A Challenge to the Supremacy of DNA as the Genetic Material
This forces us to the conclusion that causality in cells is exercised downwardly from the phenotype to the genotype (for example, to initiate transcription or even modify the genomic sequence), exactly the reverse of the Genotype to Phenotype (G -> P) concept underpinning population genetics.
Yowza. Intriguing read.
Genetics is playing an important role in modern medical care.
it should not be dismissed off hand.
Large parts of the PLOS article are empty, meaningless words (dissipation, attraction), and the whole text reads a lot like Sokal’s famous hoax paper in “Social Text,” which exposed the inane, anti-scientific nonsense that passes for argument in the social sciences. PLOS is not a very respectable journal and need not be taken very seriously.
From the perspective of the physics of complex dissipative systems, it was almost inevitable, given the climatic conditions on Earth, that energy from the Sun, via the second law of thermodynamics, would concoct a form of chemistry we call life.
Heh, so why isn’t that still happening? Being so ‘inevitable’, and all…
Any researcher who refers to the established views as “dogma” is likely a pseudo-scientist. Real scientists use evidence and logic. They show respect for previous work even when they disagree with it. They have no need for name calling.
Probably still is happening…..this could explain the plethora of micro-organisms…..
Probably? There’s a nice scientific term…heh
Wow, great content today Kate! While I agree with my friends above that the source is more than a little suspect, it is still a very interesting concept that I have always suspected to be true. At the very least it deserves further study, but I expect both institutional science and myriad religious groups will oppose it vehemently.
I think it is funny , that he has focused on the assumption that the earth sun moon stars and galaxies were all already here just poof there you go and now let me explain human life. Lol. Definitely interesting but does not explain away a creators of those proteins . As a Christian I think further investigation would be an excellent idea.
So that kinda put’s TRUNORTHISTS assumptions about religious groups opposing it out the window!!
Unbelievable that so many atheists make assumptions about Christians like that. Christians invented science.
Why are you so eager to attack? I had no malice in mind, so it’s only your hostility that leads you to your erroneous assumptions. In other words: You could not be more mistaken about me if you tried. Like many, you simply seek an avenue to vent your anger and do not care who gets hurt.
Sorry, but that was crap. His first premise is crap:
When cells divide they inherit the state of the cell. If this were not the case, cancer and differentiation would have to be one-step processes. The state of the cell cannot be encoded on the DNA base sequence: it is the active proteome.
Sorry, but the state of the cell is encoded by DNA. The proteome is the expression of the DNA. So what he is saying is that when a cell divides it has the same proteins in each daughter cell as the mother cell. Yup, yup, but that is not inheritance. It is an awful stretch to suggest what happens in a somatic cell will then be inherited in a germ cell. Sorry, but nothing he says there is particularly brilliant, it is simply a series of quirky examples that aren’t that hard to explain without throwing out DNA as the heritable component.
Geeze, another layer of complexity?
Who’d a guessed?
back 25 years ago someone came out an said that the s ex determinant was not the X or Y gene , and that is found on another chromosome. Wasn’t true, the only true part about it was that there are certain genes that can occur on the other chromosome that appear to be related to the s ex. but overwhelmingly its the X or Y that determine if you are an innie or an outtie
ask Bryan Sykes who has traced most of the world
as for the really strange combos of XYY and XXmales , I don’t think they pass that trait down and possibly are sterile
Seriously not ready to kiss-off everything done since 1952 based on one paper. Because, NO EVIDENCE YET.
New ideas are always good. Now it needs to be tested by guys determined to prove it wrong, just like Watson and Crick were. Just like Einstein was.
One problem that crops up right away, mitochondria. They don’t share the cell’s DNA, they have their own. Then there’s the influence of physical pressure on an individual cell’s metabolism and cell division generally, something that doesn’t get much play in the literature but remains important nonetheless. It plays a role in cancer, among other things.
Lots of issues determine a cell’s condition and growth besides nuclear DNA. That fact doesn’t mean DNA is not where inheritance is written.
Now, if buddy comes up with some irrefutable observed evidence to back up his theory, that’s different. Mendelian inheritance is a theory that accounts for observed fact. It can be disproved.
And please, all you evolution haters out there, get a frickin’ grip. Latching on to every new idea that disagrees with evolution makes you suckers for every scam artist and shaman that comes down the pipe.
A theory life insurance corporations will surely dread.
And please, all you evolution haters out there, get a frickin’ grip.
Heh, hard to hate something that doesn’t exist.
Back to topic, unlikely this would catch on, might mess up the Cohen (Kahn) dynasty.
Did find this interesting
http://jackkruse.com/cpc-8-quantum-brain-cancer/
Probably? There’s a nice scientific term…heh
Posted by: stradivarious
It works for a theory, as in THEORY of evolution.
I wasn’t going to post this till you started playing my song here at the end. 🙂
Strad doesn’t make the distinction between theory and observation. He just defaults straight to dogma.
These are musings, with nothing like sound reasoning to support them . He will undoubtedly suck in some journalists, and other weak-minded people.
Well, I do observe that the theory is used to interpret the artifacts. The interpretation, in turn, is used to prove the theory.
