The Continuity Principle and the Evolution of Replication Fidelity

Evolution in modern life requires high replication fidelity to allow for natural selection. A simulation model utilizing simulated phenotype data on cellular probability of survival was developed to determine how self-replication fidelity could evolve in early life. The results indicate that initial survivability and replication fidelity both contribute to overall fitness as measured by growth rates of the cell population. Survival probability was the more dominant feature, and evolution was possible even with zero replication fidelity. A derived formula for the relationship of survival probability and replication fidelity with growth rate was consistent with the simulated empirical data. Quantitative assessment of continuity and other evidence was obtained for a saltation (non-continuous) evolutionary process starting from low to moderate levels of survival probability and self-replication fidelity to reach the high levels seen in modern life forms.

     

The Additivity of Contrast in the Human Eye

Using the method of binocular brightness matching, simultaneous brightness contrast effects were measured on two observers. The effects of a given pattern were invariably smaller than the summation of the effects of the pattern's components. This failure of additivity was valid both for patterns with isolated components as well as for those with components exactly contiguous with one another. This failure was more pronounced the farther the inducing patterns were from the test patch. These findings are interpreted as indicating that in the human (just as in the Limulus) eye, the amount of inhibition exerted by a given region on its neighbors depends upon the inhibition exerted against it as well as its excitation state.     

Dialectics in carrier research: The ADP/ATP carrier and the uncoupling protein

A concise review is given of the research in our laboratory on the ADP/ATP carrier (AAC) and the uncoupling protein (UCP). Although homologous proteins, their widely different functions and contrasts are stressed. The pioneer role of research on the AAC, not only for the mitochondrial but also for other carriers, and the present state of their structure-function relationship is reviewed. The function of UCP as a highly regulated H⁺ carrier is described in contrast to the largely unregulated ADP/ATP exchange in AAC. General principles of carrier catalysis as derived from studies on the AAC and UCP are elucidated.     

