Jump to content

Dirk Bontes

Members
  • Posts

    8
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Dirk Bontes

  1. As stated in an earlier post: Anyone who expresses an intention to review will get the article for free. However, as also stated before, this does not oblige such a person to actually write such a review: that is up to him or her. The current price is an advertisement stunt. What worries me is that someone might actually buy the article at that price, for that would ethically oblige me to never again lower it. The original price was a mere $ 1.66. I am seriously in want of input.
  2. That is quite allright. Exponential functions are difficult. Thank you for your interest. What my hypothesis offers is an addition to the standard view. Similar to sexual selection and other such additions. I am sympathetic to the position that people ought not to be paid for their work. I never give candy to children who knock on the door to do trick or treat at Halloween, either. ;-) I therefore do at the moment give away 32 % of the article "Evolution Is Teleological" for free: nobody need to pay for those 32 %. That ought to be sufficient to introduce the concept of evolution by accelerating natural selection. The article itself is priced at $ 300000.99 at the moment. 32 % of which is $ 96000.00 worth. Let nobody claim that I am a niggard. I will answer other replies at a later time.
  3. There are electromagnetic interactions within a protein and also between a protein and a substrate (which may be another protein). There may also be chemical interactions between a protein and a substrate. The general example I provided was about changes in the initial condition of the conformation of an active site, resulting in a hypothetical change in its function. A series of beneficial mutations is supposed in order to attain a new optimum conformation of the active side, usually resulting in the ability to bind to another substrate or to process an existing substrate in a new way. The article you linked to, is about the interaction between two or more proteins. Since the one protein in a dimer or tetramer has the other(s) as a substrate, the same principle applies when it evolves by natural selection from a monomer to a dimer and from a dimer to a tetramer. The interaction between two monomers at first will be weak and it will eventually evolve to an optimum strength. Because of the exponential nature of the forces between the two monomers any subsequent mutation that benefits their association will be more strongly selected for until the optimum is attained. I think that I am going to read those two articles. But before I do so, I can already say this: There are lots of processes in chemistry and biology that have graphs with sigmoid curves. If the evolution of a characteristic which requires many mutations, would be graphed, it is to be expected to also be sigmoid. Its start would be slow, as the first mutations provide minimal benefits. All that time - according to my hypothesis - the rate of natural selection is accelerating, though, and at a certain time it will become noticeable and take off. Near the top of the curve, when the optimum condition is nearly attained, subsequent mutations will provide little extra benefit and will therefore be selected for at a proportionately lower rate. In populations of species that have occupied an ecological niche, lots of mutations may accumulate that have no effect at all on the optimum function of the proteins or individual, since that already had been attained before those mutations occurred. Proteins [assume] one or more specific spatial conformations, driven by a number of non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, ionic interactions, Van der Waals forces, and hydrophobic packing”. These interactions vary exponentially with the distance between the interacting components. If a number of mutations causing equal increases or decreases in the distance between two components of an active site, are required for an active site to change its functionality, then with each such mutation the interaction between the two components will increase respectively decrease exponentially, as will the benefit that is conferred and therefore the rate at which these mutations are selected for will accelarate exponentially as well.
  4. I have no idea what is the best place for my article. I have written two articles. Two articles are not two books, unless one wants to call 3k or 10k words a book. Smashwords pays. Journals do not pay. Actually my argument was quite different. That is a good point. Using the word 'teleology' to describe 'purposeful evolution by accelerating natural selection' may cause confusion. On the other hand the latter is quite a mouthful. So we may have to define a new concept: e.g. finisology; this would result in the title "Evolution is finisological". I apologize for not yet knowing how to edit the quote boxes here.
