Mendel wasn't entirely right

You haven't learned much about scientific method then? BOOM has been the history of modern science. That's what makes it so robust, the process generates new paradigms, not dogmatically insisting the old ones must be true.The level of BOOM here, does not extend to the overall structure of Evolutionary theory. Even if it did, then science would keep marching on.The problem is denying scientific models all along, waiting for a specific BOOM, and seeing each other BOOM as somehow a body blow to science itself and a precursor to the one you have been waiting for.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

If it gets a foot in the door, it definitely makes evolution less dogmatic. It's also another reminder of just how science can change overnight, and perceptions on any theory, whether it's evolution or genetics, shouldn't be set in stone. And this is what we need more of today.This message has been edited by commike37, 03-24-2005 12:10 PM

Well, yes, the link to evolution is still a bit hazy at this point, but it's a still makes for a great philosophical argument on the nature of empiricial evidence and truth in general.

Holmes, I know you're playing devil's advocate here, but what a tendentious statement! The novel result was found by evolutionary biologists whose research program is directed by the theory of evolution! The existence of a remarkable error-checking mechanism (and note that its existence remains to be verified) harms evolutionary theory no more than the existence of "proof-reading" during the translation process or the splicing of mRNA.Holmes, of course I don't mean the rest of this comment to apply to you in particular, but I can see the way this article is being received by creationists elsewhere.I despair of anybody who, reading this article, finds nothing of interest other than a wrongheaded "challenge to evolution". This is a really exciting article! For the sake of argument, let's assume (prematurely) that mRNA templates exist within the nucleus. An imaginative person could easily get carried away: This could have great importance for our theories of how "DNA life" evolved from the RNA world! It impacts our view of the mutation/selection process! It might even suggest novel means of combatting genetic disease! Where is this information being stored such that nobody has seen it before? Does it occur in other genes? Does it occur in other species?Any creationist who, after reading this article, thinks nothing more than "oh, the theory of evolution is wrong" betrays a huge lack of interest and imagination.mickThis message has been edited by mick, 03-24-2005 12:16 PM

Sorry, but your calculations are rather worthless. You've completely ignored selective forces.Honestly, even if the mechanism described slowed evolution to a crawl - so what? If it is a recently-evolved mechanism, it would have little impact on the evolutionary history of organisms carrying the system. If it is only present in a few species, it would only effect the pace of evolution in those species. commike37-I'm not sure why you think this is the first time Mendel's laws have been "violated". There have already been other threads in the forum discussing non-Mendelian genetics. If you search PubMed you'll find papers from the 1950's discussing non-Mendelian genetics.The report is an important finding, and it will be interesting to see if stands continued scrutiny, and to see if this phenomena is seen in any other species. As I think WK stated earlier, the massive amount of work done, especially in controlled genetic models such as flies, worms, and mice, would suggest that if a similar mechanism existed in these it would have likely been noticed. (Keep in mind that the plant model from the study has only been in use for about twenty years; flies and worms have been in use for over a century.)I looked at the original paper where the Hothead gene was cloned, and it seems that it is only present in plants, but they don't specifically state that it isn't found in non-plant species. Also, the sequence accession numbers they give in that paper for the Hothead genes are invalid (seems odd), so I can't do my own sequence-based search.My assumption is that the presence of the gene is non-plant species would have definitely been mentioned in the Nature article, since it would boost the relevance of the report astronomically.This (single, unconfirmed) study is important, but does not negatively impact major theories as you are presenting.

I've corrected the link, it was originally to the advanced on line publication but now Nature has published it so the address moved.Their maximum of 10% revertants was only seen in this one instance of the Hothead mutation. If it was a common feature in arabidopsis it would have been noticed well before hand at that high a frequency. As I suggested before arabidopsis is probably one of the worlds most intesively genetically studied organisms. But the authors suggest that the corrective mechanism is triggered by stress. A beneficial mutation might well relieve stress on the organism or at least not induce it. The whole point about correcting stress inducing mutations is that they return you to a tried and tested allele for your ancestral environment. Your opinion is just that. People probably object to your suggesting that they treat evolutionary biology as the 'holy grail', as they assuredly do to your assuming that it is dogmatic. When people who seem entirely unfamiliar with the theories and practices of evolutionary biology start bemoaning it as dogmatic or a 'religion', those who work in the field get understandably upset. You may think you know it all, most of us aren't so arrogant.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 03-24-2005 12:43 PM

