Complexity of gene codes (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, May 31, 2010, 21:05 (5289 days ago) @ George Jelliss

For balance, I would just like to make the point that I also regard the development of epigenetics ideas as valuable advances in our knowledge of biology and evolution, but I don't see how it supports the "intelligent design" scenario. In fact the occurrence of years of low and high crop yields and the resulting nutrition effects all seem pretty random. So it supports evolution by natural selection from chance variation. I didn't notice in the paper any account taken of the people keeping stocks of grain in good years to offset famine years. Surely there was some such activity, unless they were all totally stupid.-I really don't see how George's analogy follows at all. Since Reznick's guppy study in South America in the early 90's, in which guppies change their size under predation pressure in a two year period, man ystudies have shown rapid adaptations that didn't wait for a lucky mutation. the Time article is quite clear. This is an extensive mechanism with a number of layers of controls to allow for Lamarkian events. George should study it.