Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-20T19:13:06.437Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

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.

References

Armitage, P. (1952), “The Statistical Theory of Bacterial Populations Subject to Mutation”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B 14: 1–40.Google Scholar
Burnet, F. M. (1929), “‘Smooth-Rough’ Variation in Bacteria in its Relation to Bacteriophage”, Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology 32: 15–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairns, J. (1988), “Origin of Mutants Disputed”, Nature 336: 527–528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairns, J., Overbaugh, J. and Miller, S. (1988), “The Origin of Mutants”, Nature 335: 142–145.10.1038/335142a0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. and Lederberg, J. (1956), “Isolation of Preadaptive Mutants in Bacteria by Sib Selection”, Genetics 41: 367–381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charlesworth, D., Charlesworth, B. and Bull, J. (1988), “Origin of Mutants Disputed”, Nature 336: 525.10.1038/336525a0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crow, J. F. (forthcoming), “R. A. Fisher, A Centennial View”, Genetics.Google Scholar
Fischer, E. P. and Lipson, C. (1988), Thinking About Science: Max Delbrück and the Origins of Molecular Biology. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Gratia, A. (1921), “Studies on the d’Herelle Phenomenon”, Journal of Experimental Medicine 34: 115–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haldane, J. B. S. (1940), “Lysenko and Genetics”, Science and Society 4: 433–437.Google Scholar
Hall, B. (1988), “Adaptive Evolution that Requires Multiple Spontaneous Mutations I”, Genetics 120: 887–897.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
d’Herelle, F. (1926), The Bacteriophage and Its Behavior. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. (1988), Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226360492.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonka, E. and Lamb, M. J. (1989), “The Inheritance of Acquired Epigenetic Variations”, Journal of Theoretical Biology 139: 69–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kauffman, S. A. (1972), “Articulation of Parts Explanation in Biology and the Rational Search for Them”, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 8: 257–272.10.1007/978-94-010-3142-4_18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, A. L. (1982), “Mutation and Growth Rates from Luria-Delbrück Fluctuation Tests”, Mutation Research 95: 129–143.10.1016/0027-5107(82)90252-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamarck, J. B. (1809), Zoological Philosophy. Trans. Eliot, H. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Lea, D. E. and Coulson, C. A. (1949), “The Distribution of the Number of Mutants in Bacterial Populations”, Journal of Genetics 49: 264–285.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lederberg, J. (1989), “Replica Plating and Indirect Selection of Bacterial Mutants: Isolation of Preadaptive Mutants in Bacteria by Sib Selection”, Genetics 121: 395–399.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lederberg, J. and Lederberg, E. (1952), “Replica Plating and Indirect Selection of Bacterial Mutants”, Journal of Bacteriology 63: 399–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lenski, R. E. (1989), “Are Some Mutations Directed?”, Trends in Ecology and Evolution: 148-150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenski, R. E. Slatkin, M. and Ayala, F. J. (1989a), “Another Alternative to Directed Mutation”, Nature 337: 123–124.10.1038/337123b0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lenski, R. E. Slatkin, M. and Ayala, F. J. (1989b), “Mutation and Selection in Bacterial Populations: Alternatives to the Hypothesis of Directed Mutation”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 86: 2775–2778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, B., Gordon, D. and Stewart, F. (forthcoming) “Is Natural Selection the Composer as Well as the Editor of Genetic Variation?”, Genetics.Google Scholar
Luria, S. E. (1984), A Slot Machine, a Broken Test Tube: An Autobiography. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Luria, S. E. and Delbrück, . (1943), “Mutations of Bacteria from Virus Sensitivity to Virus Resistance”, Genetics 28: 491–511.10.1093/genetics/28.6.491CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mandelbrot, B. (1974), “A Population Birth-and-Mutation Process, I: Explicit Distributions for the Number of Mutants in an Old Culture of Bacteria”, Journal of Applied Probability 11: 437–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. (forthcoming). “Models of a Dual Inheritance System.”Google Scholar
Mittler, J.E. and Lenski, R.E. (1990), “New Data on Excisions of Mu from E. Coli MCS2 Cast Doubt on Directed Mutation Hypothesis”, Nature 334: 173–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkar, S. (1989), “Reductionism and Molecular Biology: A Reappraisal.” Ph. Dissertation. Department of Philosophy. University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Sarkar, S. (forthcoming), “Lamarck contre Darwin, Reduction versus Statistics—Conceptual Aspects of the Directed Mutagenesis in Bacteria Controversy”, in Organism and the Origin of Self, Tauber, A. I. (ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, J. (1984), “Observations on the formation of clones containing araB - lacZ Cistron Fusions”, Molecular and General Genetics 194: 79–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stahl, F. (1988), “Bacteria Genetics: A Unicorn in the Garden”, Nature 335: 112–113.10.1038/335112a0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stewart, F., Gordon, D. and Levin, B. (1990), “Fluctuation Analysis: The Probability Distribution of the Number of Mutants under Different Conditions”, Genetics 124: 175–185.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tessman, I. (1988), “Origin of Mutants Disputed”, Nature 336: 527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C. (1972), “Teleology and the Logical Structure of Function Statements”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 3: 1–90.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C. (1976), “Reductive Explanation: A Functional Account”, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 32: 671–710.10.1007/978-94-010-1449-6_38CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Y. N. and White, Bruce, (1934) “Rough Variation in V. cholerae and its Relation to Cholera-Phage.” Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology 38: 187–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar