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  1. Revisiting George Romanes’ "Physiological Selection".Donald R. Forsdyke - 2020 - Biological Theory 15 (3):143-147.
    Four years after the death of Charles Darwin, his research associate, George Romanes, invoked a mysterious process—“physiological selection”—that could often have secured reproductive isolation independently of, and prior to, natural selection, so leading to an origin of species. This postulate of two sequential selection modes can now be regarded as leading to modern “chromosomal,” as opposed to “genic,” speciation theories. Romanes’ abstractions—which confounded many, but not all, of his contemporaries—equate with divergences in parental DNA sequences that impede meiotic pairing in (...)
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  • Complementary Oligonucleotides Rendered Discordant by Single Base Mutations May Drive Speciation.Donald R. Forsdyke - 2021 - Biological Theory 16 (4):237-241.
    A biological explanation for the dependence of genome-wide mutation-rate variation on local base context is now becoming clearer. The proportions of G + C relative to A + T—expressed as GC%—is a species-specific DNA character. The frequencies of these single bases correlate with frequencies of corresponding oligonucleotides that are more-sensitive indicators of species specificity. Thus, when k = 3 there are 64 possible trinucleotide sequences and a GC%-rich species has a high frequency of GC-rich 3-mers. Closely related species have similar (...)
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  • Base Composition, Speciation, and Why the Mitochondrial Barcode Precisely Classifies.Donald R. Forsdyke - 2017 - Biological Theory 12 (3):157-168.
    While its mechanism and biological significance are unknown, the utility of a short mitochondrial DNA sequence as a “barcode” providing accurate species identification has revolutionized the classification of organisms. Since highest accuracy was achieved with recently diverged species, hopes were raised that barcodes would throw light on the speciation process. Indeed, a failure of a maternally donated, rapidly mutating, mitochondrial genome to coadapt its gene products with those of a paternally donated nuclear genome could result in developmental failure, thus creating (...)
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  • Aging, DNA Information, and Authorship: Medawar, Schrödinger, and Samuel Butler.Donald R. Forsdyke - 2020 - Biological Theory 15 (1):50-55.
    Eminent scientists are well-placed to bring the novel works of others, even if not in their own areas of expertise, to general attention. In so doing, they may be able to extend original accounts or introduce new terminologies, but they are basically messengers, not innovators. In the 1940s an evolutionary theory of biological aging was explained by Peter Medawar, and informational concepts relating to DNA were explained by Erwin Schrödinger. Both explanations were eventually traced back to the Victorian polymath Samuel (...)
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