Dear Pedro and Colleagues,
I have been following the thread of comments with great interest, all
of which have all been occasioned by John Torday's profound insights
about the nature of evolutionary development in light of the importance
of cell-cell signaling and molecular biology. From the comments, it is
clear that there is a strong impulse to seek a means of integrating the
role of symbiogenesis, viruses and mobile elements, multilevel
selection, niche construction, genomic plasticity into a common
narrative with an informational perspective at its foundation.
In the spirit of that line of discussion, I am offering two links
that discuss evolution as an biologic information management system.
Some of this work shares direct commonality with John's, since he and I
are frequent collaborators.
http://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/5/2/21/htm
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S007961071730233X
Both of these articles can be considered as complementary to Pedro's
very fine article, 'How prokaryotes ‘encode’ their environment: Systemic
tools for organizing the information flow', which is in BioSystems.
I am grateful to John for inviting me to participate in the forum and to
Pedro for encouraging me to share these manuscripts.
Best regards,
Bill
William B. Miller, Jr., M.D.
602-463-5236
wbmill...@cox.net
On 1/9/2018 5:19 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
Dear Soeren and Colleagues,
The symbiogenesis theme (Margulis' endosymbiotic theory) is one of the
aspects to reconsider/reenter into the basically evo-info (if I may
say) novissima synthesis. Margulis views were received in the 70's and
80's with tremendous hostility from the Neo-Darwinian orthodoxy. After
a long series of turmoils it was accepted in many realms, particularly
in popular science and textbooks industry, and even by the always
reluctant Neo-Darwinians. Paradoxically in recent times the
bioinformatic and omic research on the origins of eukaryotes has put
into question basic tenets of that theory. The "deep sequencing"
research on protein families has also be problematic for
symbiogenesis. It does not mean that it is wrong, but that it is more
complicated than previously thought... That is my opinion at least. In
the present discussion, however, there are very knowledgeable parties
that can give more specific arguments about that.
Talking about Neo-Darwinians, the paragraph from John Torday that I
highlighted (see at the bottom) reminds me strongly from that other
from Richard Dawkins' (in The Selfish Gene):
/“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to
preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which
still fills me with astonishment.”/
If we compare both paragraphs, the essential difference relies on
information. Torday's unicells develop not really multicell robots,
but info agents that collect information about the environment,
including the whole elements of the niche (i.e., including in the
human case from the "microbiome" to the "sociotype"). And fortunately
the emphasis on "selfishness" has disappeared. Perhaps one of the
consequences of Margulis work has been ideological, implying some
general opening of views. Besides that, we should pay close attention
to some "invisible threads" inside/outside those robots, like puppet
strings: let me emphasize the enormous evolutionary importance of
viruses in eukaryotic origins and evolution, and in epigenetic
phenomena. Really masterminding the whole topological/architectural
molecular processes.
In any event, for the purpose of the discussion, I bet that the new
synthesis, the "novissimima", has to be evo-info... or it won't be!
(spoonful of salt, please)
All the best--Pedro
El 06/01/2018 a las 18:05, Søren Brier escribió:
Dear Pedro
I am wondering why no one seems to think that Lynn Margulis’ theory
that cell organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts were once
independent bacteria is a crucial contribution to cell biology in
evolution theory ?
Best wishes
Søren Brier
2017 JPBMB Focused Issue on Integral Biomathics: The Necessary
Conjunction of Western and Eastern Thought Traditions for Exploring
the Nature of Mind and Life
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00796107/131> *
* free promotional access to all focused issue articles until June
20th 2018
*From:*Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *PEDRO
CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ
*Sent:* 5. januar 2018 14:40
*To:* JOHN TORDAY <jtor...@ucla.edu>; fis@listas.unizar.es
*Subject:* Re: [Fis] New Year Lecture
head>
Dear John and FIS Colleagues,
Many thanks for this opening text of the NY Lecture. Indeed
you have presented us an intricate panorama on one of the most
obscure scientific problems of our time: the central theory of
biology. As you say, we find with astonishment that there is
literally no cell biology in evolution theory. And I would ad that
there is no "information biology" either. A central theory becomes
sort of a big Hall, where plenty of disciplinary corridors converge
and later criss-cross among themselves. Darwinian theory is not that
common hall for the really big, big science domain of biology. What
are or where are the elements to rebuild the common Hall of the
biological domain? I quote from your opening text:
*/"It is as if the unicellular state delegates its progeny to
interact with the environment as agents, collecting data to inform
the recapitulating unicell of ecological changes that are occurring.
Through the acquisition and filtering of epigenetic marks via
meiosis, fertilization, and embryogenesis, even on into adulthood,
where the endocrine system dictates the length and depth of the
stages of the life cycle, now known to be under epigenetic control,
the unicell remains in effective synchrony with environmental changes."/*
It is really brilliant: a heads up reversal perspective. I think out
of these ideas there are plenty of disciplinary excursions to make.
One is "informational", another "topological". Putting together two
different algorithmic descriptions and making them to build a torus
(i.e., gastrula") as a universal departure for multicellularity also
reminds the ideas of Stuart Pivart ("Omnia Ex Torus") about the
primordials of multicellularity and the role of mechanical forces in
the patterning of developmental processes.
Echoing the ideas discussed in the Royal Society meeting (November
2016), there is a pretty long list of elements to take into account
together with epigenetic inheritance (symbiogenesis, viruses and
mobile elements, multilevel selection, niche construction, genomic
evolution...). As I have suggested above, essential informational
ideas are missing too, and this absence of the informational
perspective in the ongoing evo discussions is not a good thing.
i any case, it is such a great theme to ponder...
Best wishes to all
--Pedro
On Wed, 3 Jan 2018 07:15:43 -0800 JOHN TORDAY wrote:
blockquote>
Dear FIS Colleagues, I have attached my New Year Lecture at the
invitation of Professor Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez. The
content relates a novel perspective on the mechanism of evolution
from a cellular-molecular vantage-point. I welcome any and all
comments and criticisms in the spirit of sharing ideas openly and
constructively. Best Wishes,
John S. Torday PhD
Professor
Evolutionary Medicine
UCLA
/div>
--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
