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EPIGENETIC FACTORS. Organisms can respond to stress in the environment by reorganizing genomes, so the genome is a highly sensitive organ of the cell, responding to unexpected events often by restructuring the genome. Great chunks of genetic material (mobile genetic elements) move from one chromosome to another in response to environmental stress. Whole domains of chromatin proteins have moved around, creating new functionality by combining gene functionalities. https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

DUAL STATES. Stochasticity (randomness) necessarily coexists with functionality and they exist at different levels. Random mutation followed by natural selection plus targeted functionality generated from random behavior is the coexistence. https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

TARGETED HYPERMUTATION. Genome reorganization does occur in response to stress by targeted stochastic mutation as in the case of targeted somatic hypermutation in immune cells, where the hypervariable gene region only on immunoglobulin, which mutates hugely (100,000 to 1,000,000 fold change) in response to stress. Imports directionality while using stochasticity. https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

REDUCTIONISM FAILS. You cannot derive the function of organisms entirely from their molecules, despite a long history of thinking that you could. Does biology generate order from molecular disorder? Perhaps not, suggests Denis Nobel. Life is a process not fully programmed at the molecular level, generating order from disorder. Stochasticity is a key feature of gene expression. Non-genetic heterogeneity of cells in development is more than noise. https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

HEART OF DARKNESS. “It is only phenotypes that die, and thus selection on works on things it can see like phenotypes. The mechanism of natural selection is that some organisms survive better than others and reproduce more successfully, so you can only say that selection ‘sees’ what can live or die. Can a virus die? At whatever level an organism can live or die is where selection operates. This was Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and that can occur at any level. Richard Dawkins argues incorrectly that it is always genes that are selected for. It is a fundamental mistake.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

BLIND WATCHMAKER. “Was the watchmaker blind?” as Professor Richard Dawkins proposes, where evolution is random mutation followed by natural selection. Blind chance. Evolution has no foresight. Denis Nobel suggests a 21st century viewpoint, where evolution can be directional, organisms can harness stochasticity, with a one-eyed watchmaker responding epigenetically. Defied by unidirectional information flow. https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

GENES VERSUS CELLS. “In selfish gene theory you have to distinguish between the replicator and the vehicle. There is no such distinction.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

PRINCIPLE 10. “There are many more to be discovered; a genuine ‘theory of biology’ does not yet exist.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

EXCESSIVE REDUNDANCY. “Knockout experiments do not necessarily give a good readout of the functionality of that protein or gene. In yeast knockouts up to 80% of the genes are silent, and that does not mean that they do not have physiological functions. The system is so well backed up that other networks take over the function of the knocked out gene.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

PRINCIPLE 9. “The self is not an object.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn