How children pick up a language: new review of Wolfe (Humans)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 20:12 (2711 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You asked earlier how individuals choose the same DNA changes, and I answered: “Because the cell communities [not "populations"] are coping with or exploiting the same environment”. If you have a group of individuals in a particular location where there is a particular change in environmental conditions, it stands to reason that the members of that group will make the same adjustments.

The word adjustment means adaptation or modification. I'm discussing speciation, which means much more change than that

dhw We see the same phenomenon in convergent evolution: where similar conditions exist, organisms make similar changes to themselves. You won’t get hybrids if "just a few" fish stay ashore and the rest stay in the water. Convergent evolution is a similar process seen in different species. Those instructions could be built into the inventive mechanisms. The lack of hybridization means both male and female landed fish have the same DNA to start with. My point is: How is that arranged?

dhw: You don’t need math to tell you that any new species needs at least two to tango. “Starting numbers” does not mean large numbers.

I understand that. Just a small number of surviving males and females with matched DNA will do.

DAVID: Remember we are discussing single celled organisms which pass every code onboard.

dhw: I have questioned the likelihood of the first cells having on board every single code that led to every single innovation and natural wonder in the history of life, let alone the likelihood of their descendants also being able to pass them all on through the next 3.8 billion years.

Cell division means that what is present is passed onto daughter cells, unless an error is made. Modifications of DNA occur between cell division.

dhw: If you consider it possible that “just a few” unicellular organisms could contain and pass on millions of programmes for multicellular organisms, why do you consider it impossible that a few multicelluilar organisms can pass on ONE new programme?

Because sex requires both partners have the same new DNA modifications. There is not enough time for the dominant recessive gene play to work according to the math folks and evolution math folks. One new program is modification and I'm theorizing about speciation.