What stopped Darwin from discovering the laws of inheritance?

At Access Research Network, David Tyler asks, what stopped Darwin from discovering the laws of inheritance?":

In a helpful analysis of the issues, Jonathan Howard of the University of Cologne suggests that it is legitimate to ask why Darwin did not reach a satisfying conclusion: "The solution, at least to the inheritance problem, was apparently easily amenable to an experimental approach with materials that were daily to hand. Furthermore the time was ripe in the middle of the 19th century, with many breeders interested in the problem for commercial as well as scientific reasons. And after all, Mendel solved the logic of inheritance in his own backyard in the monastery at Brno with no more technology than Darwin had at his disposal in his garden at Down House. Why couldn't Darwin have done it too?"

Howard looks carefully at Darwin's writings on the subject, and finds he was highly selective in his interests. He sought to document the small variations that he thought could accumulate and lead eventually to speciation. His writings reflect his commitment to this concept: "the selection of infinitesimal varieties", "differences absolutely inappreciable to the naked eye", "the accumulation of infinitesimally small inherited modifications". Howard makes this comment on Darwin's 1876 book The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom: "His overriding purpose was to establish that progeny produced by self-fertilization are less thrifty than the products of cross-fertilization. He rightly concentrated his analysis not on unit characters, but on the quantitative characters that fitted better with his concept of differential fitness, the attributes that, by their infinitesimal differences, determine life and death in the wild. So Darwin counted seeds, weighed and measured them, planted them and looked for their vitality. He measured growth and general thriftiness in his self-fertilized and cross-fertilized progeny. Everything he measured was a quantitative variable that under these simple experimental conditions could yield no information about inheritance at all. His experiments are overwhelming in scale and scope; they established the point that he wanted to establish beyond all doubt, but they contributed nothing relevant to our understanding of the underlying logic of inheritance."

Read more here.

Gene, gene: the meadow is green. And where are you when I need to blame you for something?

In "Scientists and philosophers find that the gene has a multitude of meanings," (New York Times, November 10, 2008), Natalie Angier made a useful point:

Scientists have learned that the canonical “genes” account for an embarrassingly tiny part of the human genome: maybe 1 percent of the three billion paired subunits of DNA that are stuffed into nearly every cell of the body qualify as indisputable protein codes. Scientists are also learning that many of the gene-free regions of our DNA are far more loquacious than previously believed, far more willing to express themselves in ways that have nothing to do with protein manufacture.

Indeed.

Much of the public still thinks that there is a "gay gene" or a "swinger gene" or a "fat gene."

As if. As if some unhappy friend's tomcat boyfriend has a "swinger gene."

A message to any women who are reading this: Look, if your life is a mess, it's you, basically, it is not your genes. Forget all that garbage.

If your boyfriend is a tomcat, why are you with him anyway? If you know you deserve better, it must be true. Otherwise, how would you have known?

Perhaps you must live a while without a boyfriend, but ... at least you won't bother wondering who he is with. Maybe he's dating the Devil's daughter. So? If you hear screaming in the night, shut the window and call the police. Don't get involved.

If you have reached the end of your rope, go here for help. If you haven't reached the end of your rope, there are other places you can try, of course, but we deal with the worst cases here, so you may as well go here first.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Remember - one gene codes for one protein? Also. you ARE your genes? And all that?

Good. Now exercise your brain by forgetting all that.

Here Emma Young at New Scientist (09 July 2008) brings us up to date with a more plausible story:

No one is arguing that Lamarck got everything right, but over the past decade it has become increasingly clear that environmental factors, such as diet or stress, can have biological consequences that are transmitted to offspring without a single change to gene sequences taking place. In fact, some biologists are already starting to consider this process as routine. However, fully accepting the idea, provocatively dubbed the "new Lamarckism", would mean a radical rewrite of modern evolutionary theory. Not surprisingly, there are some who see that as heresy. "It means the demise of the selfish-gene theory," says Eva Jablonka at Tel Aviv University, Israel. "The whole discourse about heredity and evolution will change" (see " Rewriting Darwin and Dawkins?").

The demise of selfish gene theory is long overdue, of course.

I am a bit queasy about at least one aspect of this New Scientist article: An attempt to blame modern obesity rates on ancestral diets. Modern obesity is mainly due to lack of exercise. If the most exercise you ever get is moving the cursor around, you have one impressive index finger, second joint upward, but ... that's like about .2 percent of fitness.


Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Thinkquote of the day: Why there is an intelligent design controversy

A friend sends me this, from an annual review of genomics/genetics:

The ultimate goal of gene family studies is an understanding of how duplicated genes have taken on novel biochemical and organismal functions. Domain shuffling aside, it remains a mystery how the undirected process of mutation, combined with natural selection, has resulted in the creation of thousands of new proteins with extraordinarily diverse and well-optimized functions. This problem is particularly acute for tightly integrated molecular systems that consist of many interacting parts, such as ligands, receptors, and the downstream regulatory factors with which they interact. In these systems, it is not clear how a new function for any protein might be selected for unless the other members of the complex are already present, creating a molecular version of the ancient evolutionary riddle of the chicken and the egg.

(Joseph W. Thornton and Rob DeSalle, "Genomics Meets Phylogenetics," Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 2000. Vol. 1: 41–73)

The question is not whether we will ever figure it out. The question is, when we do, will the solution support materialism or look anything at all like Darwinian evolutionism.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

Animations of life inside the cell, indexed, for your convenience.

Anti-God crusade ... no, really! My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

Catholic Church A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

Collins, Francis My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God

Columnists weigh in on the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

Darwinism dissent Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin

Gilder, George A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Intelligent design academic publications.

Intelligent design-friendly students should be flunked, according to bio prof Evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Intelligent design controversy My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

Intelligent design controversy timeline An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Intelligent design and culture My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design.

March of the Penguins A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

Origin of life Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Peer review My backgrounder about peer review issues.

Polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

Stove, David O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

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