To the End of Dogmatism in Molecular Biology

Abstract

Denis Nobel looks at four important misinterpretations of molecular biology concerning evolutionary processes and demonstrates that the new synthesis today looks rather outdated. The modern synthesis is nearly 80 years old. The proponents who worked out the modern synthesis had no access to the current knowledge on cell biology, genetics, epigenetics, RNA biology and virology. Therefore this contribution adds several aspects which Nobel's article does not explicitly mention, providing some examples for a better understanding of evolutionary novelty.

What Future for Evolutionary Biology? Response to Commentaries on “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis”

“…He argues that illusions like the Central Dogma" "have both impeded and facilitated scientific inquiry." Witzany (2021) identifies an important omission in what I wrote, which is that "he does not mention that all gene regulatory elements, which are part of the genome also, represent both the driving force in evolutionary novelty and an essential contradiction to the central dogma." To this I plead guilty as charged.…”