Talk:Weismann barrier
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Comments earlier on Soma-to-germline have now been moved
here as the text of the article has been moved here. Barnaby dawson 09:57, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Please see my comments at Talk:Soma-to-germline_feedback. The two articles are closely related, if not redundant, and I'm suggesting an approach that may resolve lots of objections. Dandrake 20:40, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
Mr Steele is a son of this time as are his peers who do not know or reject it. Stating that science has progressed is true for both parties when the work based on his theories is considered, it has to be noted that it has not been disproved. GerardM 23:15, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
OK, I've looked up the references here, and re-read the Weismann Barrier article, which now points here. I think that between them there is room for a useful article; and this is not a grudging "Well, Wikipedia has to cover crackpot theories." So I'll outline what I think ought to be done, and maybe all interested parties can work out a useful text for the WP.
First problem: When I follow the link to Steele's research site, I get a blank TOC page from the Web server. Could someone update this link or something? As it stands, we can't even find out what Steele says in his own words.
Second: In the other page that's linked to, a rather combative piece by a non-scientist, it's not clear that the issue is soma-to-germline feedback at all. I may be misreading the page (but I don't think I am); or the author may be misreading Steele (which is quite possible). The key text: "In the quoted articles no author considers the possibility that vectors targeted at somatic cells could end up in germline cells. The suggestion is that because somatic gene therapy is not inherited by definition, that's how gene therapy behaves in real-life."
Is this about a possibility that gene therapy may hit germline cells as well as somatic cells? Or that once extablished in somatic cells, the genes might contaminate germ cells? The first, as far as I know, could be a legitimate danger that's being overlooked; the second looks more like fringe science, the sort of extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
But with respect to Weissmann's dogma, the first interpretation involves not a breakdown but an end-run around the barrier. On this assumption, there's a highly practical concern here: the gene-therapy business may be overlooking a real danger. Let me repeat that I take no position on how valid that threat is; maybe when Steele's own work is accessible, I'll figure that out. Hence, it would be a good thing to say in the Weismann Barrier article that the barrier may not give the protection that it's claimed to, because it can be circumvented. It might also say that there's a minority contention that the barrier is not so watertight in its own terms as the majority think; if so, there ought to some references to things that give plausibility to the claim.
The claim that the Weissman barrier is not really there is pretty much synonymous with a claim that soma-to-germline feedback exists. It's not clear now why we need or want these two separate articles on it.
I'll leave it at that for the moment, though I'm inclined to ramble further. Any reactions? Dandrake 20:37, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
I've combined the two articles and substantially rewritten them. Right now quite a few of the links are broken. I will try to find pages to point them to (I'm not sure yet if they exist). This article was quite out of date with current thinking on the issue and I've tried to correct that. Barnaby dawson 10:03, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I'm wondering if the recent work by Anway et al., which demonstrates that acquired epigenetic changes can be inherited, has any relevance to this topic? While it may not support the notion that the body is deliberately altered in a lamarckian fashion, it does indicate a novel method of inheratance. I can't get to the actual article, published in Science in Sept. 2005 as it requires registration.
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/reproduction/sperm/2005/2005-0602anwayetal.htm
--68.104.139.213 21:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Barrier, principle or theory; Weismann barrier or "Weismann barrier"
There is a semantic confusion in this article that needs to be cleaned up. In the article the Weismann barrier is said to be a principle. It is not a principle; it is a barrier. The "Weismann barrier" COULD be the name for the principle, but that is an empirical fact of whether language users in the scientific population and in the population of intelligent, non-expert readers would recognize "Weismann barrier" as the name for a theory. I doubt it, especially for the lay reader. Also using the word principle and the word theory interchangably adds to the confusion. I invite someone knowledgable to clean this up or else I will give it a try. DCDuring 14:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Confusing
This article is confusing. The second paragraph talks more about what the weismann barrier is NOT.
The theory is very important as it has implications for human gene therapy. If the Weismann barrier is permeable then genetic treatments of somatic cells may actually result in an inheritable change to the genome, possibly resulting in the genetic engineering of the human species rather than just individuals. It also has implications in our understanding of evolution as it would imply that species aren't nearly as separable genetically as we once thought. Furthermore it opens the door to the existence of certain Lamarckian concepts that previously had no supporting mechanism.
