James MacAllister, curator of the Lynn Margulis archive at the University of Massachussetts Amherst. He wrote a thorough review of the London 2016 evolution conference at the Royal Society.

James MacAllister is the volunteer archivist for the Lynn Margulis archive at the University of Massachussetts-Amherst.

Jim runs envevo.org, the Environmental Evolution website. Lynn Margulis was the champion of Symbiogenesis theory.

She fought tremendous opposition from Neo-Darwinists to get the theory accepted. Today she is widely regarded as one of the greatest evolutionary biologists of all time.

I met Jim at the Royal Society evolution meeting in London, and in a very brief conversation discovered much in common. Jim runs envevo.org, the Environmental Evolution blog.

He wrote a fantastic synopsis of the Royal Society meeting. I encourage you to read his entire report. Meanwhile, some highlights:

The Modern Synthesis, while undoubtedly productive for a time, is a misconception of reality that has reached the limits of its explanatory power. The problems are fundamental. No amount of cosmetic surgery is going correct them.

Most of these new trends are not new nor are they trends. They have been known and studied quite apart from neo-Darwinism for a long time. Symbiosis and symbiogenesis, for example, have been investigated for over a century while being dismissed and discouraged by proponents of the Modern Synthesis.

Awareness or mentions of these processes by neo-Darwinists fall far short of serious investigation. It is true that these processes have been bolstered or confirmed by evidence from molecular biology, but that evidence generally contradicted the view of the Modern Synthesis. The Modern Synthesis is no longer synonymous with evolutionary biology, molecular biology, or any of the multiple disciplines currently contributing to our understanding of evolution.

Martin Brasier, the late Oxford paleontologist, defined science not as the revelation of underlying simplicity, laws or ideals, but as a unique system for the measurement of doubt. This is a helpful conception because it explains why science must be skeptical, but also measured in its skepticism. It avoids the temptation of certainty and leaves the mind open to surprise. Science measures. It compares tests to controls. Experiments and analyses are designed to minimize bias and expose logical fallacies. Results must be reproducible. Science questions unquestioned assumptions. Its theories must be predictive. It does not ignore anomalies, but acknowledges and investigates them.

There is also the current HBO series West World where the character of Dr. Robert Ford (played by Anthony Hopkins) explains to his assistant Bernard (played by Jeffrey Wright) that evolution forged all of sentient life on this planet using only one tool, the mistake.

The Modern Synthesis toolbox holds only one tool: the mistake, the blind random mutation. The organism is acted upon by the environmental elimination process: natural selection. No mention of new trends.

Lets not forget that Darwin himself had a better selection of tools in his On the Origin of Species toolbox. Now we are presented with a toolbox that holds many tools. Some vintage ones, such as symbiogenesis. And long recognized ones, such as horizontal gene transfer, that couldnt be swept under the rug. But wait theres more: interspecific hybridization, whole genome duplications, the movement of mobile genetic elements (natural genetic engineering), plasticity, and niche construction. Magically, we are told that all these fit in the The Selfish Gene toolbox. What ever happened to that little toolbox that only held one tool, the mistake?

John Hands has reported on the meeting in the BBC online Science Focus. During the first Round Table audience discussion, Hands introduced himself as the author of Cosmosapiens: Human Evolution from the Origin of the Universe (outstanding book by the way) and made the following comments.

Its appropriate that this meeting is being held at the Royal Society, whose motto, we were reminded yesterday, is Nullius in verba: Accept nothing on authority. The current paradigm in evolutionary biology, NeoDarwinism, also called the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, has been the authority for some 65 years. It is, of course, a mathematical model based on several unquestioned assumptions, whose proof was given by 1940s game theory borrowed from economics.

What we have heard over the last 2 days is empirical evidence that new species arise rapidly, from such mechanisms as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, hybridisation, whole genome duplication, interactive systems producing novel emergent properties, and other mechanisms described in Part 2 of my book. These mechanisms contradict the fundamental tenets of neo-Darwinism, namely:

To the contrary, Darwinian competition causes not the evolution of species but the destruction of species. It is collaboration in its various forms that causes biological evolution. Hence Im surprised by calls for extending the neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Synthesis. You cant extend something that is broken. Surely what is needed now, after 65 years, is using the empirical evidence to develop a new paradigm for biological evolution.

Read Jim MacAllisters entire report on the London evolution conference here.

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Environmental Evolution, the first Big Earth History and Earth systems science course, was taught by Lynn Margulis at UMass from 1986-2010. Margulis was also the principle collaborator with James Lovelock on the Gaia hypothesis, the proposal that the entire earth can be understood as a single macro-organism.

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The Royal Society's Evolution Meeting: James MacAllister ...