Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? Excerpt 1) “…the theory neglects key processes, say Kevin Laland and colleagues.” My comment: “Olfaction and odor receptors provide a clear evolutionary trail that can be followed from unicellular organisms to insects to humans (Keller et al., 2007; Kohl, 2007; Villarreal, 2009; Vosshall, Wong, & Axel, 2000).” — Human … Eliminating evolutionary theory
the only thing wrong with mathematical models of cause and effect is that they attribute indirect genetic effects, direct genetic effects, and affects on behavior to something unknown
it does help to make the differences between behaviorists and biologists more apparent, and I admire the way it clearly shows that the behaviorists have it backwards
Olfactory/pheromonal input epigenetically causes the creation of new genes.
What the honeybee queen eats determines her pheromone production. Her pheromones determine everything else about the social interactions of the colony including the neuroanatomy of the worker bees’ brains.
Taken together, these two open-access articles from the supplement offer a concise and reasonably accurate overview of the receptor-mediated events that are required for adaptive evolution.
Epigenetic influences of nutrition and socialization on intracellular signalling pathways link epigenetic cause directly to gene activation and stochastic gene expression are required for genetically predisposed phenotypic changes in the body and behavior of organisms from microbes to man.
…we can only wonder about how much information is processed when odor receptors that number in the hundreds generate electrical signals associated with olfactory/pheromonal assessment of environmental factors associated with the colors we see.
The “chain of causality” of epigenetic changes has been established across all species via the basic principles of biology and levels of biological organization.
We cannot directly link any individual gene, cell, tissue, organ, or organ system to any behavior without including the rest of the pathway that links gene activation to brain-directed behavior.