Kinda like that little bird that flew up it’s own backside…of course, really smart people call that seeing things others don’t.
It sounds like you don’t make the distinction between theory and proof positive. A theory is a probability unproven so why do we have to get a grip of it? To totally believe a theory is unscientific.
I have never understood why the people who believe God created everything can’t believe he didn’t create evolution too. I’m very comfortable with both views.
Yeah, me too. Some people, seems they just can’t be there. Gotta have an easy answer.
River rat said: “A theory is a probability unproven…”
It helps if we all agree what we are talking about when we use a particular word.
“Theory: a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena.”
A good theory correctly predicts the results of observations which have yet to be made at the time it is proposed. An incorrect theory will be disproven by experiment.
Evolution is a -theory- with some powerful evidence to back it up. Just like Relativity is a -theory- with some powerful evidence to back it up. Evolution, despite over one hundred and fifty years of effort, has yet to be conclusively disproven. Lamarkian inhertance, by contrast, -has- been conclusively disproven.
The DNA theory is another theory which has yet to be disproven. Proposed by Watson and Crick in the 1950’s, it so far correctly predicts the results of experiments performed to disprove it.
The article under discussion here as another, different theory. It has -no- evidence backing it up at present. There have been -no- experiments.
However even though there is no evidence, some people here are using this new, unsupported theory to cast aspersions on the old, supported theory that DNA is the fundamental basis of heredity. This despite the Monsanto BT corn no doubt growing in their neighbor’s fields.
Then there are those who will go off ranting if anyone even says the word “evolution” or “DNA” in a sentence. Despite the supporting evidence, or even common sense.
Hence my comments above. Are we clear? Did I make my argument plainly enough to get through the haze? Are we done with the bullsh1t now?
Me thinks he protests too much and my aren’t we touchy.
“Evolution, despite over one hundred and fifty years of effort, has yet to be conclusively disproven”. It doesn’t have to be disproven it has to be proven, kinda like global warming, before I’ll bite.
Evolution, despite over one hundred and fifty years of effort, has yet to be conclusively disproven.
The theory of evolution is disproven by the fact that it stopped. We don’t see anything climbing out of the ooze. Nor all the stages from the ooze to the higher forms of life. We don’t see ‘almost’ cows, horses, or men. Or the preceding stages.
Incorrect stradivarious.
Each year there are several tens of new strains of bedding plants available because humans increase the rate of naturally occurring mutations of the original plants.
Not ‘GMO’, not cross-breeding, taking cuts and replanting to reproduce natural evolutionary changes in formerly ‘static’ plants.
Please.
Do you have an opinion on how antibiotic resistant bacteria reproduces on the scales we see today that doesn’t involve the evolutionary theory?
Just in case you were aiming at me when you say “…some people here are using this new, unsupported theory to cast aspersions on the old, supported theory that DNA is the fundamental basis of heredity.” I will add that I never suggested that the ideas raised in the article (they do not yet even rise to the level of hypothesis) come close to toppling established theory. I simply find the ideas presented to have some interesting and quite reasonable solutions to some of the problems with the current dogma. (And yes, dogma is the correct word to use in this context) Some of us are capable of having a more nuanced understanding of such matters… But I am likely mistaken in thinking you were referring to me. You typically do not make such mistakes. I also wanted to clarify my remarks a bit and you presently me with that opportunity rather nicely.
BTW, your expanded comment above is quite good. I may steal parts of it from time to time. It’s one of those things that has multiple applications. 🙂
… Presented, not presently. (I am getting tired. Long day working on taxes)
Gee, they’re still plants, or bacteria, aren’t they? They didn’t magically turn into some higher form of life.
Sometimes you remind me of a moose that accidentally stumbled onto a firing range.
Thank you for arguing my point.
The fact that mutations aren’t “magically” creating a new kingdom of life every day reinforces the evolutionary theory.
The central premise of the theory is time.
Each year there are several tens of new strains of bedding plants available because humans increase the rate of naturally occurring mutations of the original plants.
I think the definitive word here is “humans”.
Uh huh, RR. And because humans increase the rate of fission to create power the nucleus doesn’t exist.
Or because we refine sugar there’s no such thing as cane or beet.
The rest of that phrase is, “increase the rate of naturally occurring mutations”.
We burn stuff too…oxidization in fast forward, but rust is a theory.
Life probably took several billion years to crawl out of the slime. Oh! Except for the Cambrian explosion when it probably didn’t. But I guess we’re probably back to the next billion year cycle thingy.
And the mammals we have in Canada today are completely different from those as little as 10k years ago. What’s your point? There’s a lot of wiggle-room between taking a billion years to move from single-cell sea life to something that can walk out of the ocean and saying, “evolution has stopped” because someone at most 100 years old hasn’t seen anything new under the sun.
