From: Tristich <Tristich-AT-aol.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 19:43:04 EDT
Subject: Re: The Survival Of The Fittest Floom


Steve Callihan writes:

> it is a much more unlikely scenario than already
>  having the right gene in the bank. If a subpopulation within a species
>  doesn't already carry the gene or genes that allow it to survive an
>  extinction event, the high chance, it seems to me, is that no lucky
mutation
>  is going to suddenly come galloping to the rescue. 

Engineer-man would have us assume that unless a trait (or tendency) is fully
developed, then it is thereby a burden and a killer. But such a theory is
tantamount to the assumption that _we_ are the culmination and the intended
object of all natural history. I think I recall that N somewhere scoffed at
such a notion. I think Steve is right here. "What does not kill [us] makes
[us] stronger." There are plenty of mutations occuring that are simply benign
and make no difference to the organism (at least in its ability to survive to
reproduction). But then something may happen that puts a selective advantage
on what was formerly only benign. 

I have a fanciful example: some of us can curl our tongues, and some of us
cannot. It is a genetic trait, and those who have the trait live peacefully
side by side with those who do not, in a proportion that remains relatively
constant, and they don't even have a secret sign by which they can recognize
one another. But suppose an event occurs that somehow (who can say why or how)
interferes with our ability to get food, except that those who can curl their
tongue figure out that by doing so they can use their tongue like a straw to
suck up the sustenance they need? (I know, this is screwball, but it
illustrates the point.) Suddenly the curly-tongues are at least eating, if not
well, and they begin to outlast the curlless ones (who are dropping like
flies). What's more, being a curly-tongue suddenly is the in thing while
curllessness is definitely not cool. The balance is almost immediately shifted
in favor of curly-tongues, and the more curly, the better. Because of the
extreme selective advantage, the curly-tongue trait becomes exaggerated, and
before you know it we've got what Louis Leakey would have classified as a new
mainstream species. And, you know, he'd be right because all the curlless ones
did die out.

Fritz


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