Personally, I cannot quite understand why the theories of Lamarck
and Darwin cannot be unified into part of a "universal field theory" of
biology and biochemistry.
Most significantly, of the biochem, because it is this area that
inorganic chemistry (like dirty water and graphite and ammonia) becomes
life. Abiogenesis, if you will.
IMO, it is not a stretch too far to consider that protein
synthesis provides some sort of negative feedback system to the DNA
from which it arrives (via RNA) permitting the biochemical memory of
life experience to perpetuate down generations.
Given that even virus have a 'life experience' of a sort.
Perhaps, and this is a stretch, the information transfer occurs
within the histones which form the matrix into which the DNA is coiled
into the chomosomes.
Maybe even ID has a math-physics component in the evolution of
structure and the temporal advance of unconscious energy and matter
into sentience.
Peter Doherty, one of Blanden's students, like
Steele, attended the book launch. There were a bunch of other notables,
too.
Peter Macinnis replied:
<<Personally, I cannot quite understand why the theories of Lamarck and Darwin
cannot be unified into part of a "universal field theory" of biology and
biochemistry.
Simply put, the problem is that there is no known mechanism for passing
on my acquired lack of a toe, caused by whatever it may be, to my children.
On the other hand, I can see a possible way that certain sorts of
learning might be stored as RNA, reverse transcribed to DNA, and might
find their way into the germ plasm.
Once again, though, nobody has found ways for these to happen.
My suggestion: Lamarckism is not ruled out, but we lack substantial
evidence for considering it to be a major factor. It is, at this stage,
an hypothesis of which we have no need. That could change, one day.
I might add that Charles Darwin did not rule it out, either.
Podargus answered:
Yes but Darwin was groping for a mechanism. Perhaps he should have opened
the mail from Mendel.
Morris Grey noted:
On 14 Sep 2008 at 22:23, Peter Macinnis wrote about: Re: Lamarck's
Evolution
> Simply put, the problem is that there is no known mechanism for passing on
> my acquired lack of a toe, caused by whatever it may be, to my children.
The missing toe or finger example
has been used down through the years to demonstrate how unlikely it is
to pass on acquired traits or attributes.
I mean no disrespect in this
current discussion but traditionally to offer physical mutilation as an
example of proof that no acquired characteristics can be passed on is
disingenuous to say the least.
If this was the case then Angelo "toecutter" Trembloe would have reduced the country's average shoe size by at least two points.
The nature vs nurture argument
should have never become an argument for they are companions in passing
on characteristics from one generation to the next. It is simple minded
in the extreme to separate the two when talking about evolution.
But leaving that for the moment;
it is also unreasonable to assume that all evolution has been brought
on by random mutations. While randomness seems to loom large in the
eyes of humans I think it is mostly their inability to perceive any
patterns in it that is the true reality.
The major premise of Darwin is
the survival of the fittest which for the most part can be considered
true. However his evolution is long after the fact of something else
having taken place first. Survival of the fittest is nothing more than
a housekeeping exercise for a given set of species at a given time and
says nothing at all about how they got that way to begin with, or where
they're going.
It also says nothing about
nature's ability to conjure up from the infinite myriad of genetic
mutations those ones, sometimes within a generation or two, that fit
the current changing conditions. It would be pure folly to believe that
nature goes along the random mutation path to allow for changing
conditions when the potential changing conditions are themselves the
signal for change.
The earth and life on it is a
system quite capable of communicating within itself those changing
conditions and anticipating others. It is this anticipation of change
that is the secret of the survival of a species that brings on positive
mutations; not a simple reaction to change.
Lamarck has been much abused;
made a laughing stock of but his theory in which "an alchemical
complexifying force drove organisms up a ladder of complexity" and "a
second environmental force adapted them to local environments through
"use and disuse" of characteristics, differentiating them from other
organisms" and was well formed years before Darwin's birth.
It is this "alchemical" force of
Lamarck's that is the real theory to fill in and is the main action. We
know pheromones work in wondrous ways and you can bet there are several
if not many like substances or methods that work in as many different
ways that are the real harbingers of change.
Darwin gave us a way to
understand change and adaptation after the fact. Lamarck tried to say
there were other forces at work that brought about the change in the
first place, and in that I believe he was correct, just what it is we
will never know as long as we keep worshipping Darwin and not keeping
an open mind.
Peter Macinnis answered:
Not knowing About Mendel was certainly a major factor, but maybe he didn't like to seem to be too rude to Grandpa Erasmus.
I read some years ago that Lamarck got harsh treatment from those who
translated his avoir besoin was want in the sense of desire or wish
for, rather than as as want in the sense of having a want or need. So
where he said he giraffe needed a longer neck, people wrongly accused
him of saying the giraffe wished for a longer neck.
Now on mechanisms: I recall some research that I think was later
discredited involving planarians. Some of them were conditioned to
expect an electric shock one second after a bright light. This made
them cringe when a light came on. These were then killed, chopped up
and fed to other planarians which supposedly learned faster, leading to
jokes about undergrads eating their professors.
