Computational Geneticists Revisit A Mystery In Evolution

Science Daily ^ | Date:Posted 8/8/2002 | Editorial Staff

[vannrox]

Very Interesting.

[RightWhale]

As a special favor, can you find the main point and restate it in a single sentence of 50 words or less?

As Wolfram's Principle of Complexity evolves, it will probably cover all this field of genetics quite well and simply.

[tallhappy]

In the June 24 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...

It's the August 6 issue. There is not June 24 issue.

[EBUCK]

I think the second paragraph pretty much sums up the general idea.

EBUCK

[EBUCK]

Bump to list.

EBUCK

[tallhappy]

From the actual PNAS article:

...selection for developmental stability, independent of selection for particular phenotypes, is sufficient to evolve insensitivity to mutation.

[RightWhale]

...selection for developmental stability, independent of selection for particular phenotypes, is sufficient to evolve insensitivity to mutation

Is that the main statement? It could be. According to Wolfram we could be looking at the root phenomenon for all these years and not see; although once we see, it will be obvious.

[eno_]

I was thinking "New Kind of Science" while reading this. I think they are saying that a wide variety of programs yield similar results, something that appears to mirror Wolfram's findings. In other words, the robustness of genes in not producing lots of freaks is not a product of evolution, but a product of how the interpretation of genes works.

[Physicist]

As a special favor, can you find the main point and restate it in a single sentence of 50 words or less?

"In the real world, reducible complexity is far more useful, stable and important than irreducible complexity."

[RightWhale]

Perhaps if we drop back to some of the early thought on this:

In Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1865)

by Gregor Mendel

there is discussion of character, hybrid, and generations, but it was too early for genes and chromosomes.

"Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change."

We might be getting wrapped around the gene axle.

[RightWhale]

reducible complexity

We'll add that term to our Wolfram search list.

[norton]

Oh now that helps!

And all the time I just thought they were telling me that once something is set in motion it is more likely to continue (or stop) rather than turn a corner.

[The Great Satan]

You might find that Stuart Kaufman's "Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution" is even more on point here than the Wolfram book. Kaufman applies the conceptual toolbox of statistical mechanics to look at the evolution of complex systems.

Table of Contents

	Themes
1	Conceptual Outline of Current Evolutionary Theory	3
Pt. I	Adaptation on the Edge of Chaos	29
2	The Structure of Rugged Fitness Landscapes	33
3	Biological Implications of Rugged Fitness Landscapes	69
4	The Structure of Adaptive Landscapes Underlying Protein Evolution	121
5	Self-Organization and Adaptation in Complex Systems	173
6	The Dynamics of Coevolving Systems	237
Pt. II	The Crystallization of Life	285
7	The Origins of Life: A New View	287
8	The Origin of a Connected Metabolism	343
9	Hypercycles and Coding	357
10	Random Grammars: Models of Functional Integration and Transformation	369
Pt. III	Order and Ontogeny	407
11	The Architecture of Genetic Regulatory Circuits and Its Evolution	411
12	Differentiation: The Dynamical Behaviors of Genetic Regulatory	441
13	Selection for Cell Types	523
14	Morphology, Maps, and the Spatial Ordering of Integrated Tissues

[DBtoo]

genetic bump for later

[DaGman]

You won't find a creationist post like this.

[gore3000]

it is the complexity of our genotypes - the many genes that interact in networks during development, inhibiting and activating each other and even regulating themselves - that provides fidelity. Indeed, Bergman and Siegal show that any functional genetic network that is complex enough has this built-in property of fidelity.

Yup, a complete refutation of evolution! Mutations don't count! So what are evolutionists going to come up with next? Miracles? That is essentially all they have ever come up with - excuses and leaps of faith. In the meantime science keeps showing on a daily basis how their little theories are total nonsense.

[gore3000]

Regardless of what Worlfram or Kaufman may say, you cannot develop, you cannot alter a program stochaistically as evolution requires. The developmental process of an organism is definitely a program and could not have evolved at random. Long disertations about what could be, might be do not disprove clearly established scientific facts.

[The Great Satan]

You are a complete igoramus who wouldn't understand a scientific fact if it bit you in the ass. Go back to your Bible Study, you pathetic bumpkin.

[gore3000]

"In the real world, reducible complexity is far more useful, stable and important than irreducible complexity."

That may be your belief. That may a requirement for evolution also. However, the article does not say that. Also, everything we keep learning about life, shows that it is more complex than before. Who would have thought that we had duplicate sets of genes which are randomly passed on to the next generation? Who would have thought that genes were so utterly complex? Who would have thought that the entire organism was so closely interrelated? Certainly not Darwin, certainly not evolutionists.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The developmental process of an organism is definitely a program and could not have evolved at random.

Who would have thought that we had duplicate sets of genes which are randomly passed on to the next generation?

I'm sure I'm going to be sorry I asked, but which is it? Random or not random? Or are you saying an organism's DNA is not part of its development?