Cliff Lundberg wrote:
>
> >This would mean that all the information for the making of insects was
> >already `front loaded' into centipedes?
>
> Why would it mean this? If you truncate a centipede down to six legs,
> you don't have an insect, you have a stubby centipede. Anyway, the
> article said insects evolved from precursors with a centipede-like
> structure, not from centipedes. The centipedes we know are themselves
> specialized and evolved, possibly from the same precursor.
>
When I first read Steve's post, I also thought it was not an example of
needing front loaded information. But now I wonder, wouldn't there need to
be more information to have more than a stubby centipede? As well as the
AbdA and Ubx genes, there must be other information working together.
Several genes, and how they interact with eachother would be what is
required for these two genes to have complete benefit.
It would be interesting to see what these genes, alone and in tandem, do to
insects such as centipedes. What other information must be there? I'm
sure we can find this out as we find the functions of more and more genes.
What works alone well, and is better than the other, and what must have
something else to work with to benefit the organism? I think using
cladistics with genetics we will be better able to trace the relationships
between organisms than even fossil records. The gaps in that geneology of
life may be a bit more revealing.
> There are so many things in nature which we can't duplicate mechanically,
> what is the point here, other than good ol' personal incredulity? Are we
> supposed to just sit and marvel, or are we supposed to puzzle things out?
Both. But you knew that :)
Ami Chopine
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