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Author Topic:   The "Digital Code" of DNA
NosyNed
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Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 15 of 143 (398148)
04-29-2007 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Fosdick
04-29-2007 12:19 PM


Re: It's a question of survival
But does this adequately account for the gene? Remember, the genes survives those DNA hangouts by some immense measure of time”much longer than those frilly and ephemeral molecules can endure.
Actually only very highly conserved genes survive long periods of time. The genes as patterns in the chemistry are constantly undergoing change and don't survive so very long in geologic time (some millions of years) (though the time is long compared to the lifetime of any molecule).
Even the conserved patterns don't survive because they are "special" in any mystical way. They are reproduced in astronomical numbers and almost astronomical numbers of them don't survive but "surcumb" to a mutation but "highly conserved" means any such changed ones are destroyed very quickly. So genes "survive" only by having most near copies of them thrown away. Yes, this mechanism does account for the conserved patterns we call genes.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 17 of 143 (398228)
04-29-2007 9:36 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Fosdick
04-29-2007 8:02 PM


Selection is the "integrating" factor
Makes you wonder how there are any species at all, with so much change going on. What is the integrating factor that accounts for continuity in a species or a genome? (Darwinian bait for the students of molecules.)
Why do my make up things like "integrating factor">? Would you now supply your definition for this term?
What accounts for the continuity is selection. If a gene is changed too much or too fast it is selected out. Some genes have more room to move and allow for speciation. Some genes that appeared a long time ago and upon which subsequent organisms are built (things that control basic biochemical processes) are too basic and are selected for over and over. There is no mystery here at all.
It is awesome that these chemicals do have long memories indeed. As Dawkins has pointed out they are a history book recording the environments that our ancestors have had to survive in. It's just a bit of a cluttered recording now since the orginals have been used as sort of a palimpsest.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 19 of 143 (398331)
04-30-2007 11:10 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Fosdick
04-30-2007 10:46 AM


Re: Selection is the "integrating" factor
Why couldn't those molecular memories be the integrating factor? Selection doesn't remember anything. But a population does.
Since you haven't defined "integrating factor" I can only guess at what the h. you are talking about.
I never said selection remembers anything. I did, in effect, say that a population does (as recorded in it's genes) so I agree with you on that.

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 Message 20 by Fosdick, posted 04-30-2007 11:55 AM NosyNed has replied

  
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 21 of 143 (398411)
04-30-2007 4:25 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Fosdick
04-30-2007 11:55 AM


Crazy Conflation
If you are willing to ascribe to selection the attribute of "force," as in "evolutionary force," then what is that "force" acting against? Answser: It is acting against some other "force," if the metaphor holds, and most people think it does. That "force" must be some measure of a popuation's "integrity" or "continuity." It makes no sense to use "force" as an evolutionary metaphor without referring its "anti-force." That "anti-force" woud be the population's memory of its operational structure. In such cases, then, a population's genes may act "forcefully" to resist the "forces" of selection. Yes or no?
You are actually conflating the word force in something like F= MA with a metaphorical expression like "evolutionary force"??? !! That isn't going to enable you to make sense of things or be understood.
However, if selection is a 'force' 'pushing' against something then the something it 'pushes' against is mutation. Without selection mutation would slowly randomize the genome up to the point where there was no viable organisms.
It is acting against some other "force," if the metaphor holds, and most people think it does.
What "most" people? Metaphors are an aid to understanding they are not otherwise meaningful.
It makes no sense to use "force" as an evolutionary metaphor without referring its "anti-force." That "anti-force" woud be the population's memory of its operational structure. In such cases, then, a population's genes may act "forcefully" to resist the "forces" of selection. Yes or no?
To the degree that this makes any sense at all you have it backwards. The populations "memory" (whatever you might think that is) is the current state of the genome. This, in a twisted sort of way, acts as a "selective" agent too. That is you can't make up just any old genome whatever you're going to get has to come from what you had in the previous generation. And the size of change from that can't be so great as to be utterly destructive. This winnows down the vast number of possible genetic patterns that could be imagined to a terribly, eensy, teensy tiny fraction that will actually appear in the next generation.
Selection and mutation are the two major counter balancing "forces" that act upon the gene pool.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 124 of 143 (410399)
07-14-2007 8:37 PM
Reply to: Message 123 by Rob
07-14-2007 8:31 PM


So what?
An oganelle or process that is one part of a whole system is wholly dependant upon the rest of the system.
So what?
Do you have any idea how research proceeds?
What approach to cracking this difficult problem would you suggest?
Have you ever had to work with a large, complex and therefore difficult problem?

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 Message 123 by Rob, posted 07-14-2007 8:31 PM Rob has replied

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 Message 125 by Rob, posted 07-14-2007 8:42 PM NosyNed has replied

  
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 126 of 143 (410401)
07-14-2007 8:51 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by Rob
07-14-2007 8:42 PM


Re: So what?
We have only 300 posts in a thread. You wasted one with that irrelevant nonsense and I have to waste one to point out to you that you aren't answering the questions posed.
If you don't like the area of discussion and want to post silliness then perhaps you should find another thread.

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