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Dr. Akira Kanda Mutation v.s. Design
In the last century, we experienced a remarkable development of electronic digital computers which started from a thought experiment of British mathematician Alan Turing. It is not totally off to say that this is a birth and development of an intelligence produced by human intelligence. What is quite clear here is that theoretical physics played only a supporting role to facilitate electronic devices and the whole intelligence itself had little to do with physics. It was an electronic realisation of intelligence categorised as recursive function theory, universal recursive functions, in particular. It is not quite clear at all how the development of such thing as recursive function theory can be explicated as mutation and evolution. It design a result of evolution or is evolution a part of design?
Please help with big question
If mutation is a copying error and a E.coli bacterium is to evolve from its present genome of 4 million base pairs & 4,800 genes, to a human with 3 billion base pairs and 27,000 genes.Is there enough information already existent in the E.coli genome to be changed into a human being through random copying errors or does new information needed to be added and if so how?Many thanks Russell Wilcox
nick weech genetics
I only heard the edited later version and I feel there were some parts I missed but I spose this is a common complaint. This week it mattered more I think.
Michael Angrave - Mutation
For me the most prominent aspect of this programme was the evidence of order even in mutation. It only confirmed for me that while the definition of "evolution" is a very varied one - there is still an informed intelligence both behind creation and the humans that inhabit it. I must confess I have an aversion to the word "evolution" because it presupposes that we are improving! I see no evidence for this at all!
Brian - Mutation
Philip Larkin, poet and unwitting geneticist captured something of this program when he wrote (with a little bowdlerisation applied to first line) ...They mess you up your Mum and dad, They may not mean to but they do, They give you all the faults they had,And add some extra just for youThe last two lines being a description of germline(?) and somatic(?) mutation respectively.
Richard Miles - Genetic Mutation
I listened with interest to the latest discussion, but found that I could not help but think of the story of the Emperor's new clothes. Whilst the role of mutation in disease and variation is becoming better understood, the discussion failed to tackle the more fundamental issues, just taking them for granted - such as: a)How could mutation and natural selection account for the formation of complex organs, such as the eye, that would require millions of mutations, each one being beneficial b)We see additional information being added in by replicating existing information, but not new instruction ie paragraphs or chapters duplicated but not new paragraphs and chapters written c)We now understand (but Darwin did not) that the cell is complex and contains many "machines" for copying, checking, moving, guarding etc. How could mutation form these "machines" in the first place? d)If big bang was the start of it all, then we evolved form rocks and gas.....I could go on - am I missing the point, or does the Emperor lack clothes? Can someone offer any credible answers or pointers to these thoughts? Thanks
J. Harvey - Genetics
In the program the scientists referred to "repair enzymes" which repair the DNA which have mutations. I would like to ask them the following questions :-1. How does a repair enzyme know that it is a repair enzyme?2. Having gained this knowlege why does it then do its job? Why does it not take a day off, or every day for that matter (other than the time spent undergoing dynamic turnover)?3. How does it know precicely where it has to go to do the repair?4. How does it get there? There are plenty of other things in the way all juming around, doing the heat dance, and bumping into each other.5. When it arrives at its destination what happens if it is the wrong way round or the wrong side of the thing which needs to be repaired? How does it align itself properly in order to make an effective repair?6. When the repair is complete what then? - a phone call telling it where it has to go for the next job and precicely how to get there?
Bruce Budd. Genetic mutation
A programme of extraordinary and conflicting claims. Within the one programme we were told that mutations both create new life and destroy life. This seems a bit like having your cake and eating it. The concept of uniformitarianism proclaims that natural processes we observe to-day have always existed in their present form. To-day genetic mutations are observed to be almost always information-depleting (i.e. destructive). Neutral mutations seem to be very rare beasties indeed. None of your speakers ever addressed the issue of how mutations increase genetic information, which they would have to do if the evolutionary claims are to be justified. Natural selection was also waved around like a magic wand without anyone ever mentioning that not only was it first described by a creationist but that it only ever functions within kinds and never produces the new genetic information necessary to create another kind. These experts all claim as fact processes which they believe occurred over millions of years. The only fact is that they cannot know and one yearns for the precursory remark 'We think this may have happened' rather than a bald statement of fact which cannot be substantiated. Evolution is an idea which can never be proven. At best it is a startling example of how creative and imaginative man can be when he seeks to justify something he wants to believe in.
norman defoe GeneticMutation
Steve Jones offered advice on two ways to reduce damage to your genes as being to give up smoking, fine, and have your children whilst you are young.Does it follow therefore that, rather than being critical of the rise in teenage pregnancies, we should be positively pleased for the healthy effect they will have on the development of the human race regardless of the social implications?
