Doug
I think Dawkins should always be worried. The problem with his views is that
a) - from a moral point of view - although his own politics are cuddly and
honourable - he unwittingly supports the extreme right in applying Occam's
razor to the gene-pool, so that only what succeeds, succeeds. Dawkins, that
wonderful intellect, believes in mindlessness, as, as it were, a First
Cause, his brittle love of the efficient makes endless Liverpools 'leaner
and fitter'. He has no notion of redundancy. Nature works on spare parts,
and things in the garage, the gene code looks full of garbage because the
elites who are trained on competition don't know how to read it socially,
really it it is a story of what might be about to happen. A froth of
potentials.
I had occasion last week to read Darwin's account of the Beagle voyage, and
other related texts, like Captain Fitzroy's, what comes across is both how
moral Darwin was, his detestation of slavery nearly got him shipped back to
England at one point, not approving of slavery at that time wasn't socially
acceptable in Brazil, and how primitive too, he loved to club booby birds
to death. His reaction to the Yaghan, y'know the Tierra del Fuegans, Mr
Buttons and all, encapsulated both his weaknesses and his insight.
Lamarck, in some ways, has a very bad press, I recall Mandelstam eulogised
him, with point. It is not so much a matter of being contra-Darwin as
contra-Darwinism, to which Darwin, as with Marx to Marxism, was not a
subscriber.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: Epigenetics
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dominic Fox" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 12:25 PM
> Subject: Re: Epigenetics
>
>
> Lysenkoism!
>
> Man, I'm really going to hate having been wrong about that one...
>
> Dominic
> --
> Douglas Clark wrote:
> > I should have added that I decided it was not strictly Lamarckism cos it
> > was
> > not the DNA that was affected but the switches that controlled the
genes.
> >
>
> ie that the response to the stress was not a novel mutation.
>
> Switches that control genes are themselves coded in the DNA,
> ultimately, of course. The presence of a site in a gene which responds
> to a 'switch', and the 'switch' itself, be it another gene product
> (enzyme) or the *product* of another gene product (simpler molecule),
> or a stacked complex which can 'tell the time' - know *when* to switch
> on or off - all of this is ultimately coded for by the genome. And this
> provides for some very subtle mechanisms, which don't preclude the
> adaptive success of a gene which modifies another in germ cells in
> response to a stress, and makes progeny more resistant to that stress.
> Such a gene could be successful, even if it does not directly benefit
> the individual (as is the case with many adaptations which improve the
> success of progeny rather than the original bearer).
>
> The long reach of the gene - I don't think Dawkins will be too worried
> at this stage.
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