A neat summary of recent advances in evolutionary theory and embryology is in the recent The New York Review Of Books. The writers point out that Hox genes, recognized not so long ago, direct the growth and development of an organism by acting as a series of switches and growth guides. Many of these newly discovered genetic agents were noticed by studying embryonic development, as the big puzzle in evolution is now how exactly can simple genes dictate the growth of and evolve into such complex organs like eyes and hands.
Well, it seems the “simple” genes don’t exactly dictate all of that, that it happens in development, gradually, where the Hox genes act as switches that allow some genes to be expressed and others to remain silent. They do this piecemeal, as an organism grows, so all the information doesn’t have to be stored in one massive genetic file, it’s like a series of trap doors that get opened when the right triggers are activated. Therefore the Hox genes “direct” the development of each specific organ and evolutionary changes and mutations don’t therefore have to happen in the whole gene, which would increase the risk of catastrophe (a dead freak) but instead mutations can happen within the confines of the Hox “instruction manuals” for specific organs. In fact, many organs’ developments are self-regulated. The complex network of blood vessels or nerves, for example, is not mapped out in advance. An algorithm is set in motion and the network then more or less creates itself, reacting to its environment. So, the instruction manual does NOT have to be as big and as complex as the thing it describes. And instruction such as “keep the river on your right” eliminates that need for an elaborate map.
This reminds me that yesterday Jane, who is working on the video elements of Here Lies Love, found the film that Marcos’ mistress Dovie Beams was brought to Manila to star in many years ago. We all assumed that Imelda, discovering Marcos’ affair, squashed the film shoot back in the 70s before it was even done. The film was to be a dramatization of Marcos’ supposed exploits and his affair with a Filipina resistance fighter during WWII. Heroism and romance — with the Filipina warrior gal to be played by an American B movie actress! Jane discovered on the web that a print of this film exists in Germany — or it was released in Germany in the late 80s and the print is floating around somewhere.
Here’s the network analogy:
Previously to Jane’s German discovery, on the IMDB database, only two films featuring Beams as an actress ever showed up. Now, although she never entered this new information into their database, this third film pops up as well. The web has “noticed” a new connection, a new path through the jungle, and has incorporated it into itself, where relevant. No one did anything; the web did it by itself. Or so it seems.
So, it seems that the Hox genes allow for a more and more complex organism than the number of genes should be able generate by themselves. Previously it was thought that complex organisms like us should have many many more genes than simple life forms — and that evolution happened when these new genes gradually got added to the sequence by accident. But it now seems that the difference in the number of genes between lower life forms and us is nowhere near as large as it “should” be. The Hox genes offer an explanation of sorts as to how this is technically possible — the series of switches and triggers are a system in which less can be made to do more. Ingenious.
The Hox gene and regular gene combination raises questions.
Isn’t it odd that, to some extent, the genes present in even the lowliest bacteria contain much of what is necessary to make vastly larger and more complex creatures? Quantitatively there is not that much less information even in lowly lifeforms. Does this mean there is a lot of redundant unused information in the genes of a simple organism? What is the “extra” information doing there? Why would any organism have stuff it doesn’t use? How could anything like that possibly evolve? Creationists probably have a ready answer here.
Darwinists claim the opposite — that this common genetic base or framework proves that we all came from the same place. That to have needed real genetic additions evolution would have happened even more slowly than it did. So, in their opinion, this system was the way it had to happen. At least in the time scale we observe. And the genius of the design is that it uses simple building blocks but makes the absolute most out of them. One can make a simple brick, or a skyscraper, but the ingredients are identical.
What that says to me then is that most life on Earth is, genetically speaking, one organism. I don’t mean this metaphorically, I mean it literally. The various shapes and forms that life takes are ways that it, the uber organism, has found to occupy every available niche — but it is the always the same genetic framework that is being propagated everywhere, more or less. Darwin would claim that a lineage exists from one primeval single celled creature to almost all the world’s bacteria, sloths, ants and people. There may be other primeval things that offer radically different genetic frameworks, but this one genetic model has prevailed, and did so well that it pretty much took over the planet. (I wonder if some viruses are the seeds of alternate genetic design possibilities, as yet unrealized?)
So, to an alien species from another galaxy, all life on earth might appear almost as one organism, vast and shape shifting. Where we see difference they would see similarity. To them it would appear as if this one organism had not only flourished, but was so spread out across the planet and that the Earth itself might be seen as one seething being — an organism (of which we are just a part) filling every available nook and cranny. A creature that even created an environment conducive to itself. Oxygen, an atmosphere, soil — all, to some extent, made by life. The One that is All has a relationship with its host rock that is symbiotic.
