> At 12:28 PM 2/1/2010, mep wrote:
>
>
> Yes, there is sense that people believe that this research is a
>> fundamental
>> challenge to current evolutionary/biological thinking:
>>
>
>
> The quotes you followed this with talk about enhancement and
> transformation, not fundamental challenge.
>
>
Read them again, carefully:
Only **recently**, I think, has this enhancement of evolutionary theory gained a serious foothold,
or that **new ideas** are starting to flourish in evolutionary research, ideas which might **fundamentally change** our concept of species-being,
and that this research is a ***transformation of the way we understand the evolutionary process***
Those are just the examples I cited... there are others.
>
>
> What reason do you have to assume that HGT in
>> general, and this paper specifically, is in any way contentious or
>> challenging to some reigning orthodoxy in the scientific community?
>>
>
>
> Nobody said that. People were just excited about something so interesting
> getting attention outside of specialists. Why such a tizzy about that?
>
>
No one may have specifically used the word "orthodoxy" but it's difficult, if not impossible, to avoid the impression from reading the thread that something new and challenging to the existing consensus on evolutionary theory or biology is occuring. Aside from the subject line in the thread there's the implied scientific resistence (at least recent resistence) to HGT's role in evolution, since among other things we were told that "valid theories don't immeadiately take hold" but now these these ideas about the role of HGT may be "catching on".
Personally I don't care if people are simply being over-enthusiastic, or exhagerating the importance that some scientific results may have for biology or evolutionary theory. I found the original NS article irritating, and that irritation carried over to the irritated responses to Carrol correctly calling bullshit.
-mep