New thread about WTW's Fitness article

[Merantes]

This post concerns WTW Fitness article.

Originally Posted by william the wierd
Since my wife is preparing for a [ med procedure] {SNIP for character count}. I've written several articles to work off the stress. This one is about genetic fitness and politics.

I hope all went well for your wife.

My qualifications: my wife is technical supervisor of a dept. in the Mayo Jax campus lab so when I met her I started reading up on biology so I could follow her shop talk. My own background is in finance. While reading I learned that geneticists also deal with discounted income flows. Reading up on how superbright people reinvent the wheel because they don't know that they could spend time in their college's undergraduate business school and save themselves months or even years of research proving something that was proven in the 1700s bond market fills me with delight. "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley is a good example of this. Geneticists have discovered that birds and other animals in the mate market buy formerly "Distressed" genetic properties that are on the upswing. But the real fun comes when the reinventors of the wheel dumb things down for politicians.

I quite agree. I try to keep abreast of areas outside of my own areas of expertise and it is well worth the extra work. I am trained or made myself competent in many areas: molecular genetics, virology, immunology, the eye, bacteriology. These area areas I work in or have worked in. I also am venturing into field-effect transistors, nanotechnology, and population genetics. I have to shore up on finance though.

The Santa Fe Institute is a shining example of experts in many fields coming together to share knowledge and solve problems. Murray Gell-Mann is a prime example.

Political actions change the environment and therefore what is the fittest under changed circumstances. Combine this with a misunderstood idea of what fitness is and the Marx brothers have nothing on politicians. {SNIP: char ct}

Our politicians in general are woefully ignorant of science, technology, even mathematics.

Take Climate Change/Global Warming. All of the suppositions of GW were disproven in 1961 by Edward N. Lorenz of the MIT meteorology department. The argument is that adequately detailed data cannot be collected for longrun weather predictions because of limits on the detail of measurement available from the instruments used to measure the data. So instead of saying "pollution bad! stop it!" politicians are busy making themselves look like idiots. Genetic fitness like weather or the economy is also a Chaotic system of boom and bust only attempts at smoothing seem more reasonable when it comes to genetic fitness. With GW BS at least pollution, which is bad for us, is likely to be reduced. In the economy central banking and the welfare state (more so in the UK, Scandinavia, Germany, France and Japan than in the US) caused the 1930s depression and will likely be abandoned in the next great depression they cause. But when it comes to Genetic fitness the stakes are higher.

Agreed. However, we are learning to glean some information from past climates statuses from ice sheets and old rock. I like your simple, yet direct, "pollution bad! stop it!" stance. i would also add that we should treat GW like we treat drug candidates in clinical trials: safety first. If there there is an inkling of harm, kill it. If there is reasonable evidence that CO2 emissions are altering the environment (which may be bad for us), reduce them. Safety first! If we can link the change to some other incentive, particularly economic, all the better.

First a few definitions:

Fitness is having more than the average number of great-grandchildren. Nothing else matters but that one goal from a genetic viewpoint. Sperm or ova donation; abandoning children to adoption or foster care or any other technique that amplifies genetic success is automatically rewarded. Going to school, making more money and anything else that distracts from this goal is automatically punished by the genes that lead to such behavior being flushed from the gene pool.

Good point, but I do not entirely agree. Successfully passing on your genetic information is the better definition of fitness. For humans, I think your definition is mostly correct. However, bees offer an interesting alternative. Workers are sterile, but they benefit from supporting the hive because the Queen, their sister or mother, passes on their genetic info. They share on average half of her genetic identity.

"Desirable" genes that do not spread do not spread for a reason. Promoting such genes will lead to the discovery of the reason why they haven't spread.

Again, often but not always true. Or true for non-gene-specific reasons. Environmental selective pressures may change and then the cost of making the now unneeded encoded product is what is selected against. Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is an example. In an environment without antibiotics, the cost of making the resistance factor is selected against. However, the resistance factor protein is not directly selected against.

"Undesirable" genes that spread do so for a reason. Suppression of such genes will also lead to discovery as to why they have spread.

Same caveat, particularly when it comes to sexual selection. Some superior are selected for, but other inferior genes the individual may possess get carried along on their coattails.

Savings account interest rates are listed to 1/100th of a per cent. While it has not been proven it is highly unlikely that genetic returns are not measured to the nearest 1/10,000th per cent. It is also likely that voters will get 100 times more angry over medical advice from government entities that lead to reduced genetic returns.

This may be more true for haploid organisms than for diploid or polyploid organisms. Even for the haploids the coattail issue arises. Some genes are more important for survival and reproduction than others. A bacteria that evolves antibiotic resistance and just has a more effective version of the gene may do better than its neighbors even its overall genetic blueprint is inferior to the mean of its contemporaries.

