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Richard Lewontin-Genetic Determination and Adaptation: Two Bad Metaphors : Pharyngula
He was there to talk about the importance and danger of metaphors, and addressed two of them. The New Testament metaphor of genes make organisms, and the Old Testament metaphor that organisms adapt to the environment.
Memes, selfish genes and Darwinian paranoia
Godfrey-Smith makes an excellent argument at some point in the book (chapter 7, on the gene’s eye view) that genes are not at all the sort of things Richard Dawkins and some other biologists think they are. (Psychology Today)
More Evidence That Intelligence Is Largely Inherited: Researchers Find That Genes Determine Brain's Processing Speed
In a study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and colleagues used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain's axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain's wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought.
THE EVOLUTION LIST: Horizontal Gene Transfer and Intelligent Design Theory
new discoveries in the field of horizontal gene transfer had invalidated Darwin's "tree of life", as illustrated by his diagram in the Origin of Species.
From Genes to Social Behavior
"When it comes to behavior, we have moved beyond genetic determinism. Our genes do not lock us into certain ways of acting; rather, genetic influences are complicated and mutable and are only one of many factors affecting behavior. In their editorial, Landis and Insel (p. 821) elaborate on this idea, explaining that proteins encoded by genes direct the formation of multicomponent neural circuits, which are the true substrates of behavior, as these circuits respond to internal and outside stimuli." -- Jasny et al. 322 (5903): 891 -- Science
In a Novel Theory of Mental Disorders, Parents’ Genes Are in Competition
Bernard Crespi of Simon Fraser University and a fellow researcher propose that a tug of war between genes can tip brain development. - NYTimes.com
It’s Not all in the Genes Anymore
Now it turns out that genes, per se, are simply too feeble to accept responsibility for much of anything. By the traditional definition, genes are those lineups of DNA letters that serve as instructions for piecing together the body’s proteins, and, I’m sorry, but the closer we look, the less instructive they seem, less a “blueprint for life” than one of those disappointing two-page Basic Setup booklets that comes with your computer, tells you where to plug it in and then directs you to a Web site for more information. - NYTimes.com
Now - The Rest of the Genome
new large-scale studies of DNA are causing her and many of her colleagues to rethink the very nature of genes. They no longer conceive of a typical gene as a single chunk of DNA encoding a single protein. “It cannot work that way,” Dr. Prohaska said. There are simply too many exceptions to the conventional rules for genes. - NYTimes.com
Searching for Intelligence in Our Genes: Scientific American
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The children who take the tests are all twins, and throughout the study identical twins have tended to get scores closer to each other than those of nonidentical twins, who in turn have closer scores than unrelated children. These results—along with similar ones from other studies—make clear to the scientists that genes have an important influence on how children score on intelligence tests.
Reconsiderations: Richard Dawkins and His Selfish Meme
From its attention-grabbing title to its accessible prose, Richard Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene" (1976) has (selfishly) spread its message in an impressive way since publication. (April 23, 2008 - The New York Sun)
The More We Know About Genes, the Less We Understand
Carl Zimmer's Dissection: "But scientists don't quite know why a network like the one in E. coli can handle this rewiring so well. The source of their strength lies not in a single molecule -- DNA -- but in a complicated web of relationships. The network itself is the mystery for biologists in the 21st century."
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But scientists don't quite know why a network like the one in E. coli can handle this rewiring so well. The source of their strength lies not in a single molecule -- DNA -- but in a complicated web of relationships. The network itself is the mystery for biologists in the 21st century.
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