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 THE ROAD TO SCIENTIFIC CREDIBILITY is a rocky
one, and yesterday's heresies are tomorrow's accepted truths. Biology has seen its share of heresies pass into othodoxy, and it wasn't so long ago that the fledgling discipline of
molecular biology had to revise its Central Dogma to incorporate the reverse transcription of RNA into the genome. Dogma, it seems, is a fickle mistress in science.
Into the fray wades Steele (et al), flying a
new flag for the inheritance of acquired characteristics, a long-discredited heresy championed by the French biologist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck. It really isn't a new flag at all, since the book reports research
going back 20 years or more, but the conclusions are still very controversial. The book focuses on the immune system, and evidence which suggests that adaptive mutations in lymphocytes can be
transported to germ cells and be retro-transcribed into germ-line DNA. This isn't 'how the giraffe got its neck' quackery, and the authors do a credible job of pointing out that arguments against Lamarckism
are more to do with dogma than that it contravenes any fundamental laws of physics. The main text is refreshingly free of defensiveness, although there is an epilogue to refute
ultra-Darwinists such as Dawkins and Dennett (Gould's cursory dismissal of Lamarckism also gets short shrift). We get some idea of the lengthy genesis of Steele's research in the revelation that
Dawkins specifically attacked it in The Extended Phenotype. The book's conclusions are unquestionably controversial and, on the authors' admission, they await more experimental evidence.
Nevertheless, it's a thought-provoking read and a fascinating primer on the mechanics of the immune system. It is now accepted that B lymphocytes undergo somatic hypermutation during an immune
reaction, and there are specific cellular mechanisms that support Darwinian selection between these mutations. These mechanisms are described in moderate detail, while on a more speculative note
Steele postulates a specific undiscovered organelle, which he calls the 'RT-mutatorsome', that binds to the lymphocyte's Variable region and actually promotes the mutations.
It's a heady read, but not a particularly easy one. The text is punctuated by many diagrams that carry lengthy explanatory captions, and it fairly bristles with glossaries - the sheer number
of technical terms introduced is breathtaking, ensuring that even paid-up biochemistry groupies will need frequent rest-breaks to recover. If there's any criticism due it's that the authors do make
a meal of what's coming, and the hyped-up Lamarckian aspects only actually appear in the penultimate chapter. |
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