Quantum Evolution Poses Challenge to Darwinism

spaceorb writes "In his book, "Quantum Evolution", UK biologist Dr. Johnjoe McFadden asserts that life did not originate from the random movement of particles, simply because it is far too complex. Instead, he argues that evolution is a quantum system - genetic code exists in a quantum multiverse and cells are able to choose advantageous mutations. Click the above link for the story on UniSci; it's worth a read. "

Comments

It's irrelevent matter how improbable life is

[Tim Behrendsen]

Because we don't sense the passage of time while we didn't exist. For all we know, it took the creation and destruction of 1e512 universes of time before intelligent life happened to arise and we were able to think about the fact.

Now, if we happen to discover life on other planets someway, then we would be able to say how statistically probable life is. Until then, "probablistic" arguments are complete nonsense.

Not to mention that it doesn't argue against Darwin anyway. Darwin only poses Natural Selection (I believe) which is an observed, provable fact of biology.

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Ridiculous pseudo-science

[mattdm]

C'mon, this is something from a late-night, low-budget sci-fi show, not real science. This is mumbo-jumbo metaphysics -- there's absolutely zero science behind it. The "life is too complicated" argument seems to be the only one he's really got, and that one's pretty easily refuted by "well, here we are".

Physicists don't understand quantum mechanics.

Sure, it's complicated stuff. But people understand it a lot better than this guy does. We've got lasers that work, for example.

Today, one of the most popular interpretations, and one that has the backing of Nobel prize-winning physicists, is that there exists a multiverse in which everything that can happen really does happen -- but in parallel universes.

A fun explanation, and good for sci-fi, but I believe the "Copenhagen Interpretation" is more widely accepted -- essentially, particles not being observed exist in a state of probability waves. But anyway, if one is to accept this, this completely destroys the "life is too complicated" argument. Sure, it's complicated -- but even very small probablities have to happen somewhere in the "multiverse". And the only universes within which we'd be able to ask questions would be ones where that small chance happened.

Cells may enter quantum states when they are unable to divide and replicate and become isolated....

Um, no, that's when they d-i-e.

I haven't read the book, just the web article linked to above. But it sounds ridiculous to me. And the author is no expert in quantum mechanics -- he specializes in infectious diseases. Sounds like he read something about quantum mechanics in a pop science mag, and went from there.

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Quantum evoulutin, my foot

[jw3]

Hi there. I am a Ph.D. student in molecular biology; however, I made my M.Sc. degree in population genetics and experimental evolution (nota bene, using bacterial models).

The article you have cited looks familiar to me: remember the guy who made fun of post-modernistic brabble writing an article heavily loaded with serious physic terms taken out of the context? This sounds similar to me: "quantum" is a nice, popular word, and using it out of the context and not in its proper meaning is nothing more then retorics.

As for a biologist, this whole article sounds like cheap boulevard sh*t to me. J. McFadden, OTOH, is a serious evolutionary biologist, publishing in good journals. He works as a theoretical biologist - as far I understand - with transposone mutagenesis. So maybe he did something interesting, and tried to make "a big thing" out of it - and notified some journalists, who got it wrong. There was a similar thing with the "theory of punctuated equilibria", which finally fitted nicely in the "synthetic theory of evolution" or "neodarwinism" (which is to darwinism in as much as quantum physics is to Newton's laws).

I am an evolutionist - and I certainly see possibilities for bacteria to judge which mutation could be better. There are some reasonable hypothetical mechanisms, which have nothing to do with quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, in spite of various tries and much research there are no convincing experiments. In most of the cases either noone could repeat the experiments, or better, easier explanations could have been found. Nevertheless, I do not see anything controversial about directed mutations: after all, the driving force of evolution will still be the natural selection coupled to other evolutionary mechanisms (like genetic drift). You have to have a broader view: most of the organisms try to influence the genes they passed to their offspring: for example, by coupling them to an other set of good genes - when choosing a good mating partner, who can demonstrate that he has good genes (for example, using the handicap strategy). You could say there already exists a kind of directional mutagenesis :-)