The unknown tradition: Continuity and innovation in Soviet ethnography

Conclusion In this article we have not attempted to cover the entire problematic or history of Russian-Soviet ethnography. Instead, we tried to explain the significance of the arguments about social theory and demonstrate why Soviet ethnography must be viewed as part of an intellectual tradition fundamentally different from the Western. At the same time, we believe that the theoretical tradition that took shape in the 1920s and the attempts to revive and further it, inconclusive as they may be, are of great potential significance to Western anthropologists.Among the topics left out of consideration was, for example, the traditional and successful collaboration between ethnography and folklore studies culminating in the structural analysis of Russian fairy tales by Vladimir Ya. Propp. We also did not discuss the study of religion, which in the 1930s–1950s was often disguised as folklore studies, and which in the Soviet context was obviously limited by the doctrine dictating the approach to it as a disappearing form of social consciousness, an embarrassing survival of the past. Another subject left out is the study of material culture and everyday life, which continues the pre-revolutionary Russian tradition. The same may be said about a more recent Soviet revival of interest in ethnicity in so far as it can be traced to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century concern with cultural and ethnic divisions. This interest, of course, has much to do with the practical tasks of integrating over 100 nations, nationalities and various other ethnic groups into one Soviet People.The formation of the Soviet people, which Lenin believed to be an inevitable result of education, and which Stalin spurred using massive violence, is viewed not only as both desirable and inevitable but as an actual reality. The coming into being of the Soviet people was proclaimed by Leonid Brezhnev a decade ago. The theory of ethnicity, as well as the whole problem of interethnic relations are so closely connected to the sensitive issues of nationality policy that even field ethnographers often see and report the desirable rather than the actual situation. The Soviet data, therefore, can be used only with great caution.It is perhaps relevant to note the change that occurred in the Soviet attitude toward psychology. At one time practically banned (along with Freud) in favor of the sociological approach, social psychology, psycholinguistics, and ethnopsychology (a Soviet term) today are legitimate, though often doctrinally limited areas of inquiry. Soviet ethnographers agree that the reflection in people's consciousness of their membership in an ethnos as ethnic self-awareness serves as the final proof of the objective existence of that ethnos.Both in terms of the problems considered to fall within its scope and in terms of the approach to these problems, Soviet ethnography today comes closer to Shternberg's conception than to the view which prevailed after the All-Russian Archaeological-Ethnographic Conference of 1932 described earlier. Bromley claims that the conception of ethnography most widely shared among Soviet scientists today is of a science that deals with the characteristics of the daily life and belief systems of a people which distinguish them ethnically (i.e., culturally), and the origins (ethnogenesis) and history of the ethnic units defined by these characteristics. It embraces the history of culture of all peoples in the past as well as the present. To this end it makes use of data not only of the historical sciences, but of the natural sciences (e.g., biology, ecology, geography) as these relate to formation and functioning of ethnos.Broadly speaking, there are three major characteristics that determine the present status of Soviet ethnography:First, there is an open acknowledgement of the validity of pre-revolutionary Russian tradition. One facet of this is a modest rivival of the Shternberg school that combined rigorous requirements for fieldwork (not unlike Boas) with ethnographers' active participation in the lives of the investigated peoples, and a broadly historical dynamic approach to culture.Second, after a period of isolation, the best work in ethnography, as illustrated in the case of kinship studies, is strongly influenced by Western social anthropology. The language and concerns of these studies can be much easier understood in the West than, perhaps, any other Soviet writings. But one should not lose sight of the fact that basic assumptions, such as the general view of evolution, are not the same as in the West.Third, the main struggle in Soviet ethnography now is not against bourgeois theories. More and more it is centered around the inadequacy of the Soviet theoretical heritage itself.The gains in kinship studies, the tacit return to the forcibly broken tradition of the 1920s in conceptualization of culture (Bogoraz, Bukharin) visible in the work of Markarian, and the possibility to question and reject particular hypotheses advanced by Morgan, Engels, or the early Soviet fundamentalists make Soviet ethnography a rich and exciting field. This impression is not diminished by the fact that the thorough theoretical revision of orthodoxy promised by PIDO Two in 1968 never materialized. The intellectual currents that produced it still exist and now and then surface, waiting for a time when the deological climate improves.An important thing to remember is that many theoretical positions in the Soviet Union are arrived at by thrashing out the issues in oral discussions until consensus is gradually formed, not by boldly proclaiming a new approach in an individual paper. Olderogge's rejection of Morgan's Hawaiian hypothesis, as well as the whole project of PIDO Two are but two examples of consensus formed before they were published. We suspect that some work is being done, of which the short conference resumés (unavailable in the West) are often the only and cryptic witnesses.The administrative control over Soviet ethnography remains in the hands of the fundamentalists, who associate true Marxism with doctrine and whose main task is to defend the hypotheses incorporated in official ideology. They are opposed by a vital group of scholars, who gain their inspiration from a general philosophical approach and method of conceptualization they find in classical Marxism. The division into these two camps is not at all clearcut; many people intermittently align themselves with one or the other. And of course, the strong current of Russian intellectual tradition (never demythologized) with its search for an integral and simultaneously ethical social theory brings many of them together.But the discussions persist, and it appears that for non-fundamentalists Marxism provides only a method (and even this is understood in a variety of ways), a theory of cognition, the most general language of theory. No particular hypothesis is sacred. Since the method is not reducible to ethnographic theory, it does not in itself guarantee success. The theory has to be judged on its own merit, not by appeal to the classics. These seem to be the unspoken points underlying the debate today.What is at stake is not only the right of scientists to develop various perspectives on society, culture, and evolution. Whether or not the participants themselves would put it this way, it affects the very nature of theory in social sciences. The rallying point for the non-fundamentalists, regardless of their areas of research or their views on particular problems, is the tacit rejection of theory as doctrine. The revolt is against theory as quasireligion, as the Absolute which is simultaneously a scientific and an ethical doctrine that pits us who know the Truth against them who do not: and this may be nothing less than the beginning of a fundamental break with the Russian intellectual tradition.Dr. Jovan Howe is working on a book on Soviet archaeology.Vladimir Plotkin is a Visiting Professor in Russian and Eastern European Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.     

The Size and Continuity of DNA Segments Integrated in Bacillus Transformation

We investigated the size and continuity of DNA segments integrated in Bacillus subtilis transformation. We transformed B. subtilis strain 1A2 toward rifampicin resistance (coded by rpoB) with genomic DNA and with a PCR-amplified 3.4-kb segment of the rpoB gene from several donors. Restriction analysis showed that smaller lengths of donor DNA integrated into the chromosome with transformation by PCR-amplified DNA than by genomic DNA. Nevertheless, integration of very short segments (<2 kb) from large, genomic donor molecules was not a rare event. With PCR-amplified segments as donor DNA, smaller fragments were integrated when there was greater sequence divergence between donor and recipient. There was a large stochastic component to the pattern of recombination. We detected discontinuity in the integration of donor segments within the rpoB gene, probably due to multiple integration events involving a single donor molecule. The transfer of adaptations across Bacillus species may be facilitated by the small sizes of DNA segments integrated in transformation.     

Cultural Dialectics of Knowledge and Desire

Cultural Dialectics of Knowledge and Desire. Charles Nuckolls. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. 306 pp.     

