar motor is composed of 34 FliF subunits with mixed internal symmetries. Therefore, the flagellar motor has evolved special structural elements for bacterial motility.

"In other words, even parts of the two structures that seem to correspond to each other are very different. Thus, parts of the injectisome could not simply be “commandeered” for the flagellar motor.

"You may notice another implicit contradiction of Dawkins’ scenario in the quotation above. The only ancestor-descendent scenario that the authors of the Cell paper consider to be worth mentioning is one where the injectisome is descended from the flagellum. Not the other way round.

"This is because there is existing evidence that the injectisomes found in present day bacteria are more recent in their origin than flagellar motors are. This evidence is summarised by a 2015 paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. For example, flagellar motors have a far wider phylogenetic distribution than injectisomes, and tend to be encoded within the main bacterial chromosomes, whereas injectisomes tend to be on horizontally transferred DNA segments. More phylogenetic evidence for the flagella first can be found in this PLoS Genetics paper.

"Therefore, Richard Dawkins’ scenario for the evolution of the flagella motor has not stood the test of time. Despite its obvious attractions, this scenario is no longer suitable for use by science educators and communicators.

"So what should we say if someone asks us what evolutionary biology has to say about the origin of the flagellar motor? The good news is that a large new project has just been funded at Imperial College London to investigate the origins of the flagellum. But for now, the most accurate answer to give is to be found in the press release for that project: “For evolutionary biologists, the flagellum is an enduring mystery.'” (my bold)

Comment: any complex biological mechanism will remain a mystery as long as obvious design is ignored as Dawkins did.

DAVID: I appreciate your comment. The article is all fluffy reasoning based on an emphasis on survival. As I have stated survival is only one of the considerations as to how and why evolution works. And there is more than a degree of conscious intelligence in the universe.

Yes, survival is a hugely important factor in the history of evolution, but it has to be coupled with the drive for improvement, which we have already discussed at length. My remark about “degree of consciousness” referred to the cells, which – if my hypothesis is correct – clearly have a lesser degree of conscious intelligence than us humans.

DAVID: An interesting defense of Dawkins selfish genes, by making assumptions against the presented evidence that 80% of DNA has some functions:
https://aeon.co/essays/our-genome-is-not-a-blueprint-for-making-humans-at-all?utm_sourc...

dhw: The article does defend Darwin (and I disagree with its presumptions concerning natural selection and random mutations), but I don’t know why you have to make him your headline when it is Dawkins who is the focus of its attention. And although it is an attack on ENCODE, I’d like to highlight a very different aspect of the argument:

It should have said Dawkins dissed. Changed.

dhw: QUOTES:
When looking at our genome, we might take pride in how individual genes co-operate in order to build the human body in seemingly unselfish ways. But co-operation in making and maintaining a human body is just a highly successful strategy to make gene copies, perfectly consistent with selfishness.
So why are we fooled into believing that humans (and animals and plants) rather than genes are what counts in biology? It is a matter of scale: the world we can see is too big to include genomes, and our lifespan is too short to see how individual genes come into existence, change, and disappear again, processes that unfold over millions of years.
Our genome does of course contain a human blueprint – but building us is just one of the things our genome does, just one of the strategies used by the genes to stay alive. In their selfish desire to leave offspring, our genes have evolved to form a society where they work together efficiently, dividing the labour to ensure that each makes it into the next generation. Like Adam Smith’s invisible hand, the genes in this society co-operate with one another not from a sense of fairness or design, but simply to maximise their own survival. From the myriad interactions of genes in this complex society emerge the striking biological adaptations we see in the living world.

dhw: If we substitute cell for gene, this is very much along the lines of the hypothesis I have proposed. Every organism is a community of cells which cooperate to form every multicellular organism that has ever existed. The point that the world is “too big to include genomes”, in our understanding of how life works as it does, is akin to Shapiro’s response to the question why people question cellular intelligence: “Large organisms chauvinism”. And the myriad interactions account for the higgledy-piggledy evolutionary bush of organisms extant and extinct, including humans. Of course the article does not take account of the astonishing complexity of a mechanism that can achieve this diversity and which a theist would understandably claim requires a designing mind. And it doesn’t specifically claim that genes/cells are intelligent. For some reason, all the emphasis is on selfishness – which is not always conducive to successful cooperation and communal life – but selfish, unselfish, cooperative, communal behaviour are all factors that suggest a degree of conscious intelligence, as maximised in us humans.

