Here is the Bibliography "M" 
page of my book outline,
[Left: Late leading British Darwinist biologist, John Maynard Smith (1920-2004). Notice that on his bookshelf (behind his left ear) is the 1996 first edition of Intelligent Design theorist Professor Mike Behe's "Darwin's Black Box"! See also PS below.]
"Problems of Evolution" for authors' surnames beginning with "M," of books and journals which I will probably refer to.
BIBLIOGRAPHY "M"
Macbeth, N., 1971, "Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason," Gambit: Boston MA.
Macbeth, N., 1982, "Darwinism: A time for funerals," Robert Briggs Associates: San Francisco CA.
Maddox, J., 1998, "What Remains To Be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race," Touchstone: New York NY, Reprinted, 1999.
Malthus, T.R., 1830, "An Essay on the Principle of Population and A Summary View of the Principle of Population," Flew, A., ed., Penguin: Harmondsworth UK, Reprinted, 1970.
Margenau, H. & Varghese, R.A., eds., 1992, "Cosmos, Bios, Theos: Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe Life, and Homo Sapiens," Open Court: La Salle IL, Second printing, 1993.
Margulis, L., 1998, "The Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution," Phoenix: London.
Margulis, L. & Fester, R., 1991, "Symbiosis As a Source of Evolutionary Innovation: Speciation and Morphogenesis," MIT Press: Cumberland RI.
Margulis, L. & Sagan, D., 1986, "Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors," Summit Books: New York NY.
Margulis, L., Schwartz, K.V. & Dolan, M., 1994, "The Illustrated Five Kingdoms: A Guide to the Diversity of Life on Earth," HarperCollins College Publishers: New York NY.
Marquand, J., 1971, "Life: Its Nature, Origins and Distributions," W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY.
Martin, E. & Hine, R.S., eds., 2000, "Oxford Dictionary of Biology," [1985], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, Fourth edition.
Mason, F.B., ed., 1934, "The Great Design: Order and Progress in Nature," Macmillan: New York NY.
Matthews, L.H., 1970, "The Life of Mammals," Universe Books: New York NY, 2 Vols.
Matthews, R.A.J., 1992, "Unravelling the Mind of God: Mysteries at the Frontier of Science," Virgin Books: London, Reprinted, 1993.
Mautner, T., ed., 2000, "The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy," [1996], Penguin: London, Revised.
Mazzeo, J.A., 1968, "The Design of Life: Major Themes in the Development of Biological Thought," Macdonald & Co: London.
Maynard Smith, J., 1975, "The Theory of Evolution," [1958], Cambridge University Press/Canto: Cambridge UK, Third edition, Reprinted, 1993.
Maynard Smith, J., 1978, "The Evolution of Sex," Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, Reprinted, 1979.
Maynard Smith, J., ed., 1982, "Evolution Now: A Century After Darwin," W.H. Freeman & Co: San Francisco CA, Reprinted, 1983.
Maynard Smith, J., 1986, "The Problems of Biology," Oxford University Press: Oxford UK.
Maynard Smith, J., 1989, "Did Darwin Get it Right?: Essays on Games, Sex and Evolution," Penguin: London, Reprinted, 1993.
Maynard Smith, J., 1995, "Genes, Memes, & Minds." Review of Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett. Simon and Schuster. The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLII, No. 19, November 30, pp.46-48.
Maynard Smith, J., 1998, "Evolutionary Genetics," [1988], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, Second edition, Reprinted, 2000.
Maynard Smith J. & Szathmáry, E., 1995, "The Major Transitions in Evolution," W.H. Freeman & Co: Oxford UK.
Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E., 1996, "On the likelihood of habitable worlds," Nature, Vol. 384, 14 November, p.107.
Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E., 1999, "The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language," Oxford University Press: New York NY.
Mayr, E.W., 1942, "Systematics and the Origin of Species," Columbia University Press: New York NY, Reprinted, 1982.
Mayr, E.W., 1963, "Animal Species and Evolution," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA.
Mayr, E.W., 1970, "Populations, Species and Evolution: An Abridgment of Animal Species and Evolution," Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, Third printing, 1974.
Mayr, E.W., 1976, "Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays," Belknap: Cambridge MA.
Mayr, E.W., 1982, "The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA.
Mayr, E.W., 1988, "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA.
Mayr, E.W., 1991, "One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought," Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
Mayr, E.W., 1997, "This is Biology: The Science of the Living World," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, Sixth printing, 1998.
Mayr, E.W., 2001, "What Evolution Is," Basic Books: New York NY.
Mayr, E.W., 2004, "What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline," Cambridge University Press: New York NY.
McCrone, J., 1990, "The Ape that Spoke: Language and the Evolution of the Human Mind," Picador: London, Reprinted, 1991
McGowan, C., 1983, "In The Beginning: A Scientist Shows Why the Creationists are Wrong," Macmillan: Toronto, Canada.
McGrath, A.E., 2005, "Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life," Blackwell: Malden MA.
McGrath, A. & McGrath, J.C., 2007, "The Dawkins Delusion?," SPCK: London.
McNamara, K.J., 1997, "Shapes of Time: The Evolution of Growth and Development," The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore MD.
McNamara, K.J. & Long, J., 1998, "The Evolution Revolution," John Wiley: Chichester UK.