So much for the "controversy" of directed mutations. What I wanted to say is that there is no much incoherency with the current evolutionary paradigm (STE) per se. However, there is lot more on "sampling of the quantum space" and so on in the article you have posted here. Well, although I got some kind of introduction in quantum physics I cannot say I am fit in this field. However, I suspect strongly that people who are fit, are, on the other hand, not necessarily skilled in evolutionary sciences and molecular biology. I can't tell at this point: maybe this is something interesting, but to pose a challenge to the current model, a theory has to explain everything the former theory did plus a couple of other things plus do it more cleanly, more simply. I really don't know, but even if there is something in this quantum brabble I do not understand, it is only on the level of simple mutations and a very short time scale. OTOH, natural selection is known to work also on a larger time-scale.

One more thing left: the arousal of life itself. Well, one important point: the biologists have problems to tell how it happened not because they lack an explanation or a model, but because finding evidence for evolving molecules with a time scale of millions of years is unlikely to be found in sediments several billions years old, and unlikely to be demonstrated in an experiment, because such an experiment would take too long. However, it is not at all as unlikely as assembling a 747 by a tornado. Imagine a tornado that works for millions years on a planet covered with intact 747 parts; and if two parts get correctly assembled, they stay assembled and they propagate itself and produce they replica. Does it still sound improbable to you? What I really hate is biologists commenting on quantum physics like they were quantum physicists, physicists commenting on food science, and astronomers commenting on biology. Do I tell you how to program? ("Hey, you over there! C is obsolate! Use VB![*]). There are experiments with evolving and self-replicating RNA molecules; RNA is a nucleic acid which can both contain genetic information and act as an enzyme. Compared to a living cell, it has a very simple biochemic structure. However, chance of finding RNA fossils are, ehm, like building a 747 by a tornado... out of straws :-)

Stephen J. Gould, the co-author of the "punctuated equilibrium theory", which was supposed to dismiss neodarwinism, had to write a book entitled - I'm translating from polish, don't know the english title - "Darwins too-early funeral". Well, let's see what happens to this theory :->

Regards,

January

[*] Disclaimer: I program in C on an AIX.

Re:Quantum evoulutin, my foot

[crush]

Nevertheless, I do not see anything controversial about directed mutations: after all, the driving force of evolution will still be the natural selection coupled to other evolutionary mechanisms (like genetic drift).

I am surprised that you are not worried by the idea of directed mutation and I think that the amount of flak that Hall received when he talked about it is testimony to the fact that it is controversial. Suppose it were called Teleological Mutation - would that not be something that you would react against? I think most evolutionary biologists would explode at that.

Your equating of (what I presume to be Zahavis work?) good-genes models with a kind of directional mutagenesis :-) is at best misleading. There is no directional mutation going on in these models at all! That is part of their point, they are some of the intricatte theories worked out to show how selection of exisiting variation can tend towards certain results given certain parameters.

The problem with slashdot is that the audience has a low number of evolutionary biologists in it - otherwise the original article wouldn't get much of an airing.

I agree that it can be irritating to have non-experts quoted as authorities in fields that they are not, but I don't think that we should attack them on an authoritarian basis: dismissing someone's ideas just because they are not in the field doesn't actually address what the problems are with their theories and leaves one open to the charge of closed-mindedness. As I see it these are some of the problems with what the article says (and I suspect that you are correct about a clueless journalist making this into more than it might be):

