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To: A. Pole
"You ask "how?", "how?", "how?" I am not a super genius who has ready theories and proofs. What I am saying that there are still the possibilities for the significant discoveries and radical revisions."

The room for radical revision regarding the inheritance of acquired characteristics is exceedingly small. There is far too much counter-info for any discovered mechanism to be anything more than an extremely infrequent curiosity.

"This is the evidence that it is possible to move information from outside of DNA into DNA. And if it is possible then it can be done by something else than retrovirus."

Maybe, maybe not. The only reason that the retrovirus can do it is because it's genetic material is not turned on. It has nothing to do with the characteristics (phenotype) of the organism.

"It is enough that such process took place very rarely with the frequency comparable to the mutation to change completely the dynamics of evolution."

It is far less frequent than the mutation rate. And besides, as has been pointed out, the inserted genes are not switched on. They have no affect on the organism, other than providing us with nice evidence for common descent.

" Such reverse update could be nonrandom and controlled."

ERV insertions are essentially random.

"Then the use of DNA would not be unidirectional read only thing modifiable only by random errors but would be more like library where the librarians and users can update and modify the content."

Who is doing the modifications? The retroviruses? Some *Designer*? Certainly not the organism. Leaving aside the fact that ERV's are not turned on (which is why they can be passed on to the next generation), directed mutations only works when you know what the future environment is going to be. That's why natural selection works so beautifully; it relies on a two step processes of essentially random variation with a very nonrandom selection process. Any directed variation would have to be able to see into the future to anticipate the next move the environment was going to take.

"And you have forgotten that spermatozoid also is a living cell with living and very active protoplasm."

The only part of the sperm that is combined into the egg is the DNA. The rest of the cell is not passed on. That is why there is no Mitochondrial Adam.

"You see, DNA is never really in charge and never on its one - it is always handled in a organized manner by the surrounding living cells. If they can read what they want, very likely they have capacity for occasional write in or switch on/off."

There is still no proposed mechanism by which info is rewritten back into the DNA by the egg. The info would have to come from the entire body and be organized in some way to make any sense. Darwin actually proposed this(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangenesis). It was discarded after Weissman's experiments and was killed after Mendel's rediscovery.
118 posted on 01/06/2006 6:52:24 AM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
The room for radical revision regarding the inheritance of acquired characteristics is exceedingly small.

The room for radical revision of Newtonian physics was even smaller. But it did happen.

It is far less frequent than the mutation rate.

Things tend to be "less frequent" when we do not look for them.

There is still no proposed mechanism [...]

That something is not proposed does not mean that it is not there. Actually I think that number of things we do not know and we do not imagine or propose is much larger. The world is a wonderful wast place.

Any directed variation would have to be able to see into the future to anticipate the next move the environment was going to take.

Why do you expect the directed variations to be obliged to see the future? Random mutations/selected models reacts slowly to the present changes. Directed variations would need to the same.

The only part of the sperm that is combined into the egg is the DNA.

I doubt that such research (excluding any interraction between spermoplasma and egg) was done. But even so, the DNA modifications or switches could be done before combination.

119 posted on 01/06/2006 7:24:27 AM PST by A. Pole (If the lettuce cutters were paid $10 more per hour, the lettuce heads would cost FIVE CENTS more!)
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