Latency to patency invoked by specific environments

Latency to patency invoked by specific environments Friday, December 13, 2013 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman Two paradigms, or patterns, contend for primacy currently respecting evolution, or creation, of all species of life on Earth: animal, plant, human, mineral, microbial, and chemical. They are Charles Darwin’s “theory of evolution,” and the “creationist” or “intelligent-design-of-God” motifs. This morning, while reading two articles cited below, I had an epiphany. That is, I perceived and conceived that infinite variety lies latently within all cell-life, cosmologically. Secondly, what is specifically expressed in a given environment from that infinite variety is a function of activation of its latency into patency, be it spontaneous or gradual. Activation is keyed to friction or compatibility between environment and that latent potential being invoked. The two articles midwifed these musings. They are: “Blind cavefish offer evidence for alternative mechanism of evolutionary change;” and “From friend to foe: how benign bacteria evolve into virulent pathogens.” Whether such a given latency is a gene or molecule or an atom matters not, apparently. Environmental cues, acting upon whichever particular latency,is what is determinative in expression, in patent activation. The study involving bacteria said, for example: “The selective pressure imposed by the presence of the macrophages prompted changes in the bacteria that were consistently observed in six independent experimental series.” Macrophages are cells that eat other cells. They are a: “large white blood cell, occurring principally in connective tissue and in the bloodstream, that ingests foreign particles and infectious microorganisms by phagocytosis.” A patent predatory presence stimulates survival mechanism responses in normally benign bacteria, which activates and invokes latent potentials to neutralize the macrophages’ immediate risk to their lives. The study involving the cavefish says: “Using the cavefish, the team demonstrated for the first time in nature how "standing" or "cryptic" genetic variations in an animal, which have been inherited from prior generations without causing any physical changes in the animal, can be "unmasked" by the shock of entering a new environment. Gene variants that improve the animal's ability to adapt to that new environment can then be selected for, and passed on to its progeny. This is distinct from the established evolutionary mechanism of "de novo" genetic mutations that arise by chance after the animal has entered the new environment, which also provide a substrate upon which natural selection can act.” What is “unmasked” is that ‘latency’ described above, which is expressed when confronted with environmental friction or compatibility, suddenly—meaning less than gradual and not randomly but specifically. Quoting now: “The descent of the surface-dwelling Astyanas mexicanus into the cave a few million years ago "is a very, very recent event, in evolutionary terms," Jeffery says. "We are talking about a rapid evolutionary process here, as opposed to the 500 million years of natural selection that have unfolded since most animal [groups] appeared during the Cambrian Period. The fact that these eyeless cavefish are so young makes them very attractive to understand evolutionary processes at their beginning." Admittedly, my “epiphany” is at best a speculative theory. So is Darwin’s. So is creationism. So, welcome to the world. #30