Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!bionet!agate!ucbvax!VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU!mwm From: mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike Meyer, I'll think of something yet) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: cross-posting from info-evolution Message-ID: <8810251949.AA23237@violet.berkeley.edu> Date: 25 Oct 88 19:49:52 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 42 >> So, why hasn't it [lamarckian evolution] happened naturally? >> Is it infeasible in natural bio-chemical systems? Obviously not, if the claims you quote about seeing it microbial level. >> Is it fundamentally flawed? Probably not, as any change you can apply to an organism can be made via genetic alterations. I think the problem can be found right here: >> it struck me that being able to pass on acquired characteristics should have >> a vast competetive edge over Darwinian selection, and the rate of change of >> a population using that mechanism would be vastly higher, with a corresponding >> decrease in wasted lives (failed random variations). Considering that _natural_ changes to living creature tend to be mostly harmfull to that creature, I don't see why you think there would be fewer wasted lives. Any animal that lost a leg would wind up with 1/2 (is that a dominant or a recessive? :-) it's children being without that leg, etc. Seems those would be "wasted lives" in the sense of not aiding the evolution of the species. It's obviously possible for evolutionary changes to happen to fast - if every member of a species changes, the species vanishes in one generation. The question then becomes, what percentage of the population do you want to randomly mutate looking for beneficial mutations. The answer also obviously depends on the frequency of beneficial mutations among all mutations. Given the way evolution works, I wouldn't be surprised if the mutation rate is close to optimal for the radiation levels on earth at some early period of history. And that could well explain why we don't see lamarckian evolution at a macroscopic level: the number of mutations per generation is way to high for it to be an efficient method of species evolution. Given _controlled_ mutations, though - everything changes. There, Lamarckian evolution is a major advantage, as it's much easier to work with a being than with it's DNA repressentation.