Well it's a loose analogy, but it would be interesting to understand
algorithmically (if that is possible) what is going on with the mechanism here.

commike-Let me put my above "minimal impact" statement another way:At its simplest, the theory of evolution comes down to (1) natural selection acting on (2) mutation.So, you should ask yourself how the results of this study impact this process. Let's make a huge leap and assume the proposed "RNA-backup-genome" hypothesis is correct, and it applies to all species, and it has been present since the beginning of life.Since the hypothesis effects mutation, the natural selection "half" of evolution is unaffected, leaving the mutation portion to be examined.The RNA-backup hypothesis alters our understanding of the genetic template (a combined RNA/DNA genome is still a genetic template), and our understanding of inheritance (it is not always parent-to-child, and under specific instances of stress inheritance can occur from grandparent-to-child.) These differences involve the mode of inheritance, and may impact on the rate and fixation of mutations.Mutations still occur, and are still acted upon by natural selection.Evolutionary theory is unaffected.

For some reason I couldn't get acces to the paper.1. Ya know, just winging it here, but WK previously suggested this interesting paper which makes me curious about mechanisms that could act coordinately to re-establish the original template (I am in no way saying that what is suggested in the G&D paper is what is going on here...). It's just quite intriguing that this occurs only when the plant is homozygous recessive at that particular gene.2. Are SNPs in LD? Are SNPs located in coding or non-coding sequence? In the meantime I will attempt to get a hold of the entire manuscript.3. Yes, random mutation is what I meant. I've since noticed how "off" that question was. I'm guessing that once the reversion took place it was then maintained throughout subsequent generations?...hmmm...dammit I need to read it. It's not up to you to give me the cliff notes.

I've stated several times before that I've never meant for this to be a scientific argument. It's just a simple comparison used to demonstrate the general (meaning not having a specific connection to Darwin or Mendel, though it applies to both) trustiworthiness of empirical evidence to determine truth and to explain our world.Once again: The second issue I raised was a broad, philosophical one, not a scientific one. You can throw all the technical science you want at me, but you're not establishing any philosophical clash here.

If you look to my use of a decay function, you see that the time variable is generations. It's hard to measure a large decrease like that over generations, especially since the real world doesn't have controls like this experiment did. 10% in one generation is rather insignicant, but 10% per generation under an evolutionary timeframe is very significant. Could you clarify how the RNA template is induced by stress? I'm a bit unclear on this one. Also, in the NY Times article, Dr. Surridge described the RNA hypothesis as the "least mad hypothesis." Meaning that even if it's the best one out there, it still doesn't stand much of a chance.

If indeed this finding causes us to revise our models of inheritance, then isn't it still empirical evidence that has refined our ability to explain the world?I mean it seems like you're making the point that the evidence is the only thing we can trust, not that we should give it less trust.

Well, excuse me then for directly answering point #1 of your opening post: Also please excuse me for directly answering the question you pose in point #2 of your opening post: Okay, so you don't want to have a scientific discussion (then why are you citing scientific evidence???)Instead you want to argue the trustiworthiness of evidence, seemingly based on the idea that the study you cite points to some evidence that is NOT trustworthy. Whether or not the specific evidence in question is trustworthy deserves some attention (rather than your assumption), as does your attempt to incorrectly extrapolate it to the theory of evolution. Yet it was based on incorrect thought regarding the process of science, as well as the understanding of inheritance and its links to evolution. If you are uninterested in filling in these gaps in your understanding in favor of dismissing them as "technical", your "philosophical" issues will continue to be tainted by your false assumptions.

Where do you include the input of selection in your decay function?Is your decay function "philosophical" or "technical"?

Then why do you keep bringing up both of them and trust?Bottom line is this report of experiments is comparable to a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. This is not meant as a criticism of the science, but to point out to you that this finding was in a very specific "strain" (not a plant person, so not sure what to call this) of a commonly studied plant (that this phenomonen has not been observed in) under very specific conditions (i.e. looking at hth). For you to then start figuring numbers for any other genes and/or genomes is laughable....you did say something about "empirical evidence", right? To think that this challenges ToE and mutations is not a well-thought out criticism.To draw an analogy this would be like the stupid bat vs. bird argument I've seen on this forum somehow convincing Phatboy or Buzsaw that Paul's trustworthiness is in question and therefore Christianity as well .As Pink told you non-Mendelian genetics is not a novel idea brought on by you and this one paper.