Hi, my name is Elizabeth [discussion of acceptable topics on PF]

[EHope]

How did you find PF?: Google search results

I’m an independent thinker who questions orthodoxy for the sake of truth :)

[Mentor Note -- thread has been moved from the New Member Introduction forum to the Feedback forum]

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to PhysicsForums Elizabeth. It's good to have you here.

Be sure to re-read the PF Rules (see INFO at the top of the page). We discuss mainstream science, as published in mainstream textbooks and peer-reviewed journals. We are happy to help you learn about real science here, but we don't allow personal theories or posts that challenge well-proven science.

Enjoy

 

[EHope]

To clarify, would Lynn Margulis have been able to post her theory of symbiogenesis as another driver of evolution on this website? Now her work has been accepted in mainstream publications, but it took decades. So my question is this: would I have been able to bring up her theory on this platform before she was included in high school textbooks?

 

[Ibix]

If it was (at the time) published in reputable peer reviewed journals, and she provided references to them if asked, yes. If not, no.

 

[PeroK]

To clarify, would Lynn Margulis have been able to post her theory of symbiogenesis as another driver of evolution on this website? Now her work has been accepted in mainstream publications, but it took decades. So my question is this: would I have been able to bring up her theory on this platform before she was included in high school textbooks?

The question is possibly moot. There may be a small number of cases where a non-mainstream theory is raised on this site, but in terms of gaining acceptance it's hardly relevant whether we discuss it or not.

The vast majority of speculation is sheer crackpottery. Allowing that would quickly swamp the site.

The positive side of the site rules was expressed here recently:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/thanks-to-everyone.1003441/

 

[BillTre]

This general question seems to come up a lot.
However, there are ways to express your potentially non-mainstream thoughts here without having these kinds of problems.

Here are some tips:

• Ask questions, rather than making authoritative statements, like "Lynn Margulis thinks A, because of this evidence. Does this seem well supported?"
• Don't be too argumentative when someone tries to shoot down the idea.
• If someone makes a comment and you respond to it, don't just restate what you said before. That's not really a response to their comment. Its more like ignoring their comment and pisses people off. And sounds arrogant.
• As mentioned before use real references from journals if possible to support the idea. Wikipedia articles are often good to provide background for what you are talking about. If you find an interesting media article, look for journal references in it of google keywords to find more reliable info. Sometimes I have posted something I thought was interesting, but was not that well referenced, asked questions abou it or said what I thought was interesting and someone else (such as @Ygggdrasil) would come up with an article or preprint reference (this place is really good for that).

Most of my posts are in Biology or other sciences. These are less well worked out fields of science (and therefore IMHO more fun) so speculation is better tolerated there than in physics.

WRT Lynn Margulis: she has had both very good and useful ideas as well as some duds:
The bacteria as a symbiont is one of the great ideas in biology in my life time (since 1953).
On the other hand she also was promoting the serial symbiosis idea, which works plants getting chloroplasts after mitochondria and for a recent example a new endosymbiont.
However, she also proposed that cilia, the eukaryotic nucleus and some other organelles were the results of symbiosis. The latter groups are not supported, but there was a lot less relevant data back then.

Nothing bad about that if you can accept being wrong sometimes. (Goes for comments on what you post also.)
A batter who hits .300, gets out 70% of the time and is still considered good (failure is an option).

 

[EHope]

Thank you, Bill, for your astute and comprehensive reply! I really appreciate it because I, like you, enjoy biology for its fascinating theories. Your tips are really helpful because I believe advancing science can only come from entertaining ideas yet unproven but with merit once technology catches up. My own sense of humor may be characterized as sardonic wit which admittedly may not translate well on the printed screen. (It’d be super annoying to qualify everything I say with emojis ) So thank you for these pointers which will come in handy.

Your assessment of Margulis is fair - We’ll just have to wait and see if those theories bear any fruit in the future. Kinda reminds me of Jean Baptiste Lamarck. For years his theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics was poo-pooed since Darwin came on the scene. But now epigenetics seems to have vindicated his postulation somewhat.

What do you think of reverse transcriptase? In 1975 the Nobel Prize of Physiology was awarded to the scientist (I forgot his name) who discovered it. So it’s not just DNA to mRNA to ribosome to protein, but also in reverse as well. Could one argue that certain actions can predispose you to contact with certain bacteria or viruses? And that some of those entities may plausibly initiate reverse editing of the genome using reverse transcriptase ? And that in a way that could constitute a broad interpretation of “inheritance of acquired characteristics?” Is there any supporting research for this theory?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Now her work has been accepted in mainstream publications, but it took decades.

Um...no.

Her work was in 1966. She submitted her paper to the journal that ultimately published it in June 1966 (when she would have been 28) and it was published in March 1967. It would have been discussable on PF then.

Sure it took a while before it became generally accepted, but there are (at least) two reasons for it. One is that pesky thing called evidence. That takes time. The other is that while this was a great paper, it wasn't a very good paper. It's about twice as long as it needs to be, and Margulis (who went by Sagan then) couldn't resist adding weak lines of argument, obscuring the strongest parts of her argument. The section on predictions is short, kind of woolly, and not all of them were borne out.

This is a good example of science working as it should, and not some morality play with scientists in the roll of villains.

 

[BillTre]

What do you think of reverse transcriptase? In 1975 the Nobel Prize of Physiology was awarded to the scientist (I forgot his name) who discovered it. So it’s not just DNA to mRNA to ribosome to protein, but also in reverse as well.

It is interesting. However, you should be clear that reverse transcription does not involve reversing protein synthesis to create the corresponding code.
Interestingly, such a reverse mechanism (going from protein sequence to nucleic acid sequence) could produce a variety of NA sequences, due to the codon redundancy (more than one NA sequence code for particular amino acids).

And that some of those entities may plausibly initiate reverse editing of the genome using reverse transcriptase ? And that in a way that could constitute a broad interpretation of “inheritance of acquired characteristics?” Is there any supporting research for this theory?

Is reverse transcriptase responsible for some new sequences appearing in unrelated species? Would not surprise me.
To me this is just a different way to make mutations in an evolutionary lineage, rather than an acquired trait, in the manner Lamarck was speaking of.

There are also different ways that a new sequence could be introduced into a lineage, such as intromission (interbreeding with a neighboring population, followed by breeding back to one of the populations in such a way that a particular gene (or genes) from one population gets bred into another population), by some unknown method acquire new code from something they have eaten, or if your a bdelloid rotifer you might be able to pick up DNA from your environment in your desiccated state. These are other ways that new, fully formed sequences, could be introduced into a different lineage, as in effect a new mutation.
They would not easily be interpreted as a learned Lamarikian trait.
To me, they are all just mutations by unusual mechanisms.
Modern molecular is the source of a new set of mutations in some lineages, like in several genetic lines of lab mice and fruit flies.

 

[weirdoguy]

I believe advancing science can only come from entertaining ideas yet unproven

Yes, but to be fruitfull and not time-wasting, those ideas must come from people who know very well what is already proven, that is from people who took years to study subject from numerous textbooks, and peer-reviewed papers.