• At the macroscopic level, we see patterns and order, while at the molecular level there is only chaos.
  This statement is unclear. One sees for example much order in crystals, lipid-bilayers (like micelles that form spontaneously) or indeed, one could even argue at the sub-atomic level:the number of neutrons and protons in every atom of a particular element is always the same, physicists are busy identifying exotic particles that are of types and in my book that counts as order. Finally there are the molecules of life itself - without any starting prejudice, we see them as ordered - doesn't this new theory start off by presupposing that we must not accept this?
• Few physicists doubt that as the technology advances, bigger and more complex systems will be shown to inhabit the quantum world.
  This is similar to the arguments of Penrose about consciousness in "The Emperor's New Mind" - a claim that because something is composed of elements that behave at a sub-atomic level in a different manner does not invalidate the fact that they behave in a non-quantum, Newtonian manner at this level. Billiard balls still roll around on predictable courses. Just because DNA is composed of atoms which are composed of more fundamental particles that do weird things doesn't mean that it is going to wink in and out of existence
• Most physicists agree that systems enter quantum states when they become isolated from their environment and pop out of the multiverse when they exchange significant amounts of energy with their environment, an interaction that is termed "quantum measurement." Cells may enter quantum states when they are unable to divide and replicate and become isolated -- perhaps they can?t utilize a particular foodstuff in their environment. They may collapse out of the multiverse when their DNA superposition includes a mutation that allows the mutant to grow and replicate once more. From our viewpoint, inhabiting only one universe, the cell appears to "choose" certain mutations. The cell is manifestly NOT isolated from its environment just because it has no food in it. There is probably a terminology problem here with mol.bio using a different use of environment to quantum physics. Anyway, the cell is in contact with its environment which is hostile to it in this scencario containing no resources. That's its environment and its going to die unless by some chance/random/fluke something happens that allows it to metabolize something new or some food pops in to the environment
• hat cells may be able to choose advantageous mutations is heresy for Darwinian dogma. But experiments performed with bacteria demonstrate that under some circumstances, that is precisely what they do. Although these experiments are still controversial, they pose a real problem for Darwinian evolutionary theory.
  Yes, Directed Mutation is controversial, it presuppose that there is some mechanism which allows cells to teleologically influence the mutations that they encounter. The standard model is that mutation is random and that the cells either get lucky or that they don't. The data to show that directed mutation happens is not convincing to many in the field. However this warrants further work and this theory could explain it. But there are others that rely on more prosaic ideas - for instance that a starving cell's machinery is not repaired as well as a healthy one thus that more mutations are introduced and thus there is a greater chance that one that allows new food to be metabolized will crop up. Pretty prosaic compared to DNA winking out of the multiverse
• ut even the simplest living cells are extraordinarily complex, far too complex to have arisen by chance alone.
  Unsupported claim. Many of the building block of life seem to be out there, there are huge amounts of Valine, Arginine and some other amino acid just floating about in space. Miller and Urey demonstrated how some of the molecules arise "naturally".
• Quantum mechanics allows us an escape from this gloomy outlook.
  Sure, but it's not necessary unless one accepts all the premises of the article. Is it all that gloomy anyway?

Crackpot Science, But The Best Thing in Evolution

[rjh]

Yes, this fellow is most likely completely off his rocker. But let's keep something in mind, all right?

1. This theory depends on DNA/RNA molecules being able to perform quantum computations. If DNA/RNA are not efficient chemical "vehicles" for quantum computation, then this theory is completely and utterly wrong.

2. This theory can actually be proven wrong, unlike almost every other evolutionary theory out there. You name the theory -- Punctuated Equilibrium, Red Queen, Designed Evolution... their mechanisms are all-but-unobservable, and cannot be empirically tested in a lab (as best I know). This theory can be tested in a lab; if DNA/RNA isn't good at quantum computation, presto, the theory's wrong.

3. Don't dismiss it because it didn't appear in a scientific journal. Odds are nobody would touch this one with a ten-foot pole; it's so far from conventional science that it's easy to dismiss it as being crackpot. But this fellow has a serious idea, and he's also conveniently provided us with a way to prove him wrong. Don't write him off as a nut and not worth your time just because he's published in a book -- first prove him wrong, and then write him off as a nut. Not before, and certainly not in the reverse order.

4. Dismiss anyone who says "this man doesn't know a thing about quantum mechanics" just because he takes a weird view of the implications of quantum mechanics. His theory, as best as I can tell, depends on the Everett many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. I prefer the Copenhagen interpretation, but you know what? Neither one of them is in the slightest bit scientific.

Quantum mechanics is a fact. It describes observed phenomena, it has successfully predicted phenomena, and it can be proven wrong (not that it ever has been proven wrong -- but if you were to ever successfully measure both the precise location and velocity of a particle, you'd prove QM to be an incorrect theory). The problem is that quantum mechanics is so alien to our idea of the universe that most physicists have to come up with a framework from which quantum mechanics makes some sort of sense.

