[lbo-talk] the epigenenome

Matthias Wasser matthias.wasser at gmail.com
Fri May 15 08:45:37 PDT 2009


On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 11:18 AM, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>
>
> I believe we are talking about mutations. A mutation of a gene occurs in an
> individual. If that individual does not reproduce -- which is in fact the
> majority case, since most mutations are regressive and decrease the
> reproductive success of the carrier -- that mutation is lost.

Irrelevant nitpick: most mutations have no effect on fitness whatsoever.

I don't believe anybody (except perhaps Dawkins, & al.) is disputing the individual level of selection. But it would seem weird to deny that species is a level of selection in evolution, which is just the change in allele frequencies over time. If changes in the environment lead to humans, wheat, and cattle increasing in prevalence relative to trees, beavers, and star-bellied snitches, this is a meaningful change, even if it does not result in or arise from evolution within those species, ie, individual-level selection. This level of selection operates on a different logic - Lamarckian and, ignoring HGT, asexual - and so I think it's useful to treat it as more than simply the aggregate of individual-level selection; just as chemistry is different from quantum physics.



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