I appreciate your comment. The article is all fluffy reasoning based on an emphasis on survival. As I have stated survival is only one of the considerations as to how and why evolution works. And there is more than a degree of conscious intelligence in the universe.

The article does defend Darwin (and I disagree with its presumptions concerning natural selection and random mutations), but I don’t know why you have to make him your headline when it is Dawkins who is the focus of its attention. And although it is an attack on ENCODE, I’d like to highlight a very different aspect of the argument:

QUOTES:
When looking at our genome, we might take pride in how individual genes co-operate in order to build the human body in seemingly unselfish ways. But co-operation in making and maintaining a human body is just a highly successful strategy to make gene copies, perfectly consistent with selfishness.
So why are we fooled into believing that humans (and animals and plants) rather than genes are what counts in biology? It is a matter of scale: the world we can see is too big to include genomes, and our lifespan is too short to see how individual genes come into existence, change, and disappear again, processes that unfold over millions of years.
Our genome does of course contain a human blueprint – but building us is just one of the things our genome does, just one of the strategies used by the genes to stay alive. In their selfish desire to leave offspring, our genes have evolved to form a society where they work together efficiently, dividing the labour to ensure that each makes it into the next generation. Like Adam Smith’s invisible hand, the genes in this society co-operate with one another not from a sense of fairness or design, but simply to maximise their own survival. From the myriad interactions of genes in this complex society emerge the striking biological adaptations we see in the living world.

If we substitute cell for gene, this is very much along the lines of the hypothesis I have proposed. Every organism is a community of cells which cooperate to form every multicellular organism that has ever existed. The point that the world is “too big to include genomes”, in our understanding of how life works as it does, is akin to Shapiro’s response to the question why people question cellular intelligence: “Large organisms chauvinism”. And the myriad interactions account for the higgledy-piggledy evolutionary bush of organisms extant and extinct, including humans. Of course the article does not take account of the astonishing complexity of a mechanism that can achieve this diversity and which a theist would understandably claim requires a designing mind. And it doesn’t specifically claim that genes/cells are intelligent. For some reason, all the emphasis is on selfishness – which is not always conducive to successful cooperation and communal life – but selfish, unselfish, cooperative, communal behaviour are all factors that suggest a degree of conscious intelligence, as maximised in us humans.

"
***

https://aeon.co/essays/our-genome-is-not-a-blueprint-for-making-humans-at-all?utm_sourc...

"Our genome has more than 20,000 genes, relatively stable stretches of DNA transmitted largely unchanged between generations. These genes contain recipes for molecules, especially proteins, that are the main building blocks and molecular machines of our bodies. Yet DNA that codes for such known structures accounts for just over 3 per cent of our genome. What about the other 97 per cent? With the publication of the first draft of the human genome in 2001, that shadow world came into focus. It emerged that roughly half our DNA consisted of ‘repeats’, long stretches of letters sometimes found in millions of copies at seemingly random places throughout the genome. Were all these repeats just junk?

***

"After working hard for almost a decade, in 2012 ENCODE came to a surprising conclusion: rather than being composed mostly of useless junk, 80 per cent of the human genome is in fact functional.

"To reach that conclusion, ENCODE systematically scouted the genome as a whole for specific functions. One function could be coding for proteins; another function could be acting as a ‘molecular switch’ that regulates the operation of other genes. In one experiment, for example, ENCODE surveyed the entire genome for DNA that is bound by ‘transcription factors’ - proteins known for calling other genes into action. In this way, ENCODE compiled a comprehensive and very useful catalogue that provided a functional clue for 80 per cent of the 3 billion nucleotides that comprise all the genes of the human genome.

***

"Consider the so-called ‘LINE-1 elements’, a DNA sequence formerly classed as junk. Our genome teems with 500,000 copies of this 6,000-letter sequence that seems to do nothing but reproduce copies of itself, the very definition of the ‘selfish gene’. According to ENCODE, these LINE-1 elements are functional since they are biochemically active. But does this mean they function to further human survival itself?

