Political Economy: Evolutionary Economics
From Lamarck to Darwin & Back?
Steve Keen
Evolution: Metaphor or reality?
• Mainstream economics based on analogies:
– Mechanics: equilibrium of mechanical system
– 19th century heat dynamics
• Essential questions
– How does the system reach equilibrium?
– What are the properties of equilibrium?
• Is the economy mechanical?
– Clearly not
• Is it ever in equilibrium?
– Always changing
– Changes both quantitative and qualitative in nature
• Are equilibrium questions the right ones to ask?
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
2
Evolution: Metaphor or reality?
• Well-accepted concept of continuous change in biology
– But in economics?
• Irrelevant, a more appropriate metaphor, or the
reality of the economy?
• Evolutionary perspective asks:
– How and why do things keep changing?
– What are the feedbacks between different
organisms in an ecology?
• Are these better questions to ask than equilibrium
ones?
• Will they result in
– Just embellishments to mainstream economics, or
– A completely different set of concepts?
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
3
Evolution: Metaphor or reality?
• Adaptive change essence of biological evolution:
– Individual organisms alter in different ways
– More suitably adapted organisms do better
– Selection over time weeds out less well adapted…
• Can same be said for the economy? Perhaps…
– Individual firms/agents alter in different ways
– More suitably adapted firms/agents do better
– Selection over time weeds out less well adapted…
• Possibly some similarity, but some steps (e.g.,
weeding out process) not obvious.
• So analogy may be useful
– But use of analogy should not be constrained by
inadequate understanding of evolutionary theory…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
4
Evolution: Metaphor or reality?
• Understanding of metaphor influences application
– “Pop” evolution is “survival of the fittest”
• Favours “law of the jungle” in social situations
– Let the weak lose, the strong win
– Actual evolution far more complex than this
• Symbiotic relationships often important (weak
help other weak to be strong)
– E.g., Bees & flowers
– Cars & rubber (tyres)
• Feedback between evolution and environment
– not just environment selects organism, but
organism affects environment
• E.g., oxygen!
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
5
Evolution: The early views
• Need full appreciation of evolutionary theory/data
before we consider analysing economy using
evolutionary tools.
– And it doesn’t start with Darwin…
– Pre-Darwinian “theory” we call “Creationism” today
• All creatures supposedly created by deity
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
6
Evolution: The early views
• View disturbed by
many empirical
problems
– Fossil record—
why did it exist?
– “Cruelty” in animal
relations—spider-wasp
laying eggs in spider—
hard to explain from
religious position
• Lamarck made first systematic attempt to provide
natural explanation for diversity in living organisms
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
7
Evolution: The early views
• Jean Baptiste Lamarck (17441829)
– Became botanist after brief
military career
– During French Revolution,
appointed Professor of
Invertebrates (insects &
worms)—an area for which
there was then no science
• Developed classification
system & noted great
variety of forms
• Argued for development of
different forms over time—
not then-accepted Genesis,
but Evolution
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
8
Evolution: The early views
• “We call species every collection of similar individuals
produced by other individuals just like themselves…
But we add to this definition the assumption that the
individuals who make up a species never vary in their
specific characteristics and that therefore the
species has an absolute constancy in nature.
• It is precisely this assumption that I propose to
contest, because clear proofs obtained through
observation establish that it is not well founded.”
• Argued that what looked like distinct species were
often fine gradations from one creature to the next
– Gradual change from one individual to another over
time gave rise to false impression of specialisation
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
9
Evolution: The early views
• “How many genera, … , that the study and the
definition of these species are now almost unworkable!
The species in these genera, arranged in a series and
set beside each other according to an analysis of their
natural affinities, display, along with those which are
close to them, differences so slight that they are
modifications of each other and these species get
confused, in some way, amongst each other, leaving
almost no way of determining in some explicit way the
small differences which distinguish them.”
• “Go back up to the fish, reptiles, birds, even to
mammals. You will see everywhere, apart from the
gaps which still have to be filled, the modifications
which link up neighbouring species … leaving hardly any
places for our ingenuity to establish good distinctions.”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
10
Evolution: The early views
• Influenced by study of simplest multi-cellular
organisms (slugs, etc.) versus more complex forms
• Saw progress from simplest to more complex:
– “Must I not think that nature had produced the
different bodies endowed with life in succession,
proceeding from the simplest to the most highly
organized, since, as we go up the animal scale from
the most imperfect right up to the most perfect,
the organism's organic structure is developed and
gradually becomes more complex in an extremely
remarkable way?”