This gentleman's interpretation of quantum mechanics is no nuttier than the Copenhagen Interpretation, or even an interpretation that the collective farts of all the universe's sentient races causes the weirdness in QM. Any interpretation of QM is metaphysics, not science. It's easy to say "this guy's a crackpot, since his interpretation isn't shared by any other "serious scientist". It's just as easy, and as accurate, to say "a lot of guys are crackpots because they believe in a multiverse which is constantly splitting off from itself, as proposed by Everett."

For all this fellow's failings, I've got to give him credit for coming up with a perfect theory.

(1) It's insane. As Wolfgang Pauli is supposed to have said to a colleague, "We are all divided on whether or not your theory is crazy. I do not believe it is crazy enough." In QM, crazy is good.

(2) It explains observed phenomena.

(3) It predicts future phenomena.

(4) It's empirically testable.

... In other words, it's a hell of a lot better than most evolutionary theories I've seen. It's probably wrong, of course. But it's wrong to dismiss this one out-of-hand.

A refutation that doesn't

[jd]

Where, in this "quantum evolution" theory, does it actually contradict Darwinism?

"It's too improbable" he says, ignoring the very fact that under the Many Worlds Theory, his ideas and Darwinism are essentially identical.

Then, there's one detail that he conveniently ignores. Biochemistry is VERY SPECIFIC. You can't join any old chemicals together.

DNA, for example, has 4 possible bases. This should give you 16 (4^2) possible combinations. You don't get those. There are 4 ways, and 4 ways alone to join up those 4 pairs. (You can read from either side, so the order is important.)

That reduces the complexity of the system, substantially. In theory, you could read any number of pairs from 1 to infinity, but RNA takes a block of exactly 3. No more, no less.

You see the catch with this whole complexity idea? The fact is, biochemistry is complex through scale, not permutations. The permutations are all dealt with, by the very nature of the system.

In short, biology exists because it removes the complexity at any given level. Each level within the system is extremely simple.

Protein construction involves 1 copy operation (which takes place nearly automatically, via messenger RNA), 3 identical attach operations (which take place without any active participation of the mechanism) and 1 destruction operation of the template. (You really don't want too many templates floating around. Could cause a mess.)

Nothing in there is complicated. The messenger RNA attaches to the DNA. The appropriate chemicals attach to their mirror images on the DNA. (Nothing else -can- attach. It's not possible.) The Messenger RNA, plus template, detatch. Fresh chemicals now attach to the RNA, mirros of the mirror, thus the original sequence. This is your protein. The template is then destroyed, and the process repeats.

What's so complicated about that? All you have there is something that replicates and inverts. Very trivial to construct.

How do you get DNA and RNA in the first place? I imagine the reverse of the current process, almost. Amino acids probably clumped together, onto some simple strand, with related amino acids pairing off. Strands that weakly attached would give you your proto-RNA. Those that bonded more firmly would give you proto-DNA.

In other words, the environment would become one gigantic proto-cell.

Last, but not least, if anyone's read this far, I do have something to say to the God theory. I am Christian, and I believe that life, of all kinds, exists for a reason beyond merely being. However, I do =NOT= subscribe to the theory that we should live in ignorance and fear.

If you read and accept the Bible, whether as literal or moral truth, there are two pertinent ideas that come forward. God created humanity in His image. Humanity is inquisitive, and has always been. Thus, wonder is a part of God's creation. To deny wonder, and worship ignorance is to sin against God, for it is to tell God that His image isn't good enough for you.

The second part is Jesus telling his followers to be like children. "For it is such as these who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." You find a child who won't ask "WHY?" You find a child who won't question. If questioning, and not blindly accepting an alleged truth which isn't even given =in= the Bible, for all the claims of the allegers, is to enter the Kingdom of God, you'll find more geeks in Heaven than the Christians who aren't.

After all, THEY are the ones who have become like little children, forever questioning. Seeking. Trying things out. Learning.

Those who "know it all", because they claim to be a Christian, are like harsh parents, always critical and condemning. God does, indeed, have a place in mind for those who seek to put themselves above Him. I've heard it's nice and warm there, too.

Re:Well...

