What is Salty's 'semi-meiotic hypothesis'

Salty, since this seems to be the central concept of your ideas, I think it important enough to be its own topic.As I see it, what we first need from you, is a clear cut outline of what is the "semi-meiotic hypothesis". If this outline exists elsewhere, please reproduce it in this topic.Also, Salty, I suggest you confine yourselve to this topic, until we clear this matter up.Not a biologist,
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I refer you to my last post and to my home page for a further clarification of the semi-meiotic hypothesis. Retired Service | The University of Vermont

I am not very proficient with computers so I am unable to reproduce something on this forum. salty

Well, I've started to read it. I'll get back to you.Odd that you can't give a summary of it here though.

Yes - I shouldn't have thought that cut-and-paste would be so difficult...

Hi Salty,The last thread on this subject got closed off before you replied, assuming you were so inclined to my post, please forgive the C+P."Dear Salty,In your essay on Ontogeny and Phylogeny you mention the lack of swim bladders in Darters and state that a Darwinian interpretation insists on a gradual loss of the bladder. This is not true for a neo darwinian interpretation however. Developmental genetics shows that only a very few mutations may be sufficient to cause the loss of a specific organ with no gradual transition required. A recent paper in Nature showed evidence that Stick insects have lost and regained wings several times in the course of their evolution. Has there been any genetic work done to look for genes related to swim bladder development in Darters?MICHAEL F. WHITING, SVEN BRADLER & TAYLOR MAXWELL
Loss and recovery of wings in stick insects
Nature 421, 264 - 267 (2003)"TTFN,Wounded

Thanks for the information. I don't know of any work with darters as they have a pretty special habitat. My own view is that having lost the swim bladder, they discovered the rapidly flowing stream. I don't see it as a gradual adaptation to the stream environment. But that shouldn't surprise anyone as I don't have much truck with natural selection anyway. After all, the most intensive forms of artificial selection have yielded nothing which could be called a new species. Besides, how can that which was created become the creator? salty

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'My own view is that having lost the swim bladder, they discovered the rapidly flowing stream.'

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Isn't that natural selection?The ones that didn't find rapidly flowing streams died out,
the ones that did thrived.Adaptation to an environment (in NS terms) isn't promoted by the
environment, it's just about whether or not a change in a population
leads to any kind of advantage or not.

Apparently everything is Natural Selection. salty

Ah, the flippant one-liner. Who could have seen that coming?Peter, salty doesn't think much of your arguments. Come over to the "Dr Page's best example..." thread to see a much more detailed response from salty. He provided me with a flippant two-liner (clearly he thinks twice as highly of me), after ignoring all of the questions related to his "hypothesis".FK

Since the espouser of the semi-meiotic hypothesis - for which there is not one scintilla of evidenciary support - will not answer simple, direct questions, I will sum it up.Meiosis - the generation of mature haploid gametes - is a two step process.Davison claims that the mechanism of speciation is the production of a viable, new species - that is, an individual- via the interruption of normal meiosis such that a new individual (hopeful monster) is produced asexually from a non-fertilized mutatnt gamete. Ovum, that is. Prior to Meiosis II.There is no evidence for this, mind you, but it is in line with the musings of folks that last published scientific papers in the 1970s (at the most recent).Implicit in this are standard creationist/IDist canards, such as "the information was already there". One should wonder why, if salty's heroes were so 'correct', why then are THEIR names not household names? "Darwinist conspiracy" won't work. Non-Darwinian (I won't say anti-Darwinist, because that is not an accurate moniker) Kimura's work gained acceptence whern he presented evidence that his views had merit.And I submit that is the real issue here.[This message has been edited by SLPx, 04-22-2003]

Adapting to an environment BECUASE the environment
changes isn't natural selection, therefore not everything
is natural selection.You said that, in your opinion, the mutation allowed the
individuals without swim bladders to exploit an environment
with a fast flowing stream in such a way that they did
not require swim bladders, and thus survived.How is that anything but natural selection?

Scott, you are largely correct. What I have suggested is a strong parallel betwee ontogeny and phylogeny. No one questions that all the information necessary to produce a unique human being is present in the fertilized egg. I have simply made the same suggestion about phylogeny. This puts a whole new interpretation on what has been called convergent evolution. Similar but unrelated forms like saber toothed placental and marsupial cats were simply employing the same preformed blueprints. I realize this requires a programmer and accept that requirement as part of my evolutionary perspective. The problem of the mate is not nearly as serious as one might expect. Gynogenetically produced frogs can be of both sexes and perfectly fertile. Also the male chromosome in primates seems to exhibit little or no structural homology while the female (X) chromosome remains very stable at least in ourselves and our close primate relatives. We are dealing with the age old problem of whether there has been guidance in evolution. I am convinced that there has been and agree completely with Leo Berg "There is no room for chance in either ontogeny or phylogeny". As for Darwinian gradualism Berg quoted Thomas Henry Huxley in the frontispiece of his Book "Nomogenesis or evolution according to law". "Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed". Pretty slow suicide but suicide nevertheless. salty

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Scott, you are largely correct.

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The blue moon outside my window has just been temporarily obscured by a squadron of flying pigs.

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This puts a whole new interpretation on what has been called convergent evolution. Similar but unrelated forms like saber toothed placental and marsupial cats were simply employing the same preformed blueprints. I realize this requires a programmer and accept that requirement as part of my evolutionary perspective.

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This seems to be jumping to a somewhat distant conclusion.If you remember there are two parts to Berg's autogenetic theory, from which you seem to derive much of your thinking. Firstly, that nomogenesis builds new forms from pre-existing rudiments, and secondly that these are also driven by external determinants - the "landscape" as he terms it - which ensures variation is in a "determined direction."However, Berg and his followers (Lyubischev and Meyen for example) saw no need to conclude that a designer, as such, created these pre-existent rudiments. Equally Schindewolf, Grasse, Lima de Faria and Goodwin see no need to prefer a "designer" over internal processes.In fact, as Seilacher has developed these ideas, the rudiments which Berg held to be behind formal development, are regarded as "bautechnischer," - architectural techniques. Essentially these are restrictions that are the necessary result of the basic forms. They are not adaptations. This seems very much more in tune with Berg's nomogenesis than postulating an external designer.Even Berg's rudiments may ultimately be unneccesary. A close reading of Schindewolf, Grasse, Goodwin or Seilacher makes it pretty clear that internal meta-rules can constrain the evolution of form to fulfill the role of those rudiments. Berg's external determinants - his landscape - also may not fill the role he hoped for either: he was after all a Stalinist who sought to show that the "inevitable victory of the proletariat" was literally written into our genes.But whatever one makes of the original nomogentic theory, concluding a designer seems no more than a leap in the dark, mere wishful thinking, rather than following through on the principles behind the work of Berg, Schindewolf or Grasse.