MiRNAs methylation and ecological adaptation sans mutations (Part 2)

By: James V. Kohl | Published on: April 17, 2014

This is part 2 of  MiRNAs methylation and ecological adaptation sans mutations. See also: MiRNAs methylation and ecological adaptation sans mutations

ADAPTIVE AND ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF HUNTER-GATHERERS

by R GARVEY, RL BETTINGER – In: The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers  (April 2014)

Excerpt 1) “The tenets of Darwinian evolution thrust environmental agency to the fore and, because environments change, adaptation must be treated as an ongoing process rather than a static condition (Kelly, 1995).” – p. 71

My comment: For current information on the treatment of environmental agency see: Mobile DNA and the TE-Thrust hypothesis: supporting evidence from the primates  “Transposable elements (TEs) are increasingly being recognized as powerful facilitators of evolution.”
Excerpt 2) “… a truly modern theory of adaptation must incorporate modes of social learning and transmission as well as modes of subsistence…” p. 84
My comment: Subsistence is obviously nutrient-dependent and so is social niche construction and species radiation. See for example this extension of the nutrient-dependent TE-Thrust hypothesis: Large Numbers of Novel miRNAs Originate from DNA Transposons and Are Coincident with a Large Species Radiation in Bats
“The p/miRNAs that resulted could have provided the raw material to generate novel regulatory pathways, as evidenced by the targeting of expressed testis genes.”
The olfactory/pheromonal link from the epigenetic landscape to the physical landscape of DNA in the organized genomes of bats is clear. Food odors facilitate nutrient uptake and ecological niche construction. Ecological niche construction facilitates social niche construction. Social niche construction facilitates sexual reproduction and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance of nutrient-dependent food choice and pheromone-controlled mate choice associated with targeted (e.g., non-random) gene expression in testis genes.
Compare the accurate representation of how species radiation in bats is facilitated by nutrient-dependent novel miRNAs that originate from DNA transposons with the bold misrepresentation of cause and effect in a current NIH publication: “Over time, mutations supply the raw material from which new life forms evolve… “That misrepresentation has never been supported by experimental evidence of nutrient-dependent biologically-based cause and effect. Similar misrepresentations are based on the antiquated perspectives of population geneticists who looked at changes in morphology, which had already somehow occurred, and made false claims such as this one: “Random mutations are the substrate upon which directional natural selection acts”
Unfortunately, experimental evidence that refutes these obviously false claims is not reaching a wide audience. The popularity of academically irresponsible evolutionary theory is used as if a consensus of pseudoscientists or scientists could somehow establish nutrient-dependent biological facts. See for contrast: Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology. Many serious scientists, such as those who have studied physiology, understand that the physiology of reproduction is nutrient-dependent and pheromone-controlled. If they don’t, they are more likely to learn how to understand species diversity in the near future.
Meanwhile, the consensus about mutations, which is concisely expressed in the two misrepresentations above, defies what is currently known about the physics and chemistry of biologically plausible conserved molecular mechanisms that enable the nutrient-dependent physiology of reproduction. The biologically plausible conserved molecular mechanisms link nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled ecological adaptations from atoms to ecosystems in species from microbes to man. There is a model for that! It incorporates what is known about other species and extends what is known about nutritional epigenetics to adaptive and ecological approaches, and thereby, to the study of human diversity.


Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Want more on the same topic?

Swipe/Drag Left and Right To Browse Related Posts: