RE: HUMANS and low genetic complexity

From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Jul 11 2003 - 03:36:22 MDT

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    --- Spike <spike66@comcast.net> wrote:
    > From: Damien Broderick ...irrascible immunologist,
    > Malcolm Simons, now
    > dying of cancer who decided years ago that `junk
    > DNA' (introns) couldn't
    > possibly be junk, because it'd have been darwinnowed
    > out...Damien
    > Broderick
    >
    >
    > This irrascible immunologist clearly was
    > never a programmer. Had he been a software
    > developer, it would be clear to him how it
    > happens that pieces of dead code can remain
    > in the final product, even after many versions
    > of the software. There would need to be some
    > evolutionary pressure to reduce or darwinnow
    > the dead code, which there evidently isn't.
    >
    > But how does one achieve the title irrascible?
    > Must one have a rascer or rascist attempt to
    > rasc one and find it difficult or impossible?

     I'm with Simons on this one. Ever since the term
    "junk dna" gained currency, I've wondered why someone
    hasn't challenged the notion. Breathtakingly arrogant
    if you ask me. Just because someone came up with the
    idea and coined the phrase, hardly makes it true. Can
    it really be said--having barely embarked on the
    journey of discovery-- that we know enough about the
    function of dna to declare the apparent 'excess' to be
    junk. This is way way over the top presumptuous.

    Nature 'believes' in efficiency. Fitness and
    efficiency go hand in hand. It took an awful lot of
    energy to make all that 'junk'. Another organism
    looking to compete for a given niche would have a
    serious advantage when not burdened by the need to
    synthesize and carry around all that 'junk'. I'm not
    buyin' it.

    My money's on Occam's razor. The simplest--and
    glaring-- explanation by far is human ignorance and
    overreaching. The utility of the 'extra' dna awaits
    the gradual elaboration of the grand scheme.

    I've heard tell that for birds, evolution winnowed the
    cargo of dna, the better for the birdies to get and
    stay airborne. Or so the theory goes. If indeed
    evolution trimmed their dna, then we have a proof of
    principle re dna trimming for fitness purposes. The
    profligate and wasteful production of 'junk' dna
    similarly seems an idea too heavily freighted to get
    off the ground.

    I don't have much in the way of fact here, to back up
    my objection, so shoot me down if you will.

    Some time ago, when I first got annoyed at the seeming
    presumptuousness of the 'junk' dna concept, I wondered
    if perhaps the 'junk' might be preferentially
    distributed in the outer layers of the nuclear
    package, providing a 'shield' for the really vital
    'inner' bits. You know. Whatever nasty dna-degrading
    agencies--free radicals, mutagenic compounds, ionizing
    radiation--runnin' around loose in the cytosol, would
    have to get past the protective/sacrificial outer
    layers before thay could do any 'real' damage. Just
    an idea.

    Best, Jeff Davis

    "When I am working on a problem I never think about
    beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem.
    But when I have finished, if the solution is not
    beautiful, I know it is wrong."
                          - Buckminster Fuller

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