[Paleopsych] is evolutionary change stockpiled?

Greg Bear ursus at earthlink.net
Tue Nov 23 16:31:18 UTC 2004


Excellent ideas.

We can imagine a kind of churning hypothesis-engine in the genome,
constantly error-correcting, murmuring on about possible change, rather like
the voices in the back of our heads that we never act upon! I've called it
the Wizard in the Genome.

We can imagine such--but how fanciful is such an idea? What kind of research
would need to be done to even begin to find the effects of such operations?
Would it lie in RNA expressions, RNAi, or in protein modifications, or both?

Perhaps the old RNA world is still the strawboss in this entire picture.

Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
[mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org] On Behalf Of Steve Hovland
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 6:54 PM
To: 'The new improved paleopsych list'
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] is evolutionary change stockpiled?

One "reason" for doing this would be that
any change that challenges the genome
might not persist.  So a solution might
be prepared but not implemented until
there were more data points to justify it.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Greg Bear [SMTP:ursus at earthlink.net]
Sent:	Monday, November 22, 2004 5:42 PM
To:	'The new improved paleopsych list'
Subject:	RE: [Paleopsych] is evolutionary change stockpiled?

It's a provocative idea, isn't it? Invisible mutations, occurring at the
metabolic level, in the "infrastructure," so to speak, but not manifesting
in large-scale phenotypic changes. 

However, I think it's also apparent that all organisms today have a set of
"grammatically correct" bauplan variations that can be called upon in
incremental (but not gradual) stages in response to environmental challenges
over perhaps hundreds or thousands of years in larger animals, and tens of
years in insects, and days or weeks in bacteria. 

The best recent example is the reoccurrence of wings in stick insects...

Best wishes!

Greg  

-----Original Message-----
From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
[mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org] On Behalf Of Geraldine Reinhardt
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 5:32 PM
To: The new improved paleopsych list
Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] is evolutionary change stockpiled?

Could be.  Check with Greg Bear.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Independent Scholar
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~waluk

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 4:15 PM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] is evolutionary change 
stockpiled?


> Is it possible that there are incremental changes
> in the environment that don't require an immediate
> outward response, but which do cause a series of
> "invisible" mutations which suddenly manifest when
> the environmental changes reach some triggering 
> level?
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HowlBloom at aol.com [SMTP:HowlBloom at aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 3:42 PM
> To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> Subject: [Paleopsych] is evolutionary change 
> stockpiled?
>
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