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Correlation does not imply causation and it's not even clear this qualifies as correlation.
by jjk166 2mo ago
Correlation does not imply causation and it's not even clear this qualifies as correlation.
- jjtheblunt 2mo agowhat about it is not correlation, that you imply?
- jjk166 2mo agoThe default assumption is non-correlation. No firm evidence was presented demonstrating correlation. Hence "not even clear it qualifies as correlation." This is a one time event that happened sometime after incirrates and cirrates split. This is like claiming there is a correlation between the Carrington Event of 1859 and the outbreak of the US civil war in 1860. One happened before the other. One could plausibly construct some narrative that causally links the two. But does it qualify as correlation?
- jjtheblunt 2mo agoi understand correlation and causation (as a math person for decades) and the article talks of trying to establish correlation with experiments on e coli and introducing similar breaks. Inserting the same break in the ribosomes of Escherichia coli bacteria made the engineered cells produce proteins with about twice their usual accuracy. they then went looking at the divergence data between the various distantly related cephalopods and again said they again couldn't find a counterexample to the conjecture that the RNA break and higher intelligence are correlated, but not established causal, because both phenotype and genetics are individually correlated to the same timeframes. that doesn't mean they're correlated to each other, let alone causal, of course, in either direction.
- jjk166 2mo agoI'm referring to the link with intelligence. The e coli experiments has nothing to do with that. > that doesn't mean they're correlated to each other, let alone causal, of course, in either direction. Which was my point.
- thelaxiankey 2mo agomaybe he/she missed the part where they reconstituted the break in e coli to show that it had the molecular effect they said it did?
- jjtheblunt 2mo agoyeah that's what i thought too.
- jjk166 2mo agoI was referring to the correlation (or lack thereof) with intelligence. The e coli work is a non-sequitor.
- thelaxiankey 2mo agonot sure I agree, they reconstituted this mutation in E coli ribosomes, using Fluc as a luminescence readout, and saw a reduction in aggregates at similar luminescence without a reduction in translation speeds. Not really familiar with translation machinery or luciferase, but it seems pretty compelling to me.
- jjk166 2mo agoI'm talking about the intelligence claim. There is nothing surprising about a gene having a molecular effect.
- thelaxiankey 1mo agoah yeah, the intelligence claim was basically an afterthought in the actual paper, the smithsonian mag did a bad job with their reporting. the paper is just called: 'Evolution of a core ribosomal innovation in octopus', and I would argue the E coli thing is far from a non-sequitur in that context the cross-organism increase in fidelity is pretty damn shocking. Ribosomes are one of the most optimized, slow-evolving things out there, and transplanting genes from animals to coli is already a very checkered endeavor.