THE SECOND EVOLUTION
BY DANNY VENDRAMINI
Q&A, FEEDBACK AND DISCUSSION
PAGE 2 (OF 4)
| Professor Peter Richerson,
Department of Environmental Science and Policy. University of California Davis |
Dear Danny, It will be neat if it turns out to be true! Have you seen Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb's latest book? They review several plausible mechanisms for the inheritance of acquired variation, but I don't recall them mentioning yours. They are explicitly neo-neo-Lamarckians. By the way, Darwin was quite explicit about his belief in the inheritance of acquired variation. See the preface to the 2nd edition of the Descent of Man. In the Descent he treats human culture as simply one form of the inheritance of acquired variation. Best, Pete |
| DV: Reply | Dear Peter, Thanks for your response to the article on teem theory and for mentioning Jablonka and Lamb's work, which I'm familiar with. Our lines of inquiry though are quite different. Their emphasis is on the inheritance of acquired PHYSICAL traits, whereas the teemosis process is primarily about BEHAVIOURAL evolution. In fact, I argue that teemosis was only able to emerge by natural selection because it didn't affect the inheritance of physical traits. It only regulates the inheritance of information, (configured as emotions) and encrypted into noncoding regions of DNA. In this important respect, teemosis is a nonLamarckian process. There is of course a sound evolutionary reason why teemosis adopted ncDNA as its medium of inheritance. Emotions are acquired from the organism's current environment and as the 'central dogma' tells us, nothing acquired from the environment during the life of the organism can be inherited inside a protein coding gene because it could contaminate the germline. This can result in the inheritance of disabilities acquired during the life of the organism, (like cancer, or lumbago) which would be maladaptive. The solution that natural selection came up with was to create an alternative system of inheritance that doesn't use protein coding genes and therefore doesn't involve the inheritance of physical traits. Yes, old Darwin was paradoxically both a Lamarckian as well as a Darwinist, but to his credit, he mainly looked to Lamarckian ideas to explain the evolution of complex, environmentally-specific instincts because his travels on Beagle convinced him that the environment was somehow 'instructing what new behaviours emerged, something his own 'selectionist' process (natural selection) couldn't do. regards Danny |
| Professor
Robert Trivers |
Dear Mr Vendramini, thank you for sending me yet another version of your 'teem' theory, the most bizarre and unlikely theory I have seen published in Medical Hypotheses, a journal that specializes in same. If you are right, nearly everything I know about genetics and development is wrong. I wish you all the best but personally I doubt the enterprise, start to finish, yours, Robert Trivers |
| DV: Reply | Dear Professor Trivers, Thanks for your refreshingly frank and unequivocal response. I readily agree that teem theory is a "most bizarre and unlikely theory," but that doesn't mean it's wrong. As you yourself said recently in an 'Edge' interview- "It's a truism in science that those problems that most directly contradict current thinking or most directly challenge the system of logic you're committed to are apt to be the most fruitful in revealing deeper aspects of reality." Your suggestion that "If you are right, nearly everything I know about genetics and development is wrong" is not proof, nor even a scientific argument. It's the expression of an apprehension that every scientist feels, myself included and which is part and parcel of doing science. If teem theory is fundamentally flawed, you need to specify precisely how and why it's flawed. To test the theory, I've encouraged the most rigorous scrutiny from eminent life scientists around the world. Despite it being arguably the most radical (and unlikely) biological theory since Darwin, no one has so far pinpointed any fundamental flaw in the theory. In fact, I'd describe the response so far as on the whole, 'cautiously positive' which is encouraging, this despite the fact that teem theory challenges many of the fundamental beliefs of the scientists involved. To my mind, teem theory is best proved by withstanding the most demanding and concerted effects to disprove it. What's left after this process will be the final version of teem theory. As one of the most distinguished evolutionary biologists, geneticists and anthropologists working today, I welcome and encourage your critical analysis of the theory as part of this process. Having said that, it's worth remembering what Charles Darwin wrote in the Conclusion to The Origin of Species: "Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine." Best wishes, Danny |
| Wiliam
Novak |
I taught Darwin and
biology for more years
than I care to remember. I am retired now but still like to keep up
with what's
new. I read your book extract with great interest, thanks for putting
it online. It's a real achievement, up there with the best science I've
come across.
