From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 02 May 1994 - 01:11:28 EEST
Joerg:
> Simply say that the initiation into adulthood gives you an all-associate
> status, and costs one POW, and that you're expected to join a specific
> cult appropriate to your function, for the same point of POW.
Bryan J. Maloney:
> Well, I think I can dispell the argument regarding the use of simple
> quantitative DNA sequence homology comparison as the primary criterion
> of taxonomic classification.
Let me first "dispell" the suggestion that anyone ever said this. I was citing the genetic similarity only in the context of pouring scorn on the homonid/great apes classification, not suggesting anything like the above.
> Let us accept that "a chimpanzee" has
> a "98% sequence homology" with "a human". Note the quotes.
I do, and let me note also that _I_ certainly didn't use two of them, lest it be thought that someone, like say me, who started this thread, was actually being quoted here.
> Ultimately, the basic "type" of
> organism something turns out to be is determined by genetic coding, but it's
> a great deal more complicated than simple quantitative analysis would make
> things appear. For example[s deleted]:
Who would doubt this?
> Now, what has this to do with chimpanzees and humans?
Not a lot, really. The function of particular sequences isn't very important when one is considering a classification which purports to explain how particular species _got_ them, to wit, divergent evolution.
> It
> can be probably used to clarify some finer points, but I wouldn't swear
> by it.
Only insofar as the metric itself being overly crude, not the underlying principle.
> Another way of looking at this: A male human shares greater sequence
> homology over his entire genome with a male chimpanzee than does a male human
> share with a female human or a male chimp with a female chimp. Does this
> make male chimpanzees more closely biologically related to male humans than
> female humans are related to male humans?
I think what it means is your definition of "sequence homology" (a) isn't a concept I appealed to as such; and (b) needs work. You're claiming males and females are (at most) 99% "similar" since (appromimately) half of one chromatid is missing in the male, and hence is "entirely different" from the corresponding one in the female, right? Why the maximum would be less than 99% escapes me for the moment, but is probably not very relevant.
> (For the astute: Yes, I am talking about the XX/XY chromosome pairs. I
> consider it an excellent way to illustrate the absurdity of quantitative
> genetic taxonomy as a primary method.)
Saying an X and a Y are only (roughly) 50% homologous, as you appear to be implying, is a highly misleading way of looking at this. There is no reasonable comparison for saying that the "missing" parts of a Y are "as dissimilar" as a 100% mismatch along that part of the sequence. I think this explains your dubious numbers.
Alex.
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