List of Breakthrough Prize Winners in Life Sciences Hints at the Lack of Progress in Evolutionary Biology

 The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a 3-million dollar prize given for advances in biology.  The prize was founded by 2013 after donations by high-tech billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg. Let's take a look at a list of all the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences that have been awarded since 2013, quoting from the wikipedia.org page that lists them:

• "for the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules"
• "for linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms"
• "for the discovery of PI 3-Kinase and its role in cancer metabolism"
• "for describing the role of Wnt signaling in tissue stem cells and cancer"
• "for research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome instability in cancer"
• "for discoveries in the mechanisms of angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye diseases"
• "for the discovery of general principles for identifying human disease genes, and enabling their application to medicine through the creation and analysis of genetic, physical and sequence maps of the human genome"
• "for cancer genes and targeted therapy"
• "for characterization of human cancer genes"
• "for induced pluripotent stem cells"
• "for cancer genomics and tumor suppressor genes"
• "for the discovery of T cell checkpoint blockade as effective cancer therapy"
• "for defining the interlocking circuits in the brain that malfunction in Parkinson’s disease – this scientific foundation underlies the circuit-based treatment of Parkinson’s disease by deep brain stimulation"
• "for the discovery of Target of Rapamycin (TOR) and its role in cell growth control"
• "for discoveries leading to the development of controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials"
• "for the discovery of genes and biochemical mechanisms that cause hypertension"
• "for discovering critical molecular determinants and biological functions of intracellular protein degradation"
• "for the discovery and pioneering work on the development of high-frequency deep brain stimulation (DBS), which has revolutionized the treatment of Parkinson’s disease"
• "for the discovery of covalent modifications of histone proteins and their critical roles in the regulation of gene expression and chromatin organization, advancing the understanding of diseases ranging from birth defects to cancer"
• "for the discovery of a new world of genetic regulation by microRNAs, a class of tiny RNA molecules that inhibit translation or destabilize complementary mRNA targets"
• "for harnessing an ancient mechanism of bacterial immunity into a powerful and general technology for editing genomes, with wide-ranging implications across biology and medicine"
• "for the development and implementation of optogenetics – the programming of neurons to express light-activated ion channels and pumps, so that their electrical activity can be controlled by light"
• "for discovering mutations in the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene that cause early onset Alzheimer’s disease, linking accumulation of APP-derived beta-amyloid peptide to Alzheimer’s pathogenesis and inspiring new strategies for disease prevention"
• "for the discovery of human genetic variants that alter the levels and distribution of cholesterol and other lipids, inspiring new approaches to the prevention of cardiovascular and liver disease"
• "for pioneering the sequencing of ancient DNA and ancient genomes, thereby illuminating the origins of modern humans, our relationships to extinct relatives such as Neanderthals, and the evolution of human populations and traits"
• "for elucidating how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to damage in their DNA and providing insights into the development and treatment of cancer"
• "for discovering the centrality of RNA in forming the active centers of the ribosome, the fundamental machinery of protein synthesis in all cells, thereby connecting modern biology to the origin of life and also explaining how many natural antibiotics disrupt protein synthesis"
• "for pioneering research on the Wnt pathway, one of the crucial intercellular signaling systems in development, cancer and stem cell biology"
• "for elucidating autophagy, the recycling system that cells use to generate nutrients from their own inessential or damaged components"
• "for discoveries of the genetic causes and biochemical mechanisms of spinocerebellar ataxia and Rett syndrome, findings that have provided insight into the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative and neurological diseases"
