Lyon’s definition of biological cognition

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay The nature of cognition is a hotly debated issue in cognitive science (Allen 2017, Buckner and Fridland 2017, Newen, De Bruin and Gallagher 2018). Among the discussions, different conceptions of this foundational term have led cognitive scientists to consider specific behaviors as cognitive, worthy of research in their field. …

Ribosomes

Mason et al. 2014 We might describe the nucleus as the cell's command center. If we take this metaphor, then we might extend it to ribosomes, which would be the machines that carry out the nucleus's commands (Taylor et al. 2018). In other words, they are the cell’s protein synthesis machinery (Mason et al. 2014). …

Cell nucleus

Before delving into the next entries about Woese’s ribosomal phylogenetic tree and the possible interpretations of the ribosomal and proteinic experimental facts that biologists have been able to discover so far, it is important to discuss what nuclei and ribosomes are. Eukaryotic cells are separated from archaeal and bacterial cells for several reasons. One of …

Gregor Mendel’s work on inheritance

Image by Alicja from Pixabay The Austrian monk Gregor Mendel had a very important role to play in the development of both genetics and evolutionary biology. When Charles Darwin developed his hypotheses of descent with modification and natural selection, there was no known theory capable of explaining the mechanisms of inheritance aside from the hypotheses …

Darwinian evolutionary theory

Image by John Fotheringham from Pixabay The term evolution is nowadays understood as "change" (Futuyma & Kirkpatrick, 2017). In evolutionary biology, not all kinds of changes count as evolution. For example, changes in an individual organism through development (ontogeny) are not evolution. Biological (also organic) evolution refers to any inherited change in the properties of …

Post-Darwinian hypothetical mechanisms for heredity

Evolutionary biology back in Charles Darwin’s days suffered serious problems trying to explain the mechanisms for heredity, and Darwin himself had his provisional hypothesis about the subject matter, which is known as pangenesis. Aside from C. Darwin, other theories were trying to explain the same phenomena such as A. Weismann’s germ-plasm theory and H. Spencer’s …

Germ-plasm theory

Image from Wikipedia Germ plasm theory was developed by August Weismann (Schacter, 2001). Although Schacter describes Weismann as a neo-Darwinian, against the neo-Lamarckians of his era (Spencer, Cope, Eimer, Semper, von Nägeli, LeDantec, Giard, and the American neo-Lamarckians as well), some would describe him as more Lamarckian than most historians of biology think (Winther, 2001). …

Early neo-Lamarckism vs. neo-Darwinism

Image by HowardWilks from Pixabay Neo-Lamarckism and neo-Darwinism are different perspectives about how evolution happens. While neo-Lamarckists endorse Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's ideas about how traits are inherited, neo-Darwinists address Charles Darwin's conception of natural selection. Lately, there has been a revival in interest for Lamarckian explanations of evolution (Jablonka & Lamb, 2014; Pigliucci & Müller, 2010), …