Iain Wallace Evolution & Mutation, In Our Time
Excellent insight into the science and understanding of all genetic make-up. I always leave the door to door prophets bemused at my thoughts that the human 'conscious awareness of being'is a progressive mutation away from our primordial ancestors. Basically we dont believe our own mutative good fortune of being self aware on this planet. Cranial nerve tissue is also subject to mutation not just external physical features. I suggest that our consciousness is paramount to our success on the planet relative to the length of nurturing of our offspring compared to other animals. Our constant questioning ability has progressed us thus far yet we now strive to keep our physical attributes via medical advances at our present level as though it is ultimate. Please can we have the guest speakers back to continue the fascinating subject.
Brian Hughes - Genetic Mutation - the error-strewn
Another top-form edition of a consistently excellent series. And it’s nice to have some jokes (even the prehistoric one about chemistry) in amongst the erudition. But, as a counter to mawkish species sentimentality, we need also to be reminded frequently of the key role that extinction plays in evolution. A particularly fine Melvin news letter this week too (although I think Darwin did get a mention); I will treasure the image of his Lordship being bumped by Kirsty...
Chris Richardson - Genetics
Excellent programme. I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that IOT do a programme on Leibniz in the future. I found no references to him in the archive.
Richard Veryard - Genetics
Stafford Beer coined the acronym POSIWID to refer to the quasi-teleological idea that the purpose of a system is what it does. In your discussion on genetics, someone observed that natural selection doesn't select against those individuals who die in middle age after having produced heirs. But what wasn't mentioned was the idea of death as a useful evolutionary mechanism - since excessive longevity might reduce the turnover of generations and thereby reduce the effective rate of evolutionary change.
Oji. Mutation, questions and some answers?
To answer a couple of questions raised:Paul: Darwin meant (a) most fitted to their environment - this is (almost) obvious when you consider the fact that environment and natural selection is what filters the "good"/productive mutations from the "bad"/destructive ones.Which also partly answers the anoymous comment that mutation always results in a loss of information. But also, because of the complexity of the system where some genes simply control the expression of other genes, a single change can result in an increase in the information code by the genome. And, as stated early on, some mutations consist of duplications of sequences.Alan: I'm pretty sure somone mentioned at the end that mutation does take place in cells as well as the germ line.Sylvia and others: the key is the word "predisposition". Some genetic factors are inescapable and inevitable (this may be disease or characteristics such as eye color). If you have the defect you will have the disease. However nearly all cause an increased likelyhood of the disorder/behaviour/illness/characteristic. In general, the genetics account for no more than 50%. Height is determined by diet at least as much as genes. Heart disease is partly genes and partly diet, lifestyle, etc.
John Moisson: Genetic Mutation
Striking to compare this programme with the discussion in May of the thinking of William of Ockham on individuality and sameness and then individual decay
Tom Milner-Gulland - Mutation
I find it fascinating that the cells making up a mutant feature are, when that organism survives, co-ordinated such as to function in harmony with the anatomy of the organism, as though there is a central system of co-ordination that precedes the internal functioning of the individual cell. Also, on a different tack, genetic mutation that affects mental attributes might lead to co-operative behaviour; but it is surely not the urge to assist members of the same species that is in itself favourable to the survival of the indifividual mutant organism. How did the first co-operatively minded organism survive the rigour of competition?
Tom Milner-Gulland - Mutation
The cell itself provides a system for unfolding an organism's prescribed life cycle. Thus the organism develops, as it ages, according to a prescribed genetic structure. In my own thinking, this prescribed life cycle is a substructure to what one might term a birth-to-death cycle. As birth must precede death, so time is directional (by the 'arrow of time'; see my post on 'Symmetry'). To be very metaphysical, insofar as time is integral to physicality, the birth and inevitable death of the organism render its environment physical - that is to say, its environment is *experienced* as being physical. By living in time, it has physicality. Physicality is underpinned by the immutability of the fundamental constants of nature. If the physical expression of the birth-to-death cycle is, then, the fundamental constants of nature, this leaves natural diversity as a phenomenon to be accounted for. This I do by appeal to the concept of a life force that pervades all nature. Inasmuch as an organism's prescribed life cycle is a substructure of its birth-to-death cycle, so diversity is inherent to nature. So, in this cosmological framework, it is the same transcendent construct, in my thinking a life force, which renders physical diversity a dynamic phenomenon, that also renders the cell a construct that inherently yields biological diversity in reponse to physical, environmental niches.
David Doff - Genetic Mutation
An excellent program from which I learnt a lot. The way the contributors took pains to translate genetics jargon into plain English was exemplary. But I don't know why Steve Jones is so contemptuous of chemists - if it wasn't for chemists he wouldn't even know what DNA is made of.
Paul, W.Yorks: Genetic Mutation
Re Paul Stenning's question below, as to how DNA/RNA could ever have evolved spontaneously: It is not assumed in biology that they did; several precursors/ancestors to them have been proposed. I suggest putting "Autocatalytic Set", "Graham Cairns-Smith", "Thioester" or simply "Origin of Life" into Wikipedia for starters. Btw, life doesn't counteract entropy, even if it appears to on a local level.
Paul Stenning Genetic Mutation, Natural Selection
My first question concerns natural selection rather than genetic mutation, but seem to me to be vital but never addressed. In English there are two meanings of the word fittest a) most fitting and b) strongest, healthiest. The phrase "survival of the fittest" therefore has been understood in two crucially different senses a) survival of those individuals whose genetic mutations most fit the environmental opportunities available in the current situation and b) survival of the healthiest, strongest individuals. The latter, although perfectly suited to rutting stags, has been adopted philosophically/politically to justify the whole fascistic, Nietzschian attitude of "might is right", "triumph of the will" type doctrines which, as the Russian fleet sails in to the Mediterranean to collaborate with the US fleet in starting World War 3, will be seen, with hindsight to have been the downfall of the human race. What did Darwin mean by the phrase and how can we neuter the phylogenetic disaster that is the reactionary meaning?My second question is how did the molecule DNA and the molecule RNA ever evolve spontaneously? It seems a most unlikely chance event. I am not a Creationist, but to postulate that entropy is to be counteracted by such "difficult to organise" events seems intellectually arrogant.
Sylvia Philpot - Genetic Mutation
As ever a fascinating thought provoking programme. Nonetheless, it would have been helpful to me to have had a quick hierarchical breakdown of terms, as this is where I am a bit muddled. DNA, Genes, Cells, Chromosones, is that the order I wonder? Perhaps a quick look at your further reading will put me right. The other factor that I would be interested to know the answer to is: If my genetic blueprint will predispose me to my fate, then what is the point of taking remedial action? i.e. if I am to suffer from heart disease how can exercising and eating a healthy diet alter the genetic coding? Will this precipitate genetic mutations to alter the inherited morphological characteristics, if not "let us eat cake" to paraphrase Marie-Antoinette!
Genetic Mutation
Fascinating, but for me would have been improved by identifying the hierarchy of DNA, Genes, Cells, Chromostones. Also, if one's life outcome is more or less (2 out of 3) determined by hereditary genetic fingerprint, why is it worth bothering about correcting this by, for example, exercising if you have heart disease, eating less fats if you have high cholestoral, playing sudoku if you have alzheimers?
Jason Kilburn Evans - Genetic Mutation
I would like to challenge the dogma, expressed in many different ways in the programme, that mutation is the driving force of evolution. Actually what we find is that mutation is rather poor at making new and useful traits and much better at making diseases and show-stopping mistakes. So if you regard mutation as the source of difference, the rate of mutation has to be tweaked in a most unrealistic way. If you take the primordial soup scenario seriously though, then there is really no shortage of randomness from the very beginnings of life on earth. And of course physics through thermodynamics tells us there is no shortage of randomness in the environment above absolute zero! So we don't need to add-in mutation to provide much needed randomness: it is already there. What is better at making useful traits is the laws of inheritance, discovered by Mendel, and their intermingling of genes that are already useful. From a highly random beginning, life applies Mendel's laws again and again, mixing the genome in a non-linear fashion to create an emergent order that is much more than randomize-and-select which is a gross simplification of natural selection.
Mike Mitchell, Genetics
This week's edition (6th December) was the most interesting In Our Time I have heard, perhaps ever. If the clock could be turned back forty years I could have been convinced by such a programme to take up the study of genetics as a career. I did not want the programme to end. One question that wasn't answered: What is the effect of GM foods?
