Customer Reviews

Why is a Fly Not a Horse?

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a good popular work that focuses on the more interesting/less talked about side of the debate. Dr. Sermonti, a famous and well-respected geneticist, speaks with much eloquence about the anomalies in nature that throw a monkey-wrench into Darwin's theory. However, he's not a creationist; rather, it seems that he takes more of a Platonist's view of biological organisms.

Such topics include:
A. The fact that organisms with varying complexity do not have proportional genome sizes. If neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory (NDET from now on) were true, shouldn't mammals have more DNA than amphibians, mollusks, or flowering plants? You would think so if NDET were true and an increase in DNA meant an increase in complexity, but you'd be wrong. They vary *widely*.
B. The sudden appearance and stasis of species in the fossil record. Though this is frequently discussed in other books in the origins debate, it is always good to throw it in.
C. How some animals seem not to be fitted for their environment, but rather, they seem to be works of art. As Sermonti put it: "In fish the colors can be bright and resplendent, even among species that never see the light of upper regions, but their patterning bears no relationship to internal structure; the colors just seem to be put there like paints on an artist's palette" (p.58). There are other things mentioned such as the beautiful mathematical shape of the mollusk's shell and the innate knowledge of some birds to know their bird-song without being taught it.
D. The fact that the same genes (such as hox genes) can create different structures in different animals. For instance, a cat's "eye" genes that are transferred to a blind fly's egg will create the multi-faceted eyes in a fly.
E. The ever-changing family tree of hominids.
F. The ever-increasing anomalies in molecular phylogenies. In fact, according to the molecular data, the mysterious "common ancestor" of chimps and humans should actually be much more closely related to man!
G. How the cell somehow innately knows how to make a certain enzyme even though most of the DNA molecule that codes for it is incomplete.
H. One of the more important ones in his book: the fact that the some of the biggest differences in body structure and function are not due to genes.
I. Homologies in unrelated species such as the mammalian eye and the eye of the octopus. Do Darwinists really expect us to believe that these very similar structures converged through evolution by chance?!?
J. The fact that protein folding occurs without instruction. This is very important since "the spatial information necessary for specifying the three-dimensional structure of a protein is vastly greater than the information contained in the sequence" (p.130).
K. Probably the most interesting one is the fact that some mimicking insects appear in the fossil record many of millions of years before the plants upon which they are supposed to mimic appear! Also, there are some insects whose mouths are made to eat a certain plant that also appears many millions of years before the plant they are supposed to eat appears. Any attempt to account for this in neo-Darwinian terms is absurd!

It is most certainly time for science to throw neo-Darwinism into the trash-bin of failed theories.

I gave the book only four stars for two reasons. First, although he is a great writer and is very eloquent, there were times when I felt that he would write a couple paragraphs just for the sake of being eloquent without any topic in mind. Second, he tries to say that Judges 14:8 in the Bible would lead one to believe in spontaneous generation. However, when you read the passage, all it says is that a swarm of bees had taken up residence in a lion's carcass. On the other hand, Sermonti is (or, perhaps, was) a Roman Catholic layman. So, I guess he's excused for not knowing the first thing about Biblical exegesis.

Overall, a very good and interesting book.

I find the structure of this book to be surprising. Most of what Mr. Sermonti has to say is fairly irrelevant to the question of the veracity of NeoDarwinian evolution. He makes a strong case that there are other specific structures in living organisms beside DNA that must be carefully reproduced for life to reproduce. How this is consequential is beyond me. Reproduction is reproduction. Whether it is DNA or prions, if there is accurate reproduction, with rare but existing reproduction error (mutation), then the raw material for NeoDarwinian evolution exists.

However, Mr. Sermonti presents data that is fundamentally contrary to NeoDarwinian evolution. If his data is correct, the only logical conclusion can be that mutation + natural selection, with all of it's subtleties, cannot adequately explain this data. If it cannot adequately explain this data, then it is not the complete answer to the question of how all the varieties of life came to be.

