SPG wrote:honorentheos wrote:But hey, if you toss a germ into a Petry dish and get the result you speculated on, let me know. There's a lot of money to made from germs that can produce functional rockets in under an hour.
Hey, I came to my ideas honestly by thinking too much and pondering too much. I got into Quantum Mechanics because people kept saying I sounded like string theory, or that theory. I barely know who Deepak is.
But, your heart warming, "I believe brother DrW spokes the word of God" speech is well received. I always find the recommendation to read more books to be educational. I could also list his comment under "how to call a person an idiot without them knowing."
SPG, had you taken the time to read the link in the OP even, you wouldn't have posted what you did with the most basic background knowledge of evolutionary theory.
Others posited similar questions that you did before genes and DNA were understood, speculating that individuals engaged in behaviors that led to adaptation IN THE INDIVIDUAL that were inheritable. For example, there was the famous debate over the evolution of Giraffes and their distinctive long necks. Jean Lamark speculated before Darwin that transformation was the mechanism by which change occurred as illustrated in this image:
This theory was wrong, but with the excuse of ignorance. The theory of evolution was built on mutations where individuals with the most advantageous traits were able to outcompete those with less advantageous traits. This ended up being supported by each improvement in our knowledge of genes, DNA, and as DrW pointed out, epigenetics.
For example, in the study linked in the OP, the researchers went through the effort to identify the genetic mutations and genes involved in the findings, such as -
A simpler study could have stopped here, but the team went deeper. Team member Stefan Laurent sequenced a gene called Agouti, which has been linked to fur color, in all 481 of the mice. He found seven mutations that had become more common in the light enclosures, and rarer in the dark ones.
One, known as delta-Ser, seemed to have an especially strong effect. And when another team member, Ricardo Mallarino, engineered that mutation into the Agouti genes of normal lab mice, the rodents grew up with noticeably lighter coats. What had happened?
The Agouti gene is known to affect fur color through the production of a yellow-brown pigment. But to do that, it needs to partner up with other genes. Mallarino found that the delta-Ser mutation disrupts the part of the gene that facilitates those partnerships. It forces Agouti to work alone, which means that it produces much less pigment. This one mutation had lightened the mice’s fur enough that a human eye could see the difference. “And now we know why,” Hoekstra says.This is why your claim that you've read multiple books and have a solid understanding of the topic rings hollow. Your meandering thoughts on how little we really understand compared to the power of the mind may be something that flips folks like Amore's switch who want to gobble up esoteric, feel good claims about the power of belief. But if you are in that game you should get to know Deepak because he is the apex predator with all the influence and raking in the cash through it. Get your SWOT on and get a business plan.
