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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: Lamarckian Evolution
Message-ID: <1995Feb16.183227.13103@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se>
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Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 00:52:00 GMT
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mfsmith@ibms15.scri.fsu.edu (Trey Smith) wrote:
>A little heresy:
>
>Consider the E. Coli lac operon, one of the standard examples of
>DNA responding to the environment.  When there's more lactose in
>the environment, it binds to a repressor protein that normally stops
>the synthesis of lactose-digesting enzymes.  So the bacterium can now
>digest lactose.  So far this is just standard molecular biology.
>
>Next suppose that the absence of this repressor protein when it comes
>time to replicate the DNA affects the replication process--maybe the
>repressor site gets snipped out or transposed by another enzyme if the
>repressor isn't there.  Then the offspring of the bacterium would be
>predisposed to produce lactose-digesting enzymes (i.e. they might not
>wait as long to gear up for lactose digestion).
>
>This scenario doesn't seem farfetched to me.  It certainly doesn't
>require supernatural intelligence to develop.  And it would be an
>evolutionary advantage.
>
>Limited Lamarckism makes sense.

 Don't call it Lamarckism for pete's sake! It's a mechanism that came from
Darwinian evolution just like any other mechanism. Lamarckistic
evolution, as he meant it, falls on its impossiblity.

/Claes

