From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 00:44:30 MDT
From: "Damien Broderick" <damienb@unimelb.edu.au>
Still, to repeat, most of the work by Steele and his
> collaborators is on retrogenes, `mutatorsomes' and the immune system, and
I
> get the impression that some of what was once shockingly heretical in
their
> claims is now taken for granted.
### Well, retrotransposons, and immunoglobulin gene rearrangements have been
a part of Darwinian science for the something like 40 and 20 years,
respectively, and their discovery was rewarded by Nobel prizes to Barbara
McClintock and Susumu Tonegawa. Still, there is no evidence for targeted
incorporation of acquired genetic sequences into the germline under a
Lamarckian mechanism (acquiring a trait during ontogeny and specifically
conveying it to the next generation because of its usefulness).
Rafal
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