Just wish I had it when I was teaching, I could have answered a lot more of those curly
questions students have a knack of coming up with. This is what the
next
generation of students will be learning. |
| DV: Reply | Thank you for you positive
response. It's not something I've thought
about but it would be good to see teem theory being taught as part of
the Darwinian paradigm. |
| Professor
Pierre Capy University of Paris |
Dear Danny, Your point of view seems interesting. For the moment, I did [not] have time to read your ms, but I will try to do it as soon as possible. Anyway, I have just a question: why do you wrote that "noncoding 'junk' DNA ...codes for emotions, innate behaviour, instincts and personality in metazoans". What are the arguments in favor of such an assertion ? What do you call "Junk DNA" ? Sincerely, Pierre |
| DV. Reply: | Dear Pierre, First let me say how delighted I am to here from you. Your work on stress and transposable elements has been very important to my own work. Merci. In response to your questions, my hypothesis asserts that while protein-coding nucleotide sequences (genes) code for physical traits, non-protein-coding nucleotides ('teems') code for emotions, personality and innate behaviours. This is what I call the 'divided DNA hypotheses.' It argues that natural selection gradually created a divided DNA molecule, which we know as 'eukaryotic DNA.' Separating protein-coding genes from non-protein-coding 'teems' was necessary to prevent information acquired from the environment during the life of the individual (things like instincts and emotions) from contaminating the germline - as this would constitute Lamarckian inheritance and would prove maladaptive. I use the term 'junk DNA' to describe any DNA nucleotide that does not code for a protein: - microsatellites, Alu elements, SINES, LINES, etc. Teem theory argues that severe emotional stress can causetransposable elements to replicate, delete, transpose, reorganise and reassemble into linguistic patterns that 'code for' the traumatic emotions that caused the 'directed mutation.' Your work with Gasperi, Biemont and Bazin was crucial to this theory because it showed that these stress induced directed mutations (what I call 'teems') can be inherited to the next generation. That showed that the teemosis process was in fact a mechanism of inheritance - albeit, one that only inherited 'non-physical' things like emotions. For that I am eternally grateful. As far as the detailed arguments in favour of these hypotheses, the papers and book chapters on my web site probably explain it better than I can in an email. I hope you find the time to read them and look forward to your response. kind regards Danny |
| Professor
Ross H
Crozier. James Cook University Queensland, Australia |
Dear Dr Vendramini, Thank you for mentioning your work to me. Some of your ideas parallel those of researchers who beleive that there are very large portions of the genome dedicated to producing non-coding [regulatory] DNAs. Unfortunately, the evidence for this is yet to arrive, although a small number of microRNA genes is known. I can't agree that we need a new class of genetic variation, and do not accept that the various phenomena you mention demand a different kind of gene and that this kind of gene is not subject to natural selection. [Where we can look, we find ordinary genes affecting behavior, speciation etc, and these are certainly subject to selection]. But it is true that regulatory genes are pretty likely to be more important than genes in general in leading to significant innovations. A problem with this classification is that genes interact, so that all genes are 'regulatory' to some degree. Yours sincerely, Ross Crozier |
| DV:
Reply: |
Dear Professor Crozier, Thanks for your response. Your comments are much appreciated. You write that I mention "a different kind of gene and that this kind of gene is not subject to natural selection." May I take this opportunity to clarify what appears to be a misunderstanding. I don't claim that teems are not subject to natural selection. In paper 1, "A second evolutionary process moderates the evolution of emotions and behaviour in metazoans," I write that once genomically archived into ncDNA, "each teem is subject to step two of the Darwinian process - natural selection proper, which tests the new teem within the context of the organism's current ecological circumstances. If the new teem precipitates an adaptive emotion, behaviour or personally trait, it is likely to be conserved, while maladaptive teems are eradicated from the gene pool." Teems encode emotions and innate behaviours . If those emotions are maladaptive, the teem will be eradicated, just as a maladaptive physical trait would be. Regarding your view that "I can't agree that we need a new class of genetic variation," I would agree with you if genes and natural selection adequately explained complex innate behaviour and instincts. But they don't. In fact, despite fifty years of searching, behavioural geneticists don't appear to have found a single protein-coding gene that codes for a complex innate behaviour or emotion. While they have found genes that code for simplex reflex behaviours (like egg-laying in the primitive marine snail, Aplysia, or rudimentary courtship behaviour in Drosophila), the genes for complex behaviour remain elusive. Whenever the press have heralded the