Darwinism versus Endemic Flora and Fauna

Darwinism versus Endemic Flora and Fauna

Summary: Darwinism is the leading theory about mechanism of Biological Evolution. However facts of geographical distribution of species and varieties do not support such a view point.

Darwinism says that evolution advances by accumulation of random variations having a bearing on struggle for survival. Evolutionary divergence of populations into species and varieties is facilitated by dispersal of parental stock into large geographical area from the point of origin and subsequent isolation. According to Darwinism isolation facilitates divergence of variations along different phyletic lines leading to speciation. Therefore according to Darwinism Allopatric Speciation is the commonest mode of speciation.

Species and varieties may have cosmopolitan distribution or endemic distribution. For the cosmopolitan species and varieties it can be easily said that they originated at some point and then spread to the entire geographical area occupied by them. But generally cosmopolitan species are naturally divided into a large number of geography specific varieties on the basis of large number of definitive and deterministic variations. Variations between two different varieties of the same species can’t always be accounted for due to natural selection and struggle for survival. For example color of human skin has no bearing on human survival in different geographies, yet there are profound geography related variations. It is possible to differentiate 9 subspecies of Giraffe endemic to different areas in geographically continuous African Continent. All the variations among different varieties can’t be explained on the basis of Darwinism. http://www.wickedgiraffe.com/category/types-of-giraffe/. Most of the subspecies can be differentiated on the basis of their coat color. But it is not possible to link variations in coat color to survival of various subspecies in geographically continuous but sharply demarcated territories. If Darwinism is true then gradual variations should have occurred in accordance with some geographically identifiable gradient and should have contributed to adaptedness/adaptability of the species/variety to its ecosystem and environment.  

This is true of almost all the cosmopolitan species having large number of varieties. Geographical Indication varieties of large number of species of flora and fauna are well known. For example Darjeeling tea has its famous, naturally occurring quality and flavor only if grown in Darjeeling. Neither Darjeeling tea grown elsewhere has the same quality and flavor nor does any other tea variety grown in Darjeeling have the renowned quality and flavor. How can one relate quality and flavor of Darjeeling tea to Darwinian struggle for survival? Therefore it is self evident that all the traits of any species or variety of flora and fauna can’t to be attributed to Darwinian struggle for survival.  This includes definitive and deterministic characters which are immune from statistical variations. Hence population genetics or genetic drift can’t explain differentiating or distinctive variations among species and varieties.

Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. Endemic types or species are especially likely to develop on biologically isolated areas such as islands because of their geographical isolation. But endemic species with restricted geographical distribution are known to occur without any geographical isolation from the main land.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the following ecoregions have the highest percentage of endemic plants:

·         Fynbos (South Africa)

·         Hawaiian tropical dry forests (United States)

·         Hawaiian tropical rainforests (United States)

·         Kwongan heathlands (Australia)

·         Madagascar dry deciduous forests (Madagascar)

·         Madagascar lowland forests (Madagascar)

·         New Caledonia dry forests (New Caledonia)

·         New Caledonia rain forests (New Caledonia)

·         Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests (Mexico)

·         Sierra Madre del Sur pine-oak forests (Mexico)

·         Luzon montane rainforests (Philippines)

·         Luzon rainforests (Philippines)

·         Luzon tropical pine forests (Philippines)

·         Mindanao montane rain forests (Philippines)

·         Mindanao-Eastern Visayas rain forests (Philippines)

·         Palawan rain forests (Philippines)

Occurrence of various endemic species in sharply defined geographical areas with or without isolation is against Darwinian gradualism over an immense period of time. In the case of unique species endemic to various islands Darwinism raises the question of source of ancestral species. No amount of dispersal, migration and isolation can explain evolution of species endemic to various islands in the world.

Hence Darwinism is unable to explain place related discontinuous, discrete, deterministic variations in flora and fauna across the globe. Organisms generally do not vary across some geographically determined gradients to which notions of continuity over immense period of time and gradualism can be applied.

  Author: Dr Mahesh C. Jain is a practicing medical doctor and has written the book “Encounter of Science with Philosophy – A synthetic view”. The book begins with first chapter devoted to scientifically valid concept of God and then explains cosmic phenomena right from origin of nature and universe up to origin of life and evolution of man. The book includes several chapters devoted to auxiliary concepts and social sciences as corollaries to the concept of God. This is the only book which deals with origin of nature and universe from null or Zero or nothing.  Chapter 30 of the book is about Evolution of Life wherein author has worked out a new theory about evolution of life.