Medawar, P.B. & Medawar, J.S., 1983, "Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology," Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
Messel, H. & Butler, S.T., ed., 1971, "Molecules to Man," Shakespeare Head Press: Sydney NSW, Australia.
Midgley, M.B., 1985, "Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears," Methuen: London, Reprinted, 1986.
Midgley, M.B., 1992, "Science As Salvation: A Modern Myth and Its Meaning," Routledge: Florence KY, Reprinted, 1994.
Miller, K.B., ed., 2003, "Perspectives on an Evolving Creation," William B. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI.
Miller K.R., 1999, "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution,"HarperCollins: New York NY, Reprinted, 2000.
Milner, R., 1990, "The Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity's Search for Its Origins," Facts On File: York NY.
Milton, R., 1992, "The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism," Corgi: London, Reprinted, 1993.
Minelli, G., 1986, "The Evolution of Life: The History of Life on Earth," [1985], Facts on File: New York NY.
Mithen, S.J., 1996, "The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and Science," Phoenix: London, Reprinted, 1998.
Mitton, J., 1993, "The Penguin Dictionary of Astronomy," [1991], Penguin: London, Second edition.
Mivart, S.J., 1871, "On the Genesis of Species," Macmillan & Co: London & New York , Second edition.
Mixter, R.L., 1962, "Creation and Evolution," [1948], Monograph Two, American Scientific Affiliation: Goshen IN, Fifth edition.
Mixter, R.L., 1960, ed., "Evolution and Christian Thought Today," [1959], Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, Second edition.
Monod, J., 1971, "Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology," Penguin: London, Reprinted, 1997.
Montagu, A., ed., 1984, "Science and Creationism," Oxford University Press: Oxford UK.
Montefiore, H., 1985, "The Probability of God," SCM: London.
Moody, R.A., Jr., 1975, "Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon-Survival of Bodily Death," Mockingbird Books: St. Simons Island GA.
Moore, A.L., 1892, "Science and the Faith: Essays on Apologetic Subjects," Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co: London.
Moore, D.M., ed., 1982, "Green Planet: The Story of Plant Life on Earth," Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK.
Moore, J.A., 1993, "Science as a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern Biology," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA.
Moore, J.R., 1979, "The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America 1870-1900," Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, Reprinted, 1981.
Moore, J.R., 1994, "The Darwin Legend," Hodder & Stoughton: London, Reprinted, 1995.
Moore, R., 1962, "Evolution," Time/Life International: Netherlands, Reprinted, 1964.
Moorhead, P.S. & Kaplan, M.M., eds., 1967, "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution: A Symposium Held at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, April 25 and 26, 1966," The Wistar Institute Symposium Monograph Number 5, The Wistar Institute Press: Philadelphia PA.
Moorman, T., 1974, "How to Make Your Science Project Scientific," Atheneum: New York NY.
More, L.T., 1925, "The Dogma of Evolution," Louis Clark Vanuxem Foundation Lectures Delivered at Princeton University January, 1925, Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ.
Moreland, J.P., 1987, "Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity," Baker: Grand Rapids MI, 1994, Ninth printing.
Moreland, J.P., 1989, "Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation," Baker: Grand Rapids MI, Third printing, 1992.
Moreland, J.P., ed., 1994, "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL.
Moreland, J.P. & Reynolds, J.M., eds., 1999, "Three Views on Creation and Evolution," Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI.
Morgan, D., et al., eds., 1981, "Biological Science: The Web of Life," [1967], Australian Academy of Science: Canberra ACT, Australia, Third edition.
Morgan, E., 1981, "The Aquatic Ape: A Theory of Human Evolution," [1982], Souvenir Press: London, Reprinted, 1989.
Morgan, E., 1990, "The Scars of Evolution: What Our Bodies Tell Us About Human Origins," Souvenir Press: London.
Morgan, E., 1994, "The Descent of the Child: Human Evolution from a New Perspective," Souvenir Press: London.
Morgan, E., 1997, "The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis," Souvenir Press: London, Reprinted, 2004
Morgan, T.H., 1916, "A Critique of the Theory of Evolution," Louis Clark Vanuxem Foundation Lectures, Columbia University, February 24-March 15, 1916, Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1917, Second printing.
Morowitz, H.J., 1968, "Energy Flow in Biology: Biological Organization as a Problem in Thermal Physics," Academic Press: New York NY, Second printing, 1969.
Morowitz, H.J., 1987, "Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Musings of a Mystic Scientist," Charles Scribner's Sons: New York NY.
Morowitz, H.J., 1992, "Beginnings of Cellular Life: Metabolism Recapitulates Biogenesis," Yale University Press: New Haven CT.
Morris, D., 1967, "The Naked Ape," Corgi Books: London, Reprinted, 1969.
Morris, D., 1994, "The Human Animal: A Personal View of the Human Species," BBC Books: London.
Morris, H.M., 1982, "Evolution in Turmoil: An Updated Sequel to The Troubled Waters of Evolution," Creation-Life: San Diego CA.
Morris, H.M., 1985, "Scientific Creationism (General edition)," [1974], Master Books: El Cajon CA, Second edition.
Morris, H.M. & Parker, G.E., 1982, "What is Creation Science?," Master Books: El Cajon CA, Revised, 1987.
