TRIAL LIST, heritability and cultrue

Kudos to Bill Morse !

In a contribution Bill made to another thread, he clarified for me -- for my
first time ever -- some clear and important connections between
non-heritable acquired characteristics and the INDIRECT heritability of
genetic propensities required for the making of those very acquisitions,
from WITHIN the assumption that it is, after all, survivors who get to
reproduce.

Wow ! Thank you, Bill !

Inspired by this connecting of dots by you, let me see if -- with help from
you and others -- any consensus might be approached on an outline of
statements bringing together some assumptions as to how non-heritable
genetic codes can _indirectly_ influence a gene pool.

The list below is NOT one I have thought through fully -- not by a long
shot. It is merely preliminary brainstorming on how to bring together some
mutually agreeable assumptions on the subject. Neither is it intended as
representing a stance on my part -- although it certainly represents an
effort to FIND things to take stances on -- if that be possible.

Since Bill has provided -- to my thinking, at least -- the clearest picture
of certain connections between certain dots, so far, I hope you (Bill Morse)
will stay with this new thread and help toward putting some things into
place in such a way that others will find common ground for adding more
pieces to a veritable jigsaw puzzle.

To any other contributors who would like to help SEEK as near a consensus as
attainable, WELCOME !

Here goes a FIRST DRAFT ATTEMPT.

TO ANY AND ALL, please tell me how you would recommend editing anything
in this list to bring it into conformity to your view. Probably there will
be multiple views, and where there is disagreement I cannot accommodate all.
But it will be interesting to see where at least some of us can agree. Here
goes:

I. In sexual reproduction, the only means whereby characteristics of a
parent may be inherited by offspring of
the parent is by way of genetic means;

II. Gene copying, in any specific reproductive event, has some chance of
mutation, but tends to be 'correct'
in the preponderance of reproductive events;

III. Non-mutation reproductive events produce offspring which -- depending
on the mix of genes the offspring gets from which parent -- can produce
individual offspring which may be less well equipped than either parent to
survive in the context of the milieu into the which it is born, or similarly
equipped to either or both parents to survive in said milieu, or better
equipped than either or both parents to survive in that milieu;

IV. Mutations, being random, tend toward reproductive events in which the
gamete is:
1. Most likely disadvantaged and hence results in failure of
fertilization, an aborted fetus, or a live birth in which survivability of
the offspring is grossly reduced;
2. Benign (non-survivability-reducing) results, in a significant
percentage of events;
3. Distinct and/or immediate advantage, in a tiny minority of reproductive
events.

V. CUMULATIVE advantages and disadvantages, which accrue over many
generations, tend to aggregate primarily out of combinatorial
characteristics from III, above, where the same genetic deck is reshuffled
again and again, and individuals getting the best hands, as it were, are
thereby enabled to survive long enough to reproduce, while recipients of
weaker hands from the gene pool, as it were, tend to be eliminated from the
'game.'

VI. Cumulative advantages and disadvantages also are derived _inversely_ in
proportion to the immediate
advantages and disadvantages in IV, above. That is:
1. The most likely source of long term advantages are derived from the
immediately advantageous results of category IV, 3;
2. A substantial number of advantages are derived from the neutral pool
of category IV, 2, due to the fact
that some of these, while they do not yield any benefit singly, may yield
benefits in combination with other genes that were not present in the mix in
which the original mutation occurred;
3. Rarely (but occasionally) advantage may arise from genes which are
enabled to survive, notwithstanding immediate disadvantages, and reproduce,
thus allowing _combinations_ of the immediately disadvantageous
genes in combination with other genes that were not present in the original
mix in which the disadvantage occurred.

NOTE: For some, it may be necessary to read this paragraph several times
and not be hasty in rejecting it. Even as counter-intuitive as it may sound
at first encounter, some survival of DISADVANTAGES in genes is necessary for
some evolutionary changes to have occurred. Consider, for example, the
evolution of birds from dinosaur predecessors (a process that is assumed by
many evolutionary biologists to be authentic). In a population of large
dinosaurs, surely any offspring that tended to be smaller than their parents
were at a disadvantage, from birth. And surely the development of hollow
bones was disadvantageous when it first appeared in that sequence of
reproductions, as it is unlikely it occurred together the first time around,
in combination with exactly the other characteristics whereby the individual
would have had the complex advantage of being able to run faster. It is not
reasonable to assume that entire complex packages of combinatorial
advantages occurred at once, and all together, in a single mutated
conception. So if such characteristics as yielded immediate disadvantages
were to have an opportunity to combine with other mutations (or hands from
an otherwise consistent gene pool deck) these most likely (by exponential
mathematical odds) occurred first as disadvantages that nonetheless did NOT
result in being eliminated from the evolutionary game. If birds, for
example, evolved from dinosaurs, as is assumed by many evolutionary
biologists today, and were rendered by the power of flight to escape their
predators, or to become predators,
the first mutated offspring having one or another of the first occurring
characteristics which, all together, enable flights, were NOT likely to have
gotten all of them in a single instance.

VII. Cognitive learning has no way of being translated _directly_ into a
gene pool. However, any existing
mutation, at any given time, which would enhance cognitive learning, would
tend to enable its possessor to
learn things it could use to improve its coping. (But, see note.)

NOTE: Intelligence is sometimes assumed to be 100 % advantageous, 100 % of
the time. If that were so, then the only species existing today would be
the most intelligent ones. That is NOT the case. Cognitive learning
ability (intelligence quotient) is but __ one out of many__ mechanisms that
have yielded advantage
in many different contexts. Dogs are more abundant that wolves today,
despite having approximately two-thirds as much intelligence. And
opossums -- per body weight -- are at the low end of intelligence quotients
of mammals, for their size. Yet opossums are abundantly successful, by
virtue of certain characteristics that
yield advantages not requiring high intelligence. Their wide spectrum of
food sources and their characteristic of going, mindlessly if you will, into
almost any habitat offering any kind of food they can digest has made them
one of the most successful and widespread class of mammals on Earth. Their
random migration characteristic has been credited as being one of their most
successful mechanisms of survival, and may be linked to their inability to
find their way back to a prior food source or a nest they have slept in
previously.
As regarding the species homo sapiens, there is an abundance of evidence to
support a contention that the species is over-populating and is
over-stressing Earth's ecology -- hence tending to corrupt the very ecology
the species ultimately must depend upon for long term survival.


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