Quote
If Darwin was right about natural selection, why bring another model into this discussion?


Maybe he wasn't 100% correct. No scientist thinks he was some kind of god. As I said in my previous post, that evolution happened is a fact. But we don't know all of the hows. Natural selection has been observed to occur. But maybe we don't understand everything yet about how it works.

I'm about halfway through Lipton's book now. He quotes Darwin as having said, near the end of his life:

Quote
In my opinion, the greatest error which I have committed has been not allowing sufficient weight to the direct action of the environments, i.e. food climate, etc., independently of natural selection . . . When I wrote the "Origin," and for some years afterwards, I could find little good evidence of the direct action of the environment; now there is a large body of evidence.


Lipton claims that the belief that we are controlled by our genes -- genetic determinism -- has become the central dogma of science. This means it tends to be accepted without question. But it's not necessarily correct. Lipton says that the environment plays a greater role in life than most scientists have given it credit for. This has been seen in experiments at a cellular level. The "brain" of a cell isn't even in the nucleus. The nucleus's purpose is to reproduce cellular components when the old ones wear out. The actual life that's happening in a cell every fraction of a second is controlled by the cell membrane, and also by the proteins throughout the cell and the body. It's these proteins which can control whether or not a gene is expressed. And under certain environmental conditions, a gene may or may not actually be expressed, or "turned on." What's going on outside of the cell, and coming into and out of it, is where the key action is taking place. I'm waiting for Lipton to elaborate on his ideas at a macroscopic level, but I think he's made a good case for individual cells responding to their environment (nutritional, electromagnetic, whatever) in ways that many people have never dreamed of.

Then there's Sheldrake's morphogenetic field hypothesis, which is a little different. Both Sheldrake and Lipton, however, present evidence that contrary to accepted genetic science, acquired knowledge can be inherited. This harks back to the ideas of Lamarck, whom most evolutionists have believed to be discredited for a long time.

It would seem that organisms are responding actively to their environments all the time, and passing these adaptations on to their offspring. I think there's undeniable evidence that natural selection happens, but I think there's much more to be learned from it, and that it perhaps doesn't always happen the way Darwin originally thought.

Having said that, if the environment changes too quickly for adaptations to take place, extinction will occur. This is why it's so important that we don't damage the environment which sustains us and all the other life on earth, beyond repair.

Please bear in mind that while Sheldrake and Lipton are scientists who originally had good reputations and sterling careers, they are now marginalised from the mainstream and considered to be cranks. New ideas can take time to gain a foothold, and some old paradigms are deeply ingrained in mainstream science. Those of us who know the flaws in the allopathic medical system and who know that CAM works, are aware of this problem, especially when there's a lot of money being funnelled into the mainstream system.

Like I said, I think it's important to keep an open mind, which is what science is all about. If the evidence seems to be leading us in new and exciting directions then so be it. Some of the scientists I talk to on another forum absolutely hate this. One of them told me yesterday that I am spouting nonsensical delusions. I get it from them and from you too -- it's pretty funny really.