species arise from relatively sudden changes in the supply of nutrients...,

figshare | Abstract: Natural selection for nutrients results in their metabolism to pheromones that control reproduction in species from microbes to man. In some species, sex differences in pheromones enable sexual selection. Using what is known about the molecular mechanisms common to species from microbes to man, an argument can be made from biological facts that extends to non-random nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution. This biological-based argument can be compared to arguments that might be made to support a cosmological / mathematical argument for random mutations theory.

Introduction: The epigenetic effects of nutrients on intracellular signaling and stochastic gene expression appear to enable adaptive evolution of tightly controlled organism-level thermoregulation in mammals. Nutrient-dependent single amino acid substitutions and de novo protein biosynthesis exemplify the involvement of the seemingly futile thermodynamic control of intracellular and intermolecular interactions in microbes that result in stochastic gene expression.

Thermodynamically “futile” cycles of RNA transcription and degradation (Yap & Makeyev, 2013) may also be responsible for changes in pheromone production that enable accelerated changes in nutrient-dependent adaptive evolution controlled by the microRNA/messenger RNA (miRNA/mRNA) balance (see for review Meunier et al., 2013). Environmental cues, like those that signal the availability of glucose, appear to cause changes in the miRNA/mRNA balance that enable gene expression during developmental transitions required for successful nutrient-dependent reproduction in species from microbes (Park et al., 2010) to man (Jobe, McQuate, & Zhao, 2012).

What is known about species from microbes to man extends the common molecular mechanisms of thermodynamics and thermoregulation across the continuum of adaptive evolution. This literature review links the epigenetic effects of the olfactory/pheromonal sensory environment on thermodynamics and on thermoregulation to selection for phenotypic expression in a human population.

Part 1: Thermodynamically-controlled thermoregulation of reproduction

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Statistical arguments led many people to believe in a theory of runaway sexual selection for mutations (see for review Wright, 1930). That belief is most compatible with a gradualist version of Mendelian genetics in which accumulated mutations somehow result in natural selection for observed phenotypes. Theories associated with statistics and selection for observed phenotypes should already have since been discarded by most biologists. Facts have shown that “Reproductive isolation evidently can arise with little or no morphological differentiation (Dobzhansky, 1972, p. 665).”

It is now even clearer than it was more than 8 decades ago that ecological diversification and beak morphology in finches is due to positive natural selection for nutrient-dependent amino acid changes. These changes incorporate the molecular mechanisms of AT¨GC-biased gene conversion, amino acid substitutions, de novo protein biosynthesis, and expression of the insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor (Rands et al., 2013).

Common sense and biological facts support the conclusion that beak morphology adaptively evolves via molecular mechanisms that link the nutritional value of seeds to the availability of different seed types. Statistical analyses that suggest random mutations caused differences in beak morphology to be somehow selected represent a scientifically unsubstantiated theory that fails to address the requirements for pleiotropy and epistasis.

In another recent report that challenges the scientifically unsubstantiated theory of runaway selection for mutations and the adaptive evolution of the head crest in pigeons, researchers reported that derived traits in domesticated birds evolve in stages: 1) color variation, 2) plumage variation, 3) structural variation, and 4) behavioral differences. One gene is responsible for the head crest in all species, which means mutations that alter the head crest are not selected (Shapiro et al., 2013). The pervasive selection for mutations assumption was made with no evidence that either natural selection or sexual selection can result in behavioral differences that enable mutations to be selected. If mutations theory continues to be propagated, Darwinian Theory seems doomed to suffer from a lack of critical examination in the context of how natural selection occurs and what is selected. Blind acceptance of theory already has led to ignorance of biological facts.