Re: Less genes than expected

From: Kenneth Van Oost (Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be)
Date: Mon Feb 12 2001 - 21:19:10 GMT

  • Next message: Kenneth Van Oost: "Re: Less genes than expected" 

    Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA12826 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 12 Feb 2001 20:44:41 GMT
Message-ID: <002501c09539$71f17d20$6b0bbed4@default>
From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
References: <F15YoiB5ANH2cv0aGlt00008374@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Less genes than expected
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 22:19:10 +0100
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk

    Hi Scott,

    First of all, did you receive my post concerning info germline integration
    !?
    If not, remind me of trying it again.

    Of course you are right, everybody, including me was carried away by the
    prospect that humans have lesser genes than expected.
    Not that this would give me a blow in my ' humanity ', though.
    I don ' t have to be at the top of the evolutionary ladder
    And yes, indeed, we have to see first what the truth is, we have to take
    this
    with more than a grain of salt.
    But than again, I will concentrate myself on the implications/ benefits and
    gains from a memetisist perspective.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

    Best,

    Kenneth

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Scott Chase <ecphoric@hotmail.com>
    To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 9:00 PM
    Subject: Re: Less genes than expected

    > Another way to look at the surprise over "too few genes" (if the recent
    news
    > holds out over time because IIRC a year or two ago there were estimates
    > going the other way, meaning way over 100,000 genes in humans) is that if
    > you start off by putting humans at the top rung of a fictional
    evolutionary
    > ladder, you will be surprised to discover that it doesn't take all that
    much
    > more to make us. Are humans all that important that we need a whole bunch
    > more genes to produce us? Are fruitflies and nematodes "beneath" us in
    some
    > general scalar sense? Do they occupy a position several rungs down or have
    > they branched from a common ancestor and been changing from that shared
    > point all this time? Anthropocentrism rears its ugly head, thus the
    > surprise.
    >
    > I wonder, though, if this newsflash should be taken with a grain of salt.
    It
    > will take a while for the dust to settle over the genome mapping project.
    >
    > _________________________________________________________________

    >

    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 12 2001 - 20:46:50 GMT