"Likely not. ‘Function’ is a loaded word, and ENCODE chose a very inclusive definition: in the ENCODE world, function can be ascribed to any stretch of the genome that is related to a specific biochemical activity.

***

"Indeed, many of ENCODE’s 80 per cent ‘functional elements’ are unlikely to contribute to human survival and the reproduction of human genomes, which is what you would expect if you consider function from the perspective of a human blueprint.

"Yet viewing our genome as an elegant and tidy blueprint for building humans misses a crucial fact: our genome does not exist to serve us humans at all. Instead, we exist to serve our genome, a collection of genes that have been surviving from time immemorial, skipping down the generations. These genes have evolved to build human ‘survival machines’, programmed as tools to make additional copies of the genes (by producing more humans who carry them in their genomes). From the cold-hearted view of biological reality, we exist only to ensure the survival of these travellers in our genomes.

"This is the central idea in Richard Dawkins’s milestone book, The Selfish Gene (1976), and the fundamental shift in perspective it entails might be as hard to accept as it was hard to acknowledge that our world revolves around the sun, not the sun around us. The selfish gene metaphor remains the single most relevant metaphor about our genome.

***

"At the most fundamental level, then, our genome is not a blueprint for making humans at all. Instead, it is a set of genes that seek to replicate themselves, making and using humans as their agents. Our genome does of course contain a human blueprint – but building us is just one of the things our genome does, just one of the strategies used by the genes to stay alive.

***

"ENCODE has called 80 per cent of the human genome functional, yet 97 per cent of the genome does not encode proteins or other molecules that support human life. Is all this DNA just junk? Of course not. There are undoubtedly many molecules whose function we have not yet grasped. And a blueprint alone is not enough to build anything – you also need assembly instructions and a time plan that orchestrates the building process. The portion of the genome responsible for this organisational feat likely adds another 7 per cent or so to the blueprint’s 3 per cent, leading scientists to suspect that about 10 per cent of the genome is actually needed to specify a functioning human." (my bold)

Comment: There are many essays trashing this line of reasoning. We have no idea to make a living organism. All we know is DNA makes proteins. Note my bold. Seven to ten percent to make life is a ridiculous assumption. The essay describes two sets of scientists squabbling. I'm with ENCODE.

dhw: I had promised to let you know about reviews. Here are some quotes:

The Guardian
Charles Darwin by AN Wilson review – how wrong can a biography be?
Wilson blames Darwin for totalitarianism and portrays him as a monster of ruthless self-interest. It’s a prolific biographer’s cheap attempt to ruffle feathers
xxxx

New Scientist Live
‘Radical’ new biography of Darwin is unreliable and inaccurate
A. N. Wilson's error-strewn and tendentious portrayal of Charles Darwin as a "Victorian mythmaker" falls into old traps and digs new ones, finds John van Wyhe

The book claims to be a “radical reappraisal of one of the great Victorians, a book which isn’t afraid to challenge the Darwinian orthodoxy”. The result is one of the most unreliable, inaccurate and tendentious anti-Darwin books of recent times.
xxxx

Evening Standard
When it comes to the author’s speculations on evolutionary theory, however, the book is fatally flawed, mischievous, and ultimately misleading.
xxxx

Sunday Times
Wrong, wrong and wrong again
AN Wilson tries to attack the fundamentals of Darin’s great work on evolution. What he reveals is his own scientific ignorance, writes professor Steven Jones.

Elsewhere I've read that the book has been trashed by most critics. I can only comment on the two articles of his that I have read,summarizing his arguments, and it seems I am not alone in my distaste.

Thank you. An avalanche of criticism.

The Guardian
Charles Darwin by AN Wilson review – how wrong can a biography be?
Wilson blames Darwin for totalitarianism and portrays him as a monster of ruthless self-interest. It’s a prolific biographer’s cheap attempt to ruffle feathers
xxxx

New Scientist Live
‘Radical’ new biography of Darwin is unreliable and inaccurate
A. N. Wilson's error-strewn and tendentious portrayal of Charles Darwin as a "Victorian mythmaker" falls into old traps and digs new ones, finds John van Wyhe

The book claims to be a “radical reappraisal of one of the great Victorians, a book which isn’t afraid to challenge the Darwinian orthodoxy”. The result is one of the most unreliable, inaccurate and tendentious anti-Darwin books of recent times.
xxxx

Evening Standard
When it comes to the author’s speculations on evolutionary theory, however, the book is fatally flawed, mischievous, and ultimately misleading.
xxxx

Sunday Times
Wrong, wrong and wrong again
AN Wilson tries to attack the fundamentals of Darin’s great work on evolution. What he reveals is his own scientific ignorance, writes professor Steven Jones.

