I'm currently in
a discussion with someone claiming that mutations are,
quote:
". . .any and all adaptive change you can point to. NONE of them originate from a true mutational event (random chance, replication-dependent copy errors), they all originate from genomic mechanisms reacting to the outside environment."
He's even, apparently, written a paper on the subject and really, REALLY likes to talk about it. The full text is available
here.
ABSTRACT
WITHIN the last few decades, awareness has developed in the world of genetics having to do with the nature of genetic change. According to classical thought, DNA damaging events and mutations occur randomly throughout the genome of organisms purely by accident. However, a growing body of evidence demonstrates that some genetic change occurs in non-replication, non-random events. The literature gives evidence of two distinct categories of genetic change addressed by the single term mutation. These two categories consist of (1) replication-dependent, random chance genetic changes, and (2) non-random chance genetic adaptive change that originate as non-replication dependent changes. Logically, failure to distinguish between these two processes by separate terminology may have caused problems in understanding genetic systems. This paper aims to examine and make delineation between these two phenomena, so further research can proceed with improved knowledge and understanding of genomic processes, which require clear differentiation. Reasonable misunderstanding of many issues concerning heritability, variation, adaptation, and especially mutation, appear as potentially misleading factors without such demarcation. This has the potential of directly affecting cancer research, as well as other pertinent medical fields dealing with genetic diseases.
My view is that he's trying to define his way out of admitting that random mutations account for beneficial variation, and that his claim that mutations occur non-randomly in regards to fitness is unsupported by the copious sources he very much enjoys citing.
Anyway, I thought I'd re-post the paper here for those with a more technical knowledge as fodder for discussion.
Edited by Itinerant Lurker, : No reason given.