From: CurtAdams@aol.com
Date: Mon Sep 21 1998 - 09:03:29 MDT
In a message dated 9/20/98 10:36:42 PM, jonkc@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>CurtAdams@aol.com Wrote:
>
>>It's not a "higher level code" or anything like that. The similarity
>>between different high-level developmental control genes just reflects
>>the extreme difficulty of changing anything essential to the organism's
>>survival.
>
>I don't understand your distinction. it seems to me that if that's not a
>high level code it is most certainly something like that.
A code allows you to decode something. Knowing the eye-signal gene allows
you to spot other eye-signals - but gives you no idea what any other gene
does. With the genetic code, by contrast, I can give you the amino acid
sequence of any gene, including ones I've never seen before.
>
>> Anyway, it's not the highly conserved genes that differentiate
>> us from the chimp - they don't distinguish us from anything.
>
>Huh?
Developmental morphology, metabolism enzymes, promoter recognizer, etc.
genes - the ones for which such claims are made - are functionally the
same in us, fruit flies, nematodes, and chimps. Your eye-signal gene
can't differentiate you from a chimp because it's not different in any
functional sense. A human who had all the highly conserved genes from a
chimp would be a human to all tests, except to a sequencing machine.
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