Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA20188 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 7 Feb 2001 05:15:04 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.220.159] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: reply to Kenneth Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 00:12:18 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F118LiHdlQgdYXSVvR000001786@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 07 Feb 2001 05:12:18.0878 (UTC) FILETIME=[8B245DE0:01C090C4] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: Re: reply to Kenneth
>Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 16:44:08 +0100
>
>Hi Scott,
>
>I just have finished translating your post....I still have a question to
>ask.
>If you write, in the text below " corresponds " what do you exactly mean
>!?
>Do you mean, strengthen/ fortified
> or united
> or connected (to)
> or joined
> or linked
> or as in the sense of a retinue
> or....something else...!?
>I ask you this because the difference between those is important...
>
> >> This genetic info (either m-RNA or c-DNA?) within the lymhocytes
>corresponds to antibody configurations which were favored in the develop-
>ment of an organism's immun system within the environmental context of
>whatver antigens (correpoding to pathogens) it has encountered. This would
>give progeny a head start in developing their own immune responses and
>would
>then hve adaptive significance. There are statistical plots of various
>sites
>within
> > >immunoglobulin genes which Steele marshals as support for his views,
>but
> > >this gets a little complicated.
>
>
>
In this sense of correspond, I was alluding to how a sequence of nucleic
acids (either RNA or DNA) maps to a sequence of amino acids in a protein or
peptide.
It's been a while since I last read Steele's book and URL's, so I'm hesitant
in getting too in depth without brushing up on the particulars, but the
general jist of the reason I thought the views he put forth were confined to
the immune system is because the antibodies in the selected lymphocytes
(with rearranged and hypermutated immunoglobulin genes differing from the
configuration of these genes in the germ-line) probably more directly
correspond (or map) to the information contained within the hypothetical
retrovector shuttles (as a nucleic acid sequence somehow picked up by the
retrovirus within the lymphocyte).
I think the nervous system would represent a problem, because as far as I
know, there isn't an adaptively significant difference in genetic
configuration between the germ line and individual mature neurons and there
would be a problem of how behavioral states gained during a lifetime would
correspond (or map) to retrovector transported information which would cross
the germ-soma boundary. It seems more feasible in lymphocytes for the
adaptive state of a lymphocyte producing specific antibodies to possibly
influence the germline than for the adaptive state in neurons (or neural
aggregates) to do so, though this doesn't mean Steele's views are correct
even when confined to the immune system.
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