The Origin of Mind: The Mind-matter Continuity Thesis

Living things are autonomous agents distinguished from nonliving things in having the purpose to actively maintain their existence. All living things, including single-celled organisms, have certain degrees of freedom from physical causality to choose their actions with intentions to fulfill their purpose. This circumstance is analogous to that of human intention-actions guided by mind, and points to the ubiquitous presence of the dimension of mind in the living world. The primordial form of mind in single-celled organisms eventually evolved into the human mind by virtue of the adaptive value of mind for survival. Life seems to have originated from nonliving matter in processes that are continuous. Thus the dimension of mind must extend to the nonliving world, and the origin of mind should be taken to relate to the origin of matter. Inasmuch as matter exists in a hierarchy of levels of complexity extending from quarks up to the whole universe, mind must also be presumed to exist in a hierarchy of levels of complexity associated with matter.     

Continuity and Creativity in Iroquois Beadwork

This review essay of Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life focuses on the display of beadwork as a cultural practice that has evolved significantly throughout its history while remaining central to Iroquois identity. The exhibition draws on historical documentation, objects, and imagery that depict the varied uses of beadwork as ritual objects, sources of income, markers of identity, and as works of art. The content and narrative for the display was developed through a broad collaboration between curators, scholars, artists, and members of two Iroquois communities. The changing and continued importance of beadwork is reflected in the adaptation of materials and styles for different forms of production and use. Across Borders places Iroquois beadwork in a broad context while concentrating on specific forms and meanings that are attached to beadwork, whether created in community gatherings or by individual artists.     

Continuity and Change in Modern India

A Caste in a Changing World: The Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmans, 1700–1935 . Frank F. Conlon. Sponsored by the Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. xv + 255 pp. $15.00 (cloth).
Shanti Nagar: The Effects of Urbanization in a Village in North India. Vol. 1: Social Organization . Stanley A. Freed and Ruth S. Freed. Anthropological Papers, 53, Part 1. New York: The American Museum of Natural History, 1976. 254 pp. $13.85 (paper).
Family and Social Change in Modern India . Giri Raj Gupta , ed. Main Currents in Indian Sociology, 2. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1976. xxxiv + 263 pp. n.p. (cloth).
Caste, Class and Democracy: Changes in a Stratification System . Vijai P. Singh. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1976. viii + 158 pp. $12.50 (cloth), $5.95 (paper).
Dimensions of Social Change in India . M. N. Srinivas, S. Seshaiah , and V. S. Parthasarathy , eds. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Private, 1977. xiii + 518 pp. Rs 60.00 (cloth).     

Continuity and change in the eastern Aleutian archaeological sequence

The eastern Aleutian prehistoric archaeological sequence is key for understanding population movements, cultural exchanges, and adaptations to environmental changes over a wide area of the north Pacific and Bering Sea during the Holocene. An important question is, Can the settlement history of the eastern Aleutians be understood as a single continuous tradition lasting some 9,000 years, or were there major population and cultural influxes along with periods of widespread population abandonment? We review the available archaeological evidence with reference to recent mtDNA and nucleic DNA studies of prehistoric and contemporary Arctic and Subarctic populations and conclude that the evidence points to an overall cultural continuity with notable incursions and excursions of people and cultural elements into and out of the eastern Aleutians.     

朝向和对比度同时快速变化条件下的分辨能力

在自然的视觉中,投射到视网膜上的视觉图像总是在不停地变化,而人类的感知系统依然可以准确高效地识别物体.因此,人类的感知系统有相应的快速处理机制以应对这种动态变化．然而,前人的实验都是在相对稳定的刺激条件下研究人类被试的感知系统对一个刺激参数的反应,比如在固定对比度下测试朝向分辨能力,或在固定朝向测定对比度分辨能力,而朝向和对比度同时变化时,人类对这两个参数的分辨能力仍然缺乏研究．因此,在本实验中,我们使用朝向和对比度同时变化的刺激,研究了人类被试对朝向和对比度的分辨能力．结果表明,在这种动态变化的条件下,被试对朝向和对比度的分辨阈值都有显著性的降低．而且,朝向分辨阈值降低的幅度与在固定对比度参数条件下的分辨阈值成负相关,即在固定对比度条件下朝向分辨阈值较高的被试,在朝向和对比度同时变化条件下,其朝向分辨阈值降低的幅度相对要大,朝向分辨能力也就相对地提高更大．对比度分辨能力也呈现同样的规律．这些结果说明,朝向和对比度的同时变化提高了被试对朝向和对比度的分辨能力,一个参数变化时其分辨能力越低的被试,两个参数变化时其分辨能力提高的幅度就越大．揭示了视觉系统处理这种多刺激参量信息变化的能力和机制,对人类视觉系统在真实的视觉过程中如何处理朝向和对比度信息提供了认识．