Yes, this article is interesting, but will require study. Allow me a quick
comment based only on the abstrct. Given what we know from evo-devo about how
entangled is the process of intergeneratonal transfer, modularity is indeed the
new miracle of genetics. Given all the editing, revisioning, and and just
mucking about that characterizes the developmental process, how is it that ANY
traits end up be passed on to offspring? So, once we see modularity as an
achievement, rather than as "just the way things are" then we have to ask the
old George Williams question: how is it that properties of the genome such as
modularity can get selected for.
I hope we can all read this carefully and talk about it.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Russell Gonnering
To: [email protected];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 8/29/2009 7:43:03 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why sex?
I'm all for "mixibility".
Russ #3
On Aug 29, 2009, at 7:20 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
It's been 8 months since the publication of "A mixibility theory for the role
of sex in evolution" by Livnat et. al. (PNAS December 16, 2008). But I didn't
come across it until very recently. The message is that sexual reproduction
doesn't contribute directly to scaling fitness peaks. Instead over a period of
generations it selects for genes that work well with a wide range of other
genes. (That's what the "mixibility" in the title refers to.) This in turn
leads to modularity within the genome, which leads to improved
evolvability--since the genes are not so tightly coupled to each other.
This seems like a very different way of understanding the role of sexual
reproduction. I'm surprised that it hasn't generated more buzz. Or is it just
that I haven't been paying attention?
-- Russ
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