Brian M Kelley

This book investigates potential neo-Darwinian fallacies, specifically regarding a priori assumptions, that may have led to weak scientific methodology and praxis. It was proposed that five concepts must be true for neo-Darwinism to be true. These are gradualism, the tree of life hypothesis, the evidence of microevolutionary change accounting for macroevolutionary change, time and chance, and methodological naturalism. Prima facie, these concepts have tremendous explanatory power. Yet, with an attempt to carefully examine these concepts, all five seem to be assumed a priori so as to dictate the outcome of neo-Darwinism rather than letting the evidence speak for itself. The evidence left by the Cambrian explosion, genomic potential, genetic entropy, irreducible complexity, genetic limits, cyclical change, probability theory, the epistemology of information, and the law of causality seems to pose a dilemma for neo-Darwinian assumptions.

This book investigates potential neo-Darwinian fallacies, specifically regarding a priori assumptions, that may have led to weak scientific methodology and praxis. It was proposed that five concepts must be true for neo-Darwinism to be true. These are gradualism, the tree of life hypothesis, the evidence of microevolutionary change accounting for macroevolutionary change, time and chance, and methodological naturalism. Prima facie, these concepts have tremendous explanatory power. Yet, with an attempt to carefully examine these concepts, all five seem to be assumed a priori so as to dictate the outcome of neo-Darwinism rather than letting the evidence speak for itself. The evidence left by the Cambrian explosion, genomic potential, genetic entropy, irreducible complexity, genetic limits, cyclical change, probability theory, the epistemology of information, and the law of causality seems to pose a dilemma for neo-Darwinian assumptions.

This book examines the impact of different doses of cocaine on three interrelated measures related to affective behaviours between adolescent and adult mice in order to assess the range of affective and rewarding responses, measure of despair, activity, and reward were used. Such methods included the forced swim test (FST), motor activity (MA), and the conditioned place preference (CPP) tests, respectively. Cocaine was selected, in part, because of its robust psychostimulant properties, its use by millions of substance abusers world-wide, and its well understood mechanism of action. This study may help explain some of the neurobiological underpinnings of these finding because cocaine was especially effective in reducing despair-related behaviour in adolescence compared with adults, yet less effective in as an euphoric agent.