Re: Pitt professor's theory of evolution gets boost from cell research


rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> hersheyhv wrote:
> > Ash wrote:
> > > hersheyhv wrote:
> > > > Ash wrote:
> > > >> http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2006/01/26/pitt_professors_theory_of_evolution_gets_boost_from_cell_research.html
> > > >>
> > > >> anyone know anything of this?
> > > >> It seems an odd thing to be in a journal called New Anatomist
> > > >
> > > > Jeffrey Schwartz's book, "Sudden Origins" is, as one person politely
> > > > called it, one of the worst science books ever published. It is filled
> > > > with ignorance of genetics and incompetent review of the literature
> > > > related to genetics. snip
> > > That and the fact that, AIR, his
> > > > thesis implies that 'recessive' alleles switch to 'dominant' when they
> > > > increase in frequency in a population.
> > >
> > > Was he really saying that? I thought he was saying they were more likely
> > > to be expressed (which makes sense to me, if they are at a greater
> > > frequency, there is more chance of an individual having two copies)
> >
> > I made a conscious effort to try to forget the book. But the
> > discussion, AIR (and that was 6 years ago), was that 'recessive'
> > alleles stay hidden until they burst upon the stage and then become
> > 'dominant'. Not 'more frequent'. Dominant. I see this as conflating
> > (whether intentional or through ignorance, I know not) the meaning of
> > the word dominance as it is actually used in genetics, where
> > dominance/recessive describes the phenotypic effect of alternate
> > alleles in a heterozygote, with the idea of 'most frequent allele in
> > the population'. No mention of Hardy or Weinberg in his book, AIR.
> > The most frequent allele in a population is called the "wild type"
> > allele, not the "dominant" allele. This is a pretty fundamental
> > distinction that a first year undergrad in biology should (but alas
> > does not always) be able to make.
>
> I suppose it cuts no ice to say that the word "predominant" informally
> would apply. Perhaps it was used and was misheard?

I would have to borrow it from the library again, and, frankly, I don't
want to. But I am quite sure he used "dominant" and not "predominant".
Check out the discussion at the time. If he had used the latter, I am
sure I would not have regarded his thesis as badly as I did (although
it would still be a very, very, very incompetent misinterpretation of
the historical literature and the evidence -- heavy on discredited
pre-1930s ideas and very light on population genetics). And this
misuse of 'dominant' would fit in with his equally incompetent useage
of terms like progenesis and neoteny. It really is a bad, ugly,
embarrasing book (or it should be, but Schwartz seems to be some sort
of 'iconclast' self-promoter with a tin ear and tons of chutzpah).

.

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