4 ms·
Selection pressure can be measured. If a big chunk of DNA is missing from a third of a population with no apparent ill effects, the onus is on you to show that
by schmidtleonard 2y ago
Selection pressure can be measured. If a big chunk of DNA is missing from a third of a population with no apparent ill effects, the onus is on you to show that it was somehow important. Of course there is plenty of non-coding DNA which is under selection pressure and therefore does something important, but everyone has known this for decades.
The single most common sin in all of science is to misrepresent the null hypothesis because it makes getting positive results easy. In article form, this translates to when you see a title "Everyone thought X but actually Y," 99% of the time nobody thought X and Y is otherwise unremarkable. They wanted to remark on Y, though, so they cooked up "Everyone Thought X" to facilitate the presentation.
- moralestapia 2y ago>the onus is on you to show that it was somehow important What? Like ... not at all? Onus does not get assigned "by default" due the nature of things, lol. The onus falls on whoever comes up to propose an hypothesis. In this case that hypothesis is "all other DNA/RNA is junk", well, then "prove that thing is true", which is unfeasible and hence why one could not assert such thing.
- searine 2y ago>In this case that hypothesis is "all other DNA/RNA is junk", Strawman. It is not as black and white as you think it is. Some non-coding DNA/RNA is functional. Some is not. Selection/conservation is often used as quick way to tell whether something is functional or not. Nobody actually in the field of genetics would say "all other DNA/RNA is junk". You'd get laughed out of the room, kind of in the same way if you said "all non-coding DNA is functional because 'epigenetics' ".