Re: Junk DNA: A hypothesis

From: William Morse (wdmorse_at_twcny.rr.com)
Date: 01/29/05 

Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 01:44:19 -0500 (EST)

"Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmenegay@sbcglobal.net> wrote in
news:ct1rij$ggv$1@darwin.ediacara.org:

>
> "Tim Tyler" <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote in message
> news:ct10qr$7jc$1@darwin.ediacara.org...

(snip)

>> Organisms that evolve slowly rapidly lose their red-queen-style
>> races with rapidly-adapting parasites.
 
> But organisms DON'T evolve. Species evolve. The slogan is: Genes
> mutate, organisms are selected, species evolve. IF all selection
> is conventional organism-level selection, then carrying genes that
> promote evolvability provides no selective advantage to the organisms
> that carry them. Organisms CAN'T evolve.
 
> However, if there is something else that is ALSO going on - species-
> level selection - then it MIGHT be the case that evolvable species
> do better than less evolvable ones.

One of the keys to this may be that for conventional organism-level
selection, organisms are assumed to die one at a time. In fact, they
frequently die en masse - e.g. the recent tsunami, which was a horrible
tragedy for humans but a potential extinction event for isolated
populations of other biota. This gives much greater scope for selection at
the population level.

Yours,

Bill Morse

Relevant Pages

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