4 ms·

Wonder if biology is going to experience the same transition from inheritance to composition that computer science went through those last two decades, and stop

by bsaul 7y ago

Wonder if biology is going to experience the same transition from inheritance to composition that computer science went through those last two decades, and stop building trees of classes, but rather favor describing species by a composition of elementary attributes.

edflsafoiewq 7y ago
Man is a featherless biped having broad nails.
phyzome 7y ago
Inheritance is still a thing. It's just that there are occasional mix-ins. Or something like that. :-)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
vikramkr 7y ago
Biology transitioned away from the whole composition of elementary attributes thing- that's how it started and then we realised that attribute based categorization was kind of useless. The approach we have now at least categorizes things by something more biologically relevant- inheritance and evolution - both of which are core important parts of the field.
goatlover 7y ago
No, because the tree of life is based on common descent for the various populations going back to a single ancestor in the very distant past.
- chousuke 7y ago
  Makes me wonder, was it actually a literal "single ancestor" at any point, or are we be the result of several completely unrelated populations doing horizontal gene transfers (or whatever it would've been before actual genes were a thing)? What little I know of what we know, it doesn't seem completely implausible to me for self-replicating molecules to have appeared multiple times on the young Earth. Is it possible for these hypothetical multiple starts to have been be chemically compatible?
  - PaulHoule 7y ago
    There was a huge horizontal gene transfer event when us Eukaryotes were born from a train crash between the Bacteria and the Eubacteria. Thus you can't trace out a single "tree" of life all the way to the root.
    - chousuke 7y ago
      I'm vaguely aware of that, but I was thinking about life even earlier. That is, instead of having a single universal common ancestor to all life that currently exists, would it have been possible to have a set of separate strands of life that arose from abiogenesis (or however it started) and later merged? I like the thought, though I'm aware that that alone doesn't make it more likely to be true. I'm just wondering if we know something that rules out the possibility.
      - tempguy9999 7y ago
        > to have a set of separate strands of life that arose from abiogenesis (or however it started) and later merged? Not impossible but likely ever impossible to prove. I have read a theory that in the earliest days before impermeable cell walls formed, all dna (or whatever it was then) was being madly swapped around because horizontal transfer couldn't be stopped. No lineage then, but an amorphous glob of all life. When life got more sophisticated it then differentiated, because it could block horizontal transfer. But again, who knows.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        'Madly swapping DNA around' happens to this day at the bacterial/archaeal level. The argument against multiple "strands" of life is simple: if abiogenesis of a single replicator is extremely improbable, abiogenesis of multiple such replicators is much less likely still. Plus, almost by definition, the first successful replicator will start replicating and eating all it can around itself, strongly altering environmental conditions and closing the doors for anything that could spontaneously arise after it.
- pletnes 7y ago
  It gets somewhat screwy given that some organisms are symbiotic, eg lichen, which are composite of algaea and funghi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Not really. At the very least, bacteria and archaea engage in lateral gene transfer as much as they do in reproduction, making any exercise in building a universal tree pointless. The phylogenetic tree you may have seen is based on trying to trace inheritance of a very particular piece of molecular machinery that's unlikely to be lost and reintroduced through lateral gene transfer. There are many such pieces, and the trees drawn for each of them are completely different from each other. Nick Lane's "The Vital Question", mentioned downthread, makes a big point about that.
dexen 7y ago
>composition I know it's not what you are asking, but... the mitochondria are example of biological composition. They are organisms that (d)evolved to live exclusively inside eukaryotic cells, in tight symbiotic relationship. Viral genetic inserts in our genome are another kind of composition. And then there's the gut microbiome, without which we couldn't live off of the diets we do. Nonetheless, the inheritance aspect still is, and will remain, practical and worth taking about; saying "human IS-A mammal" is valid and useful. There may be a hint here, regarding the current trend away from inheritance.
dwaltrip 7y ago
Taxonomy used to be based purely on visible traits, and then genetic analysis came along and showed us we had made many mistakes with this approach. Of course, looking at morphology and such is still very useful, but it isn't sufficient.