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Contradictions Inherent to Human Existence

Contradictions Inherent to Human Existence

Summary: Contradictions are inherent to human existence because of inbuilt contradictions among human needs. Contradictions give rise to conflicts and in order to keep existence, conflicts demand amicable intellectual resolution. One should not be unduly worried about contradictions and conflicts one faces in the due course of life.

We have been generally taught that food, clothing and shelter are basic human needs. It is generally assumed that satisfaction of these needs is all that is required for peaceful and happy life. This may generally be true among have nots in resource deficient environments. But among people with sufficient material resources satisfaction of these needs is insufficient to meet their ends.

All human beings besides having material and biological needs have other needs in the form of interests, sentiments and relationships.

 Interests generally refer to material goals and objectives of human living and may be rooted in other human needs for example a man in need of food is interested in getting food. Interests may also be contextual or culturally determined as generally accepted material entitlements. Interests may be protected by law and then interests are known as rights. Interests may be short term interests such as need for entertainment or long term interests such as the need to conserve relationships, carrier, business establishment, capital etc. Quite often there may be a conflict between short term interests and long term interests.

Sentiments or emotions are protective reflexes that direct action at a distance and thus have a directive influence on human needs. For example sight of the food you relish shall have a directive influence on your appetite and shall make you act to grab the food. The best case on this point is probably parental instinct leading to parental care and survival of species. Sentiments often influence our decisions regarding situations we want to get into or get away from and thus have a directive influence on our wants and desires. Sentiments are ephemeral in character, changing with changing mood, time, place etc. Sentiments may often be in conflict with long term interests.

Relationships are incidental to human need to live in groups such as family, society, work organizations etc. We have a vast variety of relationships such as father, mother, son, daughter, husband etc. Each and every relationship is unique in being governed by particular rules of relationship. In any relationship rules of the particular relationship prevail over self-interest and therefore a relationship demands commitment to rules governing the particular relationship. Relationships are long term phenomena and rules governing particular relationships generally do not vary with time and place.  Emotionally wholesome environment (entertainment) facilitates easy compliance with rules of relationship but any relationship can be satisfied only by commitment to rules of relationship. Therefore in a relationship, commitment prevails over sentiments and self-interests.

It is self-evident that human needs are diverse; therefore conflicts and contradictions are liable to arise at any point in time and space within an individual or between individuals. Short term pleasures can often be in conflict with long term prudence and pragmatism. Short term sentiments and self-interests can often run contrary to long term relationships. The opposite can also happen that for the sake of long term interests, short term needs are sacrificed. But one thing is certain that conflicts and contradictions are inherent to human existence and an individual has to relentlessly negotiate through.

Conflicts and contradictions being inherent to human condition demands provision for efficient conflict resolution mechanisms with sufficient resilience. We can’t sleep over conflicts or indulge in self-denial or self-deprivation. Conflicts often demand intellectual resolution to the greatest satisfaction of various concerns. Bullying, hegemony, self-denial, authoritarianism, self-deprivation, etc. should be avoided for the sake of mentally healthy individuals and healthy societies. Suppression of normal needs, wants and desires is not good for long term health of a society. Conflict resolution is a perpetual balancing act and we have to constantly act to keep the dynamic equilibrium, individually as well as collectively.

It demands that people adopt a life style (system of living) so that it is generally capable of meeting their short term as well as long term needs, interests, sentiments, relationships etc. Life style should be stable, progressive, well adapted to living conditions as well as adaptable to changing facts and circumstances. The life style should be capable of meeting any destabilizing influences i.e. conflicts and contradictions of diverse origin. This would also demand sufficient resilience within the system of living. So the life style is not only well adapted to living conditions but is also adaptable to future conditions. In any well organized system of living, an individual conflict or contradiction is a tiny fraction of the whole and therefore should not a cause to worry about.

There is also need to design a self-perpetuating sustainable culture which can naturally and organically take care of various human needs. It should have efficient conflict resolution mechanisms to ensure its adaptability to various challenges in the face of perpetual struggle for survival. Authoritarianism, egocentricity, will to dominate; hegemony can’t have a place in a sustainable culture.      

Lastly individuals as well as societies should not only be adapted to conditions of their existence but should also be adaptable to ever changing conditions of their existence. The issue is not existence of inherent conflicts; rather the issue is how effectively we deal with them. It demands a perpetual balancing act to sustain the dynamic equilibrium incidental to existence of an individual as well as any human society.

Author: Dr Mahesh C. Jain is a practicing medical doctor and has written the book “Encounter of Science with Philosophy – A synthetic view”. The book begins with first chapter devoted to scientifically valid concept of God and then explains cosmic phenomena right from origin of nature and universe up to origin of life and evolution of man. The book includes several chapters devoted to auxiliary concepts and social sciences as corollaries to the concept of God. This is the only book which deals with origin of nature and universe from null or Zero or nothing. 37^th chapter of the book deals with Philosophy of Living.