Some have questioned whether NeoDarwinian evolution is falsifiable. Certainly there have been many expectations from simple theory which have found to be too simplistic.
* Scientists expected gradualism to render in the rock record, and concluded that punctuated equilibrium was a better description of the rock record. Rather than finding the theory to be false, evolution adapted to absorb this new data, to the point where punctuated equilibrium is now considered to be a characteristic of NeoDarwinian evolution.
* Studies of animals with similar characteristics were found to have fundamentally different heredities. Seals and Manatees, for instance, are both primarily aquatic animals that have a lot of similarities, but do not have a common ancestry. This common characteristics with separeate heredities phenomenon was not predicted by NeoDarwinian theory, but was absorbed into the theory with a comfortable title "convergent evolution", and some reasonably plausible explanation.
* It was discovered that organisms from totally different branches of the tree of life had identical or near identical genetic code that their predecessors did not have. The term used to describe this phenomenon is "horizontal gene transfer". Horizontal gene transfer has been happening in genetic laboratories, under the careful hand of genetic engineers for a few years, however the engineers never expected that it would be occurring as a common phenomenon without the aid of their expertise. Horizontal gene transfer was clearly not predicted by NeoDarwinian theorists, yet it is proving to be a surprisingly common phenomenon. I believe that it is a phenomenon that scientists still recognize as "not well understood", however, it remains to be believed that this is evidence of DNA sharing mechanisms that must surely be something other than an unknown master genetic engineer at work.

THE PUNCHLINE

But hidden in the inner reaches of Mr. Sermonti's second last chapter is an incredible claim; he claims that insects which mimic sticks and leaves predate the sticks and leaves that they imitate. But NeoDarwinian theory is a theory of cause and effect. NeoDarwinian theory requires that the imitation come after the imitated because the imitation must offer it's selective advantage to the organism doing the imitating.
I understand how NeoDarwinian theorists have fit punctuated equilibrium into the theory, though I find the fit a bit shaky. I understand the NeoDarwinian explanation for convergences -- maybe multiple lines will fill the same niche in the environment, and maybe they will naturally end up taking on similar characteristics because of it. I understand that there is real hope of a purely naturalistic explanation for horizontal gene transfer. But how on earth can NeoDarwinian evolution explain the imitated predating that which it imitates.
Mr. Sermonti has established one thing already: NeoDarwinian theory is falsifiable! If any data can be found, tested and proved which establishes that an organism developed as an imitation prior to the imitated being developed, then that organism's development does not fit within the scope of the NeoDarwinian explanation, period. I have not had opportunity to check his source material. If his rendering of the source material is accurate, and if the source material itself passes careful scrutiny, then scientists are obligated, as far as I am concerned, to come up with an explanation for this phenomenon that is beyond random mutation + natural selection, or scientists are obligated to state publicly "I don't know" on this issue, and to state publicly that mutation + natural selection does not provide a complete explanation for all of the variety of life on earth.

The proponents of intelligent design have exposed the weakness of neo-darwinism in much better ways than I could have, even though I've tried, even before the movement began. It doesn't take a scientist to recognize an underlying philosophy and the glaring absense of REAL proof of BLIND forces being the true origin of species. ID proponents acknowledge darwinian evolution's place as a means to SURVIVE but, as Sermonti points out, it's as much for animals to revert back to a previous state, as it is for them to change.

The typical mainstream scientist, not unlike the old clergy of the Dark Ages, means to avoid confusing the public with the real meat of the argument. Smart enough to realize taht people will "regress" to their "less fit" religious thinking, the hidden premises of neo-darwinism are never presented in their entirety to the public. Those days are over. With more and more scientists coming "out of the closet" the mission of the mainstreamers to "enlighten" the public with their senseless, empty dogma will fail.

