genes as bookkeeping

Spoken like a true molecular biologist. How about some functionality now, relative to proteins coded for?

Was reading an article recently -- I forgot where -- in which a mo-bio person summed up his position very nicely (responding to the confusing diversity of hominid fossils): "Children don't inherit their parents bones. They inherit their biochemistry."

Genes as bookkeeping seems a little backwards (aren't living organisms more a way of keeping track of changes in the gene pool), but I'm certainly not going to contest a point with Gould or the farmerman!

(Though I s'pose he was looking at it from the utilitarian point of view of trying to piece evolution together, in which he's absolutely correct. Now if there was just an easier way of determining which were the most recently revised entries...)

badabing patiodog, that was Goulds point. Genes are the way we keep record of the changes evolution has wrought. " Fitness benefits" accrue to the individual , the traits of which are handed down to future generations
New Haven, actually.Im closer to a paleontologist than a micro biologist. Ive recently been in a number of discussions in Ohio where the argument is that "something" has coded the genes to allow evolution to occur" (Its the intelligent design school, all drfessed up in lab coats),We look at the gene patterns after the speciation has occured. My answer is"how does that something know what the weather is going to be in 2 million years?" If you say something does know, then were talking about religion not science.
The discussions of evolution have always been the primary function of paleo, now that there are major disagreements in biologists and paleontologists as to "what defines a superorder or class", the biologists are able, through recent gene decoding, to define where the real breaks in species occur. As a geologist, Im happy with that, because I could never understand why a hirax is a relative of the elephant, I believe that gene makeup is showing that it aint so. So there goes the crossword puzzle answer.

Must be faulty book-keeping. DNA is constantly undergoing mutations.

new haven, yep, and most mutations are lethal. Genetic diversity , bestows fitness that an individual has for a specific environment (that was my comment about how do we know what the weather is going to be). This fitness is the lucky break that that the individual may pass on in its genes. Hence we can follow the human migration trail as we left Africa and adapted to all parts of the world
. Remember, there was no magic plan for the death of the dinosaurs, they were well adapted for the environment of the Permian through the mid Cretaceous and they just ran their course and, as the environment changed , they were dying off in the colder dryer , late Cretaceous. The meteorite that was popularly explained as the reason for the extinction of the dinos, has lately been given a secondary role to climatic effects.They tried adaptation and evolution into more compact forms that tolerated cold but not fast enough The lucky animals, those that could survive the fluctuating temperatures , were the tiny mammals and birds and dormant period reptiles and amphibians. We cant look too far back in genetics because the proteins that mimic the ACTG and Us dont get preserved in the chitnous layers or osteocalcin for more than about a million years.

Goulds point was that genic centered evolution is bullshat. Genes dont create the fitness , the fortunate animal who has the fitness , has this in his passel of genes. I think its probably the coolest point in an otherwise pompous book.

Most mutations (in eukaryotes and some archaea, at any rate) are benign, as they mostly occur in regions that code for nothing...

Still uncomfortable with the bookkeeping analogy because books report what's already happened; they don't cause subsequent transactions to occur in the exact same manner.

farmer,

Not only are genes a method of bookkeeping they are also the means of improving the method of bookkeeping in the future. As we all know here, today's methods of bookkeeping or survival may not meet tomorrow's requirements.

What most people forget also is that changes in DNA that are not lethal and still allow its replication are passed on to descendents whether or not its phenotypical expression is useful in its present environment. Thus a change that would benefit an organism far in the future may be passed along until a selection pressure lets it "Shine". One can only wonder about the potential of what seems to be today's "extraneous or junK" DNA. Complicating matters further one can consider DNA changes, being innocuous, awaiting further such changes becoming additive with the end result of a totally new gene or protein expression.

Thus DNA seems, to the "Intelligent Design" camp, to have been endowed with the ability to adapt to any new environmental circumstances. In fact the converse is true, 99% of new DNA or species variation is detrimental and only those individuals that possess the required attribute when needed at the time will be in a better position to pass on the DNA.

