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It seems to be a good argument for Lamarckism. Some kind of "genetic intelligence". I wonder how the probability weighs out.
by swayvil 4y ago
It seems to be a good argument for Lamarckism. Some kind of "genetic intelligence". I wonder how the probability weighs out.
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- zasdffaa 4y agoMaybe. What mechanism though. Compare with evolution whose mechanism is mostly known and well understood. Why pick the former when the latter works.
- pazimzadeh 4y agoEpigenetics - the ability to switch certain genes on and off without changing the genetic information (like commenting out certain lines of code) based on environmental cues.
- zasdffaa 4y agoI'm aware of epigenetics via methylation
- pazimzadeh 4y agoWell there's your mechanism. I don't understand "Why pick the former when the latter works." No one is picking anything, it's all happening simultaneously. An epigenetic solution would reduce selective pressure for a genetic solution, theoretically.
- zasdffaa 4y agoBecause the former mechanism, for lamarkism, wasn't given, and Some kind of "genetic intelligence" is just a vacuous proposition, so why raise it. Your mention of epigenetics was a sensible suggestion in that at least it's known to happen (although whether it can control skin colouring is another matter)
- pazimzadeh 4y agoI would think so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics_and_melanoma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics_and_melanoma Maybe the black frogs are at higher risk of melanoma. Nothing is ever free..
- zasdffaa 4y agoJaysus! Is there anything wikipedia doesn't have a detailed article on. (checks page history, nope it's been around a while, I guess you didn't just write it to win this one) Good catch anyway!
- evtothedev 4y agoThis is exactly wrong. Lamarck believed in the inheritance of acquired traits (e.g. if you cut off a mouse's tail, then its babies would be born with shorter tails). Darwinism, conversely, is about selection from within a range of traits already present (i.e. beak size). These frogs come in a variety of colors. Dark colors have a better fitness for the highly radioactive environment. Those are the ones that reproduce. This is textbook Darwinian evolution.
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- swayvil 4y agoAnd yet they arrived at their dark skin with improbable speed. How strange.