The extension was that planarian meat with RNAse stopped the learning being passed on, ergo memory is stored as RNA.
In the 1970s, it occurred to me that if you could reverse-transcribe
RNA to DNA (the idea was new then), it MIGHT just be possible to get
learning into the genome.
The problem is that the germ-plasm, the gene line DNA is VERY tightly
sequestered in females: as i recall it, the ova are formed by the 5th
month of the gestation of the fetus. Males, well, maybe there is a tiny
chance there, but basically, I think that is the stage which fails to
stand up in my hypothetical chain of Lamarckian transmission, which
would still only apply to learning.
If we could find a virus that can transfer bits like that, it would
make instinctive innate behaviour easier to understand, but I won't be
holding my breath waiting for a suitable convenient virus to be found.
Morris Grey replied:
On 14 Sep 2008 at 22:23, Peter Macinnis wrote about: Re: Lamarck's
>Evolution
>> Simply put, the problem is that there is no known mechanism for passing on
>> my acquired lack of a toe, caused by whatever it may be, to my children.
>
>The missing toe or finger example has been used down through the
>years to demonstrate how unlikely it is to pass on acquired traits or
>attributes.
This is true, but there is
another more wince-worthy one, a 19th century Brit scientist (I think)
who observed boys in an area of Africa where circumcision was at some
age like seven or eight. This was long tradition, but the Brit in
question noted that boys' foreskins seemed not to be reduced, compared
with those of Europeans.
The classic example is the
blacksmith who has burly muscles, as do his sons, neglecting (a) that a
well-muscled man might take up smithying and (b) the children were
probably set minor tasks from an early age.
Most of science is
counter-intuitive, and much of what is intuitive ain't science, alas. I
offer teh flat earth as today's specimen for dissection.
Ian Mackenzie commented:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2008/2358588.htm#transcript
I've just read the transcript, and it looks as if Honeywill thinks
neodarwinism assumes all chromosonal loci are homozygous for all
functional characteristics of every organism. (see elow)
eg (the peppered moth changing colour to suit a sooty background) "So
this is described as a very Lamarckian event because under the
neo-Darwinist view, it would take millions of generations and a
completely random chance"
Um, no, actually... all it takes is for the occasional "sports" with
melanism to survive long enough to breed and not be quickly gobbled up.
It turns out that moths from different areas had different genetic
changes to turn them soot coloured, and, if you bred two from different
areas, then the offspring were the original colour and pattern (so they
then suited the lighter trees after the factories were closed down).
Embryological development is channelled so that most genetic variation
is hidden. And one working copy of many genes is enough to give a
functioning organism (ie, the variations are recessive). So a recessive
variant that when homozygous made the moths black could exist at
roughly the frequency of albinism in humans - the rare moths that were
homozygous would stand out and get eaten by birds before they could
breed. But if the trees are covered in soot, being homozygous is
advantageous, and can spread through the population in dozens rather
than millions of generations, with no reliance on so-called "completely
random chance". Crossbreeds between two different dark genetic variants
would be (homozygous and) light in colour and less likely to survive.
And when the trees lightened due to Thatcher, there was a mechanism in
place to supply heterozygous light-coloured moths again. No need for
Lamark or wishful thinking.
For those who want a more detailed neodarwinist response to Lamarkism,
read chapter 9 of "The Extended Phenotype" by Richard Dawkins. He
mentions Ted Steele's immunological results specifically, and if proved
would regard them as a challenge to Weismann's view that the nuclear
DNA in the germ cells is inviolate. So not rejected as automatically
false even by the neodarwinist that many love to hate.
Neodarwinism refers to "the
non-random survival of randomly varying self-
replicating entities"
- but those entities are not individual organisms or groups of organisms.
The Midwife Toad with ink injected under its skin, and Ted Steele's
entries in the journal of irreproducable results are an unfortunately
shaky foundation to base your book on.
Possibly any appeal he has is partly due to "there's some sense of
direction of evolution, there's some sense that the things that we do
in our lives, the air we breathe, the gases we ingest, the food and
chemicals that we eat can alter the direction of genetic and
evolutionary influence."
The idea that the universe doesn't exist purely so that humans can
exist and is pitilessly indifferent to human aspirations and suffering
is not very popular, but it doesn't conflict with any of the evidence.
Peter Macinnis commented:
Damn! I should have run with the idea when I first had it :-)
The problem was that I saw it as
just a back-of-the-envelope odd idea, one that I could not believe. I
still think that getting the reverse-transcribed DNA into the germ line
is a BIG obstacle, and while I know of some dubious evidence that RNA
is related to memory (or might be in flatworms), I don't know what the
RNA for big muscles would be doing.
So there are lines on inquiry,
but no proofs as yet. Are there reasons to seek those proofs, or to
seek to elucidate the mechanisms that might exist?
A species that has been through a
number of rapid changes (like humans) might well have a benign
retrovirus that carries genes with it. But if it is benign, how would
you ever spot it?
And can that truly be called Lamarckian, or is it just jumping genes?
