Archive for January, 2008

Marco Parigi has posted this comment in response to my Brecht-Zitate post. It seems to me that is does not really belong there, so I put it here with the hope that it might initiate an interesting discussion on Lamarckism and Darwinism.

“Arguments for modern specific experiments for Lamarckism

I have been reading The Panda’s Thumb and there is a nice chapter devoted to the discussion of Lamarckism. Essentially the tenets of ‘Lamarckism’ is that evolution can be ‘directed’ by environmental factors, rather than by undirected genetic variation being winnowed out by death or lower reproduction rates of fellow individuals of the species allowing the remaining individuals to pass on genes appropriate to the environmental factors. Lamarckism has been rejected by biologists because ‘Darwinism’ explains all facets of evolution satisfactorily, and no direct evidence of Lamarckism has been discovered, as well as the fact that particular examples (giraffe necks etc.) oft quoted have been discredited as being both explainable by darwinism and having no measurable direct evidence of directed genetic change.

A new approach would be to look at it from a completely different angle as follows. If Lamarckism is a force in evolution, what are the best genetic strategies to follow given a pre-reproductive youth to experiment on what genes are useful and which not. The issue to me is that genes would have to predict what future environments will require. Genetic variation would hedge its bets on an environmental change being a temporary or permanent one. I would suggest that modern controlled experiments on a range of different animals over a large number of generations would demonstrate it. Essentially, almost no experiments have been done since the 1920’s and 1930’s. With a greater understanding of the complex role of RNA, more nuanced experiments, I believe would find a subtle but pervasive pathway for some direct/accelerated forms of evolution.

Neither the rat/maze learning experiments and antenna/amputation/regrowth experiments have natural environmental analogies, making them less explanatory than they appear. Direct adaptation would only happen where similar changes in environment had happened before in the distant ancestral history of the animal/plant in question. After all, the specific Lamarckian adaptation itself would have to evolve to suit probable dramatic shifts in environment (ie. selection pressures on species that had no Lamarckian adaptation vs species that did)

One particular experiment would be subjecting specimens to permanent darkness. It is a well known evolutionary theme that vision in a large range of beasts becomes impaired when adapted to permanent darkness. It also has reasonably common natural analogy where animals adapted to light have close relatives adapted to dark with common ancestry. Adaptation to permanently, cold, wet, hot or dry are similarly common natural events that lab experiments could weed out direct vs undirected variation.”

Just seven points which may be relevant for a discussion: 1) Darwin himself believed to a degree in a Lamarckian explanation of evolution, this explanation was finally discarded as the result of the theories of August Weismann; 2) The definition of Lamarckism above is somewhat ambiguous (”Essentially the tenets of ‘Lamarckism’ is that evolution can be ‘directed’ by environmental factors”; it is fairly obvious that evolution is to some degree “directed”, the important point is that acquired characters are passed on to the offspring); 3) Darwinism, as usually interpreted today, in my opinion puts too much emphasis on the importance of competition, particularly interspecific competition. Hence, it would be wise to contrast “intelligent design” with the theory of evolution and not with Darwinism; 4) Both Darwinism and Lamarckism have been misused by politicians, the former to justify eugenic and racist politics, the latter to justify suppression of scientific research because it supposedly led to racist conclusions; 5) Mutations may be constrained by their genetic environment, i.e. they are not entirely random, but this is no evidence for Lamarckism; 6) Reports have been published from time to time claiming evidence for the inheritance of acquired characters (one a number of years ago by an Australian microbiologist); I have not kept track of these reports and how valid they were; 7) Lamarckian ideas of “soft” evolution may still be useful in theories of cultural evolution such as memetics.

The Sydney Morning Herald (9.1.2008) contains three interesting articles which illuminate the power of the PR industry.

1) The Gulf of Tonkin incidence, according to which North Vietnam attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, was used by President Lyndon Johnson as a pretext to dramatically escalate US involvement in Vietnam. The then US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara declared to Congress that the evidence for the attack was “unimpeachable”. A new report shows that these claims were fabricated. The report was released by the National Security Agency responsible for much of the codebreaking by the US and eavesdropping work, in response to a “mandatory declassification” request, the Federation of American Scientists said yesterday. Review of classified documents clearly shows that “no attack” happened that night. But who cares, 45 years ago everybody believed in the attack as claimed by the US government, ably fed to the gullible public by the PR machine, without scrutiny of the evidence.

2) Widely reported in the press, five Iranian speedboats charged at three US Navy ships entering the Persian Gulf. The US President, now in the Near East (or on the way to the Near East) claimed this to be “provocative”, the Iranians, in contrast, said similar incidents in the narrow straits had happened before and had always been resolved when the two sides had identified themselves. Why should Iran, at this moment in time, want to provoke the US?

3) “Israel hiding settlement facts to protect image

The Israeli Government has told a court that it does not want to reveal the true extent of Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories because the information would damage its image abroad, a local newspaper has reported.” According to the International Court of Justice and accepted by most countries, such settlements are illegal, and the Israeli government is indeed correct in believing that revealing the extent of settlements would damage its image. It seems obvious that the international community is widely unaware of what is happening, largely due to the failure of the PR machine to provide the relevant information.

