Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science
Re: Lynn Margulis
Excerpt: “I was told by an NSF grants officer (after having been supported nicely for several years) that ‘important’ scientists did not like the theory presented in a book I had written and that they would never fund my work. I was actually told that I should never apply again to the cell biology group at NSF.” (p. 181)
I’ve never been told by anyone that they didn’t like the theory I presented with co-author Robert Francoeur in The Scent of Eros: Mysteries of Odor in Human Sexuality. However, I have often wondered why colleagues who appear to be friends do not cite my book or my subsequent published works. Then I see others report what I have detailed during the past two decades, as in Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance: Myths and Mechanisms.
Excerpt: “…there are many examples of quantitative epigenetic traits that appear to respond to environmental— and especially nutritional—cues experienced by former generations. For example, in the nematode C. elegans, exposure to an olfactory cue early in development affects behavior when encountering the chemical in adulthood, a process known as olfactory imprinting, and this behavior can then be transmitted over more than 40 generations (Remy, 2010).”
This is the nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled ecological adaptation that I published as Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model. It is somewhat expected that due to the increasing amount of published works, there will always be people who have not learned about my model or heard about my history of presentations during the past 22 years. But I’m beginning to think that details in a book should not precede a decade or more of presentations that familiarize others with what they eventually are going to be forced to accept. I didn’t realize that most people simply accept mutations and evolution as an explanation for species diversity, and don’t ask questions. They don’t want to know about anything else.
Re: Margulis, again
“She describes the great evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith as an engineer who ‘knows much of his biology second hand.’He and his fellow neo-Darwinists, Dawkins, Eldredge, Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould ‘codify an incredible ignorance.’ Their work is ‘reminiscent of phrenology’ and ‘will look ridiculous in retrospect, because it is ridiculous.’ “(p. 181)
Also, from the same book: “The scientific establishment, Lindgren decleared, ‘is permeated with opinions which pass for valid scientific inductions and with contradictions which are disregarded because it is too painful to face the prospect of the revisions of the theory which would be required to reconcile the contradictory observations with the dominant theory. ‘” (p. 181)
There are now many theorists who must reconcile the biological facts I have detailed and dismiss theories associated with mutations and evolution. Will they do so in my lifetime? No matter. The facts don’t change, and their may always be works that are reminiscent of what looks ridiculous in retrospect, because it was ridiculous.
