I Ain’t No Joke
The Revival of the Lamarckian Theory of Evolution
My high school teacher laughed while describing the theory of Lamarck.
He used giraffes.
Giraffes can’t stretch their necks and make them longer every generation.
It would mean mice whose tails are consistently cut in labs should have shorter and shorter tails over time. We can expect mice without tails after a few generations.
Jews could have had their male children born without the foreskin.
In Kenya, the Luo men would have had their boys born without their six lower front teeth.
The idea is laughable.
So my high school teacher laughed.
It was not my biology teacher. He had some decency. Maybe he knew the idea could be possible. Maybe not the lengthening of the necks, but another acquired trait. I never asked him.
I was not interested in evolution then as I am now.
Darwin’s theory is not without its faults either. I have cited a few of them in my very first post on Medium. These are a sample. The point is every theory has its fair share of wins and losses. So does Lamarck’s theory.
And like The Mummy, it is making a comeback.
The deeper I get into evolution, the more I find how little I know. How little we know.
The problem could lie, in part, in the chief vocalists.
In the past, they would defend their cases using animals. Their arguments would ring home because many people can identify animals. Not so many can think of plants. If it is the topic of evolution we are talking about, describing animals sounds like an easy idea.
Easy.
But easy is not accurate.
Plants have also evolved. They walked into the evolutionary scene with just as much gusto as animals and made their own script. But before animals and plants, the world was ruled by the very minute.
The small things mattered then and they matter now.
You could say, the world was ruled by hobbits, on a microscopic scale. There were no Gandalfs.
Acquired, Required, and Inherited
In the microbial sea, traits are acquired, required, and inherited
When somebody asks you a question and you reply you are at sea, you are right. You might not have gotten the correct answer, but you are correct by saying you are at sea.
You are in the greatest sea of all. A sea of microbes.
Some of the microbes you have are acquired. Some later find their way into the next generation. Consider termites.
Termites cannot digest wood. But they feed on it. It is possible because they have a host of bacteria to convert the wood to nutrients for themselves and the termites. The role of termites serves the bacteria. The role of the bacteria serve the termites. They are an emergent organism.
It would not be possible to do this without their gut bacteria. As a different entity, it is not inherited through Mendelian genetics. It is inherited in a sh*tty way.
Once the young termites have hatched, their caretakers feed them sh*t. This is how their offspring get the gut microbes. They will not take bullsh*t. But they will take termite sh*t. They have no choice if they are to survive.
These microbial digestive masters are acquired, required, and inherited.
Lamarck should get credit for introducing the idea.
Termites do not stretch their necks like giraffes but they share acquired traits with the next generation.
It is required for termites to not just continue taking pulp, but also to get its nutrients. The termite-microbe handshake agreement lives inside them. It was and still is required.
Since it is passed on to the next generation, it is inherited.
Termite microbes are acquired, required, and inherited.
The mechanism does not follow Mendelian Laws. Genes are not segregated. Genes are not independently assorted.
The whole shebang gets shared — genome and organism. Genomes inside the organisms. As a community. Genes flow from one elder to a budding young one.
Surely, Lamarck had some ideas. He should not be taken for a joke.
If you insist on getting the final laugh, then let me use the typical units — genes.
Genes are what our toolboxes are to microbes. You can reach out and pick a spanner to fix your bed. Microbes have mobile elements in their genomes to do the same.
A genome is not the stable fortress described in many books, movies, and videos. They need help. And occasionally, they move, shift, and rearrange.
Unlike you, who can survive with a rackety bed because you lack a spanner, bacteria need their shifting genetic elements. It is necessary for them to survive.
When these genes move, it is not limited to one’s home ground. They can move from one cell to another. The process is called horizontal gene transfer. A fancy way of saying genes can move but not the way we initially thought — they are shared in the same way you can ask for a spanner from your neighbour.
The donor may have manufactured this new gene and its gene product in the classical Mendelian way. We can call this donor Geppetto.
The recipient did no such work. It got the finished product and survived. Let us call this recipient Pinocchio.
Geppetto helped Pinocchio survive. He spurred it into life.
Acquired traits are a commonality in the microscopic world. They are acquired, required, and inherited.
Furthermore, because they are required, they are adaptive.
Bacteria are the sort of organisms whose survival depends on strict laws. The strict laws are tightly coupled with physics. The laws do not rely on a parliamentary procedure before ascent. If the gene is useless, it coughs it out. If it is useful, it retains it.
Period.
Most of the acquired traits, shared through horizontal gene transfer are adaptive.
Imagine you are at the park, seated. A vendor walks towards you and offers to sell you a hotdog. Since he has sold more than he had dreamt of for the day, he gives you one for free. You thank him and off he goes.
Unknown to you, this hotdog has survival components. Globally, they are invisible. Microscopically, they are waiting to get commissioned. Once inside your gut, they begin working.
Here, the vendor is one successful microbe. You are sitting on your abilities in the park. But lucky for you, the vendor passes by and hands you a component vital to your survival. It’s a matter of life and death.
It is so instrumental, forgive the pun, you pass it to the next generation. In the classical way. This capability was acquired, required, and now has been inherited.
Darwin and Lamarck have been playing one-on-one basketball but Lamarck has insatiable stamina. Darwin can shoot hoops for days, but Lamarck can drive.
Like the great Rakim, Lamarck ain’t no joke.
It’s about time you took him seriously.
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