Comment on Dr. Richard Lenski’s “Unicorns” by James V. Kohl.
Sean Pitman:
novel proteins are dependent upon novel genetic mutations.
The ability of mutations to cause production of functional novel proteins is biophysically constrained. Mutations perturb the required thermodynamics and organism-level thermoregulation. Nutrient uptake enables seemingly futile cycles of protein biogenesis to result in production of proteins that contribute to increasing organismal complexity via controlled reproduction.
I am surprised that you immediately turned back to mutations theory, when the de novo creation of olfactory receptor genes excludes mutations theory from any further consideration whatsoever.
Table of Contents
James V. Kohl Also Commented
Dr. Richard Lenski’s “Unicorns”
“No new receptor genes evolved at all – olfactory or otherwise. The very same genes stayed exactly the same.”
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I don’t know of any other way for citrate uptake to occur if it is not receptor-mediated. Should I refer to the de novo creation of the olfactory receptor gene, as de novo creation of a chemical receptor gene?
Dr. Richard Lenski’s “Unicorns”
Sean and Bob,
I’ve published in Hormones and Behavior, Neuroendocrinology Letters, Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality, and twice in Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology. No matter how clear it becomes that mutation-driven adaptive evolution is not possible due to biophysical constraints, each time random mutations are introduced into any explanation helps the nonsense about mutation-driven evolution to spread.
As a Creationist, Dobzhansky supported mutation-driven evolution in 1973 and attributed single amino acid substitutions to mutations. They are obviously nutrient-dependent and facilitate rapid changes in organismal complexity in 5-10,000 years, not millions of years, as evidenced in the current literature.
The changes are clearly constrained by thermodynamically futile cycles that enable de novo creation of olfactory receptor genes, which allow nutrient uptake (as in the case of citrate in E.coli) and nutrients are metabolized to pheromones that help to achieve the organism-level thermoregulation that is required for species-wide epistasis.
If the epigenetic landscape changes, however, a novel nutrient can initiate the same process of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled adaptations (e.g., in species from microbes to man). Lenski has simply showed that nutrient stress and thermal stress have the same effects on seemingly futile cycles of protein biogenesis and degradation.
