ABSTRACT

The gene can be de­scribed as the foun­da­tional con­cept of mod­ern bi­ol­ogy. As such, it has spilled over into daily dis­course, yet it is ac­knowl­edged among bi­ol­o­gists to be ill-de­fined. Here, fol­low­ing a short his­tory of the gene, I analyse crit­i­cally its role in in­her­i­tance, evo­lu­tion, de­vel­op­ment, and mor­pho­gen­e­sis. Wil­helm Jo­hannsen's geno­type-con­cep­tion, for­mu­lated in 1910, has been adopted as the foun­da­tion stone of ge­net­ics, giv­ing the gene a higher de­gree of promi­nence than is jus­ti­fied by the ev­i­dence. An analy­sis of the re­sults of the Long-Term Evo­lu­tion Ex­per­i­ment (LTEE) with E. coli bac­te­ria, grown over 60,000 gen­er­a­tions, does not sup­port spon­ta­neous gene mu­ta­tion as the source of vari­ance for nat­ural se­lec­tion. From this it fol­lows that the gene is not Mendel's unit of in­her­i­tance: that must be Jo­hannsen's trans­mis­sion-con­cep­tion at the ga­mete phe­no­type level, a form of in­her­i­tance that Jo­hannsen did not con­sider. Al­ter­na­tively, I con­tend that bi­ol­ogy viewed on the bases of ther­mo­dy­nam­ics, com­plex sys­tem dy­nam­ics and self-or­gan­i­sa­tion, pro­vides a new frame­work for the foun­da­tions of bi­ol­ogy. In this frame­work, the gene plays a pas­sive role as a vi­tal in­for­ma­tion store: it is the phe­no­type that plays the ac­tive role in in­her­i­tance, evo­lu­tion, de­vel­op­ment, and mor­pho­gen­e­sis.

The gene: An appraisal

Link to full corrected text here

Links to Submitted Commentaries:

Baluska, F. and A. S. Reber (2021). "Cellular and organismal agency - Not based on genes: A comment on Baverstock." Prog Biophys Mol Biol 167: 161-162.

De la Fuente, I. M. (2021). "Correspondence insights into the role of genes in cell functionality. Comments on "The gene: An appraisal" by K. Baverstock." Prog Biophys Mol Biol 167: 152-160.

Longo, G. (2023). "From information to physics to biology." Prog Biophys Mol Biol 177: 202-206.

McKenna, K. Z., R. Gawne and H. F. Nijhout (2022). "The genetic control paradigm in biology: What we say, and what we are entitled to mean." Prog Biophys Mol Biol 169-170: 89-93.

Richardson, K. (2021). "Genes and knowledge: Response to Baverstock, K. The Gene an appraisal. Prog Biophys Mol Biol 167: 12-17.

Roll-Hansen, N. (2022). "A special role for the genotype? Some comments on Keith Baverstock: "The gene: An appraisal"." Prog Biophys Mol Biol 172: 82-89

Rose, S. P. R. (2023). "Commentary on Baverstock; the gene; an appraisal." Prog Biophys Mol Biol 178: 70-71.

Note: Invitations to write commentaries on this paper have been issued by the Editors of PBMB to 45 researchers cited in the paper. Seven responded and their papers are linked below.

To my responses commentaries and discussion >>>>