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"Prof. Cavalier-Smith of Oxford University has produced a large body of work which is well regarded. Still, he is controversial in a way that is a bit difficult to describe. The issue may be one of writing style. Cavalier-Smith has a tendency to make pronouncements where others would use declarative sentences, to use declarative sentences where others would express an opinion, and to express opinions where angels would fear to tread. In addition, he can sound arrogant, reactionary, and even perverse.
On the other [hand], he has a long history of being right when everyone else was wrong. To our way of thinking, all of this is overshadowed by one incomparable virtue: the fact that he will grapple with the details. This makes for very long, very complex papers and causes all manner of dark murmuring, tearing of hair, and gnashing of teeth among those tasked with trying to explain his views of early life."
"Membrane chemistry divides negibacteria into the more advanced Glycobacteria (e.g. Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria) with outer membrane lipolysaccharide and primitive Eobacteria without lipopolysaccharide (deserving intenser study). It also divides unibacteria into posibacteria, ancestors of eukaryotes, and archaebacteria—the sisters (not ancestors) of eukaryotes and the youngest bacterial phylum. Anaerobic eobacteria, oxygenic cyanobacteria, desiccation-resistant posibacteria and finally neomura (eukaryotes plus archaebacteria) successively transformed Earth. Accidents and organizational constraints are as important as adaptiveness in body plan evolution."[1]
Thomas Cavalier-Smith (2010)
Phylogenetic Fashions & Long Neglected Facts
"Great advances in knowledge and understanding of organismal history have been made, but some fashions, attitudes and dogmas have spread more widely and dominated other viewpoints more than their scientific merits justify. The significance of the stasis of ancestral body plans over billenia and the non-uniformity of evolutionary modes and rates is insufficiently appreciated. Much discussion has been among students of recently derived branches of the tree (Hennig insects; Mayr birds) or among those whose focus is biochemistry or computer algorithms, rather than organisms and the needs and principles of taxonomy. I offer the perspective of a biologist especially interested in unicellular organisms, ancestral groups and in explaining the major transitions of life, perhaps more conscious than most of flaws in some aspects of recent phylogenetic fashions."[1]
Thomas Cavalier-Smith (2010)
Cavalier-Smith's Animal Origins
Phylogeny of the Choanozoa and other unikont eukaryotes.[b][5]
Domain structure of selected annotated sequences.[c][6]
Evolutionary relationships among animals and fungi and their closest unicellular relatives (Choanozoa, Protozoa). [d][7]
Cell structure divergence in phagotrophic non-amoeboid flagellates[e][8]
"The larger larvae of true sponges provided a novel, hitherto unexploited, food for predators. One stem sponge lineage, I suggest, evolved nematocysts to catch and digest them, thereby becoming the ancestor of coelenterates (Cnidaria, Ctenophora), a clade on the best multigene trees. Nematocyst discharge of ECM anchors the aboral pole of settling cnidarian planula larvae just as do secretory flask cells at the aboscular pole (similarly anterior when swimming) of sponge larvae. Flask cells are the only larval sponge cell type to coexpress the majority of post-synaptic protein homologues, so I suggest, evolved directly into nematocytes by evolving capsular/tube minicollagens and cnidoin elastomer that facilitates their nanosecond discharge."[4] - Thomas Cavalier-Smith (2017)
Evolving Animals From Multicellularity
"Evolving multicellularity is easy, especially in phototrophs and osmotrophs whose multicells feed like unicells. Evolving animals was much harder and unique;"[11] - Thomas Cavalier-Smith (2017)
Multicellularity Evolves In Two Ways - Naked and Walled Cells
"Multicellularity evolves in two ways. Naked cells, as in animals and slime moulds, evolve glue to stick together. Walled cells modify wall biogenesis to inhibit the final split that normally makes separate unicells, so daughters remain joined. The ease of blocking that split allowed almost every group of bacteria, fungi and plants (and many chromists) to evolve multicellular walled filaments, more rarely two-dimensional sheets, most rarely three-dimensional tissues. Tissues require more geometric control of daughter wall orientation, as in embryophyte green plants and chromist brown algae; both can grow longer than blue whales. Evolving tissues is selectively harmful to many walled multicells whose filaments are best for reproductive success. Almost all multicells retain unicellular phases (eggs, sperm, zygotes), so adhesion is temporally controlled and developmentally reversible—except for purely clonal vegetatively propagating plants or ‘colonial’ invertebrates (evolutionarily transient) the only organisms that are never unicellular."[12] - Thomas Cavalier-Smith (2017)
Chomsky, Noam; Kreisler, Harry (2002). Activism, Anarchism, and Power (Recorded March 2, 2002). Conversations with History [Show ID: 6568]. University of California Television (UCTV) (published January 31, 2008). (0:59:08)
Buckley Jr., William F.; Chomsky, Noam (1969). Vietnam and the Intellectuals (Episode 143, Recorded on April 3, 1969). Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. Hoover Institution Archives (published January 25, 2017). (0:52:11)
Foucault, Michael; Chomsky, Noam; Elders, Fons (1971). The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature (Recorded October 22, 1971 - Dutch TV November 28, 1971). Philosophical Debate at Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands. withDefiance (published March 13, 2013). (1:10:02)
Eighteen quotes from Noam Chomsky's The Responsibility of Intellectuals
"With respect to the responsibility of intellectuals, there are still other, equally disturbing questions. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the Western world, at least, they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us...[14]
IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. This, at least, may seem enough of a truism to pass over without comment. Not so, however. For the modern intellectual, it is not at all obvious...[14]
‘In addition to this growing lack of concern for truth, we find, in recent published statements, a real or feigned naivete about American actions that reaches startling proportions...[14]
But it is an article of faith that American motives are pure, and not subject to analysis... Although it is nothing new in American intellectual history—or, for that matter, in the general history of imperialist apologia—this innocence becomes increasingly distasteful as the power it serves grows more dominant in world affairs, and more capable, therefore, of the unconstrained viciousness that the mass media present to us each day. We are hardly the first power in history to combine material interests, great technological capacity, and an utter disregard for the suffering and misery of the lower orders. The long tradition of naiveté and self-righteousness that disfigures our intellectual history, however, must serve as a warning...[14]
Is the purity of American motives a matter that is beyond discussion, or that is irrelevant to discussion? Should decisions be left to “experts” with Washington contacts—even if we assume that they command the necessary knowledge and principles to make the “best” decision, will they invariably do so? And, a logically prior question, is “expertise” applicable—that is, is there a body of theory and of relevant information, not in the public domain, that can be applied to the analysis of foreign policy or that demonstrates the correctness of present actions in some way that psychologists, mathematicians, chemists, and philosophers are incapable of comprehending?...[14]
American aggressiveness, however it may be masked in pious rhetoric, is a dominant force in world affairs and must be analyzed in terms of its causes and motives. There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism. To the extent that “expert knowledge” is applied to world affairs, it is surely appropriate—for a person of any integrity, quite necessary—to question its quality and the goals it serves. These facts seem too obvious to require extended discussion...[14]
I do not doubt that these attitudes are in part a consequence of the desperate attempt of the social and behavioral sciences to imitate the surface features of sciences that really have significant intellectual content. But they have other sources as well. Anyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by “sophisticated” methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real. Responsible, non-ideological experts will give advice on tactical questions; irresponsible, “ideological types” will “harangue” about principle and trouble themselves over moral issues and human rights, or over the traditional problems of man and society, concerning which “social and behavioral science” has nothing to offer beyond trivalities. Obviously, these emotional, ideological types are irrational, since, being well-off and having power in their grasp, they shouldn’t worry about such matters.[14]
At times this pseudo-scientific posing reaches levels that are almost pathological...[14]
There is much more that can be said about this topic, but, without continuing, I would simply like to emphasize that, as is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent. Obviously, one must learn from social and behavioral science whatever one can; obviously, these fields should be pursued as seriously as possible. But it will be quite unfortunate, and highly dangerous, if they are not accepted and judged on their merits and according to their actual, not pretended, accomplishments. In particular, if there is a body of theory, well-tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret...[14]
To anyone who has any familiarity with the social and behavioral sciences (or the “policy sciences”), the claim that there are certain considerations and principles too deep for the outsider to comprehend is simply an absurdity, unworthy of comment...[14]
When we consider the responsibility of intellectuals, our basic concern must be their role in the creation and analysis of ideology...[14]
It seems fairly obvious that the classical problems are very much with us; one might plausibly argue that they have even been enhanced in severity and scale. For example, the classical paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty is now an ever-increasing problem on an international scale. Whereas one might conceive, at least in principle, of a solution within national boundaries, a sensible idea of transforming international society to cope with vast and perhaps increasing human misery is hardly likely to develop within the framework of the intellectual consensus that [Daniel] Bell describes...[14]
THUS IT WOULD SEEM NATURAL to describe the consensus of Bell’s intellectuals in somewhat different terms from his. Using the terminology of the first part of his essay, we might say that the Welfare State technician finds justification for his special and prominent social status in his “science,” specifically, in the claim that social science can support a technology of social tinkering on a domestic or international scale. He then takes a further step, ascribing in a familiar way a universal validity to what is in fact a class interest: he argues that the special conditions on which his claim to power and authority are based are, in fact, the only general conditions by which modern society can be saved; that social tinkering within a Welfare State framework must replace the commitment to the “total ideologies” of the past, ideologies which were concerned with a transformation of society. Having found his position of power, having achieved security and affluence, he has no further need for ideologies that look to radical change. The scholar-expert replaces the “free-floating intellectual” who “felt that the wrong values were being honored, and rejected the society,” and who has now lost his political role (now, that is, that the right values are being honored)...[14]
It is easy for an American intellectual to deliver homilies on the virtues of freedom and liberty, but if he is really concerned about, say, Chinese totalitarianism or the burdens imposed on the Chinese peasantry in forced industrialization, then he should face a task that is infinitely more important and challenging—the task of creating, in the United States, the intellectual and moral climate, as well as the social and economic conditions, that would permit this country to participate in modernization and development in a way commensurate with its material wealth and technical capacity...[14]
A GOOD CASE CAN BE MADE for the conclusion that there is indeed something of a consensus among intellectuals who have already achieved power and affluence, or who sense that they can achieve them by “accepting society” as it is and promoting the values that are “being honored” in this society. It is also true that this consensus is most noticeable among the scholar-experts who are replacing the free-floating intellectuals of the past...[14]
IF IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of the intellectual to insist upon the truth, it is also his duty to see events in their historical perspective...[14]
Recent history shows that it makes little difference to us what form of government a country has so long as it remains an “open society,” in our peculiar sense of this term—that is, a society that remains open to American economic penetration or political control...[14]
QUITE OFTEN, THE STATEMENTS of sincere and devoted technical experts give surprising insight into the intellectual attitudes that lie in the background of the latest savagery."[14]
↑Subject to major change, revision ,and/or retraction at any moment.