• Natural progress from simplest forms to most
complex…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
11
Evolution: The early views
• Basis of development of more complex forms is use:
• “there is considerable factual evidence proving that
the sustained use of an organ leads to its development,
strengthens it, and even makes it grow larger, while a
lack of use, once it becomes habitual, is harmful to an
organ's development, makes it deteriorate, gradually
diminishes it, and finishes by making it disappear, if
this lack of use continues for a long time in all the
individuals which appear later through reproduction.
From this we understand that when a change in the
circumstances compels the individuals of an animal race
to change their habitual behaviour, the less used
organs little by little waste away, while those which
are used more develop better and acquire a strength
and dimensions proportional to the use which these
individuals routinely make of them.”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
12
Evolution: The early views
• Two identical animals on the
African plains
– One tends to eat leaves on
tall trees
– Other tends to eat grass
• Neck of former grows as a
consequence of stretching…
• Over generations, offspring of
have longer necks, latter
remain short…
• Development of traits in
conjunction with an
environment that favours
them…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
13
Evolution: The early views
• “In this matter of habits, it is remarkable to observe
the result in the peculiar form and height of the
giraffe… We know that this animal, the largest of the
mammals, lives in the interior of Africa and dwells in
those places where the earth, almost always arid and
without grass, requires the animal to browse on the
foliage of trees and constantly to try hard to reach
that foliage. As a result of this habit, maintained
for a long time in all the individuals of its race, the
animal's front limbs have become longer than those at
the back, and its neck has grown longer to such an
extent that the giraffe, without rearing up on its
hind legs, lifts its head and reaches up to six metres
in height…”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
14
Evolution: The early views
• Basic insights are:
– Variation of individuals within one “species”
– Fine gradation from one “species” to the next
– Environment favours some developments over others
• Deduction becomes
– “Species” develop by slow accumulation of acquired
advantageous differences between individuals
• The inheritance of acquired characteristics
– Your ancestor develops some aspect of itself,
neglects others
– These aspects turn up in you
– Process over time leads to more complex, more well
adapted forms, more noticeably different to other
animals…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
15
Darwin: “Natural Selection”
• Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
– Abandoned medical studies
for clergy
– Volunteer naturalist on
Beagle 1831-36
• Galapagos studies
• Malthus influence(?)
– Theory of evolution by
“natural selection” (1859)
• Also propounded at same
time by Wallace
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
16
Evolution by Natural Selection…
• Key concepts
– Random variation within species
• Most variations deleterious w.r.t. environment
• Some advantageous w.r.t environment
– Deleterious lower survival odds, advantageous
increase survival odds
– Advantageous variations dominate via reproduction
– Change of species/development of new species
• Initial analogy to selection by domestic breeding
– Gradualism: “Natura non facit saltum”—“Nature
does not make leaps”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
17
The struggle for life & natural selection
• “amongst organic beings in a state of nature there is
some individual variability… But the mere existence of
individual variability … helps us but little in
understanding how species arise in nature… All these
results … follow inevitably from the struggle for life.
Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however
slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in
any degree profitable to an individual of any species,
in its infinitely complex relations to other organic
beings and to external nature, will tend to the
preservation of that individual, and will generally be
inherited by its offspring… I have called this
principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is
preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
18
The “Struggle for Existence” involves…
• Competition:
– “Two canine animals in a time of dearth, may be
truly said to struggle with each other which shall
get food and live…”
• Environmental pressure:
– “a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle
for life against the drought, though more properly
it should be said to be dependent on the moisture.”
• Cooperation/interdependence:
– “As the missletoe is disseminated by birds, its
existence depends on birds; and it may
metaphorically be said to struggle with other fruitbearing plants, in order to tempt birds to devour
and thus disseminate its seeds rather than those
of other plants…”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
19
The “Struggle for Existence” involves…
• Sex:
– “This depends, not on a struggle for existence, but
on a struggle between the males for possession of
the females; the result is not death to the
unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring.
