Re: Aunger vs. Pinker on Galton attention attention Derek and Chris

From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat 16 Apr 2005 - 21:21:58 GMT

  • Next message: Scott Chase: "Aunger ribosomal redux (attention Chris Taylor and Derek Gatherer)"

    --- Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> wrote:

    > Dear Scott,
    >
    > > Which eminent evolutionary author is correct on
    > > Darwin's relation to Galton, Aunger or Pinker?
    > >
    >
    > Charles Darwin and Francis Galton had the same
    > grandfather (Erasmus
    > Darwin), but different grandmothers. Maybe they were
    > half-cousins. ;-)
    >
    > See
    > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Erasmus_Darwin
    >
    So the prominent MIT linguist would have been more correct?

    BTW, there's a section Aunger has on ribosomes being involved in DNA replication that has me thoroughly baffled. Did I fall asleep in cell biology class one day and miss this part? Aunger (p.86) says: "At this point, the message of DNA on one side can be read off by ribosomes to produce its complement, which is then tacked on to form a new stretch of DNA."

    If ribomoses *contain" subunits with rRNA is that the same as ribosomes being "a peculiar type of RNA"
    [Aunger p. 86].?

    Alberts et al in _Molecular Biology of the Cell_ (4th ed.) define a ribosome as follows: "[p]article composed of ribosomal RNAs and ribosomal proteins that associates with messenger RNA and catalyzes the synthesis of protein."

    Aunger does go on to talk about ribosomal operations of protein synthesis, but its the DNA replication operation that confuses the hell out of me. Do ribosomes play any direct role in this?

    Hopefully Derek and Chris can offer their expertise on this matter of cell biology.

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