Daniel Smith
Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007
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| Quote (swbarnes2 @ Mar. 05 2008,12:12) | I think that a fair bit of what any of us would have to say has already been covered in the panda's thumb review of this paper.
Another example of “scholarship”
I also add the contents of "the onion test"
Junk DNA, Junk Science, and The Onion Test
And Daniel, if you fail to say anything intelligent or fact-based in response...well, we'll know that you have neither anything intelligent nor factual to say.
No one will be surprised. |
I read the panda's thumb review. One thing I noticed is that Ian Musgrave, the panda's thumb author, focused in on one fairly insignificant element in the paper - reproductive rates - and used perceived mistakes relating to said rates as an excuse to ignore the rest of the paper. Hardly fair I'd say, since Shapiro and Sternberg don't make much of an issue about reproduction rates. Here's a portion of the review: | Quote | One of the challenges to the idea that the majority of non-coding DNA is doing something useful is the existence of organisms like the puffer fish Fugu. Despite being a fairly complex vertebrate, with roughly similar number of genes to humans, it has between half to one-third the non-coding DNA that other vertebrates (and non-vertebrates) have. So what do Shapiro and von Sternberg say about Fugu? Their only mention is this:
“Rapidly reproducing organisms, like Caenorhabditis, Drosophila, Fugu and Arabidopsis, tend to have stripped-down genomes with relatively less abundant repetitive DNA, while organisms with longer life cycles, such as humans and maize, have larger genomes with correspondingly more repetitive elements (Table 1).”
However, their own table shows that this is nonsense.
In order of reproductive rate
Organism, % Genome repetitive DNA, Reproduction rate
Caenorhabditis briggsae, 22%, approx 25-50 times per year
Drosophila (fuit fly), 34-57%*, 6-12 times per year
Clionia(tunicate), 35%, several times to once per year
Mouse, 40%, 3-4 times a year
Fugu, 15%, Once per year
Dog, 31%, Once per year+ |
First off, the quote leaves out an important part of the context. Here's the whole thing: | Quote | The second overlooked aspect is the significance of
genome size and of distance between distinct regions of the
genome. Rapidly reproducing organisms, like Caenorhabditis,
Drosophila, Fugu and Arabidopsis tend to have stripped-down
genomes with relatively less abundant repetitive DNA, while
organisms with longer life cycles, such as humans and
maize, have larger genomes with correspondingly more
repetitive elements (Table 1; Cavalier-Smith, 1985). |
They are talking about trends here - not hard fast rules. Their main focus being not reproduction rates, but the "genome size and of distance between distinct regions of the genome".
If you look at the table as it appears in the paper, you'll see that it is just a listing showing significant statistics related to 1) Genome size, 2) % repetitive DNA, and 3) % coding sequences. Musgrave's table adds reproduction rates and leaves out 'genome size' and '% coding sequences'. These elements add an important ratio to the equation. When left out, it gives the false impression that the authors are falsifying data.
So Musgrave finds an insignificant perceived flaw and magnifies it to such a level as to give the impression that none of Shapiro and Sternberg's work can be trusted.
Of course no one here will let that influence them. I'm sure you would all rather make up your own minds about this. So you'll go and read the paper yourselves, with an open mind, to see if Shapiro and Sternberg actually make a good case.
Right?
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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." Orville Wright
"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins
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