Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

[Syne]

https://aeon.co/essays/science-in-flux-i...ary-theory

When researchers at Emory University in Atlanta trained mice to fear the smell of almonds (by pairing it with electric shocks), they found, to their consternation, that both the children and grandchildren of these mice were spontaneously afraid of the same smell. That is not supposed to happen. Generations of schoolchildren have been taught that the inheritance of acquired characteristics is impossible. A mouse should not be born with something its parents have learned during their lifetimes, any more than a mouse that loses its tail in an accident should give birth to tailless mice.
...
Some evolutionary biologists, myself included, are calling for a broader characterisation of evolutionary theory, known as the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). A central issue is whether what happens to organisms during their lifetime – their development – can play important and previously unanticipated roles in evolution. The orthodox view has been that developmental processes are largely irrelevant to evolution, but the EES views them as pivotal.
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[Image: Slide1.jpg]

[Magical Realist]

It's called "epigenetics".

https://www.whatisepigenetics.com/what-is-epigenetics/

[Syne]

Epigenetics alone doesn't imply any heritability. It's epigenetic inheritance that may redefine evolutionary theory. We're finding that long-discredited Lamarckian evolution is actually true.

The received wisdom is that parental experiences can’t affect the characters of their offspring.

Except they do. The way that genes are expressed to produce an organism’s phenotype – the actual characteristics it ends up with – is affected by chemicals that attach to them. Everything from diet to air pollution to parental behaviour can influence the addition or removal of these chemical marks, which switches genes on or off. Usually these so-called ‘epigenetic’ attachments are removed during the production of sperm and eggs cells, but it turns out that some escape the resetting process and are passed on to the next generation, along with the genes. This is known as ‘epigenetic inheritance’, and more and more studies are confirming that it really happens.

[Magical Realist]

"Usually these so-called ‘epigenetic’ attachments are removed during the production of sperm and eggs cells, but it turns out that some escape the resetting process and are passed on to the next generation, along with the genes. This is known as ‘epigenetic inheritance’, and more and more studies are confirming that it really happens."

Thanks for confirming that.

[RainbowUnicorn]

https://aeon.co/essays/science-in-flux-i...ary-theory

When researchers at Emory University in Atlanta trained mice to fear the smell of almonds (by pairing it with electric shocks), they found, to their consternation, that both the children and grandchildren of these mice were spontaneously afraid of the same smell. That is not supposed to happen. Generations of schoolchildren have been taught that the inheritance of acquired characteristics is impossible. A mouse should not be born with something its parents have learned during their lifetimes, any more than a mouse that loses its tail in an accident should give birth to tailless mice.
...
Some evolutionary biologists, myself included, are calling for a broader characterisation of evolutionary theory, known as the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). A central issue is whether what happens to organisms during their lifetime – their development – can play important and previously unanticipated roles in evolution. The orthodox view has been that developmental processes are largely irrelevant to evolution, but the EES views them as pivotal.
...

[Image: Slide1.jpg]

not wanting to throw cold water on the debate, just pointing out this is not new.
this has been known in the scientific community for some decades.


is there something new about this research that they have just uncovered ?


assuming this is not some religous nut job propoganda styling towards gender identity war-fare.

almonds have a key naturally occuring chemical and some chemicals in them.
the smell is a genetic link to the brain, hard wired. known about for decades.
attaching a neuralogical imprint to the associated neuralogical foundational markers is not really new science.

it kinda sounds a bit like qwasi science hokum being conjured to create followers. grooming an audience to then sell them a big fat complete load of gob-shite.


im sure there is no end of genetacists & nearologists who could bore you to tears for weeks on end talking about these type of things.

maybe, this is what its all about
"evolutionary theory"... some qwasi skyintism bible bashing neo technologist trying to re-define the paradigms of creationism.
attempting to write a new skyence bible ?



labelled the heretic in the USA by the government for mentioning such a thing ? "broader characterisation' ?
USA reducing its scientists to cavemen with computers using them for breaking rocks

[Syne]

"Usually these so-called ‘epigenetic’ attachments are removed during the production of sperm and eggs cells, but it turns out that some escape the resetting process and are passed on to the next generation, along with the genes. This is known as ‘epigenetic inheritance’, and more and more studies are confirming that it really happens."

Thanks for confirming that.

You could have just read the article.

[Yazata]

When researchers at Emory University in Atlanta trained mice to fear the smell of almonds (by pairing it with electric shocks), they found, to their consternation, that both the children and grandchildren of these mice were spontaneously afraid of the same smell.

I'm a little skeptical about that.

Some evolutionary biologists, myself included, are calling for a broader characterisation of evolutionary theory, known as the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES).

Evolutionary theory is continuing to evolve.

One thing that surprised a lot of biologists is how few protein coding genes the Human Genome Project showed humans to have. About 20,000, about the same as a mustard plant. But... humans have about 3 billion base pairs in their entire DNA genome and mustard plants only have about 250 million. Everyone had assumed that number of genes was proportional to the complexity of the organism, but it doesn't look like that's the case. What's proportional to the complexity of the organism is the amount of "junk" DNA the organism has. More complex organisms have more "junk" DNA.

Lots of research has gone into this and it's increasingly obvious that lots of the "junk" DNA isn't junk at all, it's regulatory in function. It doesn't code for proteins but it does other things like turn genes elsewhere on the DNA on and off. After all, all of our cells have pretty much the same genes, so the genes a cell possesses isn't what determines one cell to be muscle and another to be a nerve. What does that is different genes being activated and activated in different order.

And it seems that there's a whole host of ways that genes are turned on and off. Whole sections of DNA can be tightly wrapped around histone proteins so that transcription factors can't get to them. Or portions of DNA can get methylated, which prevents transcription. Or "junk" DNA can produce non-coding RNAs that interfere with messenger RNA to prevent protein synthesis. And it does seem that environmental factors can influence some of these processes and some of what environment does might be heritable.  

A central issue is whether what happens to organisms during their lifetime – their development – can play important and previously unanticipated roles in evolution. The orthodox view has been that developmental processes are largely irrelevant to evolution, but the EES views them as pivotal.

I don't think that it's true that "orthodox" evolutionary biology thinks that developmental processes are irrelevant. The DNA code has most of its effect in the fetal development of organisms. That's where genetic mutations and changes in how existing genes are expressed can be expected to have most of their impact. For example, hox genes determine the gross body plan of the embryo (head at this end, tail at that end, with everything else spread out in between). Other genes make limbs develop or make the limbs grow fingers or toes. Even a small gene mutation that impacts these processes can have dramatic immediate effects on phenotypic anatomy. I'd speculate that the phenomenon of 'punctuated equilibria' with its sudden appearance of new anatomical forms in the fossil record is partly due to that fact. There's a whole burgeoning new field of biology that investigates this stuff, called Evolutionary Developmental Biology, or "Evo Devo" for short.

This guy seems to be arguing for something else, for a very strong construal of epigenetics such that environmental and life circumstances become heritable in quasi-Lamarckian fashion. My impression is that most working biologists don't dismiss it entirely but think that its importance and revolutionary character has been over exaggerated in the popular science press. It's something else to factor in to what is an increasingly complex picture, but it isn't going to sweep away existing evolutionary theory, make the world safe for religious creationism on one hand or for Marxist theories of perfecting man by perfecting his environment on the other.

[Syne]

"Grandchildren of well-fed grandfathers were four times as likely to die from diabetes, they found. Kids of men who suffered famine were less likely to die from heart disease." - http://www.nature.com/news/2002/021101/f...028-9.html