A key mutational event? More story-telling. Olfaction modulates vision.

By: James V. Kohl | Published on: December 3, 2012

In my model, the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals on intracellular signaling and stochastic gene expression cause Imprinting Evolution, which is controlled by the metabolism of the nutrient chemicals to species-specific pheromones. Pheromones epigenetically control reproduction in species from microbes to man.  In my model, Natural Selection is for nutrient chemicals that enable survival.  Sexual Selection in organisms hat sexually reproduce is for pheromones that signal nutrient chemical-dependent reproductive fitness.
I asked this question on the evolutionary psychology group
Which makes more sense: Imprinting evolution or an ancient genetic accident (e.g., a mutation)? If the mutation story makes more sense, why hasn’t anyone provided a model that details how mutations cause adaptive evolution?
The response I received from the group’s moderator is here. (I’ve tried to make sense of it by paraphrasing, rephrasing, and using excerpts but so far none of what he said makes sense to me.
Remember the question: Why hasn’t anyone provided a model that details how mutations cause adaptive evolution?
——————————-
‘Natural Selection’ and ‘Sexual Selection’ are the standard models that detail how mutations cause adaptive evolution. In these models, “…variations between individuals form a pool of potential breeders where only the fittest proliferate.”
Q. Where do the variations come from?
A. Primarily from the existing genome due to  mutations caused mainly by flaws in the replication process. 
Q. Where did the existing genome come from?
A.________________________
Q. How important are the flaws and mutations to adaptive evolution?
A.  The flaws are mostly neutral causing no variation.  Most of the rest are deleterious but some are advantageous.

Q. How do flaws that are neutral, deleterious, or advantageous cause adaptive evolution?
A.________________________
Double chromosomes, gene repeats known to determine the onset of some diseases, horizontal gene transfer, and retroviruses that insert themselves  in the genome and result in ‘junk DNA’ also are involved. “Thus there are numerous sources of mutation or genetic variation (I have listed some of the main ones) and known processes for the selection of the viable and also the advantageous phenotypes.”
Q: How do mutations or these known processes cause adaptive evolution?
A.________________________
“There is a model for that and we have been developing it for more than 150 years now…”
Comment: There is a model for what? He just told the same story about a theory of Natural Selection and Sexual Selection that’s been told for more than 150 years. I asked for a model of how mutations caused adaptive evolution. He said that Natural Selection and Sexual Selection are the standard models, but then simply regurgitated a ridiculous story about mutations that somehow  cause adaptive evolution. Does anyone else see a problem with evolutionary theory?
The problem I see is that it cannot be compared to any model. In my model Natural Selection is for nutrient chemicals that enable survival.  Sexual Selection in organisms that sexually reproduce is for pheromones that signal nutrient chemical-dependent reproductive fitness. There are no mutations required and the processes involved are not random. Organisms must first choose the right food and then choose to not reproduce and reproduce asexually or sexually with the best mates or their species doesn’t survive.
My response to the moderator is here:
JK: Thanks RKS: What’s been developed is a theory of evolution, not a model. No facts support the theory of mutational cause, which started being developed into a story-line before anything was known about molecular biology. We now know for example, that there is no “Junk DNA.” Some of what you say above is an attempt to make the molecular biology fit the theory. For example, thanks for bringing the viruses into the picture as did Luis Villarreal who noted that “…odor receptors, in particular, provide a clear evolutionary trail that can be followed from microbes to humans.” But that’s my model, remember?

And, here we are, 150 years post theory construction and story telling with a clear evolutionary trail (and a model) when all the biological facts represented in the context of nutrient chemical-dependent, pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution support the model. No one even challenges the biological facts — as you may have noticed.  And then, last week we saw the news about Ecological selection as the cause and sexual differentiation as the consequence of species divergence? The link is to a free full text representation of the importance of nutrient chemicals and pheromones to concurrently controlled adaptive evolution of the mandibles and male genitalia of an insect species.
As I detailed using the honeybee model organism, this concurrent control must be due to the epigenetic tweaking of immense gene networks (not random mutations), or these species differences could not have adaptively evolved. And now, despite previous evidence suggesting that sexual selection is the primary driver of species divergence, these researchers provide evidence that ecological divergence precedes sexual divergence. That evidence links Natural Selection for nutrient chemical uptake — via development of differences in the mandibles — to sex differences in the development of the male genitalia (i.e., to Sexual Selection in that order).  Sexual selection is linked todivergence in species from microbes to man (with the advent of sexual selection in yeasts that is also nutrient chemical dependent).
It’s the order and concurrent nature of selection: Natural precedes Sexual, that makes it non-random. Bottom up nutrient chemical-dependent selection that precedes top-down control of reproduction in every species is not
due to mutations. It’s due to nutrient chemical-dependent, pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution. Did you see the article on olfactory modulation of vision also published last week? I still get a good laugh when people say that people, unlike other animals, are primarily visual creatures because there’s a theory about that.


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