Forget the headlines for the moment, help me understand the model.
He claims that ...
Schwartz argues that the structure of the genome does not keep changing, based on the presence of stress proteins, also known as heat shock proteins. These proteins are located in each cell, and their main function is to eliminate the potential for cellular error and change via maintaining normal cellular form through protein folding.
... but then later he says ...
If an organism's stress proteins are unable to cope with a significant change, the genomic structure can be modified. However, Schwartz notes, a mutation also can be recessive in an organism for many generations before it is displayed in its offspring. Whether or not the offspring survives is another matter. If it does in fact live, the presence of this genetically modified organism is not the product of gradual molecular change but a sudden display of the genetic mutation, which may have occurred myriad years prior.
... and that is where I get lost.
If the mechanism does not change due to the "heat shock proteins" then where do the changes that somehow lie dormant for "myriad years prior" come from?
Frankly, his scenario seems to make no sense. On one hand he says change can't happen but then it can and lie dormant until expressed.
What is the difference between a change that happened and was then put on the shelf just in inventory, only to be taken down and used during times of stress, and a "just in time genome manufacturing system" where things are expressed when produced and the successful ones kept?
Why would the two processes be mutually exclusive?
Aslan is not a
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