Epigenesis research victimized by neo-Darwinism's tyrannical toxicity to true scientific endeavor

Hi there today friendlies and not-so-friendlies:

Today continues the saga of

Neo-Darwinism -- ENEMY OF SCIENCE

Glad to know you are on board today. Thank you kindly for your visit.

Just picked up another piece of flotsam (or is it jetsam - I don't know the difference) from the scientific shipwreck generously entitled "neo-Darwinism."

In a post several weeks ago I listed six items in which neo-Darwinism has been or continues to be toxic to the progress of science.
http://darwin-is-dead.blogspot.com/2008/08/darwinism-and-neo-darwinism-toxic-enemy.html

(1) Darwinism retarded acceptance of germ theory as proposed by (creationist) Louis Pasteur;


(2) Darwinism tragically retarded the life-saving benefit of antiseptic surgery introduced by Joseph Lister, "father" of modern antiseptic surgery;

(3) Due to Darwinian portrayal of some organs as "vestigial", that is, remnant 'junk', lots of "vestigial" body parts were unnecessarily yanked out while increase of scientific knowledge was delayed.

(4) The neo-Darwinian notion of "junk DNA" has been a severe retardant to the advance of molecular biology, and could have even prevented mapping of the full human genome had not wiser heads prevailed;


(5) Darwin's idea of embryological development, later refined and polished and coined into a phrase by Ernst Haeckl as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," known as the "biogenetic law" or "recapitulation theory," has thwarted and delayed embryological research;

(6) The neo-Darwinian notion of ascendancy of life forms via mutation and natural selection led to a lot of wasted lives and money in dead-end plant "breeding" experiments in the first half of the twentieth century;

Let's add one more to the list today:

(7) Neo-Darwinism has been and continues to be retardant to scientific understanding of epigenesis.
The presence of identical genes in radically different cells, a phenomenon known as "genomic equivalence," is a paradox: If genes control development and the genes in every cell are the same, why are cells so different (see discussion in Wells, Icons of Evolution, p. 191). It seems that genes are being turned on and off by factors outside of themselves, i.e., epigenetic ("beyond the genes"). Wells points out that as the neo-Darwinian synthesis of genetics and evolution was becoming increasingly popular, biologists searching for epigenetic factors were suppressed. Wells quotes historian Jan Sapp that epigenesis researchers "seemed to threaten the significance of the merger of Mendelian genetics and selection theory and therefore had to be denied." Wells calls this the "rise of neo-Darwinian monopoly in genetics" as he cites [Sapp, Jan. Beyond the Gene: Cytoplasmic Inheritance and the Struggle for Authority in Genetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), quotations from pp. 59, 81, 85].

I think by the time we (meaning all you friendlies out there) finish this tally of neo-Darwinism's tyrannical toxicity to technical truth, the list is going to be really really really long. When this list is finally dumped on Sir Charles' cadaver, nary a whisker will show for his 150 year celebration.

Keep the faith - and keep on keepin' on.

With faithfulness and prayer to our Great Creator God, truth will trump tripe.

Respectfully,

D.U.