Russ -
Steve, you mentioned Lamarkian evolution. I'd be very interested to
find out more about some of your daughter's examples.
This was on a long drive from NM to OR last Thanksgiving... in the
course of about 30 hours of driving we talked about a LOT of things.
I am pretty sure this first exmaple is merely "neo-Lamarckian" or
"Lamarckianesque" as they only applied to the single next generation.
The germline of the child does not carry the changes, although if the
child experiences the same conditions the parent did, the same
epigenetic mechanisms would be in effect in the subsequent generation.
This example had to to do with Long Term Potentiation (a feature of
neural connectivity). What surprised me most was that this particular
example involved the female/mother/eggs which are not manufactured "on
the fly". It seems more likely that the father/male/sperm would be
prone to this type of effect? There may have been two sub-examples, one
about memory and one about "bad mothering"?
A more Lamarckian example was, I think, in Roundworms and involved RNA
interference. The result (minus the details) was something like
hereditible immunity.
A parallel example I *can* remember was the case of Tasmanian Devils and
what is known as DFTD for Devil Facial Tumor Disease. Apparently it is
an *infectuous* cancer (non-viral, meaning it isn't about a virus
transferring from one host to another, then causing cancer). A
cancerous cell from one individual literally becomes part of the other
individual's organism... like an accidental organ donation or skin
graft. Apparently the Devils are prone to lots of scrapping with each
other and when one with a tumor on it's face scraps with one without, a
cancerous cell (or cells) can get transferred to from the skin of one to
the other and it can in fact 'graft' right into the epithelial layer. I
don't know if this is more common/likely because it is cancerous, or if
Devils were already exchanging skin cells before this cancer emerged?
The point of this Tasmanian Devil example is that it is as unexpected
(to me anyway) as examples of Lamarckian evolution would be.
/-- Russ Abbott/
/_____________________________________________/
/ Professor, Computer Science/
/ California State University, Los Angeles/
/ My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy:
ssrn.com/abstract=1977688 <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1977688>/
/ Google voice: 747-/999-5105
Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/
<https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/>
/ vita: /sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
<http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/>
CS Wiki <http://cs.calstatela.edu/wiki/> and the courses I teach
/_____________________________________________/
On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com
<mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
Gary/Pamela/(Stephen, Carl, Eric, ...) -
I know several (many?) on this list know Stu better than I... so I
apologize if I sounded overly critical. I prefer Pamela's
description of him being *careless* with references as opposed to
my own use of the *honest*. I also admit that I do not know if
he sees himself as a rock-star... that is perhaps the default
category I put people in who are simultaneously *good*,
*self-possessed* and *charismatic*. I actually *like* most rock
stars (within reason) even if I might not care for their music.
As an aside... does anyone remember Chris Langton appearing in
Rolling Stone (CA 1990?)... I searched their archives and did not
find any references (nor on the internet at large?). I remember
the article including a sexed-up spread of him in front of a
Connection Machine? I suppose I could be hallucinating or have
come from an alternate history?
I also smiled at your term "demigod" as I often use "Titans" to
describe the pantheon of my wife's sibling group... she is oldest
of 8 *mostly* high functioning, *very* charismatic, *definitely*
self-possessed siblings. They all revered their father who was a
humble but charismatic physics professor. None of them took up
science per se, though one has a PhD in psychology. I would not
use *rock star* to describe any of their self-image, though there
is one who insists he *is* Elvis... and sometimes we are tempted
to believe him. There are definitely characters right out of
Greek, Roman, Norse, even Hindu mythology in her family... My wife
is Kali *and* Loki rolled into one I think.
I have always been inspired by Kauffman's ideas as best I could
understand them, which has been highly variable, depending on the
circumstance. This says more about me than about Stu. I read his
lecture notes in the late-nineties... the ones which ultimately
became the core of _Investigations_ (or so it seemed to me). I
had read _OofO_ and _At Home in the Universe_ previously. It may
have been coincidence or something stronger like kismet that I
read Investigations interleaved with my reading of Christopher
Alexander's (Pattern Language fame) _Notes on the Synthesis of
Form_ with D'Arcy Thompson's _On Growth and Form_ as backup
reference. I was traveling lightly in New Zealand at the time
with none of my usual distractions nagging me. It was a month of
deep thought informed by Alexander and Kauffman equally.
My nature is to be guarded around people with significant charisma
(and me married into aforementioned pantheon!). I appreciate the
need for and the value of the persuasive and the self-confident,
even in the realm of science where ideas *by definition* must
stand on their own. There is value for those who can bring us to
*want* to believe enough to put in the hard work to believe things
on their own merits. Unfortunately that might be the dividing
line between science and Science(tm). I suppose I mistrust those
who appear to be trying to corner the franchise on Science(tm) in
their neighborhood.
Nevertheless, I am *more* interested in Kauffman's ideas here and
hope that we will discuss them a bit?
- Steve
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