↑Reconstructed by the maximum likelihood method for 78 protein-coding genes. Numbers beside the internal nodes are maximum likelihood bootstrap values obtained from RaxML and Bayesian MCMC posterior probabilities. Black circles indicate 100% bootstrap support and 1.00 posterior probability values.
↑A: hedgehog and B: Notch homologues. The illustrated domains are some of those found by searches against the Conserved Domain Database. Numbers at the species names are accession numbers, protein IDs from the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and references where annotation recently have been presented. Domain structure identified in Ministeria is compared with animals - Porifera (Amphimedon and Oscarella), Cnidaria (Nematostella) and Chordata (Homo) - and the choanoflagellate Monosiga. Abbreviations: Hh-signal domain, N-terminal hedgehog domain; Hint cleavage site, cleavage site of the C-terminal hedgehog domain; Hint domain, C-terminal hedgehog domain; Notch(DSL), Notch domain also called Delta Serrate Ligand; EGF, epidermal growth factor domain; NL, domain found in Notch and Lin-12; NOD, NOD region; NODP, NODP region; ANK, ankyrin reapeats; PTP, protein tyrosine phosphatase.
↑The five choanozoan classes (bold) form at least four distinct clades, one probably related to fungi and the others to animals. Innovations in pseudopod character and their multiple losses with the origin of cell walls during nutritional shifts from engulfing prey (phagotrophy) to saprotrophy or parasitism are indicated by bars. In the common ancestor of animals and choanoflagellates a subset of the filozoan actin-supportd tentacles aggregated as a collar around the cilium (flagellum) for filter feeding. Epithelia and connective tissue made the first animals: the filter-feeding sponges.
↑Cell structure divergence in phagotrophic non-amoeboid flagellates provided the basis for evolving animals, fungi, plants and chromists. Original description: "Cell structure divergence in phagotrophic non-amoeboid flagellates provided the basis for evolving animals, fungi, plants and chromists. Pseudopodia evolved secondarily, myosin II providing the basis for pseudopodia in animals, Amoebozoa (and Percolozoa) and muscles. Chloroplasts, originating when the plant ancestor enslaved and modified undigested cyanobacteria, were transferred laterally (red arrow) to make chromists (e.g. brown seaweeds, diatoms, dinoflagellates) whose ancestor modified an enslaved undigested red alga. The most basic eukaryote structural dichotomy contrasts Euglenozoa (parallel centrioles; cilia with paraxonemal rods; cytopharynx for feeding) and excavates (Percolozoa, Eolouka, Neolouka: orthogonal centrioles: no paraxonemal rods; feeding by phagocytosing prey drawn into a ventral groove by posterior ciliary currents). The pre-animal lineage lost excavate groove-feeding by evolving ventral ciliary gliding locomotion to generate Sulcozoa, protozoa with a dorsal proteinaceous pellicle (blue). Irrespective of whether the eukaryote tree is rooted within the protozoan subkingdom Eozoa as shown (most likely) or beside Eolouka-like Reclinomonas with the most primitive mitochondria, the immediate ancestors of animals (Choanozoa) arose by loss of the anterior cilium and sulcozoan dorsal pellicle to make opisthokonts (in red) with a radically simplified, more radially symmetric, microtubular cytoskeleton. Long actin-supported filodigits arose in the ancestor of Filosporidia and choanoflagellates and became a circlet of microvilli to make the choanoflagellate/sponge collar for catching bacteria. Filosporidia comprise Filasterea, Ichthyosporea, Corallochytrea. The four derived kingdoms (e.g. ANIMALIA, PLANTAE) are shown in upper case; all taxa in lower case belong to the basal eukaryotic kingdom Protozoa." - Of interest to us on our journey towards animals are: myosin, integrins, catenins, cadherins, epithelia, gametes (sperm and egg), and extracellular matrix (ECM).
