This should be interesting to people on both sides of the EvC debate. Recently it has been shown that a plant has some property of
not following Mendelian genetic inheritance rules. For those not in the know that means that offspring were not as expected based on rules regarding DNA inheritance from parents.
Here is a Yahoo article on the subject. And here are some excerpts...
Challenging a scientific law of inheritance that has stood for 150 years, scientists say plants sometimes select better bits of DNA in order to develop normally even when they inherited genetic flaws from their predecessors.
Uh oh... Lamarck makes a comeback?
The conclusion by Purdue University molecular biologists contradicts at least some basic rules of plant evolution that were believed to be absolute since the mid-1800s... Mendelian genetics has been the foundation of both crop hybridization and the understanding of basic cell mutations and trait inheritance.
Does this mean evolutionary theory stands challenged? Does it show that science is not evo biased and does accept the tentativity of evo theories?
The scientists believe the plants with hothead genes appear to have kept a copy of the genetic coding from the grandparent plants and used it as a template to grow normally, perhaps when living conditions are not ideal.
Well this seems to mean that evolutionary theory is not wholly challenged, but that at least one plant shows Lamarckian mechanisms. Does this show that evos are capable of understanding and accepting old previously rejected theories once there is evidence to accept them?
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation... The Purdue team submitted their preliminary lab observations and requested additional funding in 2002. But NSF program director Rita A. Teutonico said the proposal initially was rejected because the review panel "thought it was a mistake."
This appears to be a nod to the evo conspiracy crowd, however...
The researchers submitted it for a second review six months later and she decided to fund the experiment despite lingering doubts.
Can creos or ID theorists point to this as an example of why we should be funding unconventional theories?
For now, she said additional experiments probably will be conducted on plants to fully describe the genetic template. But experiments on mice and other organisms could be funded in parallel with the plant tests, she said.
If this is found within other species, could this reopen debate on many other facets of how we view evolution? For example the nature of species diversifying after environmental changes?
What would this say for theories (such as ID) that argue information is stored inside DNA/RNA and scheduled to come out on command, rather than determined simply by mutation/heredity?
Is this the opening of a can of worms, or a tribute to the neutrality and tentativity of scientific methods?
(I guess this would go in Misc. Topics)
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