discovery of a 'criminality gene', or a 'homosexual gene', these findings have invariably been challenged and dismissed. By now, we should expect to have found the protein-coding sequence that tells new born turkeys how to recognise a hawk flying overhead? And why haven't we found the protein-coding gene that tells monarch butterflies how to recognise the milkwood plant they lay their eggs on. And where is the gene that tells migrating green turtles how to find Ascension Island, over 2000 kms away. Where is the gene that encodes our own preference for park-like landscapes. If I am correct, these behaviours will never be found within protein-coding genes because protein-coding genes code for proteins and polypeptides and cells and ultimately physical organs, plus a handfull of rudimentary reflex bahaviours. While it has always been inferred that proteins make emotions, personality or innate behaviours, there is no actual evidence for this. Behaviours and the emotions that support them are, I suggest encoded within non-protein-coding (so-called 'junk DNA') nucleotides. Is there any evidence for this? I believe so. In 2003, Elizabeth Hammock and Larry Young from Emory University identified a 400 nucleotide noncoding sequence of microsatellites inside the regulatory region of the V1aR gene of the North American prairie vole that coded for monogamy. Sibling species, such as the montane vole that is missing this noncoding sequence do not display this monogamous social behaviour. Kind regards Danny |
| Carl
Schlichting Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut |
Danny,
|
| DV: Reply |
Dear
Professor
Schlichting, Thanks for your comments. You argue that “it is preposterous to suggest that differential survival and reproduction of variants was held in abeyance for 2 billion years,” but the fossil record of the first 3.2 billion years and a wealth of palentological evidence clearly supports this contention. The Precambrian record consistently reveals only sporadic, low level microevolution, interspersed with what Williamson, (Nature, 1981, 294,) called the “long-term morphological stasis now recognized as one of the most striking aspects of the fossil record.” While it’s widely believed that evolution tends towards increased complexity, paradoxically Carroll (Nature, Feb, 2001) observed that after more than three billion years, life on Earth was still “a world of microscopic forms, rarely achieving a size greater than a millimetre or a complexity beyond two or three cell types.” Steven Jay Gould reached similar conclusions in Natural History (Vol. 86, 6) - "The Precambrian fossil record is little more (save at its very end) than 2.5 billion years of bacteria and blue-green algae.” In other words, throughout the Precambrian (about 90% of geologic time) natural selection (NS) failed to produce any animals or any real complexity or biodiversity. The inability of Precambrian NS to achieve macroevolution challenges your view that NS is a “a powerful and ubiquitous force” that can’t be ‘constrained.’ To explain why NS throughout the Precambrian only produced organisms the size of a pin head, (and not much smarter) requires a radical new paradigm. Without teem theory to explain its percularities, the fossil record will remain problematical for evolutonary biologists, just as it was ‘Darwin’s dilemma’ 160 years ago. Kind regards Danny Vendramini |
| Professor Carl
Schlichting |
The pre-Cambrian fossil
record is the perfect exemplar for the maxim: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Broad conclusions from such a sparse record are likely to be faulty - especially when it is probably the physiological characteristics of those organisms that were undergoing the most evolutionary change. |
| DV: Reply (2) |
Dear Professor Schlichting, You appear to be citing the argument that natural selection (NS) was busy throughout the Precambrian creating transitional forms, but that these are not preserved in the fossil record because they were soft-bodied. This argument has been challenged by fossils of soft-bodied fauna from Chengjiang, China and other sites that clearly demonstrate that soft tissues, including stomachs, eyes and digestive glands can be fossilised. If NS was producing significant intermediate forms throughout the Precambrian, there should be telling stratigraphic evidence of it. There isn't. Still, we don't need to rely on the fossil record to show that NS can actively retard evolution. In my book, 'The Second Evolution', I cite the example of jellyfish that evolved in an isolated lake on the island of Palau. Because all the jellyfish inhabited the same predator free environment, they all came under the same selective pressure so that today, the millions of jellyfish that inhabit the lake are all virtually identical. Because the jellyfish have all achieved optimum adaptation to this stable, homogenous environment, any change, (brought about by random mutations) would be maladaptive and therefore be selected against. In this way, NS acts as an agent of stasis. This stable aquatic ecosystem, I ague, mirrors the Precambrian environment and was one reason why evolution progressed at a snail's pace for billions of years. It wasn't until teemosis emerged (creating the instincts that fostered competition) that NS became a significant evolutionary mechanism. kind regards Danny |
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