Morris, R.W., 1982, "The Fate of the Universe," Playboy Press: New York NY.
Morris, R.W., 1990, "The Edges of Science: Crossing the Boundary From Physics to Metaphysics," Prentice Hall: New York NY.
Morris, R.W., 2001, "The Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin's Soul," W.H. Freeman & Co: New York NY.
Muncaster, R.O., 1997, "Creation Versus Evolution: New Scientific Discoveries," Strong Basis to Believe: Mission Viejo CA.
Murphy, B. & Nance, D., 1998, "Earth Science Today," Brooks/Cole-Wadsworth: Pacific Grove CA.
PS: See `tagline' below for some quotes by Maynard Smith (my emphasis bold).
Stephen E. Jones, BSc. (Biology).
My other blog: TheShroudofTurin
"Mutations are known to occur spontaneously - i.e. without our doing anything deliberately to cause them - with low frequency. It was shown by Muller that their frequency is greatly increased by X-rays. Since that time, a number of chemical substance, have been found which increase the frequency of mutation. More important, different chemical and physical agents produce different types of change. There is nothing particularly surprising about this. For example, one class of mutagenic substances is the so-called 'base analogues'. These are molecules which bear a close chemical similarity to one of the four bases, adenine, thymine, guanine, or cytosine. When such analogues are present, a replicating DNA molecule may incorporate one of them instead of the corresponding base, the result being a mutation. Thus a particular analogue would be expected to cause mutations at particular sites within the gene, and this has been shown by Freese to be the case in viruses. Thus it is no longer possible to think of mutations as `random'. But we can abandon the concept of the randomness of mutation without accepting Lamarckism, and while continuing to hold that it is selection and not mutation which determines the direction of evolution." (Maynard Smith, J., 1975, "The Theory of Evolution," [1958], Cambridge University Press/Canto: Cambridge UK, Third edition, 1975, Reprinted, 1993, pp.80-81).
"If we are to discuss the origin of life, we must adopt some definition of living. ... Fortunately Darwin's theory of natural selection provides us with a satisfactory definition. We shall regard as alive any population of entities which has the properties of multiplication, heredity and variation. The justification for this definition is as follows: any population with these properties will evolve by natural selection so as to become better adapted to its environment. ... The problem of the origin of life, then, is to explain how entities with these properties could originate from non-living matter, without of course invoking natural selection as a cause. If we imagine the simplest conceivable organism whose hereditary mechanism depends on the processes of nucleic acid replication and protein synthesis as we know them from existing organisms, it would have to possess enough DNA to specify all the varieties of tRNA, the protein and RNA components of the ribosomes, the activating enzymes associated with the 20 amino acids, the various enzymes which replicate the DNA and make an RNA transcript of it, and more besides. ... It is impossible that an organism of this degree of complexity should arise by physico-chemical processes, without natural selection." (Maynard Smith, 1975, pp.109-111).
"There are a lot of things we do not know about evolution, but they are not the things that non-biologists think we do not know. If I admit to a nonbiological colleague that evolution theory is inadequate, he is likely to assume at once that Darwinism is about to be replaced by Lamarckism and natural selection by the inheritance of acquired characters. In fact, nothing seems to me less likely. In common with almost everyone working in the field, I am an unrepentant neo-Darwinist. That is, I think that the origin of evolutionary novelty is a process of gene mutation which is non-adaptive, and that the direction of evolution is largely determined by natural selection. I am enough of a Popperian to know that this is a hypothesis, not a fact, and that observations may one day oblige me to abandon it, but I do not expect to have to." (Maynard Smith, J., 1977, "The Limitations of Evolution Theory," in Duncan R. & Weston-Smith M., eds., "The Encyclopaedia of Ignorance: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Unknown," Pergamon: Oxford UK, Reprinted, 1978, p.236).
"Similar difficulties of measurement arise with mutation and migration. When a gene replicates, there is a chance of the order of 1 in 100 million that a particular base will be miscopied. It is possible to measure these astonishingly low rates of error in very special circumstances in some microorganisms. It is also clear from the theory that rates of this order are sufficient to provide the raw material of evolution. But in most natural situations, mutation rates cannot be measured. Finally, consider migration. Suppose that a species is subdivided into a number of populations, and we wish to know how far the evolution of any one population is influenced by immigration from the others. Theory shows that if a population receives on the average one migrant from outside in each generation, this can have a decisive effect. Yet in practice we could not hope to measure such a low rate of migration. Thus we have three processes which we believe to determine the course of evolution, and we have a mathematical theory which tells us that these processes can produce their effects at levels we cannot usually hope to measure directly. It is as if we had a theory of electromagnetism but no means of measuring electric current or magnetic force." (Maynard Smith, 1977, p236).
