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Mysterious DNA Found to Survive Eons of Evolution
- delackner 18y agoMy reading of Dawkins' Selfish Gene suggests another angle that is not even mentioned in the article. Genes do not have any concept of our reproductive success. They are just structures that are copied. A gene whose structure is very resistant to mutation and is very easily copied has an advantage against other genes -- even ones that provide a fitness advantage to the organism. Imagine you have 100 organisms sharing the same basic DNA, with one gene positively boosting reproductive fitness, that is easily mutated. They also all share another gene that confers no expressed behavior at all, but is very resistent to mutation. Over time most descendants will still be likely to carry the useless gene, yet the version of the beneficial gene they carry will drift and in time cease to be recognizable as the original gene at all. I read the book several years ago, so please feel free to tear the example apart (and hopefully replace it with something more accurate!).
- albertcardona 18y agoThe article at livescience.com is rather lame -- but the REAL article, which is not linked anywhere, is very interesting and freely available (Go Genome Biology!): Abstract: http://genome.cshlp.org/cgi/content/abstract/gr.080184.108v1 http://genome.cshlp.org/cgi/content/abstract/gr.080184.108v1 Full article in PDF: http://genome.cshlp.org/cgi/reprint/gr.080184.108v1.pdf http://genome.cshlp.org/cgi/reprint/gr.080184.108v1.pdf