Re: Darwin, NeoDarwinian Taboos, and the Explanation of Evolution
- From: John Edser <edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 13:43:05 -0500 (EST)
According to the NeoDarwinian doctrine, evolution results from the
accumulation of small random changes (gene mutations) in populations
of organisms under the action of natural selection.
JE:-
Correction: small random independent in fitness changes (gene mutations)
in populations of genes (demes) under the action of natural selection.
Neo Darwinism was and remains an uncorrected poly-centric model of
mono-centric Darwinism within which Total Darwinian Fitness (TDF)
defined as: the total number of (strictly) fertile organisms reproduced
per parent per population was and remains deleted. TDF provides a
critical, falsifiable frame of reference for Darwinism. IOW, while
stressing just a mathematical model of gene centricity, organisms _both
fertile and infertile_ including populations of same also counted as
valid units of selection within poly-centric Neo Darwinism _but not
within mono-centric Darwinism_. Classical group selection was originated
by A. R. Wallace and extensively developed by V. C. Wyne Edwards in the
1960's. Very wisely, Darwin did not incorporate Wallace's group
selection concept into his theory even though he did discuss it.
Any population within Darwinian biology represents an additive in
fitness entity. In Darwinism this allows fertile individuals to be
selected but populations to evolve. If these populations can also be
selected Darwinian theory cannot be falsified. This is the main reason
as to why Neo Darwinians discarded Popperian falsifiability. If the
fitness of any proposed unit of selection is the simple sum of the
fitness of all of its parts then natural selection firstly acts on parts
rendering an additive in fitness entity impotent as a proposed unit of
selection.
Mathematically, natural selection is the reversible intersection of
sets. OTOH units of selection are non reversible _nested_ sets of
fitness. Reversible sets of fitness could not be more different than non
reversible nested sets of fitness. Unfortunately, Neo Darwinism cannot
tell them apart because nested sets cannot be differentiated from
intersecting sets within mathematics. To be able to differentiate them
the commutative law of mathematics would have to be discarded destroying
mathematics in the process. In short, Neo Darwinism is 100% mathematics
which can never claim to be a science, yet it has been wrongly accepted
as such. In a nutshell Neo Darwinism is essentially, misused mathematics.
Other contributing
factors are gene drift and, in sexually reproducing organisms, genetic
recombination.
JE:-
In the sciences a random processes such as genetic drift has to remain a
fitness dependent nested set, i.e. be entirely within a proposed NON
random process. Because Neo Darwinism cannot tell a nested set from an
intersected set, the random gene frequency changes produced by drift
(sampling error) have been wrongly allowed to compete with the non
random gene frequency changes produced by natural selection. A nested
random set cannot compete against the non random set it remains 100%
within (on a non reversible basis) simply because nested sets *as one
whole* can alone be selected i.e. not each nested set as a supposed
independent in fitness entity of biology.
According to the theory:
1. Changes in conditions of living have no direct influence on
evolution, i.e. they cannot predictably change genes and the
information genetic.
2. Use and disuse of organs has no influence on evolution because
changes they produce (enlargement and vestigialization of organs,
respectively) are not inherited
JE:-
The "changes they produce (enlargement and vestigialization of organs,
respectively)" can be inherited but on a NON additive basis. The term
employed within the biological sciences for this is "genetic epistasis".
It refers to multiplicative and thus nested sets of genetic information
(gene fitnesses being one of them). Within oversimplified Neo
Darwinistic models of Darwinism genetic epistasis was and remains deleted.
3. The evolution is irreversible (Dollo=92s law) due to the random
character of changes in genes.
JE:-
Random events can be randomly reversed but the probability remains low.
Despite the Darwinian label all the above neoDarwinian tenets
contradict and are irreconciliable with Darwin=92s own views as he
presented them in =93The Origin=94.
JE:-
I agree. However I doubt if we agree as to why.
In relation to the first NeoDarwinian tenet, Charles Darwin believed
that changes in the environment induce inherited changes in living
beings and these changes are not always random but may be directed:
=93Changed conditions generally induce mere fluctuating variability, but
sometimes they cause direct and definite effects.=94 (The Origin, 1872,
p. 131)
JE:-
I agree that a non random form of mutation exists. However I do not
agree that such a process necessarily competes against natural
selection. On the contrary, natural selection is always the final
selective process.
In relation to the second NeoDarwinian tenet that use and disuse of
organs have no influence on the evolution of living beings because
they do not induce corresponding changes in genes, Darwin=92s stance has
been diametrically opposite.
JE:-
Complex phenotypes remain coded by NON ADDITIVE gene associations i.e.
produced via _heritable_ changes in genetic epistasis. Originally these
were discarded by R.A. Fisher (one of the three founding fathers of Neo
Darwinism) because non additive relationships between genes were in
theory, broken up by meiosis. However, C.H. Waddington empirically
demonstrated that this was not necessarily the case e.g. phenocopies can
and do exist. Non additive associations of genes code for any complex
phenotype even if just one major gene can be correlated to it.