[Barahir]

I am a quantum physicist (truth be told, most physicists do study quantum mechanics at one level or another), so let me make a few points:

1) The real world (whatever that is) is, as far as anyone knows, governed by the laws of Quantum Mechanics. Period. So the question is not the applicability of QM, but of Classical Physics which is an approximation of QM in some circumstances (very large distances scales, energies, quantum numbers etc.). So QM could be used to describe buckyballs -if you could do the calculations- and yield a more accurate answer than CM.

2) Getting closer to the topic, this article smells kind of fishy. McFadden doesn't seem to understand Quantum Mechanics. I know, I know. He claims noone does, and on some fundamental level, that may be true. But we do know how to make some pretty damn precise calculations and predictions with it. Which requires at least some understanding.

For example the claims about an electron going in two (or more)different directions: true, but it's somewhat more complicated than that. If you try to observe an electron doing that, you never will. But if you don't check which way the electron went it can look like it went two ways (you can do a double slit intereference experiment with electrons, to invoke Physics 102- depending on how you do the experiment, you get an intereference pattern or not. With the interefence pattern, that means that the electron went both ways in some sense).

Another example: a particle is always in one and only one state at a time, never billions. However one state (say a state of definite energy) can be thought of -for some purposes- as a combination (superposition) of many other states (say states with definite position). But it is really only in one state.

3) The multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics is strongly disfavored (though not discredited) by physicists. Primarily because there is no real way of testing or disproving it. It predicts exactly the same things as the "orthodox" (aka Copenhagen) interpretation, which is simpler.

Ok, that's all I have to say for now.

Crackpot pseudoscience poses threat to Slashdot

[raph]

$1,040,000,000 for this? News for crackpots, stuff that really doesn't matter at all.

I want something better. I've got the domain "cluedot.{org,net,com}". I've got collaborative filtering technology, implemented on Advogato that might just solve the problem of miniscule S/N ratios. I just don't have the time myself to put it into production right now, as I'm too busy developing free software projects. Anyone?

Yes, yes, I know. Troll, Offtopic, Flamebait, whatever. Karma be damned, I'm pissed off to see a site that used to be my kind of news site indulge in such stupid crap.

Re:All religion is wrong. (Not flamebait)

[emerson]

> No existing religion is willing to continually challenge and dispute itself in this manner.

Au contraire, mon ami. Almost all major religions are consistanty refining and reworking their beliefs to fit new information. Most Christian denominations, for instance, have annual meetings that, among other orders of business, decide on any 'platform' changes or additions. Just like science, some core truths are relatively stable (gravity, the divinity of Christ), some are slowly retired over time (flat earth, flat earth), and some are still in flux (particle physics, the role of women in the church).

Just because religions' criteria for changing truths is not necessarily based on empirical challenging doesn't mean their methods are demonstrably 'wrong.' Unless you're such a believer in the Church of Science's core tenets of demontrability and repeatability that any other scheme is 'heresy.'

>But if everything is True by Decree....

Again, science is a church. Unless you personally go out and demonstrate each and every scientific truth that you believe, for yourself, with strict application of scientific method and a healthy dose of skepticism, a belief in science IS "Truth by Decree," relying on the proclamations of wiser elders for truth, based on a faith in their higher knowledge of and closer contact with The Truth.

"Peer review" isn't an argument against the above, either. Almost all Christian elders, of any denomination and creed, will back each other up on the divinity of Christ, using the tools of their Church. If "peer review" is a criterion for truth, why don't you believe in those alleged truths?

Unless it's that what your argument boils down to is "if it doesn't work the way science says, I won't believe it." Which, to me, sounds like a belief system based in faith.

As a disclaimer, I, myself, am a Church of Science adherant, and not a religious person of any consequence. But I do see that my Church is just a system of ordered beliefs handed down from power structure to power structure, with a core set of unprovable assumptions, occasional attacks from 'fringe breakaway groups' that either succeed or fail, and with millions of amateur adherants that gobble up things that are sound like dogma and pooh-pooh things that don't, with very little except their incomplete understanding and faith to tell the difference. And just like any other Church, science is anxious to differentiate itself from other Churches by argument of how much better and more valid its ideas are.

The fact that the Church of Science has been the in-fashion flavor for the last few hundred years doesn't mean it's any less a Church, no matter how strongly it tries to redefine itself.


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