On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote:
> The central dogma of molecular biology deals with the detailed > residue-by-residue transfer of sequential information. Yes, but we're not talking about molecular biology, we're talking about Evolution and it has a different central dogma. > > It states that such information cannot be transferred back from protein > to either protein or nucleic acid. I know of no example of a change in a protein making a systematic repeatable change (as opposed to a random mutation) in the sequence of bases in DNA that are passed onto the next generation. > Not all evolutionary processes have the central dogma > So what? As I said before, Darwin knew nothing about DNA or proteins or epigenetic changes and he didn't need to; he knew nothing about the details he only knew that there were hereditary factors of some sort that were passed from one generation to the next, and because no process is perfect he knew that there would sometimes be changes in that information, and he knew that some of those factors would reproduce faster than others, and he knew that the thing that would determine the winning factors from the losing factors is natural selection. > > What it means is that lessons learnt by the body (ie protein) cannot be > transferred back to the genome (ie DNA). It is the antithesis to > Lamarkianism. Epigenetic changes involve changes of the genome by the body Epigenetic changes do not change the sequence of bases in DNA, and more important I see no evidence that the body has learned any lessons. I see no evidence that epigenetic changes are more likely to happen in the direction of greater adaptability rather than the reverse. All I see is the environment causing random changes in hereditary factors that, like all changes, are more likely to be harmful than helpful. > > How significant epigenesis is to evolution is another matter, of course. > Well Darwinian Evolution was what we are talking about! At most all epigenesis does is provide a new source of variation for Darwinian Natural Selection to work on; and if those changes don't persist through many generations then epigenesis can't even do that. > Obviously, there is no equivalent central dogma in cultural evolution. > The central dogma of Evolution, both biological and cultural, has nothing to do with DNA or proteins or epigenesis. The central dogma of Evolution is: 1) Heredity factors exist. 2) The process that transfers those factors is very reliable but is not perfect and so sometimes they change. 3) Because there are more ways to be wrong than to be right most (but not all) of those changes are harmful. 4) Some of those changed heredity factors will reproduce faster than others and become dominant in a population. The discovery of epigenesis does not in any way challenge the central dogma of Evolution. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