Sexual selection is, therefore, less rigorous than
natural selection… [T]he plumage of male and
female birds, in comparison with the plumage of
the young, can be explained on the view of plumage
having been chiefly modified by sexual selection…”
• And above all, gradualism and time
– Commonly accepted “age of universe” circa 1859
was biblical (5,000 years)
– Darwin “thousands of generations”…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
20
Gradualism…
• “Although the belief that an organ so perfect as the
eye could have been formed by natural selection, is
more than enough to stagger any one; yet in the case
of any organ, if we know of a long series of
gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor,
then, under changing conditions of life, there is no
logical impossibility in the acquirement of any
conceivable degree of perfection through natural
selection. In the cases in which we know of no
intermediate or transitional states, we should be very
cautious in concluding that none could have existed,
for the homologies of many organs and their
intermediate states show that wonderful
metamorphoses in function are at least possible. For
instance, a swim-bladder has apparently been
converted into an air-breathing lung…”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
21
Giraffes: Darwin’s explanation
• Two related slightly different
animals on the African plains
– One has longer neck than
the other
• Longer neck allows it to reach
food the other cannot
– Has more offspring than
other animal
– Offspring inherit longer
neck
• Over many generations, new
species evolves: the giraffe…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
22
Problems: the incomplete fossil record…
• Fossil record acknowledged by
Darwin’s time
– Very incomplete compared to now
• Large gaps between
– Fossils themselves
– Fossils and today
• How to get from “them” to
“us”?
• Darwin’s explanation: incomplete discoveries—
intermediate forms will be found (common ancestor
to horse & giraffe…)
• “That our Palaeontological collections are very
imperfect, is admitted by every one.”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
23
Problems: the incomplete fossil record…
• But not a dismissal of the problem:
– “I cannot doubt that all the Silurian trilobites have
descended from some one crustacean, which must
have lived long before the Silurian age…
Consequently, if my theory be true, it is
indisputable that before the lowest Silurian
stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed … and
that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods
of time, the world swarmed with living creatures.
– To the question why we do not find records of
these vast primordial periods, I can give no
satisfactory answer. Several of the most eminent
geologists … are convinced that we see in the
organic remains of the lowest Silurian stratum the
dawn of life on this planet…”
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
24
Problems: mechanism of variation
• How does variation arise?
– Mechanism not known to Darwin (1859), but
discovered contemporaneously by Mendel (1865):
“genes”
• Cross-pollinate two plants, one with
yellow smooth seed, one with green
angular
• 1st generation, yellow smooth
dominates green angular
• 2nd generation
• 4 yellow (3 smooth, 1 angular)
• 2 green (1 smooth, 1 angular)
• Binary explanation:
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
25
Genes
• Characteristics (colour, texture) coded by “gene” with
two states (yellow/green; smooth/wrinkled)
• Both states stored in each individual
– YY or GG or GY
– SS or WW or SW
• One (Y & S) “dominant”, other (G & W) “recessive”
– “Pure” genotype (GG,YY,SS,WW) gives pure
“phenotype” (Green, Yellow, Smooth, Wrinkled)
– “Mixed” genotype (GY, SW) gives rise to dominant
phenotype (Yellow, Smooth)
• 1:2:1 genotype ratio gives rise to 3:1 phenotype
– 1 pure dominant, 2 hybrid (dominant characteristic
visible), 1 pure recessive
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
26
The double-helix
• Cell nucleus/Chromosones/DNA discovered 1800s1950
• Structure/mechanism of DNA uncovered by Watson
& Crick (et alia) 1953:
– Each “gene” consists of long chain of DNA
(Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid) on chromosones stored
in cell nucleus
– DNA has
• 4 nucleic acids thymine (T), adenine (A),
cytosine (C), and guanine (G) joined in pairs as
rungs on ladder
– A pairs with T, C with G
• 2 phosphate-sugar strands as outside of ladder
– Replication occurs by splitting of ladder & ½ rung
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
27
The double-helix
• Loosely speaking…
– 3 bases code for 1 amino acid.
(43/2=32; some redundancy)
• GCT“Alanine”; CGA”Glycine”
– Many amino acids = 1 protein
– Proteins determine organisms characteristics
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
28
How evolution?
• Variation needed for evolution
– How does variation occur with DNA replication?
• Original argument: sexual cross-over + random mutation
– Crossover
• Genes stored on chromosomes
• Chromosome reshuffling in miosis, sexual
reproduction reorganises dominant/recessive genes
– Mutation
• Occasional errors in DNA replication: G turns up
where A should be, etc.
