Epigenetic Lamarck

In his book On the Origin of Species , Charles Darwin listed seven "fatal objections" to his theory of evolution by natural selection. These objections were raised by his contemporaries, and Darwin addressed them in his book. The seven objections are: The absence of intermediate forms between species. for if this had been so, it would have been fatal to my theory - Darwin  "Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable. Molecular phylogeneticists will have failed to find the "true tree," not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree." The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution  Eugene V Koonin Here are some quotes about the Cambrian's ...

The neutral theory of molecular evolution (NTME), also known as the Kimura theory, is a model of evolution that posits that most changes in the DNA of a population over time are due to random genetic drift, rather than to natural selection. This means that most mutations are either neutral, meaning that they have no effect on the fitness of the organism, or they are so harmful that they are quickly eliminated from the population. The neutral theory was first proposed by Motoo Kimura in 1968, and it has been a major topic of research in evolutionary biology ever since. There is now a great deal of evidence to support the neutral theory, including the observation that the rate of molecular evolution is much higher than would be expected if all mutations were under strong selective pressure. The neutral theory has important implications for our understanding of how evolution works. It suggests that natural selection is not the only force driving evolution, and that random gene...

"Epigenetic phenotypic plasticity challenges the core assumptions of NeoDarwinism." In his article: "Epigenetics and Developmental Plasticity Across Species" by Sean B. Carroll, Carroll discusses the role of epigenetic mechanisms in developmental plasticity, and how these mechanisms can lead to homology between species. He begins by defining epigenetics as "the study of heritable changes in gene expression that are not caused by changes in DNA sequence." He then goes on to discuss how epigenetic mechanisms can be influenced by the environment, and how these changes can be passed on to subsequent generations. Carroll then discusses how epigenetic mechanisms can contribute to developmental plasticity. He notes that developmental plasticity is the ability of an organism to change its phenotype in response to environmental changes. He argues that epigenetic mechanisms can play a role in developmental plasticity by altering the expression of genes i...

Convergent evolution is the process by which unrelated species independently evolve similar traits in response to similar environmental pressures. For example, the wings of bats and birds are both used for flight, but they evolved independently from each other. Convergent evolution is a challenge to neo-Darwinism because it suggests that natural selection can sometimes produce similar results even when the starting points are very different. Neo-Darwinists argue that convergent evolution is not a problem for their theory because it can be explained by natural selection acting on genetic variation. They point out that there is a limited amount of genetic variation available to any species, and that this variation is often limited to certain functional areas. This means that it is more likely for unrelated species to evolve similar traits if those traits are beneficial in a particular environment. However epigenetic phenotypic plasticity better explains how limited genetic va...