• "for discovering how plants optimize their growth, development, and cellular structure to transform sunlight into chemical energy"
• "for elucidating the unfolded protein response, a cellular quality-control system that detects disease-causing unfolded proteins and directs cells to take corrective measures"
• "for elucidating the sophisticated mechanism that mediates the perilous separation of duplicated chromosomes during cell division and thereby prevents genetic diseases such as cancer"
• "for elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of a type of inherited ALS, including the role of glia in neurodegeneration, and for establishing antisense oligonucleotide therapy in animal models of ALS and Huntington disease"
• "for the development of an effective antisense oligonucleotide therapy for children with the neurodegenerative disease spinal muscular atrophy"
• "for determining the consequences of aneuploidy, an abnormal chromosome number resulting from chromosome mis-segregation"
• "for discovering hidden structures in cells by developing super-resolution imaging – a method that transcends the fundamental spatial resolution limit of light microscopy"
• "for elucidating how DNA triggers immune and autoimmune responses from the interior of a cell through the discovery of the DNA-sensing enzyme cGAS"
• "for the discovery of a new endocrine system through which adipose tissue signals the brain to regulate food intake"
• "for discovering functions of molecular chaperones in mediating protein folding and preventing protein aggregation"
• "for discovering molecules, cells, and mechanisms underlying pain sensation"
• "for discovering TDP43 protein aggregates in frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and revealing that different forms of alpha-synuclein, in different cell types, underlie Parkinson’s disease and Multiple System Atrophy"
• "for developing technology that allowed the design of proteins never seen before in nature, including novel proteins that have the potential for therapeutic intervention in human diseases"
• "for deconstructing the complex behavior of parenting to the level of cell-types and their wiring, and demonstrating that the neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors are present in both sexes"
• "for discovering that fetal DNA is present in maternal blood and can be used for the prenatal testing of trisomy 21 and other genetic disorders"
• "for elucidating a quality control pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against Parkinson’s Disease"
• "for elucidating the molecular basis of neurodegenerative and cardiac transthyretin diseases, and for developing tafamidis, a drug that slows their progression"
• "for engineering modified RNA technology which enabled rapid development of effective COVID-19 vaccines"
• "for the development of a robust and affordable method to determine DNA sequences on a massive scale, which has transformed the practice of science and medicine"
• "For discovering a fundamental mechanism of cellular organization mediated by phase separation of proteins and RNA into membraneless liquid droplets."
• "For developing a deep learning AI method that rapidly and accurately predicts the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their amino acid sequence."
• "For discovering that narcolepsy is caused by the loss of a small population of brain cells that make a wake-promoting substance, paving the way for the development of new treatments for sleep disorders."
• "For the development of chimeric antigen receptor T cell immunotherapy whereby the patient's T cells are modified to target and kill cancer cells."
• "For developing life-transforming drug combinations that repair the defective chloride channel protein in patients with cystic fibrosis."
• "For identifying GBA1 and LRRK2 as risk genes for Parkinson's disease, implicating autophagy and lysosomal biology as critical contributors to the pathogenesis of the disease."
• "For the discovery and characterization of GLP-1 and revealing its physiology and potential in treating diabetes and obesity."
• "For establishing the role of B cells in multiple sclerosis and developing B-cell based treatments, and for revealing that Epstein-Barr virus infection is the leading risk for multiple sclerosis."
• "For developing base editing and prime editing, technologies that edit the DNA of living systems without cutting the DNA double helix, and rewrite segments of genes at their native locations, enabling the correction or replacement of virtually any mutation."

