Posted by
Phil Henshaw-2 on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Relaxed-Selection-a-b-level-posting-tp1315075p1318198.html
> Marcus says:
> Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > We could consider the vast variation in
> > canine breeds and the fact that breeding selection as an extreme form of
> > epigenetics has not apparently altered the species they all belong to.
> >
> Selection from breeding would mostly be constrained genetics, i.e. a big
> and a small dog could be discriminated by, say, an insulin allele, say
> (
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5821/112).
> However in epigenetic case we are talking about an inherited but
> non-genetic change.
[ph] On looking up a couple definitions I find the word distinguishes
between heritable "gene expression" from heritability in general. I
suppose there are a variety of ways gene expression might be inherited, and
I was falling into the common presumption that "it's all in the genes"...
:~(
> > Perhaps the question is how environmental pressures and experience may
> > clearly influence genetics, but be insufficient to originate the kind of
> > somehow deeper genetic change that creates new forms of life. Among
other
> > things it points to a distinct difference between 'shallower' and
'deeper'
> > genetic change indicating that some form of structure other than noisy
> > aggregations may be present.
> >
> Seems to me that everything from epigenetic gene regulation changes to
> horizontal gene transfer is happening at the bacterial level.. What is
> the question?
[ph] There may be so many different kinds of inheritance if you open it up
like that, I would just start to differentiate by balling them all up into
one, since we really don't yet seem to have a way to distinguish what does
what and just recently discovered all that 'junk' DNA we can't map has some
other kinds of functions we can't map. The question I was alluding to is
the argument about whether organisms have any structures at all, or are just
statistical distributions that record statistical interferences (that turn
out to be extremely different for every species). I believe that is the
usual bottom line dispute between those who think speciation represents a
change of state and those who think it represents only statistical drift.
The generalization of that is the question of whether any system in nature
actually has any structure of its own, or if all form is just a statistical
aggregation of random environmental perturbations. I think it's real
obvious that systems have internal designs independent of their environments
because you can watch how their internal loops emerge without determinant
cause and develop locally to become resilient and independently responsive,
as well as having intricately organized unique functional designs.
I do understand there are a number of issues of causation it leaves
unanswered, but just because they're unanswered doesn't explain how systems
have such unfathomably complex and concentrated multi-faceted organization
without some kind of organizational development process. I think the root
problem is one of perception, that most explanations seem to try explain
systems as being poked by their environments with sticks or pushed with
pressures, and leave it at that. That leaves out how the internal threads
of systems are pulled with either trails of crumbs or puddles of honey.
There's certainly a lot that goes on at the interface between system and
environment, but it's both push and pull, and I think when you start asking
it's both push and pull from both inside and out. The usual idea that
there's no way to cause things but to pry or whack them with a stick, seems
to be missing at least 3/4 of what could be happening at any real complex
system interface. It certainly seems to give me great productive questions
to be open to that regarding complex system events in general.
Do you ever look at systems and their environments as actively interacting,
each taking advantage of each other in part, instead of just one pushing the
other around?
Phil
>
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