Score one for Canguilhem*?
In today's NY Times, Scientists have discovered that certain plants have some sort of back-up mechanism that allows for the correction of inherited undesireable mutations back to their normal state.
Dr. Pruitt said the backup genome could be particularly useful for self-fertilizing plants, as arabidopsis is, since it could help avoid the adverse effects of inbreeding.
When the Southern delagation to the congress heard this news, boy were they relieved!
*For those of you unfamiliar, Canguilhem was a French epistemologist who theorized that normal states of the organism were not some ideal average that could possible be attained, but rather a state of stable equilibrium with the environment within which the organism exists without complaint. He defines "health" as a state of the organism in which it is able to adapt its biological composition so as to attain a new equilibrium when it falls into suffering. These plants seem to do this exact thing on the genetic level.
Dr. Pruitt said the backup genome could be particularly useful for self-fertilizing plants, as arabidopsis is, since it could help avoid the adverse effects of inbreeding.
When the Southern delagation to the congress heard this news, boy were they relieved!
*For those of you unfamiliar, Canguilhem was a French epistemologist who theorized that normal states of the organism were not some ideal average that could possible be attained, but rather a state of stable equilibrium with the environment within which the organism exists without complaint. He defines "health" as a state of the organism in which it is able to adapt its biological composition so as to attain a new equilibrium when it falls into suffering. These plants seem to do this exact thing on the genetic level.