Also, it is important to realize: Those traits that are more likely to be passed, on for any reason, are considered "more fit" only by reason that they are passed on. Sounds recursively simplistic, but I have read of experiments that proved actual individual fitness in the environment is secondary to sexual selection. Those traits, deemed by individual females as desirable, will be selected even when those expressed traits might actually put an individual male at risk in its environment. Obviously there must be a balance, but this is an interesting phenomena

Were you involved in the recent flap wherein the Ohio legislature tried to require creationism in the classroom? I participated in an interesting thread on abuzz on this a little while ago.

JM

James, excellent points there. Ive always said to (whodever listen without getting bored) good ole fashion sexual congeress is the best way to stir up the genetic diversity. Also, However, the genetic toolbox has to be there to allow for adaptation to the environment with all its extremes

Yeh I was a silent participant in Ohio mostly on a request to give advice about what to present rather than presenting, I was much more visably active in PA where we managed to keep the intell designers out of thehigh school, science curriculum. In Ohio, however. its a done deal. The present strategy is just like the Scopes trial, where the Scopes trial was merely a setup for a successful appeal.
Patiodog, recent literature Ive been reading has started to waffle about whether "junk" DNA or interons and codons that represaent nuthin, even is a correct supposition. Its been discovered that certain entire segments of genes were possibly "hoovered" by ancient eukaryotes etc. AND, these entire sections add to the genome of a new species. For example, certain lichens have entire genomic sequences of crustacean shellmaking , so certain lichens have chitenous fruiting bodies. Specific populational attributes that are unique to populations of humans are recorded in what are known as Short Tandem Repeat alleles , or STR. These include what had been called junk DNA, but is what makes a Serbian population from one side of a valley forensically diffrent from their cross valley neighbors. This is getting a lot of play for forensic typology. If a serial killer leaves some DNA , it will be possible, in the future , to identify his or her ancestral area.
By the way

, Im just reporting this stuff as I read my journals and books and Im just a fellow enthusiast of science and evolution. The fact Im a geologist doesnt mean squat cuz I do my real career work mostly in geophysics and mineral exploration. I get sucked into some of these pro-bono fites with school boards and ed boards Mostly because I dont talk in 5 syllable words to a judge like a lot of the academics, not because I know anything. Im opinionated and will fight for what I think is true , but I dont carry anyconferred authority in this area. I just wanna make that point clear so I dont come off like some evo-nerd. Ill respect anyones beliefs and will take shots at anyone who I think is being disrespectful to me, but otherwise, anything you know that can add to this discussion and our collective understanding , please present it.
I said that because I got a sense that patio dog was being deferential, pleeeze no, I am often as full of kaka poopoo as a scovie duck, so that will serve as my disclaimer .

I'm just a kid, farmerman -- I'll come on knowing and arrogant in my time (maybe tomorrow...). Very cool about the possibility of eukaryotes doing transformation, sucking up bits of DNA like wee bacteria.

Keep up the good work regarding the intelligent design rubbish -- political trash and/or weakness in the face of the desire to have a final answer now...

(Great, great quote about that from Hans Zinssler, but I returned the damn book to the library, so I can't retrieve it...)

what Gould meant was quite a simple but profound observation. Genes , by mutation, dont drive evolution. Evolution occurs by a myriad of means to allow an individual to succesfully respond to an environmental consition or geographic separation from the parent species.The individual passes on this successful trait and we, the observant species we are, can fingerprint where the genic change was that confered the adaptation to the individual , then species.
Sort of like the chicken and egg spiral. Except here the environmental change that made the individual the most successful at adaptation, came second.
BTW, I dont reccomend the gould Book unless you are a glutton for his rambling, "rub it in your face" style of prose. His analogies are awful and often so erudite that, unless you are a trivia freak on Mozart, Bach,Wagnerian epic opera, and the New york Yankees, you have to keep looking up his endless chains of analogy. He would (and has, made a terrible witness) of course, being dead does limit his career options

Speaking of analogies, to me the bookkeeping idea would refer more to the human genome project where a scientific accounting will allow us to assess the uses/effects/flaws to be connected to each gene.
I look at genetics as being more like a vending machine you put in your $$$??? and out comes.............

