Hi Brian,
At 12:34 05/12/02 -0500, you wrote:
Brian sited:
>>>I read Lewontin's new book called The Triple Helix, which
>>>blisters the notion that the genome project will finally reveal to
>>>us what it means to be human.
Keith replied:
>>>I've never subscribed to that either.
(BMcA)
> Hello again Keith, Here is a complete review of Lewontin's book:
> The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism and Environment
> by Richard C. Lewontin
> Harvard University Press, 192 pp, $22.95
> ISBN: 0674001591, 2000
It's not my place to argue against Richard Lewontin, a professional
biologist with a long career behind him. All I've noticed is that other
professional biologists he criticises complain that he constantly
misrepresents what they're actually saying.
Thus, in "Not in our Genes", Lewontin quotes Richard Dawkins ("The Selfish
Gene") as saying that "They [the genes] control us, body and mind." In
fact, Dawkins said nothing of the sort. He wrote "They created us, body and
mind." which gives a quite different emphasis and leaves open the
possibility of self-will and creativity -- the point which Dawkins
emphasises when he devotes a whole chapter to discussing the importance of
memes as well as genes.
Similarly, in the following, Lewontin takes the gene sequencers to task as
though they are making a claim that the genome is a blueprint -- a
predetermined and totally inflexible set of instructions which prevents any
sort of two-way process between the environment and the subject. This is
yet another Aunt Sally. The Genome Project people have made no such claim.
I won't go on. The argument becomes increasingly arcane. I'm sure most
professional biologists will avoid this brouhaha and carry on quietly in
their research laboratories.
Keith
>
>"" This book takes on that difficult task for biology.
>
> Lewontin argues that we have come up against the constraints of the
>reigning metaphors in biology. Metaphors are necessary because we cannot
>see most of the things we study, but when we believe the thing actually is
>the metaphor, we are in trouble. We speak of genes as a blueprint, program
>or code, and so come to see development as the unfolding of a predetermined
>set of instructions. But the same genes have different products in
>different environments. Amino acid sequence does not fully determine
>protein structure and thus function; instead, protein structure is
>influenced by a diverse set of entities in the cell1. For example, a
>protein can take on a toxic or non-toxic form depending on the shape of
>pre-existing proteins. The outcome of development, what particular organism
>develops, is affected by noise from random molecular events within cells,
>and by the environment in which the organism grows. How organisms come to
>vary is the starting point for the study of natural selection, because
>without variation, there is nothing to select. Lewontin's best known work
>in population genetics, studying evolution in fruit flies, led to new
>techniques for examining variation in populations.
>
>
> A naïve view of evolution equates function with adaptation; if we can
>identify a function of a trait, that function must be why natural selection
>put it there. One of Lewontin's most famous conceptual papers (with S J
>Gould) (ref. 2) points out the foolishness of this assumption. A trait
>might be irrelevant to natural selection, or it might be an inevitable
>consequence of another trait under selection, or it might actually be
>detrimental, in which case natural selection might be working to eliminate
>it. Facile adaptive explanations for human behavior are one weakness of
>sociobiology and its offshoots, which Lewontin has vigorously opposed;
>there is little evidence to link natural selection with the observation
>that some people are smarter, richer or happier than others. If ad hoc
>accounts of adaptation are inadequate, how then can we understand natural
>selection? Lewontin discusses the Darwinian metaphor of the organism
>adapting to an environment that is independent of it. He points out that
>environments are in fact constructed by organisms, through the organism's
>activities (where it goes, its physiological effects on the space around
>it, and more explicit construction such as building a nest); its perceptual
>abilities that determine which environmental signals it picks up; and its
>interactions with other species.
>
>"""" how organisms change their environments as they evolve, thus changing
>the conditions of evolution.
>
>"" but it would be more accurately described as distilled Lewontin,
>concentrating a career's worth of thinking about genetics and evolution
>into a small, elegant and powerful book. It will stimulate passionate
>discussion in a journal club; bring relief to students who sense that the
>textbooks aren't telling the whole story; annoy anyone who promotes simple
>generalizations about development or evolution; and inspire new ideas.
>
>
> Top
> References
>
> Nature Medicine
>
> REFERENCES
>
> & Frydman J. Protein folding in vivo: the importance of molecular
>chaperones. Current Opinion Struct Biol. 10, 26-33 (2000). | Article | ISI |
> & Lewontin, R.C. The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm:
>a critique of the adaptationist programme. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B. Biol.
>Sci. 205, 581-598 (1979). | ISI |
>
>
>
> top
> Reviewed by Deborah M. Gordon
>
> Department of Biological Sciences Stanford University, Stanford,
>California USA
> ----------------------------------
>
>
>
> At 09:34 05/12/02 -0500,Brian wrote:
> >Hi Keith,
>>I never miss a chance to bring some poetry to this list!( even though
>>in a recent post you said you had little use for it)
>
> Keith replied:
> I've never said that.
>
> Keith, can send it to us.
> Take care, Brian
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Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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