Thought there might be something really fundamental there but realized there wasn’t when he didn’t talk about the quantum mechanical solution to the protein folding problem. The protein folding problem is one that has occupied chemists for decades because, fresh off a ribosome, a chain of amino acids folding under conventional conditions takes a bit longer than the life of the universe to attain the functional folded state of a protein. Chaperone proteins may help in the case of a sequence of amino-acids having several potential low-energy confirmations. Satinover, author of The Quantum Brain postulated over 10 years ago that the solution to the protein folding problem would involve quantum effects and, it does. The lack of quantum mechanics in this piece is surprising and so I’m glad I don’t have anything earthshaking to explore this weekend.
Loki, would this be the technique you are referring to? http://phys.org/news/2012-08-d-wave-quantum-method-protein-problem.html
I hadn’t heard of this solution either, so it looks like I will have to make some time this weekend. 😎
There can be evolution within a species (micro evolution?) but I don’t believe in evolution between species (macro evolution). I believe this is where Darwin was when he died. Even though this was his THEORY he came to realize it wasn’t so. But, be easily lead if you choose, I need proof to accept something so hair brained.
River Rat
each person after birth, evolves, it is a never ending process. So, when my identical twins were born they were pretty close to being the same, after 40 years, their DNA has altered and they are not as similar as they were at birth. Evolution is a proven fact, whether it is the only fact that is relevant to the evolution of life from the start to now is an open question. AND NO, THE BIBLE IS NOT THE POPULAR SCIENCE MAGAZINE. Why do all you kristians all have a different take on what the bible represents, you know that not all of you’s can be right, butt sure as h3ll you’s can all be wrong
The fact that mutations aren’t “magically” creating a new kingdom of life every day reinforces the evolutionary theory.
The information already was contained within the plant or bacteria. Obviously.
The fact remains, for evolutionary theory to be true, there should be a constant living stream from the ooze all the way to man.
Otherwise evolutionists need to explain why evolution stopped.
Do your identical twins not belong to the same species?
“Why do all you kristians all have a different take on what the bible represents, you know that not all of you’s can be right, butt sure as h3ll you’s can all be wrong” – that’s why I’m Catholic. We have an authority that has interpreted the Bible. Catholic teaching has not changed in 2000 years. Love it or leave it and form 34000 other Christian denominations.
You sure about that. Methinks the nicene creed in around 381 changed quite a bit for half the Christians
Nicene Creed still works for me but it’s just the condensed version of what came before.
Just saw a great saying from EWTN. Where most men work for degrees after their name, we work for them before ours. St.
Do you have an opinion on how antibiotic resistant bacteria reproduces on the scales we see today that doesn’t involve the evolutionary theory? lance
The standard 3 drug anti viral therapy has remained potent, despite the existence of a viral load north of 1 trillion in patients with full blown AIDS. This suggests their exists a limit to the power of mutation to change an organism.
Truenorthist, that wasn’t the solution that I had in mind, but seems quite interesting in its own right (yet another distraction for the weekend). Quick search I did after posting earlier revealed that a couple of researchers from the University of Mongolia! came up with proof of significant quantum effects in protein folding based on the observed effects of temperature on protein folding/unfolding.
Have to do a bit of research on what D-wave has been up to although I suspect the “quantum computing” they’re speaking of is just the modelling of tunneling and other quantum effects. Neat thing about quantum effects in protein folding is that hydrogen atoms can tunnel through membranes and, in effect, are teleported from one section of the protein to another.
After thinking about the article that started all of this, it appears that the authors have just discovered complexity theory and chaos theory (about 25 years old now) and are still enthralled with emergent phenomena (again, old now). However, the really interesting biologic stuff is the increasing quantum effects that one gets when dealing with proteins and structures the size of proteins. That’s probably the area I’ll be wandering through this weekend as have spent far too much time on the machinations of the various warring plutocracies over the last week.
Well, Stradivarious, looks like we won this war. Did they surrender or are they just regrouping? The Phantom has disappeared (but that’s understandable), lance has timed out and perhaps the enemy of Satan has evolved into a Christian. We can only hope. Night night.
And I was looking forward to the answer to the mystery of why evolution stopped. heh
IMHO this lady is a bit of a loon, but the article on goldfish/carp genetics is interesting, and does seem to point to morphologic structures being controlled by non-nuclear cellular elements. Proteins? Possible, I suppose. But the language of ‘thermodynamics’ and ‘attractor states’ is, in my opinion, the kind of pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo that belongs in an overunity paper. 🙂
“…hydrogen atoms can tunnel through membranes and, in effect, are teleported from one section of the protein to another.”
This is going to take more than a couple hours spare time over the weekend… I am on record as having excoriated quantum theory as a cop-out, or a cheat, by lazy and/or greedy researchers taking a short-cut to fame and grant money (ie, Climatology) but in many cases QT really has opened the door to greater discovery, such as in this case. Bloody fascinating. I finally did find a few articles on Satinover’s work that aren’t behind a pay-wall and am slowly gaining an understanding of it’s implications. Thanks for the response.
I should clarify… I am not saying that climatology makes any use of (or abuses) quantum theory: that would be an interesting twist to an already convoluted plot. Rather, I am referring to the trend in some areas of science to use any trick available to get to the desired result. Perhaps I should have used a better, more personal example such as Michio Kaku or any other celebrity scientist.