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Topic: Darwin in the Genome - A Chat with Lynn Caporale
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posted 20. November 2003 14:14
Darwin in the Genome: A Chat with Lynn Caporale
http://www.iscid.org/lynn-caporale.php
Thursday, November 20th, 2003
9pm Eastern
Lynn Caporale received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California at Berkeley. After teaching and doing research at New York University, Memorial/Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, and Georgetown University Medical School, she moved to Merck Research Laboratories, where she spent over a decade focused on the discovery of new medicines.
Dr. Caporale has held research and senior executive positions with various biotechnology companies and in the pharmaceutical industry and currently is an independent consultant in drug discovery and functional genomics.
Lynn Caporale
I her latest book Darwin in the Genome, Lynn Caporale offers an exciting new theory that sees past both the ideas of a purely random model of evolution, and the alternative of the action of an external designer, to reveal a more comprehensible mechanism at work. A mechanism that looks startlingly strategic and purposeful, and yet is consistent with the basic Darwinian framework. Simply put: Not all mutations are random accidents. In the struggle for survival,from pathogens to flowers, birds to orangutans, baker's yeast to human beings,the fittest genomes become effective strategists, responding to, and in fact anticipating, challenges and opportunities in their environments.
In brief, Dr. Caporale examines the effect of Natural Selection on the very mechanisms that underly evolution, which generate variation as genomes are passed from one generation to the next. The result, she explains, is that the ability to evolve itself will evolve.
Writing with elegant clarity and rigor, Lynn Caporale describes the emergence of genomic mutation strategies, spelling out some of the more profound implications of these insights, including the possibility of bold new directions for medical research, and the inherent dangers of attempting to fix perceived "errors" in a human genome, all the while stressing the importance of human diversity, and biodiversity, for survival in a world in which each of us shares 99.97% of our DNA with every perfect stranger on Earth.
[ 29. November 2003, 10:49: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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nobody
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Member # 145
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posted 13. December 2003 22:08
quote:
Simply put: Not all mutations are random accidents. In the struggle for survival,from pathogens to flowers, birds to orangutans, baker's yeast to human beings, the fittest genomes become effective strategists, responding to, and in fact anticipating, challenges and opportunities in their environments.
No. Simply put: This is part of the disturbing current trend in "science" to attribute intelligence to the creation instead of the Creator. It reminds me of a recent article from Stanford University about a "smart" enzyme.
Link here:
http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=001048
quote:
''If the error is allowed to propagate, it could result in a bad protein or a wrong protein, but RNAP is an incredibly smart enzyme,''
See what I mean?
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Rex Kerr
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posted 13. December 2003 23:39
Anthropomorphic language assists in our understanding of the qualities of physical systems. I see nothing wrong with that, as long as people recognize that the language is analogical.
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posted 29. November 2003 10:49
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