Elsewhere I've read that the book has been trashed by most critics. I can only comment on the two articles of his that I have read,summarizing his arguments, and it seems I am not alone in my distaste.

dhw: I am no expert on Darwin, and my Englishness and A.N. Wilson’s Englishness have nothing to do with it. I am attacking his method of putting words into Darwin’s mouth and using a scientific theory of how different species evolved as a reason to lambast Darwin for other people’s prejudices and practices, culminating in the extermination of the Jews half a century after his death. This is neither science nor scholarship. I’m disappointed that you can’t see it.

I've explained my peripheral knowledge. Did Hitler use Darwin's theories in Descent of Man as alleged? Obviously not Darwin's fault.

David: Sorry to disappoint you. I can only discuss what I am familiar with, which is a discussion of the science of evolution. My American impressions of Victorian England are romantic and vague and colored by fiction. Wilson's attacks on Darwin and his discussions of Victorian England are repeats of others I have read from other authors. I don't doubt your defense of him, as a proud Englishman, but do you really see Darwin, warts and all? I don't know the truth about him. I've not read his writings. Descent of Man has had some vicious reviews. I brought up the subject because I am surprised at the nasty attacks by British commentators.

I am no expert on Darwin, and my Englishness and A.N. Wilson’s Englishness have nothing to do with it. I am attacking his method of putting words into Darwin’s mouth and using a scientific theory of how different species evolved as a reason to lambast Darwin for other people’s prejudices and practices, culminating in the extermination of the Jews half a century after his death. This is neither science nor scholarship. I’m disappointed that you can’t see it.

dhw: I’m disappointed that you have focused on this and not even commented on the dreadful distortions underlying A.N. Wilson’s personal attacks on Darwin, which are the subject of my post. I know you disagree with Darwin, and you know that I have added the drive for improvement to the drive for survival. Meanwhile, I hope you will join me in condemning A.N. Wilson’s ad hominems for the reasons I have given in my post.

Sorry to disappoint you. I can only discuss what I am familiar with, which is a discussion of the science of evolution. My American impressions of Victorian England are romantic and vague and colored by fiction. Wilson's attacks on Darwin and his discussions of Victorian England are repeats of others I have read from other authors. I don't doubt your defense of him, as a proud Englishman, but do you really see Darwin, warts and all? I don't know the truth about him. I've not read his writings. Descent of Man has had some vicious reviews. I brought up the subject because I am surprised at the nasty attacks by British commentators.

dhw: The principle is on the same intellectual level as blaming Jesus Christ for the Crusades and the Inquisition, Muhammed for ISIS terrorism, and God for all the evil that men do. No, I am not comparing Darwin to these religious figures. He was simply a scientist trying to unravel the mystery of how life on earth developed, and he put together a theory much of which is still valid 150 years after he wrote it. If the theory of common descent is true, and if it’s true that in most cases those organisms best suited for survival will survive, then why attack the person who promulgated the truth just because other people used it for their own purposes? As for “bogus Victorian science” and the other spiteful ad hominems, no doubt there will be responses from people who know a lot more than I do, and last time I promised to report on any reviews. They obviously won’t be available till later next month.

DAVID: Your partial sentence: He was simply a scientist trying to unravel the mystery of how life on earth developed, and he put together a theory much of which is still valid 150 years after he wrote it. If the theory of common descent is true, and if it’s true that in most cases those organisms best suited for survival will survive, (my bold) is where I have trouble with Darwin. My position, as you know, is evolution is driven to advance complexity, with or without survivability.

I’m disappointed that you have focused on this and not even commented on the dreadful distortions underlying A.N. Wilson’s personal attacks on Darwin, which are the subject of my post. I know you disagree with Darwin, and you know that I have added the drive for improvement to the drive for survival. Meanwhile, I hope you will join me in condemning A.N. Wilson’s ad hominems for the reasons I have given in my post.

