The first sentence of the article was "JUST suppose that Darwin's ideas were only a part of the story of evolution."

I think this is interesting, being in my field of horticulture, a lot is said about the

'unnatural' aspects of genetic selection and engineering. 

A light bulb moment for me recently on darwinian evolution was when I realized he was the one who spread and made scientific the concept that species change. That really blew me away, I've always understood the natural world as this changing soup, and to try and imagine thinking like a person who only saw god's creation as static helped me realize why fundies are so damned frustrating!

Of course, taking this thought about how species are fluid, about how egotastic and superficial it is to think that everything is still the same the way 'god' created it, I had to come to the conclusion that this static viewpoint that Darwin challenged is also very similar to the people who are against genetically modifying anything.

The funny thing is now with these new amazing discoveries like microscopes and plant husbandry, we can see the genetic variations that happen at the subcellular and macro levels in one generation. Every sexual offspring of every single living thing is just a little bit different.

So having never heard of horizontal evolution before, it kind of gave me the same open-eyed feeling when I was re-understanding why vertical evolution was so important. Basically, horizontal evolution shows that sexual evolution is kind of the flea on the camels back of the story of the genetic code. It has me thinking about the tenacity of semi-organisms who do nothing but alter the genetic code horizontally (viruses). It also has me think about how more natural genetic engineering is in that life is using other life to create new life for new life situations.

Now, of course, not everyone has to like everything genetic engineering is about, and certainly not accept unequivocally the results of the mixture genetic engineering and american corporate culture, however, there is something very amazing and powerful, to me, about returning to our primordial genetic states and environments. 

To sum it up, I am amused that the same people who will pay more for heirloom vegetable will show up at some sort of NO GMO rally, and that same fundamentalism about the 'pristine and noble wild' is facing an evolving challenge. i can almost taste the new ways of seeing things! They're almost here! 

Another term of genetics that affect evolution worldviews: epigenetics

http://www.alternet.org/story/145394/the_big_theories_underwriting_society_are_crashing_all_around_us_--_are_you_ready_for_a_new_world

that's a pretty deep article, thanks so much for sharing!

i hope it's not too new agey for your tastes...

Oh no not at all! In fact I'm reading the whole site as it were a book I'm very familiar with the science, it's the basis of my work in Horticulture, and right now I'm enjoying reading about the Ironwood mini-ecosystems.