Ichthyic
Posts: 3325 Joined: May 2006
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well, IIRC, the strict concept of frontloading has been around for quite a while, in one form or another; it just shifted mechanisms as the field of genetics was fleshed out.
is it the dumbest idea ever?
naww. not by a longshot; without knowing any better, you could easily be fooled into thinking it makes sense.
example:
the immune system.
without knowing any better, one might conclude that antibodies to all infectious agents that ever existed are front-loaded into a genome.
hence, the idea persists, even into the present, maintained just like the idea of a 6k year earth by people who have somehow decided for themselves that it is more parsimonious with their religious fantasies.
I have only ever seen ONE real frontloading supporter around PT, though, and that was Blast-from-the-past.
if you want to see how frontloaders think, you might try searching on the thread about the evolution of snake venom, and check out his "arguments". They are pretty representative of how front loaders think.
ah, that wasn't too hard.
check out the threads on snake venom (Fry's work) on this page:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/shoptalk/
IIRC, Blast did a decent job of expanding on his ideas for how snake venom is a front-loaded trait, and was of course shredded by no less than the author of the paper himself, lenny, myself, and several others piled on.
-------------- "And the sea will grant each man new hope..."
-CC
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