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Natural selection is the sieve, not the modifier. That quibble aside, there are also epigenetics to consider.
by yarg 4y ago
Natural selection is the sieve, not the modifier.
That quibble aside, there are also epigenetics to consider.
- waynecochran 3y agoOK -- now I am more confused. Selection is a sieve that "selects" the "best fit" which, in the long run, brings modification. Epigenetics is just the manifestation of gene expression under different environmental conditions. Still, in the final overview, it is the genes that are passed on to the offspring. What else is there to inherit?
- yarg 3y ago> which, in the long run, brings modification. Not quite. It's the part that filters the ideas, not the part that generates them to begin with. For that you need a source of change. It doesn't even need to be external; DNA is automutagenic (read up on transposons). There's also homologous recombination that exchanges the DNA between the copies of the same chromosome inherited from different parents (if this didn't happen, you couldn't inherit genes from multiple grandparents in a single chromosome). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homologous_recombination#In_eukaryotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homologous_recombination#In_eu...