Repetitive DNA
In his very illuminating book
Hen’s teeth and Horses Toes, Steven J
Gould talks about the presumed functions of repetitive DNA. He states the
notion amongst scientists that this DNA may represent viral DNA or ‘junk’ DNA.
Later on in his book is a
very interesting passage about the special feet which have evolved amongst the
dogs on the Galapagos islands where dogs have existed for a mere two hundred
years. However, this has been enough time in evolutionary terms for dogs to
evolve especially hard soles on their feet that can cope with sharp volcanic
rock.
The mechanism of Natural Selection
seems unlikely to be able to explain such fast evolutionary adaptation. There
are no reports of dogs who did not survive due to their feet not being well adapted
to running on volcanic rock. We may merely suppose that some dogs experienced
less distress due to running on volcanic rock than others. This might have been
due to some differences in the shape, size and texture of different dogs who
escaped onto the island.
A crucial evolutionary factor
in inheritance is the dominance of genes. Clearly, if thicker skin on the dogs
feet were to have become dominant over thinner skin on dogs feet, then in just
a few generations most dogs on the island would have had skin on their feet as
thick as the thickest skin of any dog that had arrived there.
Still, this requires that the
body is able to respond to chronic distress due to running on volcanic rock and
make thick skin on the feet a dominant inheritable factor.
The question arises how the
body is supposed to do just that. First of all, the body of the dogs would have
had to be able to monitor chronic distress levels to its tissues. It is not
hard to imagine that our bodies are able to do this. We call it an immune
response. If tissue in our body is damaged the immune system repairs it. This
is somehow connected to the lymph. The lymphatic system is an array of
lymphatic knots connected via the lymphatic fluid which slowly (about two
weeks) circulates the entire body between every cell. Thus every cell in the
body has the ability to communicate with the lymph via the lymphatic
fluid. It seems likely that if cells are
damaged distress signals are sent via this route. We may then suppose that one
function of the lymph is to monitor the damage and repair of our body tissue.
However, what we are
suggesting is that such immune responses might be passed on to the next
generation by setting which genes are dominant.
In praxis this could mean
that genes may come with a tag which indicates a preference by the body of a
parent, i.e. ‘thicker skin! = less distress!’ or simply ‘more’ [skin]. We can
experience on our own bodies how wear on our hands causes us to develop
calluses which stop our skin from being damaged. Essentially, vulnerable spots
on our hands grow thicker skin due to repetitive skin damage (blisters). The
immune response is specific. Not all skin on our hands grows thick but merely
those spots which develop blisters.
We may argue that all of our
tissue grows because it is a response to some level of distress. When we grow
as children, we grow in stages. This may be because as we grow in length our
muscular system suddenly experiences distress because it needs to
counterbalance too much leverage of the bones. If nutrition permits the easy
growth of muscular tissue, the muscles soon catch up. As soon as distress
levels in the body reduce below a certain limit the bones may use the surplus
of available energy to grow further.
The whole growth process may
be a coded chain of reactions designed to counter distress in one tissue caused
by the growth of other tissue. Thus we may pass through the mechanical ‘memory’
of distress and adaptive growth of tissue of our entire evolution. Every time
our ancestors have made an adaptation that has caused less distress in our
tissue it has become dominant.
It is easy to see that if
genes had a tag as mentioned above, if two parents were living under the same
conditions, i.e. dogs running on sharp volcanic rock, both parents would be
likely to have the same tag, and, as a consequence, the child would be born
with it. Thus if one parent dog had thicker skin on their feet than the other,
the tag ‘more’ would automatically select for the child to develop thicker skin
on their feet from an embryonic stage giving dominance to the gene of the
parent providing thicker skin.
If in the second generation
both parents were born with such a tag and still encountered chronic distress
due to running on volcanic rock another tag ‘more’ might have been added to the
gene as it was passed on to their offspring.
Thus it is possible to
imagine how in just very few generations the immune response of individual dogs
on the Galapagos Islands caused a fundamental growth of relevant tissue in
their offspring, so that today, dogs on the
It is therefore possible that
immune responses stretch across generations until no more tags, caused by
chronic distress to the tissue of a species in a particular habitat, are added
to the genes passed on to their offspring.
This would be an evolutionary
mechanism entirely different from that of Natural Selection. It is well
documented that Natural Selection is a factor in the evolution of a species,
but it may not be the only one.
The genes that have been
decoded so far code for amino acids, the building blocks of our tissue. However,
it is possible that Repetitive DNA codes for increases in the production of
certain amino acids which in turn code for a particular part of our body. Thus Repetitive
DNA could regulate body proportions.
This could explain why there
is DNA which contains repetitive sequences and why this DNA exceeds by far the
DNA that codes for amino acids.
It is also known that
repetitive DNA changes during a person’s lifetime if that person suffers high
levels of distress.
Aging may be due to the fact
that in our lifetime we start running out of building blocks for making changes
to our repetitive/proportions DNA. Embryonic DNA may be able to make such
repairs due to high levels of building block DNA needed to create complex
repetitive DNA structures.
It may also be that during
our lifetime our Repetitive DNA structures get too complex and that as a
consequence our immune responses slow down until our body is no longer able to
maintain all tissue on low distress levels though adaptation and repair. As the
distress level increases that causes an immune response from our body, so does
the distress threshold which will trigger it. As a consequence our tissue shows
signs of ageing.