This particular book has some excellent prose and the author clearly has a love of nature and its majesty. He exposes the emptiness and short-sighted emphasis on the genetic CODE, when nature is found in its FORM. He points out how code is merely a language. Not only that, the current evidence indicates that genes seem to do pretty much everything but determine form (with some exceptions). Furthermore, Sermonti asks, who or what is there to decipher the language--a language far too complex for any computer to utilize and predict what a genetic code will express in actual character. He discusses, for example, why tigers look so regal and fierce, as opposed to looking like a squirrel. Is that necessary for survival? No, that doesn't disprove neo-darwinism, but it is an example of what we miss, when all we care about is a bunch of protein molecules.

It is claimed that the genetic code evolved from a simpler code, but no evidence of this exists. Sermonti's book largely is about perspective and love of nature and creation. He illustrates much of the dogmatic, arrogant and narrow-minded views of the zealous neo-darwinists and proposes a new way to look at life. The prose is powerful and moving, expressing a love of nature and a passion for science at the same time. It may well have a few flaws, but it engages the important issues involved in the neo-darwinist vs. id proponent debate. I recommend this brilliantly entertaining and enlightening book.

An excellent usefull book! The author writes like he was a literature major in one of his past lives. His main goal seems to be to help the reader think about several unsolved issues in biology. For example, why are there thousands of fossils and fossil fragments of human evolution, but none of any other primate evolution (and only one has been claimed since this book was written)? Why do many primate infants (and embryos as well) look so much like humans, but as these primates mature they look less and less like humans and more and more like apes (and more and more like our supposed evolutionary ancestors)? This is the exact opposite of what the ontology recapitulates phylogeny law predicts. Why was Ramapithecus ejected from the human family tree? (this section surprised me). The most interesting chapter was the one used for the title of the book. We have found genes for many factors, such as for ATP syntase and blood clotting factor 8, but we have not found the fly code or the cat code (but many genes that code for specific structures). Why? We can use biochemical methods to do creative recombinant DNA work, but have not been able to locate the core genes that produce a fly or a cat. Is it because this task involves many genes, or is it more complex? Hox clusters are important, yet the same cluster of genes exist in mice, frogs, lancelets, leaches and worms. It seems that epigenetic factors are more important then we first thought. We are not gene machines, reproducing for the genes only as Dawkins claims but more like a community of many parts, all working together toward one goal. This book by a leading biologist helps one to think about some of these deeper issues in biology.

Discovery fellow and editor of the prestigious Italian biology journal "Revista de Biologia," Giuseppe Sermonti explains why evolution resembles a "paradigm" more than it does an explanation. Scientists assume that the theory and its implications (such as universal common descent) are true, but no one can ever explain the details of precisely why it is. According to Sermonti, naturalistic theories of biological origins are science-stoppers.

Sermonti explains that biology has advanced greatly when naturalistic theories of biological origins have been disproved. For example, in 1688 Francesco Redi performed an experiment which refuted the notion that flies come from rotting meat--Redi discovered that flies actually come from worms that hatch from eggs laid in rotting biological matter which subsequently develop into flies. The recognition that flies come from eggs rather than meat fostered our early understanding of biological development, but one theory of spontaneous generation had to die before the advance was made.

Sermonti recounts that the field became stalled when the early evolutionist Comte de Buffon imagined that everything from fleas to the hippopotamus emerged from the primordial slime. Providing an Italian perspective on the history of biology, Sermonti explains that an Italian naturalist named Spallanzani refused to just accept spontaneous generation as the easy answer, and through a series of carefully observed experiments, came to the conclusion that "omne vivium ex ovo" (all life comes from eggs). Spontaneous generation was finally disproved by Pasteur's experiments nearly a century later. This was a fact lamented by Darwin, who claimed that Pasteur "denied spontaneous generation." Despite Pasteur's "denial," biology progressed.

