From: me22over7@gmail.com   
      
   Evidence is emerging that Dawkins' "Mt Improbable" is not Mt Fuji but   
   rather "rugged in all directions" [1]. Neat textbook depictions give way   
   to the reality of a "lack of viable evolutionary pathways among the   
   major optima."   
      
   Beneficial mutations do not work together, rather, "individually   
   beneficial mutations are often mutually incompatible, leading to   
   ruggedness on the fitness landscape."   
      
   This is at the molecular level with an empirically determined ribozyme   
   fitness landscape. The paper's conclusion?   
      
   "Nevertheless, in the absence of such mechanisms, the emergence of a   
   globally optimal sequence is likely to result from chance events rather   
   than natural selection."   
      
   An appeal to chance of this magnitude is a deal-breaker: "We can accept   
   a certain amount of luck in our explanations, but not too much." (The   
   Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins)   
      
   A similar situation applies for proteins: "...an emerging picture of   
   pervasive epistasis" within proteins [2].   
      
   "Both types of interaction are rampant, but specific epistasis has   
   stronger effects on the rate and outcomes of evolution, because it   
   imposes stricter constraints and modulates evolutionary potential more   
   dramatically; it therefore makes evolution more contingent on   
   low-probability historical events..."   
      
   Note the "*more contingent on low-probability historical events*".   
      
   While selection acts on the phenotype as a whole, molecular evolution   
   underlies the process.   
      
   My prediction: this "emerging picture" will continue to build as   
   evidence against a foundation of Darwinian evolution.   
      
   _______   
      
   [1] Mapping a Systematic Ribozyme Fitness Landscape Reveals a Frustrated   
   Evolutionary Network for Self-Aminoacylating RNA   
   https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.8b13298   
      
   "...optimization of activity over the entire landscape would be   
   frustrated by large valleys of low activity."   
      
   "Our results show that the experimentally determined ribozyme activity   
   landscape exhibits a degree of frustration, as individually beneficial   
   mutations are often mutually incompatible, leading to ruggedness on the   
   fitness landscape."   
      
   "...the inability to traverse the landscape globally corresponds to an   
   inability to restructure the ribozyme without losing activity."   
      
   "The ruggedness of the empirically determined ribozyme fitness landscape   
   reported here can be described by the Rough Mt. Fuji model, which is a   
   combination of a smooth 'Mt. Fuji' landscape and the random   
   House-of-Cards landscape...we suggest that the major [random]   
   House-of-Cards character found implies a substantial level of   
   frustration, consistent with the lack of viable evolutionary pathways   
   among the major optima."   
      
   "The frustrated nature of the evolutionary network suggests that chance   
   emergence of a ribozyme motif would be more important than optimization   
   by natural selection."   
      
   "It should be noted that mechanisms that favor greater genetic   
   diversity, such as recombination, gene duplication, or epistasis among   
   genes, could enable crossing of fitness valleys."   
      
   That is, a familiar mandatory positive spin, but followed by their real   
   conclusion:   
      
   "Nevertheless, in the absence of such mechanisms, the emergence of a   
   globally optimal sequence is likely to result from chance events rather   
   than natural selection."   
      
   _______   
      
   [2] Epistasis in protein evolution   
   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26833806/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)