Re: Junk DNA: A hypothesis

From: Peter F - for EIMC Internetional Ptd. Lty. (fell_spamtrap_in_at_ozemail.com.au)
Date: 01/22/05 

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 13:01:48 -0500 (EST)

"Larry Moran" <lamoran@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca> wrote in message news:csrihj$1ddt$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:53:54 -0500 (EST),
> Tim Tyler <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote:

>
> > Also, DNA harbours multiple regions such as LINE-1. These
> > act as mutagens - and are likely to be directly deleterious.
> >
> > However they generate a different pattern of mutations from (say)
> > cosmic rays. They generate patterns of mutations that affect
> > different regions of DNA more frequently than others. That
> > whole set-up could serve some functional purpose.
>
> There's no way that a population could select for enhanced deleterious
> mutations on the remote chance that some of them will be beneficial every
> million years or so. That sort of thing would require an intelligent
> designer with foresight.

No, but positive selection pressures on fundamentally physically/chemically
_loaded random_ interactivity (think: ditto scientifically discovered "laws" of Nature heuristically coupled by the maths-inspired philosophical principle known as the "The Law of Large Numbers" [_approximately aka_ "summing over histories" or, as it also might be described, 'long-term massively parallel
pattern summing/amplification'].

>
> > We know that some evolution takes the form of duplication and
> > modification. Rapid elimination of unnecessary non-functional
> > genes might significantly hamper this process.
>
> It might. But once again you are postulating selection for some future
> possibility. In this case you suggest that junk DNA has to be kept around
> because it might become useful in the future. How does an individual know
> that it needs to store excess DNA in its genome because theres' a small
> chance that one of its descendants might find a use for it at some time
> in the far distant future?
>
> Note that the genomes of bacteria appear to be under selection for small
> size so they can replicate quickly. That's why they don't have very much
> junk DNA. If your speculation is correct then there should have been much
> less gene duplication and divergence in bacterial lineages. Does the data
> lend support to your speculation?

One can get very far through a tunnel-visioned way
of perceiving/interpreting. However, this way of thinking
also tend to lock one into a directions of
dreadfully denuded didactic destinations. ;-)

>
> > Some references to theories of the "function" of "junk" DNA:
> >
> > "Inserting introns improves genetic algorithm success rate:
> > Taking a cue from biology"
> >
> > - http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/context/17647/246003
>
> This seems to be mostly computer scientists discussing biology. I didn't
> see anything there that's worth remembering. Perhaps you could summarize
> their very best argument for the selective advantage of excess genomic
> DNA? Please don't use the success of a genetic algorithm as biological
> evidence.

I have 'arrived at the humble assumption'
that the difficulty of making overall sense
of any complex aspect of "What Is going on"
can only be aggravated by adding arrogance
(not the least AEVASIVE arrogance)
to any such attempt.

Looking back at your longstanding 'style of reply',
I (a mere amateur) would welcome
if you (oft snarling# state-of-the-art scientist [?]) put your cards
on the table by providing us with your own personal brief summary
of what you know, or dare to predict and/or conclude,
about the nature of "junk DNA".

# "Snarling", it seems, since you sense, by sniffing, the slightest waft
(of what you see as being - but which not always is) charlatanism.

Yours interested but scEPTical,

Peter 

-- 
There is a specific triple irony in that I am trying (against what my concEPTually congealed, and thus retained, insight decrees me) to convince people 
to share my in dEPTh percEPTion, concEPTualization, and philosophically perverse omniscientific opinion, of that our human phenotype *deserve* to be known for its "AEVASIVE" handling of "SHITS" come "CURSES".
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