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Origin of Life What is Wrong with RNA World Hypothesis

 Origin of Life: What is Wrong with RNA World Hypothesis

Summary: RNA world hypothesis about origin of life was based on known properties of RNA but in formulating this hypothesis, limitations of RNA as a molecule capable of independently supporting life like activities were overlooked. These limitations are pointed out and DNA is suggested as the more plausible alternative.
The phrase "RNA World" was first used by Nobel laureate Walter Gilbert in 1986, in a commentary on recent observations of the catalytic properties of various forms of RNA.
The RNA world hypothesis is supported by RNA's ability to store, transmit, and duplicate genetic information, as DNA does. RNA can act as a ribozyme, a special type of enzyme. Because it can perform the tasks of both DNA and enzymes, RNA is believed to have once been capable of supporting independent life forms. Some viruses use RNA as their genetic material, rather than DNA.
RNA world hypothesis is further supported by computational ability of RNA. All the three i.e. DNA, RNA and Peptides have been shown to possess computational ability.
 RNA computing has been used to find solutions to Knight Problem in chess. 1024 strands were used. RNA computing correctly identified 43 out of 512 possible solutions with one error. Considering very high specificity of natural biochemical reactions, error checking and correcting mechanisms must co-exist with RNA computing. This explains need for existence of antisense RNA but at the same time raises doubts about ability of RNA alone to support a living system or life like activity.
Self replicative ability of RNA is not without limitations. Only short RNA molecules have been shown to possess this ability and with a questionable fidelity.  One version, 189-bases long, had fidelity of 98.9% which would mean it would make an exact copy of an RNA molecule as long as itself in one of every eight copies. This 189 base pair ribozyme could polymerize a template of at most 14 nucleotides in length, which is too short for replication. However this level of infidelity and limitation to self replication is far too high for living systems to bear. Just a single mutation affecting just one base pair in the entire genome is known to be catastrophic, therefore the kind of self replication seen under lab conditions does not support RNA world hypothesis.
RNA is much more unstable then DNA. This inherent instability of RNA is a further limitation to the ability of RNA to account for origin of life. Living organisms keep their identity and integrity over eons of time and across a vast number of generations. With no provision for RNA repair mechanisms of the kind seen for DNA in living systems, RNA is inherently incapable of performing this task.
 Autocatalysis: Julius Rebek and his colleagues have shown that in an experimental system containing amino acid adenosine and penta fluorophenyl ester with autocatalyst Amino Adenosine triacid ester variants (AATE variants) wherein a particular AATE variant autocatalysed its own synthesis. Therefore, this experiment demonstrates that nucleic acids were not absolute necessity for initial life like activity. Autocatalytic, autoreplicative property may be regarded as one of the properties of matter. These autocatalysts can give rise to population of entities with heredity which could exhibit mutual competition. By no stretch of imagination the particular AATE variant can be regarded as living. Therefore presence of autoreplicative and autocatalyzing property is insufficient to account for origin of life.
All the properties of RNA which lend credibility to RNA world hypothesis are present in DNA but without the limitations of RNA. Moreover DNA unlike RNA is able to form much longer sequences and is much more stable then RNA (DNA has propensity to spontaneous hydrolytic cleavage @1 per million base pair per day with highly efficient DNA repair mechanisms to maintain the status quo) and thus is not only capable of keeping identity and integrity of the organism but also capable of supporting phenomenon of inheritance. Also only DNA is capable of carrying the amount of information needed to support a living system by virtue of its ability to form long sequences of nucleotide bases.
RNA world hypothesis finds some support due to existence of RNA viruses and viroids which are not dependent on DNA during their entire life cycle. But available evidence indicates that these are able to survive only within eukaryotic cells which further imply that RNA can’t account for origin of life. Since life originated about 4 billion years back whereas origin of eukaryotes has been estimated to be only 1.6 – 2.1 billion years back.
Moreover the lab conditions under which various experiments in support of RNA world hypothesis have been conducted have not been shown to naturally exist. Even the nature of chemistry demonstrated in support of RNA world hypothesis is stochastic and not definitive and deterministic. Definitive and deterministic chemistry is the hall mark of biochemistry with no room for aberrant, random, side reactions.
Therefore life could have originated only as a DNA molecule because DNA is the only molecule capable of independently supporting all life like activities.   