DAVID : Darwin was not fraudulent, but like all humans he was careful to claim his share of the credit for the evolutionary discussion.

Not his fault if credit is given where credit is due, and certainly not a justification for A.N. Wilson’s scurrilous ad hominems.

dhw: A.N. Wilson is a theist converted to atheism and then converted back to theism. He courts controversy, and the headline of the article is worth quoting in full to get the tone of his views:
"It’s time Charles Darwin was exposed for the fraud he was
Two of his theories about evolution were wrong – and one resulting ‘science’ inspired the Nazis"
This sort of sensationalism may sell books and bring the writer into the public eye, but to call someone who devoted his life to his science a “fraud” and to couple his name with Nazism is gutter journalism of the worst kind. (If he were alive today, Darwin would have every right to sue.) As you say, the criticisms aren’t new, though the vicious implication that somehow the theory reflects the theorist (“compassion and compromise are for cissies”) perhaps takes them to a new low. In any case, one can’t help wondering why anyone would devote their time to writing a biography of someone they so obviously despise. I wonder how A.N. Wilson would react to a biography of Jesus by Richard Dawkins, advertised with the headline: “Jesus was a fraud who inspired some of the worst cases of genocide in human history”. I’ll look forward to reviews of the book, and will let you know what they come up with.

DAVID: Darwin did not know what he did not know and is known now, making many of his conclusions problematic. And the struggles of his acolytes to make evolution fit into his theories laughable.

dhw: Agreed. And I trust you are as disgusted as I am by the term “fraud” and by the other scurrilous ad hominems.

Darwin was not fraudulent, but like all humans he was careful to claim his share of the credit for the evolutionary discussion.

DAVID: Darwin did not know what he did not know and is known now, making many of his conclusions problematic. And the struggles of his acolytes to make evolution fit into his theories laughable.

Agreed. And I trust you are as disgusted as I am by the term “fraud” and by the other scurrilous ad hominems.

DAVID: I have read all these criticisms before, but not in a British newspaper. Darwinism was clearly behind the Nazi extermination schemes, but not his fault they used his ideas.

dhw: Thank you for this very fair comment. I don't know why you're surprised. Religious and anti-religious bigotry is just as common over here as it is in the States. A.N. Wilson is a theist converted to atheism and then converted back to theism. He courts controversy, and the headline of the article is worth quoting in full to get the tone of his views:

"It’s time Charles Darwin was exposed for the fraud he was
Two of his theories about evolution were wrong – and one resulting ‘science’ inspired the Nazis"

This sort of sensationalism may sell books and bring the writer into the public eye, but to call someone who devoted his life to his science a “fraud” and to couple his name with Nazism is gutter journalism of the worst kind. (If he were alive today, Darwin would have every right to sue.) As you say, the criticisms aren’t new, though the vicious implication that somehow the theory reflects the theorist (“compassion and compromise are for cissies”) perhaps takes them to a new low. In any case, one can’t help wondering why anyone would devote their time to writing a biography of someone they so obviously despise. I wonder how A.N. Wilson would react to a biography of Jesus by Richard Dawkins, advertised with the headline: “Jesus was a fraud who inspired some of the worst cases of genocide in human history”. I’ll look forward to reviews of the book, and will let you know what they come up with.

Darwin did not know what he did not know and is known now, making many of his conclusions problematic. And the struggles of his acolytes to make evolution fit into his theories laughable.

Which is not his fault, any more than it is his fault that both theists and atheists try to twist his theories to fit their own personal agenda.

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/it-s-time-charles-darwin-was-exposed-for-the...

DAVID: I have read all these criticisms before, but not in a British newspaper. Darwinism was clearly behind the Nazi extermination schemes, but not his fault they used his ideas.