"It turns out that although Darwin did not think seriously about the problem, his theory of evolution provides us with the only satisfactory definition of 'life', and hence with the only clear way of formulating the problem of its origins. Entities which have the properties of multiplication, variation and heredity are alive, and those which lack one or more of those properties are not. This definition is not arbitrary, because once entities arise which have these properties, populations of such entities will evolve by natural selection, and will acquire the other features of wholeness, self-maintenance, complexity, adaptation to the environment, and so on, which are associated with living organisms. According to this definition, the RNA molecules which evolved in test tubes, as described in the paper by Eigen et al., were alive: they had heredity, multiplication and variation, and consequently they evolved adaptations to the environment of the test tube. However, these experiments do not solve the problem of the origin of life, because it was necessary to supply a complex enzyme, Qß replicase, which could not have been present in the primitive oceans: the molecules could only evolve in an environment which was informationally more complex than themselves." (Maynard Smith, J., ed., 1982, "Evolution Now: A Century After Darwin," W.H. Freeman & Co: San Francisco CA, Reprinted, 1983, pp.6-7).
"`THERE is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the creator into a few forms or into one: and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.' When one considers the agnosticism of his autobiography and his notebooks, these words of Darwin's, the closing words of the Origin of Species, can only be seen as a sop to the Cerberus of orthodoxy. The origin of life was, in Darwin's day, inaccessible to scientific study-so why not credit it to the Creator? Today the problem of the origin of life, although far from being solved, is being actively studied, both experimentally and theoretically; we can no longer leave things to the breath of the Creator." (Maynard Smith, 1982, p.7).
"The origin of the sexual process remains one of the most difficult problems in biology. I cannot attempt to answer it here, but I can explain the difficulty. The major consequence of sex was to make genetic recombination possible, once the 'old-fashioned' prokaryote methods of plasmid transfer and conjugation had become ineffective. Genetic recombination, in turn, enormously expands the possibilities of evolutional change .... But this is a long-term, prospective advantage, not an immediate one. Natural selection lacks foresight. A trait will not be selected merely because it will have, at some time in the future, beneficial effects. It is only present benefits that count." (Maynard Smith, J., 1986, "The Problems of Biology," Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, pp.35-36).
"Pandas are peculiar bears, which spend much of their days munching bamboo. To do this, they strip off the bamboo leaves by passing the stalks between their flexible thumb and the remaining fingers. But how can a panda have an opposable thumb, when in bears the thumb lies parallel to the fingers, and inseparable from them? In fact, the panda does not have a proper thumb at all: it has five parallel digits just like other bears. The apparent `thumb' is a modification and extension of a small bone in the wrist. For Stephen Gould, this is a particular and fascinating fact, but it is also an illustration of a general principle. The principle is that evolution proceeds by tinkering with what is already there, and not by following the canons of optimal design. Had the panda been designed by the Great Artificer, He would not have been constrained to make its hand by modifying the hand of a bear and would doubtless have come up with a more elegant, if less entertaining solution to the problem of stripping bamboo." (Maynard Smith, J., 1989, "Did Darwin Get it Right?: Essays on Games, Sex and Evolution," Penguin: London, Reprinted, 1993, p..93).
"It is a striking fact that, although Darwin and Wallace arrived independently at the idea of evolution by natural selection, Wallace never followed Darwin in taking the further step of asserting that the human mind was also a product of evolution. Gould has an interesting explanation of this difference. It arose, he suggests, because Wallace had a too simplistic view of selection, according to which every feature of every organism is the product of selection, whereas Darwin was more flexible, and recognised that many characteristics are historical accidents or the unselected corollaries of something that has been selected. Now there are features of the human mind which it is hard to explain as the products of natural selection: few people have had more children because they could solve differential equations or play chess blindfold. Wallace, therefore, was driven to the view that the human mind required some different kind of explanation, whereas Darwin found no difficulty in thinking that a mind which evolved because it could cope with the complexity of life in primitive human societies would show unpredictable and unselected properties." (Maynard Smith, 1989, pp.94-95).
"Darwin, as soon as he had become convinced that evolution had occurred, and before he had conceived of the theory of natural selection, opened a note book concerned with questions of psychology and metaphysics. The only explanation of this is that he felt at once that his theory must apply to man, and knew that this required that he develop a materialist theory of psychology. I do not know why Darwin so readily made the extension to man (although it was characteristic of him to push ideas to their conclusions), but I do not think it could have had anything to do with his views on selection, which had hardly been formulated at the time." (Maynard Smith, 1989, p.95).
"I hope it will be obvious that my wish to argue with Gould is a compliment, not a criticism. Popular science should reflect science as it is practised: this means that it should reflect controversy and uncertainty. Anyone familiar with current debates in evolutionary biology will have noticed that my disagreements about Wallace and about Quahogs reflect a disagreement between Gould and myself about evolutionary theory. ... Gould's idiosyncracies are a passion for the quirks of history, and a conviction that a man's science is part of his humanity, and not infrequently influenced by his political, sexual and racial prejudices. He also holds sadly misguided views about the mechanisms of evolution, and fails to share my prejudice that an ounce of algebra is worth a ton of words. These views, whether or not I share them, are an essential ingredient of his success as a writer." (Maynard Smith, 1989, pp.96-97).
