Re: Lizard engines and rat engines

g wrote:

> Also, when I would hope to be very clear, I would not say that the African
> elephant species chooses to mutate, but that it mutates as all species do,
> randomly, and those mutations which are rewarded, over a long succession
> of replications (or reproductions) tend to become somewhat "fixed", while
> those that merely tolerated and not rewarded (unless, of course, by being
> tolerated, they may go forward through subsequent replications (or
> reproductions and may work together in conjunction with later mutations
> to work in concert in a way rewarded). Also, I would hope to convey that
> a mutation could result (whether alone or in later combination) to result
> in a detrimental interaction, of internal (homeostasis corrupting)
> incompatibility sets, or external incompatibility sets.
>

Let me put on my pedant's hat for a moment (turnabout is fair play) and
point that the above paragraph contains anthropomorphic terms that need
to be expunged. Mutations are not rewarded, nor are they punished, nor
even tolerated because this implies an external agent that is able to
reward, punish or tolerate. There is no such agent (natural "selection"
is a metaphorical abstraction), nor even any concrete biological force
or mechanism that can perform such actions. Furthermore, species do not
mutate. Individual animals do not mutate. Only genes mutate, and these
mutations can only have an effect on genetic inheritance if they occur
during DNA replication related to reproduction.

The writer of the paragraph needs to consider more carefully what
actually goes on in evolution and rewrite his paragraph accordingly lest
he lead anybody astray.


--dkomo@xxxxxxxx



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