Author: Dr Mahesh C. Jain is a practicing medical doctor and has written the book “Encounter of Science with Philosophy – A synthetic view”. The book begins with first chapter devoted to scientifically valid concept of God and then explains cosmic phenomena right from origin of nature and universe up to origin of life and evolution of man. The book includes several chapters devoted to auxiliary concepts and social sciences as corollaries to the concept of God. This is the only book which deals with origin of nature and universe from null. Twenty-ninth chapter of the book deals with the subject matter of ‘Origin of Life’.

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Darwinism versus Variations in Koala Bear

Darwinism versus Variations in Koala Bear

Summary: Darwinism says that random variations are the drivers of evolution, however geographical variations in Australian Koala point to the contrary. Therefore alternative mechanisms of evolution need to be found.
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae.
The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands.
Koalas have been divided into three subspecies and as a matter of rule individuals from southern cooler climates are larger.
VARIATIONS
 A typical Victorian koala (formerly P. cinereus victor) has longer, thicker fur; is a darker, softer grey, often with chocolate-brown highlights on the back and forearms; and has a more prominently light-colored ventral side and fluffy white ear tufts. Typical and New South Wales koala weights are 12 kg (26 lb) for males and 8.5 kg (19 lb) for females.
 The other extreme are Koalas in tropical and sub-tropical Queensland. In Queensland the koala is smaller (at around 6.5 kg (14 lb) for an average male and just over 5 kg (11 lb) for an average female); a lighter often rather scruffy grey in colour; and has shorter, thinner fur. In Queensland, the koala was previously classified as the subspecies P. cinereus adustus.
 Intermediate forms are found in New South Wales named as P. cinereus cinereus.
 A fourth variation, though not technically a subspecies, is the "golden koala", which has a slight golden tinge to the fur as a result of an absence of the melanin pigment that produces albinism in most other mammalian species.
The variation from one form to another is continuous. There are substantial differences between individual koalas in any given region such as hair colour. Koalas may also have white fur in rare cases due to a recessive gene.
Koala fossils are quite rare, but some have been found in northern Australia dating to 20 million years ago. During this time, the northern half of Australia was rainforest. The fossil record indicates that before 50,000 years ago, giant koalas inhabited the southern regions of Australia. The koala fills the same ecological role as the sloths of South America.
 Koala lives almost entirely on Eucalyptus leaves.  It has firm preferences for particular varieties of eucalypt and these preferences vary from one region to another: in the south Manna Gum, Tasmanian Blue Gum, and Swamp Gum are favoured; Grey Gum and Tallowwood are important in the north, and the ubiquitous River Red Gum of the isolated seasonal swamps and watercourses that meander across the dry inland plains allows the koala to live in surprisingly arid areas. Many factors determine which of the 680 species of eucalypt trees the koala eats.
DISCUSSION
From the above account of geography related variations in Koala size; fur color, length and texture; preference for different species of Eucalyptus trees in different regions it is obvious that 20 million years of existence of Koala in Australia have been insufficient to eliminate those variations. This is true despite there being no isolation and ample opportunities for dispersal and migration. These observations are in accordance with conclusions of J.C. Willis that dispersibility as an aid to invasion of unoccupied grounds is rarely significant for the purpose of evolution and the most cosmopolitan genera lacked such dispersion adaptations.
Darwinism says that evolution advances by accumulation of selected random variations and species come into being by dispersion of ancestral species followed by isolation of various populations followed by evolution of different populations into individual species by further accumulation of variations along divergent lines ultimately leading to origin of species.
However in the case of Koala bear we find:-
1.     Variations are not random, rather they are geography related. Even Darwin admitted that flora and fauna on Galapagos Islands varied according to some geographical rule.
2.     20 million years of existence of Koala bear are neither able to eliminate those differences nor evolve different subspecies into species despite geographical continuity or lack of geographical isolation or absence of any barrier to dispersion.
3.     Variations as well as species identity have been maintained despite geographical continuity.

Hence Darwinism can’t be reconciled with geography related variations in Australian Koala. Therefore Darwinism is not the final word about mechanism of evolution.

  Author: Dr Mahesh C. Jain is a practicing medical doctor and has written the book “Encounter of Science with Philosophy – A synthetic view”. The book begins with first chapter devoted to scientifically valid concept of God and then explains cosmic phenomena right from origin of nature and universe up to origin of life and evolution of man. The book includes several chapters devoted to auxiliary concepts and social sciences as corollaries to the concept of God. This is the only book which deals with origin of nature and universe from null or Zero or nothing.  Chapter 30 of the book is about Evolution of Life wherein author has worked out a new theory about evolution of life.

Visit:http:// www.sciencengod.com

          http://curatio.in

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