"This brings me to what I see as the greatest impact that palaeontology is having on the way we see the mechanisms of evolution. We have been familiar for a long time with the dramatic disappearance of the Dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous. It is now apparent that massive extinctions, involving many different taxa, have been a repeated feature of evolution. ... In addition to the problem of their causation ... these extinctions raise questions for evolutionary biologists. Is it possible that evolutionary change would slow down and stop in the absence of changes in the physical environment? As Manfred Eigen has pointed out, the simplest evolving systems (populations of RNA molecules in test tubes) reach a global optimum and then stop. Are extinctions, then, a necessary motive force of evolution? A second question concerns the relation between extinction and radiation. Ecologists tend to see nature as dominated by competition. They would therefore expect the extinction of one species, or group of species, to be caused by competition from another taxon. Most palaeontologists read the fossil record differently. The Dinosaurs, they believe, became extinct for reasons that had little to do with competition from the mammals. Only subsequently did the mammals, which had been around for as long as the Dinosaurs, radiate to fill the empty space. The same general pattern, they think, has held for other major taxonomic replacements. Not all palaeontologists would agree, but I think this is the majority view. I find it surprising: I would have expected a major cause of extinction to be competition from other taxa." (Maynard Smith, 1989, pp.129-130).
"Evolutionary biologists are arguing about many things - how and why sex evolved, whether some DNA is `selfish', how eukaryotes arose, why some animals live socially, and so on. These problems are, in the main, debated within the shared assumptions of `neo-Darwinism' or `the modern synthesis'. Recently, however, a group of palaeontologists, of whom Gould, Eldredge and Stanley have been the most prominent, have announced that the modern synthesis is soon to be swept away, to be replaced by the new paradigm of stasis and punctuation. In science, a theory is not abandoned unless an alternative theory already exists, ready to replace it. My object in this essay is to identify this alternative, and to explain why I do not find it particularly persuasive." (Maynard Smith, 1989, p.131).
"The punctuationist position consists of a minor and a major claim. The minor claim is that the typical pattern of the evolution of species, as revealed by the fossil record, is one of long periods of stasis during which little significant change occurs, interrupted by brief periods of rapid change associated with the splitting of species into two. The major claim is that it is a consequence of this observation, together with a study of development, that the large-scale features of evolution are not the result of the accumulation of changes occurring in populations because of natural selection, together with the processes of speciation as understood by the proponents of the modern synthesis. In brief, macroevolution can be uncoupled from micro-evolution." (Maynard Smith, 1989, pp.131-132).
"The most that we can say is that some lineages have become more complex in the course of time. Complexity is hard to define or to measure, but there is surely some sense in which elephants and oak trees are more complex than bacteria, and bacteria than the first replicating molecules. Our thesis is that the increase has depended on a small number of major transitions in the way in which genetic information is transmitted between generations. Some of these transitions were unique: for example, the origin of the eukaryotes from the prokaryotes, of meiotic sex, and of the genetic code itself. Other transitions, such as the origin of multicellularity, and of animal societies, have occurred several times independently. There is no reason to regard the unique transitions as the inevitable result of some general law: one can imagine that life might have got stuck at the prokaryote or at the protist stage of evolution." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E., 1995, "The Major Transitions in Evolution," W.H. Freeman: Oxford UK, p.3).
"There are obvious difficulties in discussing unique events that happened a long time ago. How can we ever know that our suggested explanations are correct? After all. historians cannot agree about the causes of the Second World War. We accept that certainty is impossible, but there are several reasons why we think the enterprise is worth while. First, we have one great advantage over historians: we have agreed theories both of chemistry and of the mechanism of evolutionary change. We can therefore insist that our explanations be plausible both chemically, and in terms of natural selection. This places a severe constraint on possible theories. Indeed, the difficulty often lies, not in choosing between rival theories, but in finding any theory that is chemically and selectively plausible." (Maynard Smith & Szathmáry, 1995, p.3).
"The origin of sugars, including ribose, seems readily explicable by the prebiotic functioning of the formose reaction... In fact we are dealing here with a complex network of reactions, producing sugars from pre- existing sugars and formaldehyde.... There are two problems with this network that should be mentioned. First, the sugars formed are rather unstable, so, if they are to be present in significant amounts, this can only be in a steady state of formation and decay. It is imperative, therefore, that the end products of sugar decay be recycled to formaldehyde. Second, it is not at all obvious how ribose, among the more than 40 sugars could have been sufficiently prevalent under prebiotic conditions." (Maynard Smith, & Szathmáry, 1995, pp.30-31).
"Setting aside the problem of the origin of ribose, the synthesis of nucleosides (base and sugar linked together as in present-day nucleotides) also poses problems. Purines react with ribose to yield the corresponding nucleosides in small amounts. The analogous reaction with pyrimidines seems hopeless. The phosphorylation of nucleosides to nucleotides can be done in dry-phase with relatively good yield, but all sorts of isomers with varying degrees of phosphorylation emerge. This lack of purity is important because accurate replication of a polymer depends on chemical purity." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, 1995, pp.31-32).
"Lipid formation again could have been preceded by the appearance of their constituents: fatty acids, glycerol and phosphate. While the abiogenic reaction between these three seems plausible, we have trouble with the formation of membranogenic lipids: no long-chain (C6-C18) linear (nonbranched) fatty acids have been synthesized in electric discharge reactions, although they would be indispensable for prebiotic membrane formation." (Maynard Smith, & Szathmáry, 1995, p.32).
"Summarizing, one is left with ambivalent feelings. On the positive side, one is amazed by the ready formation of several biologically significant compounds, but it is discouraging that many important molecules resist prebiotic synthesis in acceptable quantities." (Maynard Smith, & Szathmáry, 1995, p.32).
