Hi Chris and John
The paper I linked to describes a evolutionary dynamic which emphasizes horizontal over vertical genetic transfer. I think it is described in the paper as Lamarckian because changes to the coding mechanism can occur in their model within a single generation of organisms rather than over the course of many. I understand (perhaps incorrectly?) that horizontal transfer is not uncommon within bacteria and other 'simple' organisms. And of course in the evolutionary epoch they discuss organisms were far simpler again. I suspect also that their model goes against the neo-Darwinian grain insofar as it possibly emphasizes group selection over genetic selection. They suggest that in this very early period it was in fact communities of organisms that were being selected for or against rather than individual genes. But, that might be a misread. They say: " The key element in this dynamic is innovation-sharing, an evolutionary protocol whereby descent with variation from one ‘‘generation’’ to the next is not genealogically traceable but is a descent of a cellular community as a whole" Ofcourse, it might be the case that this kind of adaptation sits happily under the umbrella of Darwinism even neo-Darwinism. In fact as a layman I am (perhaps naively?) unconcerned about the taxonomy of their model within evolutionary theory. What really interests me isn't even the plausibility of their model but rather the bare possibility that it might offer an argument against Statham's in this thread's original post. All the best. From: cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: Serious proof of why the theory of evolution is wrong Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 17:15:13 -0700 John, Russell ~ Speaking from the perspective of information science, one can abstract out the underlying information encoding scheme(s), actually employed by life & by conscious self-aware life as well, which could be any number of suitable candidates. We know of three known currently employed encoding schemes DNA, RNA (RNA viruses for example) and epigenetic coding of how this DNA is expressed that can cross generational boundaries and mutate or change the resulting phenotype expressed in progeny.As Russell pointed out there is the matter of memes acting as a kind of encoded piece of cultural DNA that can culturally form individuals even after many generations have past. In some senses, in more advanced cultural creatures such as our species -- though some would argue that last statement J -- ideas transmit and evolve in a Darwinian manner.If we abstract away the details of how information is encoded, preserved, transmitted etc. and deal instead in the abstract, we can avoid a whole mess of confusion and focus in on the essential common characteristics that are shared.From this perspective what is required in order for evolution to occur is the following sequence: 1) A new abstract information entity or a mutation on an existing one is introduced into an individual organism or a population of individual organisms through some process. This process may be hereditary, in the special case of a mutated or new information entity that has been introduced in some earlier generation and is going through a new generation of natural selection.2) This new information must be remembered by one or more individuals in the initial population set and be able to be encoded and preserved in a durable and high fidelity manner in those individuals.3) It must also be able to be transmissible across generational boundaries and through some abstract hereditary process (again leaving out all details) and durable high quality copies of the original must exist and also be able to be expressed in the individuals in these successive generations – e.g. the process of heredity stated in an abstract way. Copying flaws and mutations are of course allowed and considered integral to the way things actually work.4) Crucially, in each succeeding generation, it must undergo and survive a process of Darwinian selection being driven by the given environmental pressures in its world. Only the abstract information entities that make it through each generational selection obstacle course survive – amongst some individual members in the population of the succeeding generation – to be passed on to the next generation in the evolutionary chain.5) Many generations of natural selection must occur – i.e. loop through steps 1,2,3,4 – in order to enable the bubbling up of beneficial mutations and the weeding out of harmful mutations. How many generations does it take? No easy answer for that but certainly more than say two or three. Only when new abstract information entities satisfy and survive through (step number 4) repeated over many generations (step 5) can evolution be said to have occurred.-Chris From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2013 9:21 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Serious proof of why the theory of evolution is wrong On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 3:52 PM, Chris de Morsella <cdemorse...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> It's not news that some chemicals increase the rate of mutation. > Epigenetic changes that effect what is transcribed is not mutation – at least in the classic sense of changing – i.e. mutating – the underlying DNA. The DNA is not mutated; the underlying sequence of bases remains unaltered. It's true that epigenetic changes don't effect the underlying DNA, but that is a distinction of little or no importance to Evolution because all it's interested in is the resulting phenotype and how well the animal does in getting its inheritance factors (regardless of if those factors are made of DNA base pairs or methylation) into the next generation. Perhaps on a distant planet there is a ecosystem that doesn't use DNA or methylation at all, but it must have some mechanism of inheritance and that mechanism must be very reliable but not perfectly so because there must be some way to generate random changes. And on that distant planet Darwinian natural selection would still be needed to separate the good changes from the bad. > it seems to me – that life dances on the knife edge between order and chaos. Stray too far towards either chaos or order and life very quickly stops living. Yes, I agree. 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