future of phylogentics'

From: Gil Lawton (gillawton_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 02/22/05 

Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 01:25:15 -0500 (EST)

Jason's question to the NG on this subject is grounds for
 brainstorming we all might expand our thoughts (and
wish lists) from.

What if, between tree A and tree B (being of different
species), there are not merely a few interstitial steps
that must be bridged to reverse engineer their DNA
into that of a single common ancestor but, say, delta
 one, two, three... etc. up to ten to the 32 power interstices
 (give or take a few million). (Rhetorical question.)

Wouldn't it be fun if we had unlimited laboratory
 resources and unlimited man hours (it might
require man millennia) and unlimited money
wherewith to pay biologists wages, so that they
could test for every possible permutation possible
in between that of tree A and tree B. Obviously
an exhaustive study of this degree of detail would
be untenable. HOWEVER, what if at some level
short of studying EACH AND EVERY increment
in between, we were to set out to manipulate
interstitial DNA codings for a zygote from
each, toward a zygote from the other, and seek
vectors of viable points in between (controlled,
induced mutations. (Pretty tall order, but read on.)

Compare to policeman's radar detector measuring
the speed of an automobile on a freeway. The
policeman does not have to prove the automobile's
speed at every given increment of time between
 point A and point B. The detector need only
establish, a mathematical function that is
time/distance for any delta of A to delta of B...
a function convertible to MPH. (If that's vague,
don't be discouraged, just read on.)

Of course the function of DNA A to DNA B is
not in miles per hour, but what if there are
interstitial points that can be measured for
viable interstices at sufficient points to
establish a vector, or function of the difference
between DNA A and DNA B... a sufficient
statistical sampling, to establish viability
at points in between. If biologists do not have
enough know how now, or sufficient tools now,
to achieve controlled interstitial mutations...
who is to say they will not ten years from now,
 or twenty, or fifty.

Let me, just for the sake of creative prognostication,
predict that such experiments shall be done within
this century, and that biologists, although they
may not be able to come up with an organism
which duplicates a common ancestor of two such
trees shall be able to produce what might be called
a surrogate common ancestor... that is, a tree which
COULD have served as a common ancestor of the
two trees compared, although it might not be able
to cross with either of them..

Science fiction? Perhaps. But remember when a
prediction of foot prints and flags on the moon
could not have been predicted without generating
derisive laughter? Truth has a way of following
fancy eventually, does it not.

All right then. As one great thinker put it, "Instead
of sitting back and asking why, perhaps instead we
should take the bull by the horns and ask WHY NOT ?"
(I don't recall who that great thinker was. Perhaps
 it was a member of this NG.)

g

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Jason
  Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution
  Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2005 3:41 PM
  Subject: phylogenetics

  Most trees I see will divide the distance to the common ancestor(CA) in
  half. For example, after whatever algorithm is used to calculate
  distance between sequences A and B you get something like A----CA----B.
   Is there any way to detect differential divergence from the common
  ancestor? For example, something like A-CA------B. I wonder if there
  is a way to infer this by basing the tree on multiple loci.

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