"The origin of the [genetic] code is perhaps the most perplexing problem in evolutionary biology. The existing translational machinery is at the same time so complex, so universal, and so essential that it is hard to see how it could have come into existence, or how life could have existed without it. The discovery of ribozymes has made it easier to imagine an answer to the second of these questions, but the transformation of an 'RNA world' into one in which catalysis is performed by proteins, and nucleic acids specialize in the transmission of information, remains a formidable problem." (Maynard Smith, & Szathmáry, 1995, p.81).
"By sex in eukaryotes, we understand a more-or-less regular succession of meiosis and syngamy. A natural consequence of this is the alternation of haploid and diploid phases in the life cycle. Eukaryotic sex significantly differs from prokaryotic sex in two crucial respects: the cellular mechanisms are quite different, and the transfer of genetic material in prokaryotes is less frequent and more localized." (Maynard Smith, & Szathmáry, 1995, p.149).
"Some 540 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cambrian, there appeared an array of multicellular marine animals, including the major phyla that exist today-coelenterates, platyhelminths, annelids, arthropods, molluscs, Echinoderms and others. Chordates are also present in the Cambrian: they are not known from the earliest deposits, in which only hard parts are preserved, but are present in the slightly later Burgess Shale, in which soft-bodied forms are preserved. Forty years ago, this sudden appearance of metazoan fossils was not only a puzzle but something of an embarrassment: the absence of any known fossils from earlier rocks was a weapon widely used by creationists. Today, the fossil evidence for prokaryotes goes back 3000 million years, and for protists some 1000 million years. The Cambrian explosion remains a puzzle, however, which has been only fitfully illuminated by the discovery of the enigmatic soft- bodied Ediacaran fauna, which had a worldwide distribution between 580 and 560 million years ago. ... The puzzle is why the Cambrian explosion took place when it did. Two kinds of answer are possible. One is that, before complex multicellular organisms could evolve, some crucial invention or inventions in cell physiology or gene regulation had to be made: once made, there was rapid radiation into an ecologically empty world. The apparently monophyletic origin of the Metazoa, deduced from molecular data, is consistent with this view." (Maynard Smith, & Szathmáry, 1995, p.203).
"In this section, we discuss whether the origin of language can be explained by natural selection. Our treatment follows rather closely that of Pinker & Bloom (1990). We start from the presumption that natural selection is the only plausible explanation for adaptive design. What other explanation could there be? Following the famous paper by Gould & Lewontin (1979), one could suppose that language is a spandrel: that is, an unselected byproduct of design for some other purpose. More specifically, language could be a modified or an unmodified spandrel. If the claim is only that language is a modified version of a structure that once served some other function, the answer is an (almost trivial) yes: the claim is true of most complex structures. But if language is modified, then natural selection was the modifying force." (Maynard Smith, & Szathmáry, 1995, p.290).
"Of course, when thinking about the V2 rocket I was thinking about a product of human design, whereas, a few years later, when I was thinking about the shapes of mammalian teeth, I was asking why mammals were better at chewing, and so left more descendants. But this difference had no effect on the way I thought about the two problems. Indeed, I have become increasingly convinced that there is no way of telling the difference between an evolved organism and an artifact designed by an intelligent being. Thus imagine that the first spacemen to land on Mars are met by an object which appears to have sense organs (eyes, ears) and organs of locomotion (legs, wings). How will they know whether it is an evolved organism, or a robot designed by an evolved organism? Only, I think, by finding out where it came from, and perhaps not even then." (Maynard Smith, J., 1995, "Genes, Memes, & Minds." Review of Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett. Simon and Schuster. The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLII, No. 19, November 30, pp.46-48, p.46).
"Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by nonbiologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving nonbiologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory." (Maynard Smith, 1995, pp.46-48, p.46).
"As organizer of a symposium in London on adaptation, I invited Lewontin, as a well-known critic of naive adaptationist arguments, to contribute. Lewontin ... suggested that he write a joint paper with Gould, which Gould would present. The result was the now-famous paper entitled `Spandrels of San Marco.' [Gould, S.J. & Lewontin, R.C., "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme," Proceedings of the Royal Society London, Series B, Vol. 205, September 21,1979, pp.581-598] Its thesis is that many structures in the animal world are not adapted for any function, but, like the spandrels of San Marco, are accidental and unselected consequences of something else. Further, they argued, many adaptive explanations are `Just So Stories,' unsupported by evidence. By and large, I think their paper had a healthy effect. There are plenty of bad adaptive stories: we can all laugh at the suggestion that flamingos are pink because it camouflages them against the sunset. Their critique forced us to clean up our act and to provide evidence for our stories." (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.47).
"But adaptationism remains the core of biological thinking. Confronted with feathers, or eyes, or ribosomes, we cannot not ask what they are for. It would be no more plausible to suppose that they are accidental and non- selected byproducts of something else than it would be to suppose that the gyroscope in the V2 rocket was connected as it was because some German fitter made a mistake." (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.47).
"A science of population genetics is possible because the laws of transmission- Mendel's laws-are known. Dennett would agree that no comparable science of memetics is as yet possible. His point is a philosophical rather than a scientific one. We see humans as the joint products of their genes and their memes-indeed, what else could they possibly be?-even if we have no predictive science of meme change." (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.47).
