Depends on what causes the changes to “add up”. Do you look at it as one final mutation that brings all the small benefits together?
And what if its a package. Some benefits with some trade offs… this is far more likely if omnigenics is true.
In the model I just presented, the answer is no. It would not be a new mutation, just recombination shuffling existing mutations together in the same individual. Very likely if both are even weakly beneficial.
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Something like a “hopeful monster”?
No, not at all. Just an obvious and highly likely way for beneficial change to take place.
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It would be interesting to see if this actually happens in reality without a trade off for some other trait.
If you are trying to have a complete map from genetics to traits, that might be a problem. But I doubt that anyone is expecting such a complete map.
Genes effect traits, and difference/novelty in traits are what evolution wants to explain.
So how genes effect traits should be important. If there is a change in understanding of how this happens, then there should be an impact on the theory of evolution.
Frankly, I am surprised no one is expecting any impact.
That’s because the idea isn’t new.
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Pleiotropy might not be new… But omnigenics is new.
Very new word, very old idea.
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Try modeling it, and you will see it works more likely than not. You are a programmer. Give it a shot.
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Repackaged for dramatic effect…
Edit: See also, ‘Baraminology’ and a fair degree of ‘EES’.
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I don’t think anyone has spelled out why this model doesn’t matter to the neutral theory. In the neutral theory, most mutations have no effect on fitness. This model doesn’t address that at all. Rather, it proposes that for many complex traits, a large fraction of genes have an effect on the phenotype. Genes are, however, only a tiny fraction of the genome. Most mutations in humans have no effect on phenotype at all.
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What do you think would disprove it? If we find a trait that is governed by mutations in a single gene, would that disprove it? If so, then it is already disproven by such traits as sickle cell anemia, achondroplasia, and hemophilia.
Very little. The functional parts of the genome that will impact traits are still limited to about 10% of the human genome. The vast bulk of mutations are still being fixed by neutral drift.
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