Guess what happens when Nature asks EES proponents to write reviews of books by other EES proponents?

There are a bunch of people who think that evolutionary theory needs to be extensively revised. They focus their attacks on a particular (incorrect) version of the Modern Synthesis and they promote a new version called the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES).

Most EES proponents have very little in common except that they see themselves as revolutionaries. They each have their own little hobbyhorse that is presumably being suppressed by classical evolutionary biologists. Some of them belong to a cult called The Third Way (of Evolution). They are very good at promoting their point of view through whatever means it takes to get attention. The media loves them.

Intelligent Design Creationists launch a new attack on junk DNA (are they getting worried?)

The Center for Science and Culture (sic) and the Discovery Institute (sic) have published another propaganda video on junk DNA. The emphasis is on their claim that ID predicted a functional genome and that prediction turned out to be correct! The difference between this video an previous attempts to rationalize their failures is that I now get a personal mention and a caricature in this latest video.

I think I understand the problem. The ID creationists are getting worried about junk DNA as they realize that more and more scientists are beginning to understand the real problems with the ENCODE data and previous claims of function. This is why they are attempting to rebut the science behind junk DNA. But the real problem is that they simply don't understand the science as you can see in the video.

Once again, we are faced with a question about whether Intelligent Design Creationists are stupid or lying (or both).

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New Scientist promotes misinformation about evolution

The December 7th issue of New Scientist features a cover promoting an article by Kevin Lala, an evolutionary biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland (formerly Kevin Laland). The title of the article in the journal is DIY evolution but the online version is The extraordinary ways species control their own evolutionary fate.

It's interesting that the blurbs for the two version also differ ...

Natural selection of random genetic mutation isn't the only way to adapt, argues evolutionary biologist Kevin Lala.

(print version)

Natural selection isn't just something that happens to organisms, their activities also play a role, giving some species – including humans – a supercharged ability to evolve. (online version)

Kevin Lala is a proponent of the "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis" (EES). His particular schtick is niche construction meaning that evolution is promoted by organisms that help create their own environment. This behaviorial characteristic of animals is supposed to call into question the fundamentals of modern evolutionary theory based on population genetics.

Recall that evolution is defined as a change in the frequency of alleles in a population and the main mechanisms of change are natural selection and random genetic drift. Variation (creation of alleles) is caused by mutation.