"The past thirty years has seen a debate on the nature of language. For Skinner, the ability to learn a language was just an aspect of our general learning ability. For Chomsky and his students, it is a special faculty, both in the sense of being peculiar to humans and of being peculiar to language. Dennett accepts, and I agree, that this argument has been won by Chomsky: there is indeed a special `language organ' that enables children to learn to talk." (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.48).
"I therefore find Chomsky's views on evolution completely baffling. If the ability to learn a language is innate, it is genetically programmed, and must have evolved. But Chomsky refuses to think about how this might have happened. For example, in 1988 he wrote, `In the case of such systems as language or wings, it is not easy even to imagine a course of selection that might have given rise to them.' [Chomsky, N., "Language and Problems of Knowledge," MIT Press: Cambridge MA, 1987, p.167] This is typical of his remarks on evolution. There is, in fact, no difficulty in imagining how wings might have evolved. Language is difficult because it leaves no fossils; it has evolved just once (unlike wings, which have evolved at least four times); and there is an enormous gap between the best that apes, whales, or parrots can do and what almost all humans can do." (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.48).
"It is not hard to think of functional intermediates between ape language and human language, but it is hard to decide what were the actual intermediates. Perhaps more interestingly, new kinds of organs-and the language organ is certainly new-do not usually arise from nothing, but as modifications of preexisting organs with different functions. Teeth are modified scales, legs are modified fins, and, after complex transformations, ears are modified parts of the lateral line organs of fish. What was the language organ doing before it acquired its present function?" (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.48).
"Dennett's argument on this point should be read with care. I am not sure I have understood it correctly, but I like it, partly because I cannot see what else human intelligence could be, other than algorithmic, and partly, perhaps, because while I am rather good at having mathematical intuitions, I have learned that they are sometimes wrong." (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.48).
"Dennett's last topic is the evolution of morality. Here it is important to distinguish two questions: `How could humans come to have a sense of right and wrong?' and `What is right and what is wrong?' I do not think the first question is all that difficult. I would expect any intelligent organism that lives in groups to evolve an ability to hold beliefs about right behavior, and to be influenced in those beliefs by myth and ritual. We do not only have beliefs: we make contracts. It is worth asking what cognitive equipment is needed to make a contract. At the very least, it requires language and a `theory of mind': that is, we must be able to perceive other people as beings like ourselves, with minds like ours. Both these qualities are probably unique to humans. But is there any way in which we can decide, with certainty, which actions are right? Dennett's view, which I share, is that there is not, unless you hold that some book, for example the Bible, is the word of God, and that human beings are here to do God's bidding. If a person is simply the product of his or her genetic makeup and environmental history, including all the ideas that he or she has assimilated, there is simply no source whence absolute morality could come. Of course, this does not exempt us from making moral judgments: it only means that we cannot be sure that we are right." (Maynard Smith, 1995, p.48).
"The idea that the world is peculiarly adapted to the appearance of life is not a new one. In 1913, the biochemist L.J. Henderson pointed out that many substances such as water have precisely those properties required if life is to exist. Most biologists rejected his views, arguing that organisms are adapted to their environments by natural selection, not the other way around. But the questions he raised have surfaced again recently in a new form. It turns out that the physical constants have just the values required to ensure that the Universe contains stars with planets capable of supporting intelligent life. The 'cosmological anthropic principle' has been suggested as an explanation for this puzzling fact. The principle takes several forms. The weak anthropic principle merely states that certain universes, with unfortunate lists of physical constants, would not be observable by us, simply because we would not be there. The weak principle is not a theory: it merely acknowledges a peculiar situation. The strong principle, proposed by Brandon Carter, is more radical. It states that the Universe must have those properties that allow life to develop in it at some stage of its life history. How can this curious claim be understood? The simplest interpretation is that the Universe was designed by a creator who intended that intelligent life should evolve. This interpretation lies outside science." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E., 1996, "On the likelihood of habitable worlds," Nature, Vol. 384, 14 November, p.107).
"The accuracy of replication If the replication process were exact, no new variants would arise, and evolution would slow down and stop. The in vitro experiments work only because enzyme replication of RNA is not exact. However, evolution would also be impossible if the replication process were too inaccurate. ... It also raises an important difficulty for theories of the origin of life. The genome could not become greater than 100 bases in the absence of specific replication enzymes, yet a genome of less than 100 bases could hardly code for such an enzyme ... ." (Maynard Smith, J., 1998, "Evolutionary Genetics," [1988], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, Second edition, Reprinted, 2000, pp.20-24. Italics original).
"Although Darwin's idea is simple-perhaps because it is so simple-it is hard to believe that it can really explain the complexity we see around us. We may be able to breed cows that give more milk, but we could not breed pigs that fly, or horses that talk: there would be no promising variants that we could select and breed from. Where does the variation come from that has made possible the evolution of ever increasing complexity? Biology textbooks are liable to say that mutations-that is, new heritable variants-are random. The statement is near enough true, although 'random' is a notoriously difficult word to define: it would be better to say that, in general, new mutations are more likely to be harmful to survival than adaptive. Can it really be true that mutations that in their origin are nonadaptive led to the evolution of the wonderfully adapted organisms we see around us?" (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E., 1999, "The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language," Oxford University Press: New York NY, p.2. Italics original).