• Deadly mutations fail, advantageous mutations
survive…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
29
The evolutionary orthodoxy circa 1990
• Evolution=random mutation + environmental selection
• Accumulation of gradual changes over time gives rise
to different species today…
• “The blind watchmaker”…
• But problems
– Fossil record should reveal
“missing links”
• 150 years after Darwin,
gaps still existed—large
jumps in fossil record:
nature does make leaps
• Numerous
– How did life itself begin?
anomalies lead to
new theories…
• Can’t gradually go from
inanimate to alive!
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
30
Anomalies: “Sudden” evolution
• Gradualist argument implies, e.g.
– First animal with legs should have no toes
– Toes develop as slow mutation of single limb
– But first animals with legs had 13-15 toes!
– Later animals had less toes…
• Relations between genes
– Not just “a gene for this, a gene for that” but
• Highly sensitive relations between genes
• Genes that cause other genes to fire
(“homeobox” genes)
– E.g., leg involves “stump” from body…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
31
Relations between genes…
– Homeobox gene mutation causes
multiple branching in offspring
– Species goes from toeless foot to
multi-toed foot in one generation
• Random selection implies organism has no “Lamarckian”
ability to alter its genotype
– no feedback from change in somatic (“of the body”)
cells of organism (via virus, acquired immunity,
etc.) to germline “sex” cells
– Weissman (1885) tested Lamarck’s “inheritance of
acquired characteristics” (& Darwin’s “pangenesis”)
theory by chopping off tails of newborn rats
• Tail-less rats gave birth to rats with tails…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
32
Somatic to germline mutation
• Orthodoxy became existence of “Weissman’s barrier”:
– “Genetic encoding goes from sex cells to somatic
cells, never other way round”
• But…
– Lamarck’s theory applied to adaptations done by
organism being passed on
• Giraffe stretches neck, passes on longer neck to
offspring
– In Weissman’s test, rats weren’t cutting off
their own tails…
• Modern Lamarckians (Steele et al.) say clear evidence
for somatic to germline transmission at least in
immune system…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
33
Somatic to germline mutation
• Antibody genes in sex cells have inherited DNA
• When body invaded by virus/bacteria, antibody genes
in relevant body cells (“white blood cells”: Blymphocytes) undergo accelerated DNA mutation.
– Dilemma for conventional theory—how can rate of
“random” mutation be accelerated by organism?
• Mutation eventually results in white blood cells that
can defeat invader
– Mutation written into organism’s DNA
• Weissman orthodoxy argues mutation would die with
the body
• Steele & others found sex cells of body altered to
code for new, successful antibody
– Acquired characteristic (inherited resistance to
disease) passed on to offspring
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
34
Somatic to germline mutation
• Conventional theory: evolution only occurs in sex cells
– Mutations occur in all cells
– Mutations in sex cells passed on to organism, but
– Mutations in somatic cells not passed to sex cells
• New theory argues
– Some mutations in somatic cells passed on to sex
cells via “retrogenes/retroviruses”
– Normal cell management route is
• DNARNAProtein
– Successful mutations of immune system written
back into cell DNA via RNADNA route
• “Retrogenes” pass modification of somatic DNA
back to germcell DNA
Skip Steele quote
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
35
Somatic to germline mutation
• “Charles Darwin himself … made the first tentative
steps towards a model of acquired inheritance. He
called it ‘Pangenesis’, and it has a remarkably modern
Lamarckist flavour… there is more to the ongoing
debate on the mechanism of evolution than a slavish
adherence to the current neo-Darwinian view (as
instanced by the uncompromising writings of Richard
Dawkins and Daniel C. Dennett) that evolution
proceeds only by the natural selection of chance
events.” (Steele et al.: 2)
• “…alterations in genes of somatic (body) cells of an
animal appear to be transmitted to the genes of the
germ cells (eggs & sperm) and passed on genetically to
offspring of future generations.” (3)
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
36
The immune system & directed mutation
• Immune system protects organism against disease
• Non-adaptive immune systems in early organisms
– New deadly disease develops;
– Most of population wiped out
– Individuals with pre-existing mutation that by
chance gave immunity to new disease survive
– Inherited “chance” immunity passed on to offspring
• Adaptive immune systems in later organisms
– New deadly disease develops
– Each individual’s immune system tries to develop
suitable antigens via accelerated DNA/RNA mutation
– Successful individuals live, develop immunity for life
• Write successful mutation into own DNA
– Their offspring?…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
37
The immune system & directed evolution??