It may be possible that the
amount and type of genetic immune response in a person’s lifetime determines
their longevity, a genetic immune response being one that deals with chronic
distress levels in the body caused by lifestyle, such as tissue damages due to
constant contact with toxic substances, sudden or incompatible changes in the
type or amount of chronic distress.
Cancer may be an indication
that the body is not able to make an adequate genetic immune response and
therefore damaged tissue is allowed to reproduce. It is possible that if the
hierarchies within Repetitive DNA were understood that in the case of cancer
incoherence in the structure of Repetitive DNA hierarchies would be evident.
Perhaps cancer is more likely to occur in people who suffer from constant high
levels of distress to some part of their body, so that their body is in a
constant need for repair. If this process was controlled by Repetitive DNA and
if this DNA was damaged then perhaps this would result in serious damage and
malignant growth of body tissue.
Certain viruses may cause
cancer simply by causing high distress levels to certain body tissue that
overstretch the capacity of the body for a genetic immune response.
The fact that clones do not
live as long as their ‘parent’ may have to do with them not being equipped with
the typical levels of Repetitive DNA building block material present in embryos
of natural parents who were grown from special reproductive cells, naturally
equipped with such vital genetic material, whereas a clone relies on whatever
potentially depleted or over-structured genetic material was already present in
the body cell from which it was cloned.
This is a wide field.
However, I think it is possible to see how genetic immune responses may apply
to many aspects of human health and how Repetitive DNA may have a vital role to
play in human reproduction and as part of the human immune system.
The possibility of the
existence of such an evolutionary genetic immune response has some far reaching
consequences on how we should have to view certain events in our own evolution.
It is already obvious that
sudden changes in climate would cause distress in many individuals.
It is possible to use this model
of Generational Genetic Immune Responses to offer an explanation for the sudden
disappearance of the Neanderthal features in people of the Northern Hemisphere.
Archaic Homo sapiens look like an evolutionary step between Neanderthal people
and certain modern Europeans. However, there are some distinct Neanderthal
features that seem to disappear very suddenly in this supposed transition. Such
features of the Neanderthal bones may be linked to the overall robustness of
Neanderthal people and if Archaic Homo Sapiens were Neanderthal people who had
lost their robustness then it seems that they had done so in a very short span
of time (probably around a thousand years in any particular location).
It is not possible to
attribute the disappearance of these features on changes in climate alone.
Between fifty and thirty thousand years ago, wherever Archaic Homo Sapiens
appear Neanderthal features seem to disappear for good.
There are some rare examples
of fossil finds that display in between stages between Archaic and Neanderthal
Homo Sapiens. For a long time mt-DNA Neanderthal finds led the scientific
community to suppose that Neanderthal people were not related to modern humans.
However, the latest research acknowledges our genetic links with these robust
people. The debate no longer is whether or not we are related, but to which
degree.
It is also not the first time
Neanderthal features disappear for a few thousand years and then show up again
when the climate changes into another Ice Age.
Since the mechanics of
Natural Selection do not allow for a quick change of physical features it is
not possible under such a model to assume that Neanderthal people turned into
Archaic Homo sapiens in a time so short that hardly any substantial fossil
evidence is ever likely to be found.
The mechanics of Natural
Selection therefore dictate that there was a substantial immigration from other
continents such as Africa and Asia into
Personally, I think it is
very likely that such immigration occurred. However, the mechanics of
Generational Genetic Immune Response allow for a different perspective on what
happened.
When the Ice Age first
started to be interrupted and the climate got significantly warmer a lot of the
physical features of the classical Neanderthal built such as body heat
containing stockiness would have caused these people physical distress, such as
overheating. Other features may have included very pale (white) skin. In fact
some scientists believe that red hair is a genetic Neanderthal feature that has
survived to our time.
According to the Generational
Genetic Immune Response these features would have caused people of pure
Neanderthal descent chronic distress and other features that would have
remedied this, such as increased slenderness, would have been genetically
dominant. Therefore just a modest genetic connections with dark eyed and skinned people of a more slender built from Africa or Asia
could have significantly altered the physical features of people in
However, the climate may not
have been the only factor that helped to make Neanderthal features redundant.
It may help not to think of Neanderthal people as a race or species but a
culture; a culture which was designed to cope with Northern Hemisphere Ice Age
conditions. Anyone who lived in that culture had to be robust or else they
would have suffered or not lived. The Neanderthal culture may have used the
mechanics of both Natural Selection and the Generational Genetic Immune
Response to suppress genes that allowed for a more slender built in people of
that culture.
It is well documented that
life in that culture was physically very harsh by contemporary standards. It is
also likely that when a warmer climate facilitated closer relationships with
the people of Africa and Asia by freeing up the waterways leading to the
Mediterranean, that through the resulting contact with more equatorial or
tropical cultures, the culture and lifestyle in Europe was profoundly affected.
In the
I believe that the cave art
in
It may therefore have been
possible that a profound change in climate and a modest genetic exchange with
people who were better adapted to this new climate could have produces a
profound and in geological terms sudden change in the appearance of the people
whose direct ancestors had belonged to the Neanderthal Culture.
To conclude, I suggest that
the model of a Generational Genetic Immune Response allows a more coherent
image of the evolution of humanity not just as a race but also as a culture.
Its mechanics can also provide an answer for the sudden evolution of
specialised feet amongst dogs on the
I hope you have found this
report interesting, if not helpful. If you have read it, I would be very happy
about a single line of acknowledgement.
Kind regards,
Ivan Morf grote@ivanmorf.com