In article <3o7vct$jad at decaxp.harvard.edu>,
Keith Robison <robison at mito.harvard.edu> wrote:
>Actually, I'm trying to get a thread going on this in sci.bio.evolution.
>I would argue:
> 2) That the distinction between Lamarckian and Darwinian
> evolution becomes less distinct in unicellular organisms,
> because there is no division between soma and germline.
Unicellular organisms are not the only ones where the germline-soma division
is absent, no? It wasn't all that long ago when a paper appeared in Nature
describing rather vast forests as being composed of clonally related trees.
Although I don't remember the paper in detail, the argument was that the
trees were vegetative-propagation-derived. Cuttings, in other words, on an
enormous scale, and not man-made.
Corrections & elaborations welcome, of course. Robison's on to a perfectly
valid point.
Mark
--
Mark D. Garfinkel (e-mail: garfinkl at iitmax.acc.iit.edu)
My views are my own, which is why they're copyright (c) 1995
