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Home , Carl Woese, Denis Noble, Lynn Margulis

Stage 4 cancer patients are not much better off today than in 1930 despite the US Government spending $250 billion on cancer research. 1 We're also losing the antibiotics arms race against . Bugs evolve into superbugs in minutes; we don't adequately understand why.

These problems stem from an inadequate understanding of . A prime reason cancer treatments fail is that tumor cells evolve at tremendous speed by a self-governing process. Chemotherapy and radiation often trigger more aggressive cancers because cells evolve actively; not passively, slowly or accidentally. Yet today•s five best-selling popular evolution books say little about these high speed systems, omitting some of the most valuable discoveries of the last 100 years. What Popular Evolution Books Ignore

Legend

- - - SELFISH BY DAWKINS Included in the Book

Dismissed in the Book

Omitted from the Book

- - - EVOLUTION BY FUTUYMA

- - - (@@) ~~ (i) (i) BLIND WATCHMAKER BY DAWKINS ~ (i) ~~~~ (i) @) ~ 0 (i)(i) (I)~~~~ (0) (i)~~~~ (I)~~~~ - - - WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE BY COYNE

- - - (i) @) ~~(i)(i) EXTENDED PHENOTYPE BY DAWKINS ~(i)(i)~~~ (i) @) ~ 0 (i)(i) (i)~~~~ (0) (i)~~~~ (I)~~~~ Discovery Practical Consequences Scientist

Konstantin Mereschkowsky 191 O* Boris Kozo-Polyansky 1924* moves past "survival of fittest" Formation of a new type of organism 1971 to cooperation and partnership by fusing one into another • *not acknowledged by Futuyma, Coyne or Dawkins Macroevolution is punctuated Stage 3 and 4 cancers make evolutionary leaps. evolution by major It is impossible to comprehend or cure cancer Richard Goldschmidt, "The Material Basis of reorganizations that produce new without distinguishing large scale macro­ Evolution" 1940 species and is very different from evolutionary jumps from small incremental • gradual Darwinian "microevolution" changes. The two are completely different. Transposition McClintock's contribution rivaled Darwin's. She Cells rearrange mobile DNA elements; won the Nobel, yet is not well known. First to discovered Mobile Genetic Elements observe evolution in real time and decipher how Barbara McClintock 1950-1953 aka "Controlling Elements" which it worked. Starting point for how all manages • guide evolutionary changes stress and evolves at the cellular level. Our lifestyle choices affect the heredity of our Control of DNA sequence expression children. Evolution involves much more than by the way it is packaged in the just "." Holds profound implications for Conrad Waddington 1942-1957 nucleus. Parents pass learned nutrition, exercise, addiction, drug treatment, • to their offspring. smoking and family / social environment Even distantly related organisms Bacteria outsmart any antibiotic. This is why we are losing the antibiotic resistance "arms exchange DNA with one another. et al 1952 race" and why we are powerless against Bacterial "Infectious heredity" alters "superbugs." • offspring DNA Repair Contradicts the "meaningless and purposeless" Ability of cells to repair chemical or overtones of Neo-. Evolution is not Jean Weigle 1953 physical damage to their DNA. random and has goals. Many rare genetic Evelyn Witkin 1966 Repaired DNA sometimes has diseases (i.e. Werner syndrome) are caused Amanda Goodman 1998 • different information than the old . by failures in DNA repair systems

We are not prisoners of our genes. The genome Reverse Transcription is a dynamic interactive organ of the cell and Howard Temin 1970 • Ability to copy RNA into DNA our DNA is not a "fixed program." Generation of Novelty and Gene Regulation Early evidence the "Junk DNA" theory was Repetitive DNA elements provide raw wrong. The best discoveries are being found Roy Britten & Eric Davidson 1971 material for formatting gene regulatory there. This DNA is where many evolutionary networks to generate complex changes get engineered. • new traits

Endosymbiogenesis Our bodies have cells within cells within cells, Geoffrey Pigott & Noel Carr 1972 originated when underscoring the cooperative interdependent Linda Bonen & Ford Doolittle 1975 photosynthetic bacteria merged fabric of life Lawrence Zablen, Martin Kissel et al 1975 • with eukaryotic cells Pervasiveness of Mobile Genetic Elements All organisms are capable of adapting and Al Bukhari, James Shapiro & All forms of life, including the simplest self-evolving as a proactive response to Sankar Adhya 1977 microbes, use transposable genetic external changes elements to alter or reformat their • . A new category of ancient cell is discovered ("archaea") A Symbiogenetic "merger acquisitions" featuring a branch of life discovered in the were a symbiogenetic fusion between a & George Fox 1977 bacterium and an archaeon was major foundational step in the evolution of all ancestor to all including modern life forms • ourselves

Retroviruses as evolutionary Transforms our understanding of , which building blocks Chao-Nan Ting, Susan Rosenberg et al 1992 are not always predators. Can be detrimental Markt Boyd, Bridget Bax et al 1993 Retroviruses supply genome networks and beneficial. Viruses are the "open source for new complex characteristics like Patrick Venables, Sharon Brookes et al code repository" of the and life finds new 1995 placenta formation, early embryonic uses for them. • development, and innate immunity. RNA mediated control of gene expression DNA sequences once labeled "Junk" produce Andrew Fire, SiQun Xu, et al 1998 RNA molecules modify gene RNA strands that in turn regulate DNA. Yasushi Okazaki, Masaaki Furuno et al 2002 expression and complex traits such Marcel Dinger, Paulo Amaral et al 2008 • as embryonic development. Linkage between environment and genome change Our bodies and all living things actively adapt Comparison of neighbors in distinct to ecological niches, custom adapting us for Eviatar Neva 1998 ecological conditions to show that where we live and work differences stimulate specific • genome changes.

Large scale modular genome reorganization showed that our bodies generated new proteins via large Lego-like Sequencing of the human genome Eric Lander, Lauren Linton et al 2001 shows large-scale modular combinations of DNA data blocks, not just small reorganisations of DNA, not small increments • random mutations Epigenetic transmission of Diet, exercise and environment impact heredity acquired traits Antonio Giordano et al 2000 Mice alter the DNA of their own for our children and grandchildren. Major Kevin Smith & Corrado Spadafora 2005 sperm, countering a long-standing implications for cancer, Alzheimer's and hundreds Carmine Pittoggi et al 2006 dogma that genetic information only of diseases. Recognized by most fields but not • flows one way Organisms are a mosaic of symbiotic Health is greatly impacted by companion life forms called "holobionts." Humans organisms in our bodies like gut bacteria that Ricardo Guerrero, Lynn Margulis et al 2013 host symbiotic skin and gut bacteria are "not us"; we have to take proper care of and more, making "." them so they can take care of us Evolution occurs by adding and • subtracting symbiotic partners.

Even some of 's greatest insights have been sidelined. Watch the 15 minute "Discovering the Real Darwin" filmed at Darwin's Down House by Voices from Oxford: www.voicesfromoxford.org/darwin

Reference: Shapiro, James, and Denis Noble. "What prevents mainstream evolutionists teaching the whole truth about how genomes evolve?" Progress in and Molecular Biology (2021). https://tinyurl.com/shapironoble Table has been updated to include the most recent editions of these books as of June 2021. ©2021 Denis Noble and James Shapiro. This is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license and permits non-commercial use of the work as published, without or alteration, provided the work is fully attributed. For commercial permissions, Denis Noble through his website www.DenisNoble.com.

1 Azra Raza The First Cell: and the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last Basic Books (2019)