Re: News: Einstein scientist's finding highlighted as 1 of 15 'evolutionary


Early research on fruit flies showed that key proteins involved in the
regulation of developmental processes are "chaperoned" by a protein called
Hsp90. The production of this Hsp90 increases in times of stress. Hsp90 is
occasionally overwhelmed by other processes and the proteins it normally
regulates are left to run free, yielding a flurry of otherwise hidden
variations.

Drs. Bergman and Siegal explored whether evolutionary capacitance is unique
to Hsp90, or rather, found more generally. Using numerical simulations of
complex gene networks and genome-wide expression data from yeast strains in
which single genes had been deleted, they demonstrated that most, and
perhaps all, genes hold variation in reserve that is released only when they
are functionally compromised. Their findings, published in 2003, suggested
that evolutionary capacitance goes wider and deeper than Hsp90.

This research has inspired additional study into fundamental questions in
biology, such as the evolution of sexual reproduction and the evolution of
gene and genome duplication, as well as inquiries relevant to biomedical
research. Those include the hypothesis that healthy aging among centenarians
may be the result of buffering mechanisms against age-related diseases,
while cancer may be the result of a breakdown of mechanisms that protect
against disease. This hypothesis is currently under investigation.

JE:-
What are the immediate implications of these findings with regard to Neo
Darwinian modeling?

1) Changes in heritable variation must remain a separate issue to any
bona fide evolutionary change. Making the demarcation between heritable
variation and heritable evolutionary change is basic to any falsifiable
evolution. Just a random change in gene frequency is a change in
heritable variation which cannot be falsified because it is only random.
OTOH a falsifiable evolutionary change is any NON random change in gene
frequency within an evolving population. Note that the current Neo
Darwinian paradigm does not separate them allowing the random gene
frequency changes produced by genetic drift (random sampling error) to
constitute an evolutionary change and not just a change in heritable
variation.

2) The evolutionary changes noted above were critically epistatic, i.e.
they required NON additive gene fitness associations forcing any valid,
minimal unit of selection to constitute TWO genes at DIFFERENT loci.
Note that the current Neo Darwinian Paradigm simply throws out this
GEARED level of heritable variation but only in order to over-simplify
the mathematics. This massive, uncorrected oversimplification has
allowed fitness independent genes within a poly-centric, non falsifiable
Neo Darwinism which in turn is required to allow Hamilton's Rule and
Dawkins' much publicized but just heuristic, "selfish genes".
Empirically, none of these modeling events actually exist.


It was C.H. Waddington who critically modified Haldane's basic
population genetics equations which were and remain based on the
bi-nomial expansion of NON epistatic gene frequencies. Waddington
introduced two new variables: developed in environment X and selected
within environment X adding a critical, epistatic dimension to Haldane's
over simplified, uncorrected model of Darwinism. To this day
Waddington's correction remains ignored.

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx






.

Relevant Pages