Re: Most important paper in evolutionary biology


"Ron O" <rokimoto@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dg4r7q$19pk$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> If you want a paper that stirred up controversy and is still in the
> ball park of being correct in its inferences. There was a series of
> papers by Sarich and Wilson in the early days of molecular phylogenetic
> analysis. These guys didn't originate the concepts, but they took the
> heat for them with pretty bold inferences about human evolution that
> went against the existing theories of the day. You have to remember
> that the leading proposition of the day was that the human lineage
> separated from apes at least 20 million years ago. These guys looked
> at the molecules and claimed that it was more like 5 million. It
> really wasn't until fossil "Lucy" (the australopithcine) was accepted
> as an upright walking ape-like hominid that the controversy pretty much
> ended.
>
> Wilson, A.C. and V.M. Sarich. 1969. A molecular time scale for human
> evolution. PNAS. 63:1088-1093.

An excellent nomination.

> People cite the Zuckerkandl and Pauling paper as the beginning of
> molecular evolution studies. When I read this paper I was struck by
> the fact that they had the wrong idea of molecular evolution. They
> proposed that there would be molecular fossils, and it seemed to be
> that they were claiming things like sequencing lamprey would produce
> these types of molecules.

Ouch. I have to admit I haven't read the paper carefully. I just cited
it because everyone else does. Had I noticed the lamprey thing, I might
not have come so close to nominating it. Careless talk about 'primitive'
modern organisms is a bete noir of mine.


.

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