Epigenetics, revisited; new exciting studies (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 23:11 (4805 days ago) @ dhw

I still don't understand why he made his theory "absolutely" dependent on gradualism. You say you "fully understand it", so I'd be truly grateful if you would explain it to me!-I think the difference between you and I and our interpretation of Darwin is organ vs. organism. Both of us agree that evolution occurred. And we see epigenetic effects and punctuated equilibrium (pe) as a source for sudden jumps in phenotype of species. So the gradualism for species is in doubt.-Organs themselves are extremely complex in advanced animals like humans, other mammalians, and even less advanced species like gastropods. Even octopi and for a fact, even lobsters have livers!-Now imagine yourself as Darwin. He looked at breeders and how they changed phenotypes, slowly and gradually. He thought that was the only way it could happen. He did not expect the jumps of PE. And he certinly had no idea of how complex the liver is. Cells were globules of matter to him, not the monsterously complex things they are. So he assumed gradualism. but as I've stated before, the real issue is, how do you make a liver (?) and how do you get it coordinated with the other organs; for example, the kidney has some of the same function in clearing the bolood. The vagus nerve, fairly automatically runs the abdominal organs of digestion. -I don't think that goes slowly, liver construction, that is. It must appear in jumps to work at all. That is the issue of irreducible complexity I've raised. I think I understand Darwin, I don't think he could have have understood, with his lack of what we know now, the underlying problems of how evolution works.