Re: Why sex?

Posted by Roger Critchlow-2 on Aug 29, 2009; 6:48pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Why-sex-tp3541792p3543493.html

Speaking of modularity, the cover picture for the current issue of PNAS (http://www.pnas.org/content/106/34.cover-expansion) shows "two members of the Precambrian soft-bodied Ediacara biota displaying distinct modular construction". 

And http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000355 discusses computer models that suggest that evolution to satisfy modularly varying goals induces modular systems.

-- rec --

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, this article is interesting, but will require study.  Allow me a quick comment based only on the abstrct.  Given what we know from evo-devo about how entangled is the process of intergeneratonal transfer, modularity is indeed the new miracle of genetics.  Given all the editing, revisioning, and and just mucking about that characterizes the developmental process, how is it that ANY traits end up be passed on to offspring?   So, once we see modularity as an achievement, rather than as "just the way things are" then we have to ask the old George Williams question:  how is it that properties of the genome such as modularity can get selected for. 

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org