genetic tool kits


This was buried down in one of the other threads, but it's so
incredibly important, I thought I'd start a separate thread ....

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Origins of Form, Ancient genes, recycled and repurposed, control
embryonic development in organisms of striking diversity.

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/1105/1105_feature4.html

"... The very first shots fired in the evo-devo revolution revealed
that despite their great differences in appearance, almost all animals
share a common "tool kit" of body-building genes. That
discovery-actually a series of discoveries-vaporized many previous
ideas about how animals differ from one another...."

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For instance, starting back with Ernst Mayr, and also discussed by
R.Dawkins in his book Climbing Mount Improbable, it was hypothesized
that the eye evolved independently about 40 different times in many
different animal types.

However, due to recent work in molecular biology and evo-devo, it seems
there are common ancestor genes that factor in the production of all
eye types. This is similar to existence of other genes common to
similar developmental aspects across species. What is different that
produces specific types of eye/etc is apparently that the genes are
expressed differently, and also interact differently with other genes
and various cellular proteins.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Underestimating r
    ... >>> for the Aa organism if it wants to promote the ... >> in promoting the success of the common allele A. ... > with Aa is more likely to behave in a way that promotes ... Most genes that become common do so without ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Evolution in progress?
    ... children and contributing instead to the common good can be presented ... that it is solely genes that create career women. ... lot more of us would still be monks now. ... However, the sort of person ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: Evolution in progress?
    ... children and contributing instead to the common good can be presented ... that it is solely genes that create career women. ... lot more of us would still be monks now. ... However, the sort of person ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: Shared Psuedogenes: Common Ancestor or Common Mechanism?
    ... with other animals is not because we have a common ancestor with them, ... but because certain genes are more susceptible to being duplicated than ... psuedogenes in common with them. ... 'hot spots' that are shared between species because of some ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Evolution in progress?
    ... children and contributing instead to the common good can be presented ... that it is solely genes that create career women. ... lot more of us would still be monks now. ... However, the sort of person ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)