Thank you for this very fair comment. I don't know why you're surprised. Religious and anti-religious bigotry is just as common over here as it is in the States. A.N. Wilson is a theist converted to atheism and then converted back to theism. He courts controversy, and the headline of the article is worth quoting in full to get the tone of his views:

"It’s time Charles Darwin was exposed for the fraud he was
Two of his theories about evolution were wrong – and one resulting ‘science’ inspired the Nazis"

This sort of sensationalism may sell books and bring the writer into the public eye, but to call someone who devoted his life to his science a “fraud” and to couple his name with Nazism is gutter journalism of the worst kind. (If he were alive today, Darwin would have every right to sue.) As you say, the criticisms aren’t new, though the vicious implication that somehow the theory reflects the theorist (“compassion and compromise are for cissies”) perhaps takes them to a new low. In any case, one can’t help wondering why anyone would devote their time to writing a biography of someone they so obviously despise. I wonder how A.N. Wilson would react to a biography of Jesus by Richard Dawkins, advertised with the headline: “Jesus was a fraud who inspired some of the worst cases of genocide in human history”. I’ll look forward to reviews of the book, and will let you know what they come up with.

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/it-s-time-charles-darwin-was-exposed-for-the...

"Funnily enough, in the course of my researches, I found both pride and prejudice in bucketloads among the ardent Darwinians, who would like us to believe that if you do not worship Darwin, you are some kind of nutter.

***

"By 1892 Darwin’s reputation was fading, and by the beginning of the 20th century it had all but been eclipsed. Then, in the early to mid 20th century, the science of genetics got going. Science rediscovered the findings of Gregor Mendel (Darwin’s contemporary) and the most stupendous changes in life sciences became possible. Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, and thereafter the complexity and wonder of genetics, all demonstrable by scientific means, were laid bare.

***

"Darwinism is not science as Mendelian genetics are. It is a theory whose truth is NOT universally acknowledged. But when genetics got going there was also a revival, especially in Britain, of what came to be known as neo-Darwinism, a synthesis of old Darwinian ideas with the new genetics. Why look to Darwin, who made so many mistakes, rather than to Mendel? There was a simple answer to that. Neo-Darwinism was part scientific and in part a religion, or anti-religion. Its most famous exponent alive, Richard Dawkins, said that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist. You could say that the apparently impersonal processes of genetics did the same. But the neo-Darwinians could hardly, without absurdity, make Mendel their hero since he was a Roman Catholic monk. So Darwin became the figurehead for a system of thought that (childishly) thought there was one catch-all explanation for How Things Are in nature.

"The great fact of evolution was an idea that had been current for at least 50 years before Darwin began his work. His own grandfather pioneered it in England, but on the continent, Goethe, Cuvier, Lamarck and many others realised that life forms evolve through myriad mutations. Darwin wanted to be the Man Who Invented Evolution, so he tried to airbrush all the predecessors out of the story. He even pretended that Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, had had almost no influence on him. He then brought two new ideas to the evolutionary debate, both of which are false.

"The great fact of evolution was an idea that had been current for at least 50 years before Darwin began his work. His own grandfather pioneered it in England, but on the continent, Goethe, Cuvier, Lamarck and many others realised that life forms evolve through myriad mutations. Darwin wanted to be the Man Who Invented Evolution, so he tried to airbrush all the predecessors out of the story. He even pretended that Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, had had almost no influence on him. He then brought two new ideas to the evolutionary debate, both of which are false.

***

"if the Darwinian theory of natural selection were true, fossils would by now have revealed hundreds of thousands of such examples. Species adapt themselves to their environment, but there are very few transmutations. 

"Darwin’s second big idea was that Nature is always ruthless: that the strong push out the weak, that compassion and compromise are for cissies whom Nature throws to the wall. Darwin borrowed the phrase “survival of the fittest” from the now forgotten and much discredited philosopher Herbert Spencer. He invented a consolation myth for the selfish class to which he belonged, to persuade them that their neglect of the poor, and the colossal gulf between them and the poor, was the way Nature intended things. He thought his class would outbreed the “savages” (ie the brown peoples of the globe) and the feckless, drunken Irish.
Stubbornly, the unfittest survived. Brown, Jewish and Irish people had more babies than the Darwin class. The Darwinians then had to devise the hateful pseudo-science of eugenics, which was a scheme to prevent the poor from breeding.

"We all know where that led, and the uses to which the National Socialists put Darwin’s dangerous ideas." 

Comment: I have read all these criticisms before, but not in a British newspaper. Darwinism was clearly behind the Nazi extermination schemes, but not his fault they used his ideas.