From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 1/14/2026 10:13 PM, jillery wrote:   
   > On Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:49:32 +1100, MarkE  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 15/01/2026 12:41 pm, MarkE wrote:   
   >>   
   >>    
   >>   
   >>> Would this be an accurate assessment of where our discussion is at?   
   >>>   
   >>> With your position, you are in effect affirming the so-called central   
   >>> dogma of biology, i.e. information flows sequentially from DNA ? RNA ?   
   >>> protein, and not in reverse.   
   >>>   
   >>> I'm suggesting instead something along the lines of Dennis Noble. If I   
   >>> understand correctly, he accepts this biochemical pipeline, but rejects   
   >>> that DNA is the primary or privileged source of biological causation.   
   >>> Rather, he argues that biological systems are causally bidirectional and   
   >>> distributed across multiple levels of organisation.   
   >>>   
   >>> If Noble was shown to be right, would my logic then be valid?   
   >>   
   >> PS   
   >>   
   >> AI summarises nicely why this matters:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> * Why This Is Devastating to Gene-Centric Darwinism   
   >>   
   >> Traditional Darwinism assumes:   
   >>   
   >> Mutations in DNA ? changes in proteins ? changes in traits ? selection   
   >>   
   >> Noble shows that causation also runs:   
   >>   
   >> physiology ? cellular state ? chromatin structure ? gene expression ?   
   >> mutation bias   
   >>   
   >> So the genome is not an independent driver; it is embedded in a   
   >> self-regulating system.   
   >>   
   >> This means:   
   >>   
   >> Evolution does not act only on genes   
   >>   
   >> Development does not read a script   
   >>   
   >> Information is not stored only in DNA   
   >>   
   >> The fertilized egg already contains a rich informational architecture   
   >> that Darwinism never explains.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>    
   >   
   >   
   > You have fundamental misunderstandings of how biological evolution   
   > works.  First, individuals don't evolve genetically; populations   
   > evolve over time across generations.  Second, biological evolution   
   > happens when the environment changes which individuals reproduce more,   
   > and which reproduce less, descendants.  Third, the environment acts on   
   > individuals, whether or not their phenotypes result from genes or a   
   > "rich informational architecture".   
   >   
   > So, even if you and Noble were shown to be right, you would still have   
   > to explain how Noble's "rich informational architecture" vs   
   > "gene-centric Darwinism" alter how 1) evolution actually works, 2) how   
   > different characteristics arise, and 3) how descendants inherit them.   
   > Short of that, you're making a lot of noise over nothing.   
   >   
      
   Noble is just someone that forgot or never understood what pretty much   
   all geneticists should have understood a generation ago.  I was a   
   genetic major in the mid 1970's and witnessed the neutral evolution   
   debate and the resolution of Haldane's dilemma and Lewontin's   
   observations of the vast amounts of standing genetic variation in   
   populations with the acceptance of Kimura's neutral theory.   
      
   Individuals of a population have to survive with the genetic variation   
   that is contained in their genomes, and populations evolve.  It turned   
   out that even if some genetic variant (mutation) changed how things   
   worked a little, like an enzyme change in reaction rate, if it didn't   
   affect how everything else was working in the life form, enough to   
   matter, that selection would not have the power to select for or against   
   that change in the mess of all the variation that existed within the   
   population.  This variation would drift in the population.  It was   
   acknowledged that any amino acid substitution in a protein would be   
   expected to alter the function in some way.  It turned out that a lot of   
   functional changes did not matter in terms of working within what was   
   already working in the cell.  The whole mess of interacting cell   
   physiology and the incomprehensible developmental mess from a single   
   cell to a complex animal like a human was found to be robust and   
   flexible.  A lot of things could change and everything still worked.  It   
   meant that phenotypic changes between populations could be established   
   by genetic drift and not selection.  Some people claim that genetic   
   drift may have a larger impact on the diversity of life on earth than   
   natural selection and they are probably right.  Just think of all the   
   genetic variation segregating within the human population, and humans   
   have around 1/5 as much standing genetic variation as the average species.   
      
   All this means is that what MarkE is attributing to Noble has been   
   accounted for by geneticists for a very long time.  Genetics was   
   developed within the context of cell theory, so what Noble seems to be   
   talking about has always been accounted for.  Genetic changes have   
   always had to work within what has already been working.  Whether that   
   context is just cell replication or developmental biology doesn't   
   matter, any genetic change has to work within what is already working or   
   that genetic change is not passed on to the next generation.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)