Over the past 150 years since the publication of The Origin of Species, the focus of research has centered on discovering the origin of the variation. Darwin clearly acknowledged ignorance on this subject, our “ignorance of the laws of variation is profound. Not in one case out of a hundred can we pretend to assign any reason why this or that part has varied.”

Neo-Darwinism, otherwise known as the Modern Synthesis proposed that mutations originated the variations required for natural selection to act.

Now in the aftermath of the gene-centric Modern Synthesis meltdown, evolutionary scientists have been forced to explore new avenues beyond mutations to account for the origin of new and novel variations. At the top of the evolution industry list of potential candidates are self-organizational theories.

Richard Johns, professor at the University of British Columbia at Vancouver in his recent paper in the journal Synthese titled “Self-organisation in dynamical systems: a limiting result”, presents an argument why self-organizational theories will ultimately fail to produce the range of variations for biological evolution.

To start the argument, Johns notes the limits of self-organization: “Very few kinds of object can selforganise, and the question of what such objects are like is a suitable mathematical problem.” Birds in-flight and colonies of ants self-organize as a behavior, but their organization is not the result of physical forces.

In an interview with Casey Luskin at the Discovery Institute, Johns points out that crystals form spontaneously in nature, given required conditions, and vortex-like shapes can develop from the interaction of physical forces. For this to happen, “only objects of very low dynamical complexity can self organise, so that living organisms must be of low dynamical complexity.”

Physical self-organization is limited, then, by the “notion of ‘dynamical complexity’”. By comparison, inorganic chemistry is not as complex as biological systems. According to Johns, since “living organisms are highly complex” the probability of the physical forces to self-organize are limited, therefore Johns concludes, “currently recognized processes driving evolutionary change are incomplete.” On the Uncommon Descent blog, Johns further expands the issues.

Stephen Meyer, In Signature in the Cell, agrees with Johns, “Self-organizational theories have failed to explain the origin of the genetic code for several reasons.” Self-organization can only create redundant order—not novel or complex information.

“Therefore, self-organizational forces of chemical necessity,” Meyer explains, “produce[s] redundant order and precludes complexity… they [self-organization] cannot be invoked to explain the origin of information [variations].”

Meyer aligns with physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, noting that the development of complex genetic functions cannot be constrained by self-organizational laws. As Polanyi concludes, “Whatever may be the origin of a DNA configuration, it can function as a code only if it’s order is not due to forces of potential energy. It must be as physically indeterminate as the sequence of words on a printed page.”

The Modern Synthesis era, has once again arrived at a dead-end. The evolution industry has failed in their search to discover a source for variations beyond Darwin’s original dilemma—“ignorance of the laws of variation is profound.”

The theory of evolution is currently in shambles. Even the National Science Teachers Association [NSTA] has now been forced to cautiously approach this now obvious reality –

There is considerable debate about how evolution has taken place

Evolution, once a theory is crisis during the twentieth century, is now in crisis without a theory.

The etymology of pangenesis comes from the Greek words pan (a prefix meaning “whole”, “encompassing”) and genesis (birth) or genos (origin). Gemmules were thought to learn from experiences.

The origin of new variations was critical for Darwin’s theory since the “slight, successive” changes in evolution requires a constant stream of new variations for the actions of natural selection. Gemmules were imagined particles. These learned gemmules particles sent from every cell (pan) in the body with new variations (genos) accumulated in the germ cells and had a ‘vote’ in the constitution of the offspring (genesis).

This hypothesis provided a possible mechanism for the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, which Darwin believed to be the origin of new variations in living organisms.

Little did Darwin know that even before the publication of the fourth edition of The Origin of Species in 1866, Gregor Mendel had presented the now-famous paper entitled “Experiments on Plant Hybridization,” laying the foundations of modern genetics.

Although, Mendel’s discovery went unnoticed until the turn of the twentieth century, German biologist August Weismann, at the University of Freiburg, launched the first scientific evidence directly challenging Darwin’s theory. Now known as the “Weisman Barrier,” in 1883, Weismann cut off the tails of mice from 21 generations. Seeing that the 22^nd generation still had tails, Weismann concluded that the evidence contradicted Darwin’s theory of pangenesis despite obvious reasons for change in the mice, “continuity” was observed, not new variations.

Ernst Mayr, Darwin’s twentieth-century bull-dag, stated Weismann as “The second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century.” What is still unresolved now 150 years later is—what is the origin of variation?