About Me (or how I ended up creating an evolutionary theory website)

The experience that ultimately led me to create this site was the large part of my life that I spent at the Genetics Department of the University of Georgia here in Athens. There I earned a masters (1995) and a Ph.D. (2003) in genetics, and I also did a couple of postdocs. I have an undergraduate degree in mathematics, also from the University of Georgia (I suppose I must like it here in Athens). During my years at the department, I studied molecular evolution, taught biology and genetics, and did genetic research. I have also spent years collecting information about the fossil record.

In addition, I've made an ongoing study of hybridization (a well-known example of a hybrid is the mule, produced by crossing a jackass with a horse) and have made a special study of hybridization in birds. My magnum opus, Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World (Oxford University Press, 2006), a reference book for both birders and professional biologists, provides information on nearly 4,000 distinct types of hybrid crosses among birds and cites more than 5,000 publications. Currently, I'm working on a similar book on hybridization among mammals.

During my years at the Genetics Department, I became increasingly dissatisfied with the standard explanation of evolution. The more I read about fossils, the more convinced I became that Darwin's account of the evolutionary process was fundamentally flawed. Moreover, in my study of hybrids I became aware that an alternative explanation, what I now call "stabilization theory," could do a much better job of explaining the available data.

Over the years, in addition to the dry papers I published on such topics as new genetics software I had written, or surveys of the mouse and rice genomes, I wrote successive versions of a paper explaining the problems I saw with standard evolutionary theory and presented my alternative explanation. These manuscripts would promptly arrive in the hands of anonymous reviewers who would recommend rejection, because, they said, my claims contradicted accepted tenets of standard theory. Well, yes, of course they did — because I was trying to present an alternative evolutionary theory that, if correct, would imply that Darwinian theory is mistaken at an axiomatic level.

My evolving manuscript on evolution, repeatedly rejected, continued to grow and change as I revised it and passed it around to colleagues. Finally it became a book, which I submitted to Oxford University Press in the summer of 2007. After peer review, it was accepted for publication and we signed a contract. The working title for the manuscript was On the Origins of New Life Forms.

However, the editor with whom I was dealing was clearly uncomfortable that the reviews had been mixed. On the one hand, one review was extremely complimentary, saying that the theory presented in the book was revolutionary and that it resolved many of the issues that have been problematic for Darwinian theory. Here's a verbatim excerpt from that reviewer's assessment of my book:

McCarthy masterfully develops an extended argument for a paradigm shift in evolutionary biology from the traditional view that each new species arises gradually from a single ancestral form, to the novel suggestion that each new life form originates suddenly when its recombinant karyotype becomes genetically stabilized following a hybridization event between two distinct ancestors. This bold hypothesis the stuff of which Kuhnian revolutions potentially emerge is presented with eloquence, extensive scholarship, and verve. Importantly, the hypothesis entails empirically testable genetic mechanisms and evolutionary predictions, and thus may stimulate a sweeping research agenda." (to read the entire review click here)

On the other hand, there were reviews that raised objections, all of the same ilk — that my claims were inconsistent with one tenet or another of accepted theory. For those who shy away from anything that rocks the establishment's boat, such objections can never be satisfactorily addressed. And yet, for someone like me, who is trying to critique and improve upon standard theory, they are not even valid. Obviously, a new theory that contradicts an existing theory will be inconsistent with the tenets of that theory!

Be that as it may, such objections weighed increasingly on the mind of my editor. He eventually (after the book had been under contract for nearly a year) requested that we terminate our contract. I had no real recourse, so I agreed. So, rather than submit the manuscript for yet another round of lengthy, and perhaps fruitless, review, I decided to create a website that would make my ideas available directly to the public — Macroevolution.net is now the 4th most popular website worldwide on the topic of evolution. Here, I am publishing the same manuscript with a slightly altered title, On the Origins of New Forms of Life: A New Theory. If you'll take the time to read this material, I believe you will be convinced, as I am, that stabilization theory provides a much improved explanation of the data. So please — start reading now. You can read the book right here on the website. To access its table of contents, click here.