Sermonti turns to the primary question of his book: Why is a fly not a horse? According to Sermonti, developmental genes are widely similar across various species. Providing a tour of genetic development, Sermonti finds that genes alone may not be enough to account for differences among the species, something that would pose a profound challenge to Darwin's theory.

Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti maps what he depicts as a growing scientific case against neo-Darwinism in his new book, Why is a Fly Not a Horse? (July 2005). Sermonti challenges the myth that all critics of Darwinism are American religious fundamentalists and argues that since genetics does not explain even the present forms of life, genetic mutations cannot alone explain their origin.

The book extends beyond genetics, drawing on a variety of disciplines. "Sermonti describes biology which contradicts Darwinian expectations: leaf insects appearing in the fossil record before leaves, insects before plants, and biological forms that reflect abstract mathematical expressions," said biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box. "He shows that there are more things in life than are dreamt of in Darwinian philosophy."

Why is a Fly Not a Horse? is the first in a new series of science books from Discovery Institute Press. The Italian version of the book has already generated controversy on the Internet, inviting attacks from pro-Darwin sites in anticipation of its release in English.

Working against this current, Dr. Leendert Van Der Hammen, a member with Sermonti of the Osaka Group for the Study of Dynamic Structures, defended Sermonti's book. He said that by tying together insights from disciplines often studied in isolation-genetics, molecular biology, morphogenetics, physic, chemistry and mathematics-Sermonti was able to uncover new weaknesses in the modern theory of evolution.

For Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Witt, a former English professor, one of the most remarkable things about the book was its style: "Anyone who believed in reincarnation would say Sermonti was a poet in a former life. His descriptions are phenomenal."

Sermonti is a retired Professor of Genetics at the University of Perugia. He discovered genetic recombination in antibiotic-producing Penicillium and Streptomyces and was Vice President at XIV International Congress of Genetics (Moscow, 1980). He is Chief Editor of Rivista di Biologia, one of the world's oldest biology journals still in publication.

Giuseppe Sermonti is a respected Italian geneticist and the editor of one of the oldest biology journals, Rivista di Biologia. I assume he was a poet in an earlier life. I'll offer one morsel from the book: "The spitting tiger's visage is a masterpiece of the power of expression, the dentition exalted by projecting canines, the threatening eye surrounded by savage lines, the whiskers outstretched like luminous traces, the white coat framing the expression of ferocity, the diabolical ears folded backward. The stripes follow the countours of the body as though they were brush-strokes emphasizing its massive musculature and its impending leap. The tiger is not something adapted to the jungle, nor does it emerge from the jungle. It storms into it; the tiger makes the jungle."

The book is a delight to read from beginning to end, with every page marked by a style at once urbane and unaffected. My one caveat is that Sermonti's epigrammatic style occasionally leads him into phrasing that can easily be taken out of context. Any serious critique of his book, however, should not go after this or that epigrammatic sentence but rather should grapple with Sermonti's core argument, namely that a renewed appreciation for the organism as a living whole creates enormous and perhaps insurmountable problems for every form of Darwinian theory.

This book is very interesting in its prose and arguments. The other reviews have said most of what I wanted to state except the ineresting fact that Sermonti has the clout to argue from authority. This is a very important point because the evotheists always argue from authority in a condescending manner. Sermonti has the clout and lyrical brilliance to dismiss their wishful group think and infact speak pugoratively towards their blind faith and random conclusions.

It's quite impressive how certain reviewers can be full of irony and verbal violence making very clear for me that his/her intention is more to protect his position than defending science.
I remember quite well when the ID movement first began. Most of the scientists at that time not even admitted discuss about Intelligent Design.
A reviewer, as a scientist, should use only facts and not so many fallacies trying to disqualify an author. Giuseppe Sermonti may have committed some mistakes, but this can not be used to completely disqualify his book.
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.." Mahatma Gandhi

Sorry, but this book opens no new doors of knowledge nor does it present any new evidence for the author's predisposition for creationism. It's just another ID/creationist oater.