Is it bookkeeping, or is it selective memorex? Bookkeeping is an act that occurs to document something. But Genes are not only a spontaneous record of chemical evolution, but also active players in the process. They are not only a record of information, but through selective loss, they also serve to alter the stage upon which new information can form.

While it's accurate to observe that genes by themselves do not make evolution happen, but it's not accurate to relegate them to a role of record keeping which is outside of the process.

Also, if the Universe can be said to have evolved from quarks to protons to atoms to elements to compounds to chemicals to biological reactions... then is Genetic evolution the only place in the process where information is building up?

quite true rosborne...;
but I'll stick to my analogy; in the accounts, as the numbers change so do the totals, perhaps rendering one in debt (or dead/not adapted).
Also as the changes take place, the series of "snapshots" (species) along the way produces a forensic history.
And, definitely the genes (accounts), with the exception of mutationally altered segments, do not produce the outcome (success/failure), they merely provide indicators as to why what happened, did!

Proteins are expressed from the genome, and they do, like, all the work. Phenotype is an expression of genotype, not vice versa.

You are all correct about whatever you want to call the gene in EVOLUTION. I chose bookkeeping because Gould chose bookkeeping. Its meant more as an analogy, wherein genes dont drive evolution, they merely record it. Yes its a slot machine, a random number generator etc. The fact that genetic diversity created by random combinations of genes during production of a gamete , or through genetic drift in a severing population, there is a rich diversity in our (and smaller genomes) remember a lungfish has a 4X greater gene compliment than people but only certain of them are "coding" (that was under the old chestnut. Now we are not too sure since the complement of genes that define a population can be either in the coding (codon) or non coding (interon) sequences. Thats why Gould chose other terms. Actually he was taking shots at Dawkins simplistic views that genes, via mutation, drive evolution. When Gould (and I agree totally) states that the change in environment demands adaptation or extinction. Adaptation means fitness, and the mutation didnt happen in preparation for the warming climate, or increased vulcanism. The genes were already there and , whats cool, they stay there in the evolving genome, so its no wonder that our genome is 97% similar to a chimp. Those coding genes were resulting from gradual changes that affected the arborial apes when they came down from trees and their cranial opening gradually migrated to allow an upright stature, as well as more features that, in some cases, ride the same chromosome

rosborne-as a geologist, I see the recorded changes our planet has gone through by non genetic record keeping via stratigraphy, geochronology, geomagnetics etc etc. There are hundreds of quick turns this planet has taken based on interior and exterior forces. Im not a Gaiaist but I like Lynn Margulis observations on how the records of the planet include all the physical as well as the biological past happenings, and everything corresponds to an energy budget available. I dont know how that is quantified but it sounds reasonable

Have been hearing Margulis bashed repeatedly recently for disseminating an incorrect life cycle of a particular slime mold in various texts. Good to hear her name in a positive light...

Hi Farmerman,

I love geology, and appreciate the history embedded in the rocks. But what I had in mind with my closing comments above actually relates to evolution on a much larger scale.

My thoughts arose from the original quote which analogized the genes as the bookkeeping of "evolution". Maybe this was just a slip, and Gould really mean "biological evolution", but still it made me wonder how the analogy might fit into the more general concept of Evolution and of Stellar Evolution...

Evolution as a general concept is just change. Biological evolution refers more to resultant change within an environment of many variables under pressure of selection. I was wondering if I could relate Gould's quote back to the more general concept at a Cosmic level.

In other words, we may recognize Genes as something similar to bookkeeping, but is the Cosmos as we know it today, also a bookkeeping record of sorts, which somehow reflects the Evolution of our Universe? Or is the "bookkeeping" analogy only viable at the level of biochemistry? Did the Universe have to evolve the way it is now, or does it feed back on itself as well, and evolve at random the way life does?

Best Regards,