The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry
“Very glad to see the book. I suspect it should have some (very much needed) influence now against the background of the ‘evo-devo revolution’ and the belated recognition of Margulis’s work.”—Noam Chomsky, MIT Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus“The invitation-only conference, being held in Altenberg, Austria, ‘promises to be far more transforming for the world’ than the 1969 [Woodstock] music festival, Mazur wrote online in March [2008] for Scoop.co.nz, an independent news publication in New Zealand. That hyperbole has reverberated throughout the evolutionary biology community. . . .”—Sciencemagazine“[T]he latest issue of the highly regardedNaturemagazine has a cover article about the important but hidden Altenberg meeting on post-Darwinian research and new thoughts about evolution. We ran a piece of Suzan Mazur’s groundbreaking work on this topic back in March and followed up with another in July.Natureeven borrows from Mazur’s term ‘evolutionary Woodstock’ to describe the critical meeting. The scientific establishment has been somewhat scared of dealing rationally and openly with new evolutionary ideas because of its fear of the powerful creationist movement. So for the topic to make the cover ofNatureis a notable development.”—Sam Smith, Editor,Progressive Review“Well, we don’t have to organize human society ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw.’ No. We don’t have to.”—Richard Lewontin, Professor of Biology, Emeritus, Harvard University“And what Haldane, Fisher, Sewell Wright, Hardy, Weinberg, et al. did was invent. . . . The Anglophone tradition was taught. I was taught and so were my contemporaries. And so were the younger scientists. Evolution was defined as ‘changes in gene frequencies’ in natural populations. The accumulation of genetic mutations were touted to be enough to change one species to another. . . . No. It wasn’t dishonesty. I think it was wish fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact.”—Lynn Margulis, recipient of the US Presidential Medal for Science