More On That Breaking Genetics Anomaly
Link is to another well-written article reporting on the phenomenon.
The essence of what's going on is: the entire world has believed something to be "scientifically true" for 150 years, and a single set of experiments has managed to undo this idea in front of everyone like a magic trick drawing oohs and ahhs: the scientists at the end of the article call the results of these experiments "spectacular." And without anyone questioning the credentials of the scientists involved or the design of the experiment or anything; everyone seems to agree that this anomaly is real and unexplained. It's the kind of thing that doesn't happen very often and it's kind of special: a genuine scientific anomaly up close, bizarre, defying everyone.
Basically they got some flowers that don't open right if they have inherited a genetic defect from their parents. That is strict Mendelian genetics: you inherit stuff from your parents. You know, how else is it going to work? It's not even possible to think outside that box ... Except 1 in 10 of these children's flowers open right anyway, which appears to mean they inherited genetic material from their grandparents somehow. And the results are ironclad so no one's trying to wriggle out of the implications. Right now they're looking for where a presumed molecular back-up copy of the normal gene might hide, which may mean they've misunderstood the problem: what if instead of looking for a mechanistic molecular back-up copy, why not use this opportunity to explore a more holistic and/or field theory explanation. Perhaps such an approach would be fruitful, since the mechanistic theory failed to predict this anomaly. At least on the face of it, a systems theory or field theory explanation could probably fare well here in terms of explanatory power.
One of the implications: genetic systems are too complex, and too little understood, to go around tinkering with the genome and growing genetically modified crops in the open air. Even if 1 in 10 might anomalously repair themselves. If there are still major unexpected/unknown/unexplained effects of simple inheritance fer chrissakes, then we have no business unleashing lab-born genetic constructs on the natural world.
The essence of what's going on is: the entire world has believed something to be "scientifically true" for 150 years, and a single set of experiments has managed to undo this idea in front of everyone like a magic trick drawing oohs and ahhs: the scientists at the end of the article call the results of these experiments "spectacular." And without anyone questioning the credentials of the scientists involved or the design of the experiment or anything; everyone seems to agree that this anomaly is real and unexplained. It's the kind of thing that doesn't happen very often and it's kind of special: a genuine scientific anomaly up close, bizarre, defying everyone.
Basically they got some flowers that don't open right if they have inherited a genetic defect from their parents. That is strict Mendelian genetics: you inherit stuff from your parents. You know, how else is it going to work? It's not even possible to think outside that box ... Except 1 in 10 of these children's flowers open right anyway, which appears to mean they inherited genetic material from their grandparents somehow. And the results are ironclad so no one's trying to wriggle out of the implications. Right now they're looking for where a presumed molecular back-up copy of the normal gene might hide, which may mean they've misunderstood the problem: what if instead of looking for a mechanistic molecular back-up copy, why not use this opportunity to explore a more holistic and/or field theory explanation. Perhaps such an approach would be fruitful, since the mechanistic theory failed to predict this anomaly. At least on the face of it, a systems theory or field theory explanation could probably fare well here in terms of explanatory power.
One of the implications: genetic systems are too complex, and too little understood, to go around tinkering with the genome and growing genetically modified crops in the open air. Even if 1 in 10 might anomalously repair themselves. If there are still major unexpected/unknown/unexplained effects of simple inheritance fer chrissakes, then we have no business unleashing lab-born genetic constructs on the natural world.
posted by Jim Richardson at 4:34 PM
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