Dear Readers: Please feel free to review the Contents of my book and biography in Gods, Genes, Conscience (iUniverse.com worldwide release 2006); and/or here (Google Books Search 2007) or here (Amazon.com Look Inside 2008). A list of global booksellers near you can be found here. Thank you all for scrutinizing!Immediate Posting: The following Commentaries (developing thinkings) were made in response to the concerned articles, sources, and dates listed in May 2016, so as to promote the Good Dialogues worldwide. Thank you all for reading and scrutinizing!
- [NB: I'm in preparation of writing 2 books Decoding Scientism and Consciousness & the Subconscious (works in progress since July 2007), so my future Dialogues worldwide would not be engaged, and posted herein, as often as I had been over the past 10 years or so.]
- 1) My recent posting of comments on this article “Mendel in the Hot Seat, 1902” (TheScientistCAN; February 1, 2016) was unable to be completed therein under; therefore I would like to post them en masse herein under for readers convenience:
- RE: Caveat lector: Comparing Darwinian biomorphism of crustaceans to the genetic expression of phenotypes on the Mendelian peas!?
- Preamble: Upon closer examinations, I thought that the above proclamations in the article title; byline; and conclusion, may have had been all greatly exaggerated -- therefore the essay may possibly be misinterpreted!? However, the following comments are my recent criticisms of the subject matters (circa 1850s-1906) from both the modern biological and historical perspectives:
- a) Weldon was a trained biometrician whose work had primarily focussed on the Darwinian biomorphism of crustaceans, or "statistically analyzing [the physico-evolutionary] variations [or morphism] in wild populations of crabs, shrimps, and snails," etc so as to seek patterns of growth and coporeal morphism as defined in the natural selection (NS) theory of variety of organisms (wild or domesticated populations) and fossils, or the so-called geo-biomorphism of Evolution of species that was first described by Charles Darwin or Darwinism in 1859.
- b) The evolutionary geo-biomorphism an ontological phenomenology of species, which Darwin had modelled on Charles Lyell’s geological anamorphism of the time, is a physical reductionism biased observations of the biomorphic formations and variations by gradual modifications or mutation processes of the earthly geo-biomorphic entities (including organisms and their related fossils through geologic time and space, etc) that Darwin and others (including his cousin Galton) had had never been able to extend nor translate (empirically) his thus formulated NS evolutionary theory into a practical, testable, physiological working hypothesis of “gemmules” or the pangenesis theory of heredity in the 1860s; despite their tried -- albeit predictory, proactive but reductive -- evolutionary thinking, observing, and refining of their then Darwin’s predominant NS theory -- even today!?
- c) Although a stillborn, the evolutionary gemmules postulate of heredity in organisms (as reductively derived from the NS theory of geo-biomorphic “evolutionary” processes) was very different theoretically, philoscientifically, methodologically, and conceptually from that of the Augustinean monk, the classical botanist cum statistician-trained Mendel’s empirically-evaluable orthodox “germline” theory of heredity in peas-plants: whose lucky peas plants experimental work thereof during the mid 1850s-60s decade, had since in 1900 been rediscovered; and become the foundational work of genetics in our modern “developmental” biology, embryology, physiology, biomedicine, etc nowadays!? Furthermore and ever since, there lies the foundational antagonism or disconnect in our modernday biology: namely the evolutionary geo-biomorphic NS process vs the germline genetic developmental process in both the cell and molecular biology or physiology, that has commonly been known as the macro-evolutionism vs micro-evolutionism contradictions; even nowadays!? -- (TheScientistCAN: see my comments thereunder “Minimal Genome Created”; March 27, 2016).
- d) With the benefit of hindsight, and in view of these theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and empirical contradictions and irreconcilable differences between them (as in the prevailing macro-evolutionism vs micro-evolutionism debates since the dawn of the 20th century), I thought that Weldon would have had no model-related nor model-comparable, concrete, evidential nor experimental proofs, that could discredit the Mendel’s oversimplified but measured binary description of his mid-19th century peas plants data, statistics, and crop-breeding rules and selections!? Thus, Weldon’s peas selections (of the variety of wild types) from the varied commercial pea-plant breeders and his subsequent attempts to compare them with the more genetically-selected Mendel’s peas plants description (of the abbreviated binary phenotypes) were simply unscientific nor justifiable in the philoscientific sense; even in 1902!? As such, while unknowingly misguided by his probable gemmule-derived evolutionary thinking since the 1860s, Weldon would not have had been able to obstruct or derail the path to the genetically or germline-defined Mendelism of the 1900-rediscovered experimental genetics, at all; and beyond.
- e) In essence, the genus of Mendel’s biological thinkings and insights has had been his earlier holistic scientific training; and his subsequently lucky choice of a working biological model: the germline (or seed) transmissions in the peas plants of his particular time, space, and affordability presented in Europe!? Had had Mendel been afforded to work on other animal and/or plant models -- or been evolutionarily influenced; and/or intended to extend the Darwin’s gemmules theory of inheritance in organisms: like those methods and materials descriptions in Darwin’s domesticated plants and animals models (1860s); or in Galton’s human genuses or eugenics fantasy models (1860s-80s); or even in the upcoming Weldon’s wild populations models of crustaceans (1880s) or commercial peas (1902); etc -- the foundational Mendelian genetics or his preliminary (albeit primarily designated as binary) hereditary observations and rules of simplified designated corresponding genotypes and phenotypes, would not have had been able to complete; nor established by the mid-1860s!?
- In conclusion, as brilliant as Weldon’s physico-reductionism biased biometric evolutionary thinking might have had been, he just simply barking on the wrong physico-biological evolutionary tree!? On the contrary, his rival Bateson, the more experienced and aspiring geneticist -- not a physico-biomorphism biased evolutionist -- was absolutely right on: in his steadfastly defending of the seminally foundational Mendelian genetics -- the true viable (and testable) engine of the Evolution of organisms on Earth; but not the Darwinian overarching and overreaching NS physico-reductionism biased evolutionary rhetoric since 1859!?
- PS: Last, but not least, I thought that the above illustration “Like peas in a pod” is appropriately labelled as a “photographic plate,” -- but not a photograph. This is because, in the pre-chromatic photographic printing days, the printing plates were usually made out of the photographic images by a delicate chemical etching technology. In the plate illustration above, the printed “photograph” was probably made by at least 3 separate plates in and for 3 separate printings (of the same plate composite of the 24 photographs): one plate for each color of green, yellow, or black, for each round of color-ink printing; while white being the default color of the glossy paper.
- Also, please note that the finer the photographic grains or dots represented on the plates, the sharper the images -- including the colors and color blendings or overlappings from multiple color plates -- that the printing would impress or produce on papers -- just like the one exquisitely shown on the photographic plate illustration above. Meanwhile, the black text on pages of a book or an article would generally be printed separately on other kind of papers, so as to defray the higher costs of color printing especially at the turn of the 20th century past.
- Best, Mong 5/8/16usct15:39; practical public science-philosophy critic; author "Decoding Scientism" and "Consciousness & the Subconscious" (works in progress since July 2007), Gods, Genes, Conscience (iUniverse; 2006) and Gods, Genes, Conscience: Global Dialogues Now (blogging avidly since 2006).