None of these prizes are for work that was any real progress in evolutionary biology. Judging from these awards between 2013 and 2025, it seems that scientists are getting nowhere trying to prove their claims that species arose through Darwinian evolution.  The closest that we have in the list above to something sounding like progress in evolutionary biology is this reference: "for pioneering the sequencing of ancient DNA and ancient genomes, thereby illuminating the origins of modern humans, our relationships to extinct relatives such as Neanderthals, and the evolution of human populations and traits." But no mention is made to any specific progress in evolutionary biology.  Studying ancient DNA has not actually illuminated the origin of modern humans in any substantial way. Neanderthals are not believed to be ancestors of humans, and it is believed that modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed before the Neanderthals went extinct about 40,000 years ago. 

Evolutionary biology has never offered any credible explanations for the origin of any complex biological innovation. The more that we understand how information-rich and how vastly organized organisms such as mammals are, the less credible are the explanatory boasts of evolutionary biologists. The claim of evolutionary biologists that biological innovations requiring the most enormously impressive engineering effects arose because of mere accumulations of random mutations is as senseless as the claim that some large library of books arose because of an accumulation of accidental ink splashes. 

Nowadays departments of evolutionary biology do not serve very substantially as sources of real biology progress. They instead serve mainly as outposts of ideological imperialism, bastions dedicated to preserving old belief traditions and moldy old boasts that give comfort to atheists. The most progress in biology these days comes from departments of biochemistry. The more progress that occurs in biochemistry, the more we understand the stratospheric levels of fine-tuning, component interdependence and well-engineered molecular machinery needed for organisms to function, and the less credible are Darwinist boasts of having explained the origin of species such as mankind. Darwinist ideas do so little to explain the endless astonishing wonders of biochemistry that Darwin and evolution often get virtually no mention in biochemistry textbooks, as I document in my post "The Negligible Presence of Evolutionary Explanations in Six Biochemistry Textbooks."

What is also remarkable in the list above of winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is the lack of any accurate mention of progress in the field of cognitive neuroscience. The only thing that sounds like such a mention is the statement "for deconstructing the complex behavior of parenting to the level of cell-types and their wiring, and demonstrating that the neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors are present in both sexes." There are no actual neural circuits governing parenting behaviors, and claims to explain complex behavior on the basis of "wiring" are unfounded. The quoted statement refers to a year 2021 award to Catherine Dulac, who did not actually produce any well-designed robust research backing up any claim that there are "neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors." See the appendix of this post for more about Dulac's work. 

From the list of prize winners above, it sounds like those trying to prove "brains make minds" claims are making as little progress as those trying to prove the claims of Darwinism. The more carefully you study the physical shortfalls of brains and their synapses, the less credible such "brains make minds" claims will seem. 

Appendix: I looked on Google Scholar for examples of Dulac's work related to claims that there are "neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors." I find some examples of what look like low-quality rodent research. Specifically:

• Dulac co-authored the paper "Galanin neurons in the medial preoptic area govern parental behavior." It is some research involving mice, but how many mice were used? We seem to get no mention of that in the paper, and that typically occurs when some way-too-small study group size was used. The paper confesses, "The sample sizes in our study were chosen based on common practice in animal behavior experiments." That's what scientists say when they lazily failed to do a sample size calculation to determine how large a sample size should be used for a result with good statistical power. The use of way-too-small study group sizes is disgustingly predominant in neuroscience rodent research, so you do nothing to show that you used an adequate sample size by referring to "common practice in animal behavior experiments."
• Dulac co-authored the paper "Functional circuit architecture underlying parental behaviour." It is a paper using way-too-small study group sizes of only 3 mice or 6 mice. No research like this should be taken seriously unless it used study group sizes of at least 15 or 20 animals per study group. 
• Dulac co-authored the paper "Urocortin-3 neurons in the mouse perifornical area promote infant-directed neglect and aggression." It is low-quality research because of its use of way-too-small study group sizes such as only 8 mice. 
  

Dulac has written various review papers reviewing research by others trying to show "neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors." But such review papers are not good evidence, because they are based mainly on citations of other scientists' experiments that typically involve way-too-small study group sizes, as does almost all neuroscience research these days involving rodents. 

The list of Breakthrough Prizes above also refers to an award "for the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules." It was a 2013 award to Cornelia Bargmann, whose research was about C. elegans, a type of speck-sized worm. This was not cognitive neuroscience research involving humans. When we look at a paper such as Bargmann's paper here, we find an unfounded claim of there being a "synaptic guidepost protein," and some research that apparently fails to involve adequate study group sizes.  It is hard to tell exactly how many worms were used, due to another appalling case of failing to clearly specify study group sizes. But at one point we read "five independent F1 animals were transferred onto a single plate," suggesting a study group of only five worms. No mention is made of any sample size calculation, a good indicator that some way-too-small study group sizes were used. A search on Google Scholar for the phrase "synaptic guidepost" seems to reveal no other viewable paper using that phrase in its title, suggesting that Bargmann's results were not well-replicated. Beware of neuroscientists using nicknames for particular types of cells or proteins; the nicknames are typically inappropriate. 

You do not incentivize good scientific research when extremely large cash awards are given for poorly designed research guilty of Questionable Research Practices such as the use of way-too-small study group sizes. When that happens, all that occurs is that a message goes out that a neuroscientist might get rich by doing low-quality research.