Evolution is learning

[popeyespappy]

The late Lynn Margulis’s work on endosymbiotic theory brought orthodoxy to a previously unorthodox hypothesis more than 20 years ago. Her work showed that mitochondria, chloroplasts, and possibly other organelles of eukaryotic cells have endosymbiotic origins. This is now generally accepted within the field of evolutionary biology.

Her hypothesis that horizontal gene transfer driven largely by virus has played a much larger role in the evolution of species than the slow accumulation of mutations at the individual gene level isn’t nearly as widely accepted. That’s not to say though that it completely without support among the scientific community, or that it is not supported by a good deal of evidence. The fact that about 8% of human DNA is viral in origin alone makes it hard to argue that horizontal transfer has played no role in our evolution. Whether or not that role has been more important than the gradual accumulation of mutations is however debatable.