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On the Possibility of Directed Mutations in Bacteria: Statistical Analyses and Reductionist Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Sahotra Sarkar
Sahotra Sarkar*
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Extract

A recent set of experiments by Cairns et al. (1988) purport to show that some mutations in a strain of E. coli bacteria are directed in the sense that they are induced, somehow, in an environment that is suited for them. If this claim is true it would limit the validity of the neo-Darwinian assumption that evolution proceeds by “random variation and natural selection” which requires that there be no correlation between the genesis of a particular mutation and the fitness of the corresponding phenotype in the environment in which the mutation occurs. Instead, it would argue for the occurrence of some “neo-Lamarckian” processes in evolution in the sense that the genesis of some mutations would have a positive correlation with the fitness of the resultant phenotype in that environment. Thus, one of the most fundamental tenets of the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution would be brought into question.

Type
Part III. Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 110 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

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Footnotes

1

Part of this work was done in collaboration with Heidi Lindquist. Thanks are due to her and also to John Cairns, James F. Crow, Joshua Lederberg, Richard Lenski, Bruce R. Levin, Richard Lewontin, John Maynard Smith and William Wimsatt for helpful discussions and comments on earlier versions of this analysis.

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