"How did genetic information increase? ... The simplest process is the duplication of a piece of DNA, which can vary in length from a single gene to a whole set of chromosomes. Such accidental events are not all that infrequent. In itself, a duplication does not add to the total quantity of information present: two copies of a message are not more informative than one. All it does is to produce additional DNA that can later be programmed by selection. ... In evolution, the new DNA already carries a message, albeit a redundant one. New information requires that this message be altered step by step. We know that the duplication of genes has been important. A classic example concerns haemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood. It is a compound of four subunits, of two kinds, each kind programmed by a different gene. The two genes arose by duplication, followed by minor divergence. A further round of duplication and divergence produced the different haemoglobin in the fetus of mammals. Gene duplication is common, but does not always lead to an increase in information: more often, one of the two copies degenerates, because natural selection does not maintain two copies if one will do. Our chromosomes are full of such fossil genes, so-called pseudogenes. It is only occasionally that the duplicate copy acquires a new function. The important point is that duplication, whether of single genes or whole genomes, does not in itself produce significant novelty. It merely provides additional DNA that is not needed, and so can be programmed to perform new functions. It does not cause increased complexity, but it does provide the raw material for such an increase to occur later." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, 1999, pp.26-27. Italics original).
"Replication is not perfect. If it were, there would be no variation for selection to act on. But initially the problem would have been too much mutation, and not too little. Most mutations reduce fitness. Selection is therefore needed to maintain a meaningful message. ... How accurate must replication be? Imagine a message-for example, a DNA molecule-that replicates to produce two copies of itself. The two copies replicate to produce four, and so on. During replication, miscopying occurs, and the erroneous copies that result are eliminated by selection. Only perfect copies survive. It is clear that, after each copying, at least one copy on average must be perfect. Otherwise selection cannot maintain the integrity of the message. This places an upper limit on the permissible mutation rate per base copied, or, equivalently, an upper limit on the length of the message, for a given mutation rate. If the genome size, or the mutation rate per symbol, rises above this critical upper limit, the result is an accumulation of mutated messages. This is what Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster have called the `error threshold'. It is easy to see roughly where this upper limit lies. The requirement is that at least one perfect copy, on average, must be made at each replication. If there are n symbols, this means, approximately, that the probability of an error when replicating a symbol must be not greater than 1/n. In other words, if the genome contains 1000 bases, the mutation rate per base, per replication, must be not greater than 1/1000. The error rate in experiments ... is in the range 1/1000 to 1/10 000. This would permit a genome between 1000 and 10 000 bases. But this involves replication by an enzyme; if there is no enzyme, the error rate is much higher. ... The error rate depends on the medium, the temperature, and so on, but very roughly the wrong base pairs ... once in 20 times. This implies that, before there were specific enzymes, the maximum size of the genome was about 20 bases. At first sight, this is a serious difficulty, and so it was long regarded. It presented a kind of catch-22 of the origin of life. Without a specific enzyme, the genome size is limited to about 20 bases; but with a mere 20 bases one cannot code for an enzyme, let alone the translating machinery needed to convert the base sequence into a specific protein." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, 1999, pp.34-36).
"The first point to make is that, although biologists often speak of 'sexual reproduction', the sexual process is in fact the precise opposite of reproduction. In reproduction, one cell divides into two: in sex, two calls fuse to form one. Sex is not even necessary for continued reproduction. Many single-celled organisms, and some animals and plants, reproduce indefinitely without sex. .... Thus, whatever may be the explanation of sex, it cannot be said that without it continued reproduction is impossible." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, 1999, p.79).
"Our problem is to explain why sex arose, and why it is today so widespread. If it is not necessary, why do it? The problem is made harder by what has been called the 'twofold cost of sex'. To understand this cost, imagine a typical sexual species of lizard. A female can lay, perhaps, a hundred eggs during her lifetime, but on average, because the number of lizards remains roughly constant, only two of them will survive to breed, one a male and one a female. Thus, on average, each female will produce one daughter. Now imagine a mutant gene causing a female to be parthenogenetic, producing daughters genetically identical to herself. She, too, will, on average, lay a hundred eggs, of which two will survive. But both these will be parthenogenetic females. Initially, and barring accidents, the number of parthenogenetic females in the population will double in every generation. Rather quickly, parthenogens will replace sexuals. Thus there is a twofold advantage associated with parthenogenesis, or, equivalently, a twofold cost of sex." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, 1999, p.80).
"Because the first sexual eukaryotes were certainly isogamous, it follows that the twofold cost is a problem only if we are concerned to explain the maintenance of sex in later, anisogamous organisms, but not when discussing the origin of sex. All the same, there must be some costs associated with sex, even in isogamous organisms. Apart from the necessity of a gamete finding a partner with which to fuse, growth and reproduction are interrupted by the complex process of meiosis whereby gametes with half the number of chromosomes are produced. To ensure the proper distribution of chromosomes, the production of gametes is a complicated process, as anyone familiar with the accounts of meiosis in biology textbooks will be aware. Because of these complications, and the obvious disadvantages associated with them, it is not surprising that the origin and maintenance of sex continue to be a matter of controversy among biologists." (Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, 1999, pp.80-81).
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