First, I am NOT an academic and this is not meant to be scholarly. I just like to think about things. Some of those things: I’d love to know more about plant evolution, as most of what gets attention in popular press involves animals, Darwin, etc.; I’d also love to know more about parallels between plant and animal evolution, given that there are so many interdependent relationships among and between plants and animals; how does one define “crown of creation”, i.e., “most advanced life form”?
I’ve recently read in National Geographic about recent concepts in evolution in which the interaction between genes and the environment is mediated by proteins that regulate gene expression. It’s fascinating that the exact same gene exists and is expressed in a variety of ways among many species. I wonder how many genes even lie dormant in people? And what biases about what constitutes a different “animal” species are anthropocentric? After all, two snakes may look practically identical and be considered different species, while a Bantu and an Eskimo are just varieties of the same species.
I have ruled out Creationism and Determinism in my consideration of the ongoing development and adaptation of beings on the earth. Just doesn’t cut it, both being, IMO, lazy intellectual shortcuts at best. Still, there are many things going on beyond traditional structural taxonomy, and Mendelian genetics. Back in 1977, when I was somewhat studying biochemistry, there was great excitement over proteins called “histones” that decorated and were somehow interacting with the lovely double helix of DNA. Since then there’s been an explosion of knowledge about many other marvels: glycoproteins on cell membranes that turn genes off or on; mRNA; tRNA; rRNA mDNA; twin studies; etc.
So, I claim to be Sgt. Schultz; “I know nothing”. However, I will be excited and delighted to learn much more as things are revealed.
Here is my thought about this topic. I think evolutionary success is “predestined” in a way, meaning that species have their future evolutionary paths preprogrammed into their DNA. If a species is presented with an environment that their DNA has the ability to cope with, then they thrive as a species (not including comet impacts of course). If their DNA does not have the “software” to deal with a new environment, then the species does not survive.
If you had a computer powerful enough, you could progress or regress Human DNA to any probable past or possible future evolutionary state.
In the end, it is all code… hackable code and that includes error creep.