In a recent interview with the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the former US representative at the UN, John Bolton, declared that the publication of a report by the US secret service agencies, according to which Iran had discontinued any atomic weapons program in 2003, amounted to a “coup” of the secret service against the American president. Indeed, he is right if one assumes that the president had and has plans to attack Iran, because the report removed any pretext justifying such an attack. Likewise, it even removed the basis for sanctions imposed on that country.

But who believes that it will have a significant impact on US policy in the Near East, except perhaps for putting a greater burden on the vast PR industry, which has very effectively prepared the war against Iraq and has convinced many that Iran is a dangerous country because it is close to possessing atomic weapons. The former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower was quite right, when he stated in his farewell address in 1961 with regard to the military-industrial complex: “A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction…
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence ” economic, political, even spiritual ” is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

In those days it was the military-industrial complex which was the potential danger, although propaganda always played a significant role. Today, as the result of immense advances in communication technology and an ever increasing control of the PR industry by fewer and fewer interest groups, emphasis should shift to the military-PR industrial complex. It is obvious that the oil and other industries pumped vast sums into the campaigns of Bush, but it was used to influence public opinion through the PR industry.

Relevant here is a comparison of what is happening about Iran now with what happened to Iraq.

According to WHO estimates, the Gulf war followed by sanctions against Iraq prior to the invasion which included many pharmaceuticals, cost the lives of approximately half a million children, and two inspectors of the sanctions program resigned over what they thought was the illegality of the sanctions. But public opinion was hardly aware of it. What was reported were cases of some cases of corruption related to the sanctions. Accordingly, no changes in politics occurred (as far as I am aware). Highly unlikely that humanitarian considerations will have any effect this time, but let us wait and see. After all, what is said to count is American lives and not Iraqi or Iranian lives. In this context: According to the Sydney Morning Herald, January 8, 2008, ” Iraq is not a dirty word…in McCain campaign. ….But John McCain clearly believes the significant drop in US casualties has altered political dynamics….. As one of the points he spotlights is his longstanding support for increased US military involvement in Iraq…. at one point saying the changed policy has “saved America’s most precious resource”- the lives of soldiers.” Not a word about Iraqi lives in his campaign to win the nomination for president.

Also in this context: was the recent flight of a US bomber across the US loaded with atomic weapons really an “accident”? Click here. I hope it was and all this is sheer scare mongering.

The latest book review of my book Nonequilibrium Ecology, Cambridge University Press 2005, has now been published in Austral Ecology 32, November 2007, pp. 834-835. It is by F. Patrick Graz, a plant ecologist at the University of Ballarat, Australia. He has done work on various aspects of plant ecology, in particular the dry woodland savanna in southern Africa. Extracts of his review follow. Unfortunately he got my name wrong, not infrequently done by authors who cite my work. I correct this error in the extracts.

“Populations do not exist in isolation but interact with the biological and physical environments in which they occur. In his book, Nonequilibrium Ecology, Klaus Rohde discusses various aspects of such interactions with respect to population and community development. Rohde, clearly an expert in his field, consolidates more than 500 references to compare the relative importance of equilibrium and nonequilibrium in relation to natural populations.”

“The first chapter introduces and defines nonequilibrium in populations and communities, and provides a brief review of the development of the concept over time. The chapter also reviews empirical evidence for populations tending towards an equilibrium, and populations and meta-populations in nonequilibrium conditions. At the end of the chapter, Rohde highlights the concept of vacant niches. The concept is central to the development of his discussions and is dealt with in various sections of the book. The author recognizes the controversy surrounding the concept, as evidenced in later chapters, where he also provides supporting arguments and examples for its role in the development of communities and diversity.
Chapter 2 reviews the coexistence of individuals in different assemblages and communities that are either in apparent equilibrium or in nonequilibrium. He shows the importance of environmental disturbances in this context. In the final section of the chapter, Rohde defines the concept of a vacant niche for the purpose of further discussion. He also considers non-saturation of species assemblages, citing a number of studies in support.
The subsequent two chapters review different forms of interspecific competition and their various effects on individual species and species assemblages. Rohde deals with competition in some detail, as he considers the concept of fundamental importance in the discussion of nonequilibrium ecology.”

“The concept of vacant niches/unsaturated communities forms a significant and convincing part of the discussion.
Chapter 5 explores processes that constrain and separate niches. The author argues that species may specialize to exploit particular microhabitats and to ensure mate finding, thus necessarily altering their exploitation of different parts of niche space. These specializations may reinforce themselves, in the form of further speciation. Chapter 6 explores the development of species diversity over evolutionary time, considering the exploitation of niche space.
Chapters 7 to 9 review and consolidate examples of equilibrium and nonequilibrium at three different scales of organization, that is, at the population/metapopulation level, community level and macroecological level. In these chapters, Rohde provides a range of examples from both terrestrial and marine systems.”

“The final chapter serves as a summary of the various topics discussed in the preceding ones and provides suggestions for future emphases in ecological thinking.”

“Throughout, the author provides numerous examples to underscore the various aspects under discussion.”

“The details pertaining to the individual organisms under study are generally useful, permitting the reader to understand the context of the studies cited.”

Some appendices and Errata of the book are available at:
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521674553&ss=res