by bsaul 7y ago

edflsafoiewq 7y ago

Man is a featherless biped having broad nails.

phyzome 7y ago

Inheritance is still a thing. It's just that there are occasional mix-ins. Or something like that. :-)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

vikramkr 7y ago

Biology transitioned away from the whole composition of elementary attributes thing- that's how it started and then we realised that attribute based categorization was kind of useless. The approach we have now at least categorizes things by something more biologically relevant- inheritance and evolution - both of which are core important parts of the field.

goatlover 7y ago

No, because the tree of life is based on common descent for the various populations going back to a single ancestor in the very distant past.

chousuke 7y ago
Makes me wonder, was it actually a literal "single ancestor" at any point, or are we be the result of several completely unrelated populations doing horizontal gene transfers (or whatever it would've been before actual genes were a thing)? What little I know of what we know, it doesn't seem completely implausible to me for self-replicating molecules to have appeared multiple times on the young Earth. Is it possible for these hypothetical multiple starts to have been be chemically compatible?
- PaulHoule 7y ago
  There was a huge horizontal gene transfer event when us Eukaryotes were born from a train crash between the Bacteria and the Eubacteria. Thus you can't trace out a single "tree" of life all the way to the root.
  - chousuke 7y ago
    I'm vaguely aware of that, but I was thinking about life even earlier. That is, instead of having a single universal common ancestor to all life that currently exists, would it have been possible to have a set of separate strands of life that arose from abiogenesis (or however it started) and later merged? I like the thought, though I'm aware that that alone doesn't make it more likely to be true. I'm just wondering if we know something that rules out the possibility.
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
      > to have a set of separate strands of life that arose from abiogenesis (or however it started) and later merged? Not impossible but likely ever impossible to prove. I have read a theory that in the earliest days before impermeable cell walls formed, all dna (or whatever it was then) was being madly swapped around because horizontal transfer couldn't be stopped. No lineage then, but an amorphous glob of all life. When life got more sophisticated it then differentiated, because it could block horizontal transfer. But again, who knows.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        'Madly swapping DNA around' happens to this day at the bacterial/archaeal level. The argument against multiple "strands" of life is simple: if abiogenesis of a single replicator is extremely improbable, abiogenesis of multiple such replicators is much less likely still. Plus, almost by definition, the first successful replicator will start replicating and eating all it can around itself, strongly altering environmental conditions and closing the doors for anything that could spontaneously arise after it.
pletnes 7y ago
It gets somewhat screwy given that some organisms are symbiotic, eg lichen, which are composite of algaea and funghi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Not really. At the very least, bacteria and archaea engage in lateral gene transfer as much as they do in reproduction, making any exercise in building a universal tree pointless. The phylogenetic tree you may have seen is based on trying to trace inheritance of a very particular piece of molecular machinery that's unlikely to be lost and reintroduced through lateral gene transfer. There are many such pieces, and the trees drawn for each of them are completely different from each other. Nick Lane's "The Vital Question", mentioned downthread, makes a big point about that.

dexen 7y ago

>composition I know it's not what you are asking, but... the mitochondria are example of biological composition. They are organisms that (d)evolved to live exclusively inside eukaryotic cells, in tight symbiotic relationship. Viral genetic inserts in our genome are another kind of composition. And then there's the gut microbiome, without which we couldn't live off of the diets we do. Nonetheless, the inheritance aspect still is, and will remain, practical and worth taking about; saying "human IS-A mammal" is valid and useful. There may be a hint here, regarding the current trend away from inheritance.

dwaltrip 7y ago

Taxonomy used to be based purely on visible traits, and then genetic analysis came along and showed us we had made many mistakes with this approach. Of course, looking at morphology and such is still very useful, but it isn't sufficient.