Re: Mendelian Genetics and evolution

Judith,

the bartender speaketh...(I am an outsider both in genetix and biol) but as I understand that (not anno1866 or 74 even not in the sense of mid XX.c) Darwinism is a relic and today people step further. Even further than the so called post-Darwinism. Your post has two (opposable?) foci: One is the classic reuctionist model (and cf. Tim's remark I will return to elaborate on this _expression_ of mine in another post)

the other the more contemporary view of yours:

Already this year, I've read several articles in mainstream publications which speak of the importance of "relations between genes"...

Still the narrow 'reduced' model. Then again you step beyond that, too, appreciably.

I wonder what RR would have replied to my 1994 (semantic?) paradox, of the so called (classical, only gene or soma based structural) fitness - as regarded within the conventional model and formulated using the conventional evolutionary vocabulary:

"The dynosaur was at the top of its fitness when it became extinct" - just pointing to widening the fitness model's boundaries into a bit more of the natural complexity. More like a Rosennean type thinking:

It is NOT the genes, NOT the soma, it is the totality, the wholeness of nature, the natural system - all of it. The change of environment, the circumstances (all) affecting that 'fitness'. Had nothing to do with the structural 'changes' of those giants. As you wrote:

One must keep track of the main driver of evolution; which is the interactivity of the system as a whole-- in interaction with "the ambience" (environment and everything in it).

I think RR would like it, in the sense as you interpreted:

Evolution is a side process of life, and is hugely interactive. The term "fitness" is entirely context dependent.

The meaning of evolution is another point in the

changing ways of thinking lately (expressed as RR, or not): the environmental (total nature, I don't like the 'ambience' what I feel like: OUTSIDE the subject) -

'process' in its ubiquitous inter-efficiency on all, is producing changes (2+ way) in all imaginable and not-so imaginable fashions. All kinds of gene etc. variants occur, (consider the bisexual conception and pressure from natural changes) - some viable, some not. The latter are immediately discontinued (like: the 5 legged sheep eaten up by the wolf or the flat-rooted pinetree blown away by the wind) while others proliferate. "Scientists" take the snapshots only and occasionally usually don't even find

the remnants of the "unfit" variants, so the hindsight image is a continuous change into the (more?) viable variations, "changing" to (rather: getting replaced by) 'fitter' ones.

This is the way of nature's dynamic design - not teleology - and I place the 'anticipatory' into the overall changing natural circumstances as 'what has more potential to proliferate within the overall ongoing changes'. The changes are parallel trends, not a '1 step at a time' only consequential play. Our knowledge-base (mind?) is too scimpy for the time being to recognize all the trends.

I hope in these dangerous times no list-axe will fall on me. I hope to be absolved for this and survive as fit.

John Mikes

----- Original Message -----

From: Judith Rosen

To: ***

Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 11:48 AM

Subject: Mendelian Genetics and evolution

It's interesting to re-read some of the material on genetics and evolution in Life, Itself. Gregor Mendel is generally considered the originator of the field of genetic research, and yet he was apparently more interested in the functional _expression_ of inherited properties than in what "mechanism" was at work. The dualism between genotype and phenotype was not quite a dualism until after Mendel died and somebody named August Weismann wrote a book called "Das Keimplasm", in which he proposed different names for the dualism; Soma and germplasm. Soma refers to the living organism (phenotype) and germplasm refers to hereditary genetic material (genotype). According to Robert Rosen, Weismann was the first to identify "life" with germplasm-- which indirectly caused the development of the modern view of living systems, genetics, and evolution.

So there was a shift, over the years between Mendel's work in 1866, Weismann's in 1874, and the mid-1900's; away from seeing heredity and genetics in functional terms and towards the view that we could learn about life and heredity from studying genes in and of themselves; in structural and chemical terms. Therein lies the reduction, or over-simplification, of the concept.

>Skip the quotes<

It's clear that he thinks science got too caught up in the details, and lost the correct focus. "If you chase the particles, you will chase them right through an organism and find yourself on the other side, missing the organism completely," he said. One must keep track of the main driver of evolution; which is the interactivity of the system as a whole-- in interaction with "the ambience" (environment and everything in it). You can tell, with the phrase; "It is important to have a tangible bridge..." In RR-speak, he was saying "It is important to reductionistic science to have a tangible bridge..." His point of view was that genetics only plays a set of roles, roles which change, depending on context and multiple different roles which can all be happening simultaneously, as is the nature of complex organization. To identify life with genetics, in his view, is "a reduction". It's a tangent off in the wrong direction. Evolution is a side process of life, and is hugely interactive. The term "fitness" is entirely context dependent. So, his conclusion was that to try and understand evolution in terms of genes/genetics alone is to chase an imaginary wild goose through the brambles.

But it's actually worse than that; science has also tried really hard to understand genes purely in terms of structural details and chemistry, as if that's all there is to genetics. So this is a further reduction. However, there may be some hope that the limitations inherent in this approach are becoming apparent and people are actively looking for alternate perspectives which give more purchase on the subjects at hand. Already this year, I've read several articles in mainstream publications which speak of the importance of "relations between genes"...

Judith