Waddington demonstrated in the 1960'-1970's that in some instances it
was possible to delete the major gene and conserve the phenotype it was
correlated to proving hidden epistatic genes helped to code for these
phenotypes. Waddington developed his theory of the genetic landscape
(which presented an epistatic landscape). He corrected Fisher and
Haldane's basic population equations accordingly by providing two new
epistatic variables: selected in X and developed in X. I have posted
Waddington's revision of Fisher and Haldane to sbe, twice. however this
ground breaking revision remains ignored.
He believed and presented examples that use and disuse of organs can
lead to inherited enlargement or vestigialization and loss of
structures, even not necessarily with the aid of natural selection:
=93There can be little doubt that use in our domestic animals
strengthens and enlarges certain parts, and disuse diminishes them;
and that such modifications are inherited.=94 (The Origin, 1859, p. 134)
JE:-
Lamarkian inheritance could not distinguished from Mendelian inheritance
by Darwin because he had not read Mendel. Only today do we understand
the difference. Lamarkian inheritance requires the falsification of the
revised central dogma of biochemistry within which genetic information
can only flow ONE way: from genes to the phenotypes that they code for
allowing selective information to only flow in the REVERSE direction:
from phenotypes to genes. Epigenetics (which you correctly stress) is
not Lamarkian in this sense.
and
=93Disuse, aided sometimes by natural selection, will often tend to
reduce an organ, when it has become useless by changed habits or under
changed conditions of life.=94 (The Origin 1859, p. 479)
JE:-
Genetic epistasis remains alive and well in nature. In fact the non
coding "junk" of the human genome is involved with epistatically coding
for complex phenotypes (including fitness).
The third neoDarwinain tenet, presently known as Dollo=92s law, posits
that a lost trait cannot reappear after long periods of time because,
in the absence of selection on genes responsible for the trait, over
time these genes will mutate to such an extent that would become
nonfunctional. This neoDarwinian tenet also is nonDarwinian. The
author of =93The Origin=94 has shown the contrary to be true and attempted
to explain why:
=93When a character which has been lost in a breed, reappears after a
great number of generations, the most probable hypothesis is not that
the offspring suddenly takes after an ancestor some hundred
generations distant, but that in each successive generation there has
been a tendency to reproduce the character in question, which at
least, under unklnown favourable conditions gains an ascendancy.=94 (The
Origin 1859, pp. 160-161)
JE:-
It is understood that ancient traits can be epistatically conserved even
if they are not phenotypically displayed. Waddington added two epistatic
process to Neo Darwinism: the canalization (conservation) of traits and
their assimilation (change). Both refer to NON additive forms of
inheritance. Canalization refers to an epistatic form of complex trait
conservation. Assimilation changes complex traits more quickly than
random mutation can while canalization does the opposite: conserves
complex traits within a veritable barrage of mutation.
It is clear that neoDarwinians needed not simply to revise Darwin but
remove from his theory three fundamental tenets.
JE:-
All three are due to the removal of heritable genetic epistasis within
oversimplied, poly-centric Neo Darwinian models of falsifiable,
mono-centric Darwinism.
This was done for a
good reason. In their effort to utilize the discovery of genes and the
gene theory they had to sacrifice at the altar of the neoDarwinism
three Darwinian tenets (changed conditions can directly and in a
definite way influence evolution of organic world, use and disuse of
organs can influence their evolution by enlarging and vestigializing/
losing them, respectively, and evolution is reversible).
JE:-
Oversimplified mathematical models of Darwinism were and remain, misused.
Now, what is the epistemological status and the scientific validity of
the neoDarwinian theory, three quarters of a century after its first
appearance? Alfred Wallace, the co-author of the theory of natural
selection, observed that Darwin accepted the action of non-
selectionist factors and admitted that there are =93unknown causes at
work and that natural selection is the most important but not the
exclusive means of modification.=94 (A. Wallace, 1880 The Origin of
Species and Genera. Nineteenth Century. http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallac=
e/S322.htm).
Does the gene and the gene theory represents the causes of evolution
that Darwin did not know?
A succinct validation of the neoDarwinian explanation of evolution
could be reduced to the answer one would give to the following
question:
Has the genecentric idea, i.e. the idea that the evolution of organic
world is ultimately determined by evolution of genes, found any
experimental or theoretical support?
JE:-
Empirically, every known gene presents a non additive nested fitness
i.e. not an intersecting additive gene fitness which remains required to
allow supposed independent in fitness genes to be selected within a
deme. Genes remain fitness nested within one Darwinian fertile organism.
The only possible way that Darwinian natural selection can be halted
within any natural population is to force TDF (which is an epistatically
coded fitness) to remain exactly same for every member of one population
over many generations. In short: genes are NOT selected, only the
phenotypes that they code for can be where the fitness of any proposed
phenotype was and remains, epistatic. Gene fitness epistasis has to be
tackled before epigenetics (above the gene levels of inheritance)
because epistasis represents the nest nested gene level to be understood.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
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