George Rumens Genetic Mutation
My 460-page essay, "Principia Humanitas", attempts to show that most of what is believed in academia comes about by researching the logical possibilities of a subject, based upon false assumptions. I love to square the circle, by, for example, supposing that the disgraced Soviet geneticist, Lysenko, was right. These are provocative 'thought-games' intended to further our understanding, and are not dogmatically-held beliefs. An excerpt..."We come to the nub, the idea put forward by Lysenko concerning the transference of acquired characteristics, which formed the cornerstone of his anti-Mandelian beliefs. In the teeth of a widespread belief that very little, or nothing, of belief and behaviour is inherited genetically from the experiences of a parent, a new theory has sprung into public attention, called the theory of 'memes'. This proposes that ideas, such as religions, pass through societies, like viruses through computers. If we suppose a strictly Darwinian view of the inheritance of behaviours, then the theory of evolution does not seem to address the many difficulties. For example, changes in climate or habitat-destruction, or variations in food supply, might result in fundamental changes in bird migration patterns with a generation or two. On my farm in the mountains I have several types of birds nesting here on account of Global Warming that were unheard-of ten years ago. They didn't just wander here on account of the rise in temperature. A couple of 'bird scouts' visited me, and they suddenly arrived in large numbers. It would seem that parents 'informed' chicks of the possibilities at my farm! Of the approximate three billion sequences within the human genome there seems to be so much which is 'junk', or unnecessary. Obviously a bear-trap in our understanding, because much of what appears to be 'junk', probably is vitally important. For example we have only the smallest hints that genetic variations, seemingly of no importance, may affect other genes at a distance. In other words, we tend to regard genetic mutation as a physical phenomenon, and fail to comprehend that it is a communicative phenomenon. Genes are, first and foremost, systems of communication. And that there is only the vaguest understanding of the relationship between gene sequences, and human health, beliefs and behaviour. It is anthropocentrism again, in which we regard genes, and the mutations of genes, purely in terms of the values we hold as human beings, and fail to comprehend the rather brutal indifference of genetic mutation activity as regards ourselves, as opposed to the dedicated and avaricious inclination of the communicative nature of genetic mutation in promulgating life in any form. But the intriguing possibility is that, in some obscure way, Lysenko might have had a case, - in that our assumption that genetic mutation is never towards an evolutionary purpose, may all be mistaken. We might have it wrong in our understanding. Genetic variance may not be neutral. We may have been wrong under the old understanding that genetic mutations are not a directed phenomenon, and they do not come about as a response to need. The problem is one of feedback. We cannot countenance the idea that some forms of genetic mutation are prominent because they serve a useful purpose, and in that way, genetic mutation can be directive. But it is a thought-game to imagine that the continuance of successful life forms is all that is required to make some forms of genetic mutation a preferred activity at genetic level. It is not that the new forms of genes know that they are doing a useful job in the promulgation of life; but that the fact that they are producing successful forms of life by utilising certain forms of genetic mutation would be enough to continue that particular form of genetic mutation. In other words, the exact forms of genetic mutation are subject to the same evolutionary principles.
alan storkey mutation
Thank you for the fine programme. Is there a slight problem in using the word "mistake" as explanation, and "random" to cover processes involving big numbers. Epistemologically, they are totalitarian words, explaining everything and nothing. Do they not just mask what we do not know? Similarly surprising was the way change through sperm and eggs was elided with cell mutation. Why are they the same?
Tim Wand - Genetic Mutation
What a brilliant example of an incredibly complex subject, explained simply, concisely and fluently by the three very knowledgable contributors.Who thinks science is dull and boring...?
Anne Crocker, Genetics
Loved the programme, though have to stop what I'm doing and concentrate! Just wanted to compliment you on the amazing quality of your guests. Where do you find all these fantastically articulate, beautifully spoken, and wonderfully knowledgeable people? Also, thanks so much for always making the effort to persuade at least one woman to contribute. I know we are less willing to push ourselves forward, but I do get sick of so many programmes being endless line-up of male talking heads.
Graham Elliot - genetic mutation
As a foster/adoptive parent I am translating the current conversation on genetic mutation into our own situation where children with different biological parents to those parents they have lived with all their lives, bring (what we would consider as) negative/damaging social traits into the home that they have lived in since only a few months old. This is not a deliberate act on their part. I would be interested in comments/observations.
Genetic Mutation
Have just heard Melvyn's trailer for today's programme in which he said all life today is the result of mutation from earlier life forms (or words to that effect). My comment is that I was under the impression that mutation always results in a loss of information, not a gain. Could he put that query to his guests.
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