Re: Most important paper in evolutionary biology




Guy Hoelzer hoelzer@xxxxxxx wrote:-
> > JE:-
> > It was just classic rubbish.
> > Lamarck still "stimulates" even after the revised central dogma provided
> THE
> > REFUTABLE reason as to why it remains an impossibility: polypeptides
> cannot
> > code for genes. SIMPLE.

> Lamarck never claimed that polypeptides code for genes.

JE:-
I never claimed that he did. Obviously I do not blame Lamarck for the misuse
of the heritability of acquired characters. Today's pointless row over what
is and what is not Lamarckism, remains unpardonable. If Lamarck had known
what we know today then he would have been appalled at the on going row
concerning his theory. Only the revised central dogma provides an exact
point of demarcation point for what Lamarck had proposed.

>I think you are
> ironically being too gene-centric here.

JE:-
Render unto Caeser what is Caeser's :-) The non reversible relationship
between DNA/RNA and polypeptide provides one of the most important
discoveries in biology IMHO. This is because it provides the most basic
point of logical non reversibility that exists within biology.

> In fact, mechanisms for Lamarkian
> patterns of inheritance have been discovered, and the list is growing.

JE:-
Some of these mechanisms provide examples of this unseemly row over what is
and what is not Lamarkian. I would be the first to agree that an above the
DNA/RNA system of inheritance exists in nature. I remain on record as
arguing that prions may be the 1st stage in identifying such a system. I
have often referred to the classic study of Sonniborn in which the cilia of
protists became surgically reversed producing a Lamarkian trait. It was
empirically proven that a protist can inherit these surgical changes using a
non RNA/DNA system. This effect has been studied intensely:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?tool=QuerySuggestion&cmd=searc
h&db=pmc&term=sonneborn+cilia+reversal

Aufderheide KJ, Frankel J, Williams NE.
Microbiol Rev. 1980 Jun; 44(2): 252-302.
PMCID: 373179'

Page 269:-
"Sonneborn and co-workers (20, 184). They repeatedly backcrossed an inverted
cell line to a normal line, essentially replacing the genome of L the
inverted line with that of the normal line. However, in no case did the
progeny of the exconjugant normal cells express an inversion. And in no case
did the progeny of the exconjugant inversion-carrying cells ever cease to
exdone inpress the cortical inversion (other than by the normal rate of
loss). The two exconjugant cell lines should be isogenic, as can be
demonstrated with various Mendelian marker genes (185). Thus, the cortical
inversion was sustained in the face of a deliberate genetic attack to
eliminate it."

I think that one day researchers will revisit Darwin's pangenetic theory
with an open mind. IMHO Darwin was 200 years ahead of its time.

The unknown researcher Richard De C. Studdert claimed to have observed
significant non Mendelian assortment of coat color genes in mildly stressed
mice. He hypothesized that the immune system had removed many of the sperm
with the coat color genes that were associated with the stressed
environment, e.g. agouti coat color genes in the snow allowing the mouse to
become visible to predators. He argued these "wrong" genes were pre-selected
out within the genital tracts of both the male and the female mouse under
stress via their immune system. This released many more of the alternative
recessive alleles such as white which would be located in other sperm cells
providing an increase in variation, just when it was needed. He argued that
the stressed parents offspring obtained a large fitness benefit via this
process. De C. Studdert argued that the rate of evolution could be greatly
accelerated via stress induced pre-selection. He financed himself paying for
the use of the laboratory of Prof. Tim Roberts at Newcastle University NSW
Australia to search for a mono-clonal antibody against specific coat color
antigens which he argued should be displayed on the surface of the sperm
cell carrying them. I have attempted to contact Dr Roberts on more than one
occasion concerning De C. Studdert's work at his laboratory. He does not
respond. De C. Studdert's wrote at least two books. At least one of them
are available at Amazon:

Selection.
The Stress Theory of Evolution
Richard De C. Studdert

Press Behrman House Publishing
Release 1983-03

> am
> not claiming that Larmarkian mechanisms are the norm, simply that they do
> exist.

JE:-
I am not claiming that they do or do not exist, I am claiming that today we
have absolutely no excuse to continue to disagree over what is and what is
not Lamarkian inheritance.

> > http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lamarck.html
> >
> > People are stimulated by anything to do with getting "something for
> nothing
> > "which includes, perpetual motion within physics, inflationary gains
> within
> > economics, free lunches within Hamilton's Rule and the last straw: so
> called
> > "neutral theory" within evolutionary theory where evolution now comes
> for
> > free. Here evolution produces evolution via just a mindless tautology.
>
> I snipped the discussion at the top, which centered on Spandrels.
> Curiously, Spandrels present exactly the opposite problem from the one
> being
> described here. With Spandrels you get nothing for something (no
> structural
> support, despite costs in design, building, and possibly degradation of
> structural support).

JE:-
Getting "nothing for something" is just the relative opposite (contrary
proposition) to "getting something for nothing". You cannot have one without
the other. You cannot have the mirror image without the thing reflected. Dr
Moran proved it. He argues that evolution can be validly defined as just
"ANY gene freq. change in a deme". It can be proved that this definition
misrepresents what the theory of evolution is because it reduces evolution
to become just a mindless tautology. If heritable variation (drift or
mutation) becomes redefined to become "evolution" then Darwinian theory
becomes reduced to selection operating on heritable evolution (not heritable
variation) to produce evolution, i.e. selection is not even required when
you assume the tautology that evolution causes evolution (deleting the
concept of heritable random variation entirely). So, you DO get something
for nothing: "evolution". All tautologies provide "something for nothing"
and "nothing for something".

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxx




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