New
virus
Mutated
immune
cells
Successful
mutant
replicated
Coded on
cell DNA
Base immune
cell type
Immunity
inherited by
offspring…
©Steve Keen 2003
Coded onto
germline DNA
Captured by
“endogenous
retrovirus”
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
38
Hypermutation & quantum computing
• Quantum mechanics may explain directed evolution
– Occurrence of mutations:
• DNA as a sequence of protons & electrons
• Protons & electrons affected by “quantum
uncertainty”
– Can’t exactly specify position
– About 1 in 50,000 will be in “wrong” place
• Cell error-correction mechanisms reduce
rate to 1 in millions, but…
• Mutation built into quantum mechanical
nature of universe
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
39
Hypermutation & quantum computing
– Accelerated mutation:
• Fundamental particles can exist in “superposition”
of states
– “Classical” object (e.g., coin) can be only “up”
(Heads) or “down” (Tails)
– Quantum object can be both “Heads” &
“Tails”
– Measurement forces object to resolve into
either “Heads” or “Tails” state
– “Quantum computer” can “take every road
simultaneously to find the fastest route”
– Mutation of DNA may be quantum computing…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
40
Hypermutation & quantum computing
– Origin of life:
• Can’t invoke natural selection to explain origin of
life
• Can’t gradually go from inanimate to live
– Minimum self-replicating chain of amino-acid
reactions 32 acids long
– 20 amino acids
– Odds of chance development ouHomes or fall
t of all possible amino acid chains 1/2032=
1/1041
• 1041=1015 tonnes
• “Primordial soup” would need to be bigger
than current mass of world’s rainforests…
• Quantum computer “superposition” plus
environmental measurement could result in self41
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
replicator
Back to economics
• Evolutionary theory much richer than simple “survival
of the fittest”
• Use of analogy(?) in economics also much richer:
– Feedback between organism & environment
• Environment selects organism
• Organism alters environment
• Ditto for firms/economy
– Economy selects successful firms
– Successful firms shape economy
– Directed evolution
• Organism partly directs mutation/evolution
• Firms “mutate” selves/products to survive
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
42
Back to economics
• Symbiosis as well as competition
– “Web of life”/ “Web of commerce”
• Interdependence of firms/sectors as well as raw
competition
• Collective behaviour as well as individual
• Positive as well as negative feedbacks
– “Runaway” processes needed to explain life,
anomalies (peacock feathers, human brain)…
– “Runaway” processes needed to explain
• Success of social systems (capitalism v
feudalism)
• Success of individual firms/products…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
43
Back to economics
• Essential concepts variation & feedback
– Different rather than homogeneous products, etc.
– Variation in firm size rather perfect competition vs
monopoly
– Feedback between firms & economy
• Not just negative (“increase pricedecrease
demand”) but positive (“increase priceincrease
demand”)
– Change the only constant: system never reaches
equilibrium
• Evolution not just an analogy but what is actually
happening:
– Adaptive change under organism-determined
environment
– Our modelling the analogy to actual processes…
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
44
Next week
• Early evolutionary thinkers in economics:
– Veblen
– Schumpeter
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
45
Glossary/Appendix
• Retrogenes
– Normal function of cell reproduction is
• DNARNAProtein
• DNA stores “program” for cell
• DNA (double-stranded, very stable molecule information)
copied into RNA (single-stranded, less stable molecule)
– DNA more stable because of “backup” of second
strand
• Error on one side can be compared to correct
information on other
• 1 error per 100,000,000—1,000,000,000 copies
• Single-strand RNA has no error checking
• 1 error per 1,000 copies
• RNA read by cell mechanism (Ribosome) to produce protein
(3 base pairs in RNA1 amino acid on protein)
– Retrogenes/retroviruses work in RNADNA direction
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
46
Glossary/Appendix
• Retrogenes cont’d
– Virus (containing only RNA) enters cell
– Virus RNA makes DNA copy of itself
– DNA copy inserted into cell DNA
– Cell then reproduces virus RNA
• “Healthy” Cell also has RNADNA processes (Steele Fig. 1.2)
– DNA produces RNA
– RNA mutates
– RNA read by cell to produce matching DNA
– DNA becomes part of cell instructions
– Mutation reproduced in subsequent cells
©Steve Keen 2003
Political Economy, School of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney
47