Comments for Evolving ideas

Comment on Adaptive acquired characteristics are genetically primed but not assimilated by Douglas Falknor

Douglas Falknor — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:34:49 +0000

Very interesting discussion, moved along nicely except for the end.
I can hardly see how the small “g” genome “has reached the highest point of its optimization.” ? I didn’t get the Memo that the rate at which mutations occur had been stopped.

JJ,

Your genetically primed hypothesis–similar to one of mine that I’m calling “genetic infilling.”

We come from an era when no one thought any aspect of religion could be inherited. I hope to help in some small way to raise an obscuring curtain and to show that genes will venture in any direction that raises no barrier, that genes will INFILL in any direction neutral to reproductive success, but remain and push forward in directions affording success.

My hypothesis goes something like this: Hold all variables constant, besides selection at work, genes will infill and mimic cultural adaptations as long as there is no opposing selective pressure.

Some aspects of behavior (see everyone for description of hyperactive agent detection device as a brain module, as well as predisposition to language, morality) could have genetically infilled given enough time and no opposing selective pressure.

Genes, crudely at first, then over time, more closely approximate the genes which will ultimately present an expression more and more like the cultural adaptation it is mimicking.

I lean toward a little more heritability of religiosity or spirituality. We had 100,000+ years for it to seep in our collective “soul.”

Religions come and go (estimate in The Faith Instinct was 10,000 relgions, I think), we shouldn’t confuse the life cycle of particular religion with the more or less irrepressible drive for spiritual expression. We just need to find a better avenue for fulfillment that religion.

(Love your blog, can you refer me to someone to tune mine up?)

Comment on Adaptive acquired characteristics are genetically primed but not assimilated by Clifford Stevens

Clifford Stevens — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:22:00 +0000

There is no evidence in the Human Genome that the alleles of the Genome have any causal effect upon human behavior.

The very concept of “priming” has no meaning in the genetic powers of the Human Genome, since the Genome is species specific and has reached the highest point of its optimization, An further optimization is futile and is based on a flawed observation.

Father Clifford Stevens
Boys Town, Nebraska

Comment on Splitting niche construction by door hinges

door hinges — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:16:12 +0000

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Comment on Is evolutionary psychology sorted out? by evolutionary aspects

evolutionary aspects — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 01:20:34 +0000

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Comment on Adaptive acquired characteristics are genetically primed but not assimilated by acquired characteristics

acquired characteristics — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:03:41 +0000

[...] Lamarckian evolution, which states that acquired characteristics can be passed on to offspring. …Adaptive acquired characteristics are genetically primed but …In their book, The Four Dimensions of Evolution, the Waddington canalization' explanation of the [...]

Comment on Adaptive unconscious by stuff smith

stuff smith — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:42:17 +0000

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Comment on epigenetics by lamarckian inheritance

lamarckian inheritance — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:34:58 +0000

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Comment on Three Drivers of Evolution at Organism Level by Ben

Ben — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:27:08 +0000

Thanks for your post too.

I think I agree. But I am not quite sure what you mean when you say originating. Obviously many events could lead to changes in the environment thence to changes in allele frequency, which is part of the reason why I’ve expressed scepticism about niche constructionism on this blog. Also many events can be sources of variation. Mutations, for example, range from simple substitutions to gene duplications. I think these events can sometimes be confused with evolutionary dynamics themselves – a nice example would be biased gene conversion which is a product of DNA repair mechanisms and crossing over. These basic processes lead to preferential replacement of some alleles with others in a way that is mediated only by sequence. However we might still describe the sequence of an allele as its phenotype and then we can redescribe biased gene conversion as natural selection operating at a very low level. The key distinction is that evolution is about population-level dynamics.

I certainly agree with the usefulness of classifying causes of evolution, but I’ve noticed that different fields do this in different ways, e.g., comparative genomicists often divide selection up according to its precise effect on variation (purifying versus positive for example), while behavioural ecologists, being mainly interested in optimality, would not stress these distinctions.

I think for mutual exclusivity and exhaustiveness, good criteria I think, I would plump for the three I mentioned in my second comment above: natural selection, agent selection (which could be lumped with natural) and drift. I think these incorporate the drivers mentioned in your post (e.g., hybrids either drift to fixation or are selected).

Comment on Three Drivers of Evolution at Organism Level by John Jacob Lyons

John Jacob Lyons — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:00:35 +0000

Thanks for that Ben.

I guess I would define an evolutionary driver as any type of originating event that is capable of causing a change to the species’ gene-pool. It may
act by increasing/ decreasing variation in the available alleles, by changing the probabilities of their selection or changing relevant aspects of the environment. I may well have got the wrong set of such drivers but I think it would be useful to be able to define a set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive drivers. Do you agree with that Ben?

Comment on Genetic Priming; So What’s New by Ben

Ben — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:28:48 +0000

To the extent that selection is effective we might expect a large number of traits to be aptations – as opposed to adaptations I agree. But I would strengthen the negative side of the argument – I think selection is inefficient for many reasons two of which you hint at: 1. antagonistic epistasis (or perhaps you mean divergent selection), 2. higher-level dynamics – to these we might add: 3. small population size/small selection coefficient (linked concepts), 4. spatial structure with interbreeding. I think that many aspects of human behaviour may be best thought of as (often composite) byproducts also – so that thinking of these often complex suites of characters as adaptations per se is incorrect, but optimising the genome for them may also be unlikely given their complexity and the complexity of the situation in general.

On a semantic note, it strikes me that this argument bears some relation to the “genes for” discussion in Dawkins’ Selfish Gene. Very few relevant traits, beyond polypeptide sequences, can be said to be directly encoded by any gene or combination of genes. Interactionism is a given so I would say that priming is rather a way of describing selection that is sensitive to this fact.