From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Mon Apr 19 2004 - 15:57:11 MDT
rhinoceros
Sent: 19 April 2004 09:45 PM
[Blunderov] I'm not to sure how much confidence I can place in the
statement "Natural selection is severely limited both in its power to
promote useful genes and in its freedom to tinker with morphology."
There was some interesting research a little while back from, I think,
The University of California, about master genes; capable of controlling
groups of genes in order to effect quite dramatic changes in morphology.
(Interesting is that one of the fundy arguments against the theory of
evolution is this very contention - that natural selection cannot
properly account for the dramatic changes in morphology that are
claimed.)
It is not clear to me why these two ideas, dramatic genetic mutation and
Autocatalysis, should be mutually exclusive as the article seems to
imply. "If natural selection is not the be all and end all of evolution,
then what is?" smacks suspiciously to me of a false dilemma; could it
not be some of both at different times and places for instance?
Maybe this why the models don't hold up?
It seems to me that the writer has deliberately presented matters in a
more adversarial light than might be completely warranted.
All that said, I quite like the idea of autocatalysis.
Best Regards
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