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187 comments on DrumBeat: August 30, 2007

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ET on August 31, 2007 - 12:26am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Creatures don't mutate in response to environmental pressures.

A bit OT. There is research showing tendencies for mutations on parts of the genome that deal with parts of the phenotype that are under increased environmental pressure to mutate faster than other parts of the genome. Partially directed mutation in essence. Read Jablonka and Lamb's 'Evolution in Four Dimensions' for an excellent summary of the state of the research in evolution.

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GreyZone on August 31, 2007 - 1:37am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

They simply argue that the data to date is inconclusive. But something they fail to consider is the role of natural selection coupled with mutation to produce what appears to be a "directed" mutation.

Mutations (which are random events) become naturally selected upon more readily when those mutations correspond to an area of environmental pressure (and thus directly related to survival). Thus one mutation might get lost in the genetic shuffle because it does not currently provide a survival advantage in the current ecological niche (while it might in some other environment), but another mutation becomes an advantage and gets selected for survival thus ensuring its transmission downstream to descendants.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone

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auntiegrav on August 31, 2007 - 10:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Also not considered is that a species is not separate from its environment. Pressure from the environment to change the species stimulates a response from the species to change its environment. Plants respond to overgrazing by producing toxins. The species that are overgrazing respond by less grazing. The crux is in the PID response curve and the timing. Also, some changes don't appear as genetic mutations because DNA has so much unknown ability to respond with its reserves that what appears to be a systemic response is probably due to past genetic mutations which are merely dormant, and thus don't show up as changes in electrophoresis (sp?) testing.

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new account on August 31, 2007 - 11:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Species are also stupid. They have little understanding of how their actions are modifying the environment.


The best example is that of the Oxygen Catastrophe.

The Oxygen Catastrophe was a massive environmental change believed to have happened during the Siderian period at the beginning of the Paleoproterozoic era, about 2.4 billion years ago. It is also called the Oxygen Crisis, Oxygen Revolution or The Great Oxidation.

When evolving life forms developed oxyphotosynthesis about 2.7 billion years ago, molecular oxygen was produced in large quantities. The plentiful oxygen eventually caused an ecological crisis, as oxygen was toxic to the anaerobic organisms living at the time.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_Catastrophe



The key question is "Are we smarter than Cyanobacteria?"

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187 comments on DrumBeat: August 30, 2007

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