Responses to commentaries on "The gene: An appraisal"

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Genetics
• Thermodynamics

Background:

• The traditional view posits genetic variance as the engine of biological evolution and genes as units of inheritance.
• The Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE) exhibits a power-law fitness profile, a pattern observed ubiquitously in natural systems.
• Existing theories, including Fisher's Genetical Theory of Natural Selection and Johannsen's genotype conception, are being re-evaluated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To challenge the foundational role of genetic variance in biological evolution.
• To assert that genes are not the units of inheritance.
• To defend the power-law fitness profile of the LTEE against explanations like epistasis and to propose an alternative framework for understanding evolution.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the power-law fitness profile observed in the LTEE and natural systems.
• Re-appraisal of historical scientific context, specifically the period between 1880 and 1911, concerning Johannsen's genotype conception.
• Application of the principle of least action and thermodynamic laws to biological systems.

Main Results:

• Epistasis does not explain the power-law fitness profile of the LTEE; epistasis plays no role in evolution.
• The power-law fitness profile of the LTEE falsifies key tenets of evolutionary theory, including Fisher's Genetical Theory of Natural Selection and Johannsen's genotype conception.
• Biological evolution is a generic thermodynamic process, not an exception to thermodynamic principles.

Conclusions:

• Genetic variance is not the basis for biological evolution, and genes are not units of inheritance.
• The principle of least action, synonymous with the second law of thermodynamics, governs natural systems, including organismal striving for free energy balance.
• Genome-wide association studies for inherited diseases and traits are misguided due to the non-hereditary nature of genes.