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Origins of....Species (Life Sciences)
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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I was just reading Genesis and I got a really nifty idea. If you read the story of Creation, you may be shocked (as I was) to see that there appear to be two sources of biological life: the sea (from which even birds are supposed to have emerged) and the land. The two being quite independent.

This got me thinking about the concept raised in the Hydrological Treasure Hunt about "beaches" being lifeless barriers between two life-rich worlds. As though there was always meant to be a "firmament" (division) between them both.

So let's say you have one animal in the ocean and one animal on the land. Left alone, each will reproduce "After it's own kind" (as Genesis tells us) and neither species will ever give birth to a new species. But some genes from the land or the sea somehow migrate from one world to the other where they infect a population of the opposed species (and viruses are certainly a means by which entire populations can be affected by a genetic invasion -- rather than single individuals). That species now births a hybrid and we have three species. (Leaving out the virus of course!)

The "three from two" creative process jibes with both the ancient philosophical tradition found in all creation myths and with the modern (Hegelian) version of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It seems to be woven into the very fabric of the universe.
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Jenny


In: Central Victoria, Australia.
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I never thought of viral transfer before but I did have in mind actual transferring of human genome through the bone marrow, e.g. Eve out of Adam's rib. Where on earth did that idea really stem from?? These days, for the treatment of leukemia, cells are taken from the donor's rib and then put into the patient's blood stream via a drip. Is it old technology or new?
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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And now there is proof!
www.canada.com/search/story.html?id=05487501-f727-4ffc-9766-99b2f0cfe9bf
Seems that scientists have demonstrated various "species" of single celled organisms passing DNA and reproducing. Now I ask you, what are the sperm and egg of any single species but single-celled organisms? If a sperm or egg was "desperate" to reproduce itself, and had few options, might it not "consider" combining with another species?

Might bestiality, as a human mental aberation, have a reproductive purpose? Perhaps all species contain individuals who are open to inter-species "pollination" on the off chance that such a pairing might pay off -- or even must pay off. We see examples where male frogs become female frogs (or is it vice versa?) when there is a lack of the opposite sex. Might similar circumstances promote some fundamental change on the level of sperm and ovum?
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Oakey Dokey



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I wish it were so simple.

We are constantly getting inter-species 'humped' with every viral infection. With simpler organisms the complex method of preserving genes is not as important as higher organisms with vastly bigger variation and diversity - even within each cell. Simple single cells and like species have often less and different ways of packaging their DNA from us. And indeed reproduce in an entirely different way.

But let's not get carried away - there are some amazing things just within human genetics. Such as the currently-being-overturned belief that all genetic information is held within the DNA strands(chromosomes). Also, the belief that males don't contribute to Mitochondrial DNA is being thrown out (WOW - what an impact this will have on archaeology and genealogy!). How about the Chimera humans which will overthrow the legal standing of DNA profiling, such as the mother whose DNA didn't match her own children but the father's did!

There are so many scenarios and our understanding is just beginning in this area. Gene expression is a very new science and accelerating our understanding each year.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Gene research is in that interesting stage when it has just sufficient authority for people to cite it "scientifically" but not enough "basic certainty" to prevent any old theory relying on it.

I've ridden this hobby-horse before but the mitochondrial evidence (to take just one aspect) is a peculiarly inapt method for judging chronology since everybody's mitochondria is exactly as old as everybody else's. So if you discover, say, that African populations have the most variation in mtDNA then you jump on the orthodox bandwagon and shout "Look, genetic evidence for Out of Africa". On the other hand, if you discover that African populations have the least variation, you jump on the orthodox bandwagon and shout "Look, genetic evidence for Out of Africa." Both arguments work (by the standards of orthodoxy).

On the other hand, if you jumped off the bandwagon and shouted "Look, genetic evidence that Out of Africa must be wrong" (an argument that works no less well), you'd be run out of town on a rail. It's a tricky decision for young, groundbreaking academics to make: should they take the path that leads to a Chair in Population Genetics or should they take the one that leads them to their rapid exeunt from the Hallowed Halls?

Of course, if you shouted "We must on no account use genetic evidence in its present state of knowledge to underpin hypotheses in other fields-of-study", you'd be tarred and feathered, then run out of town on a rail.

As a matter of interest, Applied Epistemology actually got started in this neck of the woods with the question of why the North American Indians are exclusively drawn from the "A" and "O" blood groups.
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Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Because they are the source of it.
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Mick Harper
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If that's the case, Komoro, why do the South American Indians lack the "A" allele? (They are all in the "O" blood group.)
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Martin



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small original groups in a succession of migrations
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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OK, Martin, let's test your thesis:
first group -- accidentally only has O-group members (even money shot if a very small group)
second group -- accidentally only has O-group members (odds now against)
third group -- accidentally only has O-group members (odds now lengthening)
fourth group....er... how many groups make "a succession", Martin? Remember, we gotta fill the whole of South America (and reach Tierra del Fuego by 8,000 BC). And then I suppose we'll have to switch the tap off pronto in case an A-body comes along.

If it's any consolation, the whole of orthodoxy is lined up solidly behind you.
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Martin



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First group O. Colonise all of the Americas.

Second group O and A. They don't get past Central America.
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Mick Harper
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Vair well, let us examine zis model.
1. The first group have to populate the whole of the Americas in order to reach Tierra del Fuego.
2. In order to accidentally lack both A and B alleles this group would have to be...um...two people?...three is acceptable....four is pushing it...five is just about possible...six, no.
3. Can five people fill two continents? Yes, I suppose so...though it's a bit reminiscent of Adam-and-Eve. (As in "Would you Adam-and-Eve it?").
4. But it would have taken some considerable time. Do we know of a mechanism that allows five people through then cuts off all movement for thousands of years?
5. Anyway, the thousands of years pass, and we get the next Great Event: the arrival of the second group.
6. This also is very small because it accidentally lacks the B allelle, though this time I would say we can go up to at least a dozen without straining statistical chance too much.
7. Now we've got a big problem. These dozen O- and A-carriers are confronted by several million O-Americans. How the hell are our Dirty Dozen gonna infect the broad masses with their A allele so that when anthropologists get to look they seem to be an ordinary population, albeit lacking the B-allele? "Come in, old chap, fuck the wife why don't you."
8. But how are these unstoppable sex-machines stopped by Central America? Completely and forever.

You're still being backed by orthodoxy, Mart, but it's your only source of comfort.
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Martin



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what percentage of people are 'O'?
why only two or three people in the group?
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Mick Harper
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Well look, Martin, the numbers scarcely matter. In order to exclude such a common feature of any known human population as A and/or B blood groups, the numbers have to be tiny. It doesn't really matter in the broad scheme of things whether the original postulated group is two, three, four, ten or twenty (though it must surely be nearer two than twenty). It's the whole notion of tiny groups - and remember just one tiny group per every few thousand years - populating entire continents that strains credulity.

Orthodoxy, because it has various paradigms to support, often ends in these absurdist positions (which are only not-absurd because they are taught as "well, this has to be the way it is" and then left at that). Can you imagine my fate if I proposed a revisionist theory that depended on Adam and Eve and Pinchme populating two whole continents?
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Martin



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Surely a small population will breed out much variation. Inbreeding in this population will lead any particular gene to either die out or dominate.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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This cannot be right. All three blood groups are pretty well inextinguishable....although I'd be glad of guidance if dominance and recessive is involved here. But it depends what you mean by small. Orthodoxy relies on a truly tiny original population, that is one that is so small it just happens to lack the particular allele. Any reasonable population, and certainly any population being reinforced over a number of years in the usual way, will reflect the blood groups of its parent population.
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