  5. 1. I am open for suggestions. In this case the term chapter is obligatory: Smashwords automatically generates a content index, but requires that each content item is preceeded by the word 'Chapter'. 2. I can delete the quote of course and simply say that interactions between the atoms in proteins are electromagnetic in nature. 3. Teleology - fact of being directed to an end, as by Providence; doctrine as to the purposes of nature; explanation of a phenomenon by reference to its purpose. (Wordsworth Dictionary of Difficult Words) My thesis is that once natural selection selects a mutation that benefits an organism in the slightest way, it will select all subsequent mutations that contribute to the benefit of that characteristic at an accelerating rate. In this sense the evolution of such a characteristic is directed at an inevitable optimum end - and therefore per the first part of the definition of the concept 'teleology' it is teleological. As for your last question, I quote from the above text: "we will examine changes in the active site of a protein". In the example given the distances of 1 nanometre and 15 nanometres are arbitrary. They illustrate the principle: in a series of mutations that each increase (or decrease) the distance between two components of an active site by an equal amount, each subsequent mutation will confer an exponentially greater benefit and will therefore also be selected for at a rate that is exponentially faster than the previous mutation was selected for.
  6. Dear sir (or Ms), I would be immensely flattered if you were to read my articles. People who have an intention to review can get a coupon for a free download from me. In which case there is no obligation to write a review, of course. The structure of the articles is fact followed by reference, repeated as many times as necessary. It would be easier reading if the references were in notes, but I like to keep the two together; also because the titles of the referenced articles often themselves add some information. When done presenting facts, I offer a solution to the problem. The reason for the existence of guttural pouches in horses has never been answered satisfactorily. I provide such a reason. This article has a 45 % free sample download at the moment. I here quote the entire chapter 2 of the other - far more important and longer - article: Evolution Is Teleological. This article at the moment has a 32 % free download. Chapter 2. Teleological evolution at the molecular level Most of this article will be about the evolution of macroscopic characteristics, but these derive from changes in (sub)microscopic structures, which usually will be proteins. Proteins can be changed in various ways, one of which – in an eukaryotic organism – is the insertion, exchange or deletion of an exon in the genetic material that encodes it. Here, though, we will examine changes in the active site of a protein by point mutations in the encoding DNA. Wikipedia: “...proteins [assume] one or more specific spatial conformations, driven by a number of non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, ionic interactions, Van der Waals forces, and hydrophobic packing”. All of these interactions are essentially electromagnetic in nature – and electromagnetic forces – like gravity – vary exponentially with the distance between the interacting components. Let us assume that a point mutation occurs which varies the distance between two components of the active site by one nanometer and that this change is of some benefit to the organism: the evolution algorithm will favour this change. Let us further assume that the optimal change is a variation in the distance between the two components of the active site by fifteen nanometers. A second mutation which increases the first variation of the distance between the two components by another nanometer will increase the benefit to the organism to a greater degree because the electromagnetic force between the two components itself increases (or decreases) exponentially, and therefore this second mutation will be more strongly selected for than the first mutation was selected for. And so on for any further mutations that increase the variation of the distance between those two components of the active site. Thus the evolution in this manner of active sites, is with each mutation more strongly selected for and therefore is purposeful and therefore is teleological". Infrequently, as above, I quote Wikipedia. Usually the references are to articles from scientific journals. "Evolution Is Teleological" presents arguments - usually of a geometric nature - that subsequent beneficial mutations of a characteristic are exponentially stronger selected for by natural selection. This causes a directional - fast - evolution of that characteristic. The chapter quoted above argues that evolution was teleological in nature to start out with. However, even if it wasn't, if at any time during non-teleological evolution a mutation would arise that would enable teleological - purposeful - evolution, natural selection would immediately select for the far more effective teleological evolution and non-teleological evolution would become extinct.
  7. No. Journals do not pay. I am looking for paying customers. I have myself reviewed plenty of books for no pay. If one has to pay someone for a review, in my opinion the review is bought and suspect and not independent. The reward that accompanies my articles - I hope - is the enjoyment of genuinely new ideas.
  8. L.S. I have published two for pay articles on evolution theory at Smashwords (an Internet publisher). I hope some experts at evolution theory are willing to read them, cogitate on them and write reviews about them. This in the hope that they will then get noticed and sell - because at the moment they do not sell at all. If interested, please send me a mail. The one is about the evolution of the guttural pouches of horses. That one was a spin off from the other, longer article - which is about evolution as a teleological process.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.