Given those definitions the FDA, NCI and other medical advice dispensing agencies are a political catastrophe waiting for a time to blow up the federal government. Proposed health agencies such as Universal Healthcare are quite interesting and astonishingly stupid. Given the anti-vaccine movement, the raw foods movement, holistic healthcare and various religious objections to different parts of the existing nanny state health system the Dems in particular seem to have a deathwish. Obama and Hillary are proposing more of the same failed nanny knows best policies. Take immunizations while heavy metal poisoning has been has been partly addressed what about reduced fitness from other causes?

Allergic reaction to the antibiotics used to prevent infection from the contaminants in the injections.

And there are quite a long list of contaminants starting with the hypodermic syrenge that makes the injection, the vaccine bottle and the vaccine cocktail. The current hepatitis C epidemic got a huge boost from the pneumatic hypodermic injection guns used by the military during the Vietnam war. I lucked out and didn't get hepatitis but many didn't luck out from that half-assed experiment.
There are nearly 30 identified sources of contamination per injection and their effects can be cumulative, subtle and longterm. One reaction per contaminate/100,000 injections is considered a safe vaccine but a three shot series per disease and immunization against 50 diseases = 0.15% reactions. In other words there is a very high likelihood that you know of a child taken out of the genetic sweepstakes due to immunization although you may not realize that this is the cause of the infantile diabetes or other autoimmune disease you observe.

I agree with your conclusions, but I don't necessarily think they follow from your argument. Maybe I am missing something.

When it comes to immunization the questions that are not answered are:

Efficacy: does the vaccine work? Who knows? determination of who has natural or acquired immunity prior to immunization and subtracting out that fraction of the population either is not done or is not properly advertised. The next PDA that I hear that says the placebo worked 20% of the time and the vaccine worked 80% of the time so the vaccine works 75% of the time and the injection reaction rate was only 3 cases/10,000 vs. 1/10,000 for the placebo will be a first.
probability of infection: not given.

And this situation can be multiplied times the recommended vaccines and that in turn by the number of dubious recommendations put out by all federal agencies. This will cause a big blow up.

Again, I do not entirely follow you. Vaccine efficacy in humans -- in clinical trials -- is usually measured by correlates of protection (e.g., production of antibodies that neutralize the pathogen in vitro -- in the test tube). It's not ethical to test whether the vaccine offers protection against a real viral or microbial challenge. There are trials that look at the incidence of infection following immunization (versus a cohort that was not immunized). If we assume equal exposure frequencies or somehow correct for any differences, we can gauge the vaccines effectiveness. Granted, these types of trials have their limitations. Still, I am having a hard time following your argument.

Anyway, a very interesting post. And if you are interested in talking more about these points, I'd be happy to do so.

[william the wierd]

I think the biggest problem in communications about genes is that definitions are changing faster than even people in the field can keep up with:

Epigene the idea that alleles are turned on and off by supervisor genes even across generations is freaking out biologists big time.

Jumping genes the lengthening and shortening of repeats in the gene code while accepted and partly understood is still confusing. Is it directed adaptation to environmental change, random, who the hell knows or some combination of the preceding? There are one or more additional Nobel prizes waiting for that answer.

Exceptions to the one allele one enzyme rule keep being found.

Since this is a political forum I decided to ignore non-mammalian genetic problems. This is an accepted practice as in biologists usually ignore the fact that birds use ZW sex selection when discussing pair bonding. That male birds and female mammals are homozygous for sex chromosomes no doubt has major effects on rates of pairbonding in birds vs. mammals but in either case a very wide range of sexual behaviors are seen. So ignoring the political implications of bee or other critters' genetic strategies does not strike me as a big deal. The confusion caused by changing knowledge does need exposition. In particular the advocacy of genetic policies by non-geneticists as in China, India and Vietnam with their increasingly insane sex ratios is a big political problem both internally and externally, so thanks for the thread.

[Merantes]

I think the biggest problem in communications about genes is that definitions are changing faster than even people in the field can keep up with:

In many ways this is the nature of research. However, radical changes in our understanding rarely occur. Refinements and additions to existing ideas occur all the time.

Epigene the idea that alleles are turned on and off by supervisor genes even across generations is freaking out biologists big time.

We rarely get freaked out. We often discover exciting new examples of existing regulatory mechanisms. This fills in gaps in our understanding. Sometimes we discover a new mechanism, such as siRNA.

Jumping genes the lengthening and shortening of repeats in the gene code while accepted and partly understood is still confusing. Is it directed adaptation to environmental change, random, who the hell knows or some combination of the preceding? There are one or more additional Nobel prizes waiting for that answer.

There is still a lot to learn and discover. But this will always be true, or at least for a very long time.

Exceptions to the one allele one enzyme rule keep being found.

There is splicing, which allows specialized version of the protein to be made. The are multi-subunit enzymes, which could be considered exceptions. There are signaling complexes that share subunits or can vary somewhat in composition in different cell types. There are noncoding RNAs with specific functions. And there are of course the quixotic things like trans-splicing and inteins, but these are not common. Overall, however, the one gene, one genetic function {my expansion} holds true.

On the other hand, we are learning that some proteins that pull double duty, performing more than one task. Complement proteins are great examples. Also, we are finding that breakdown products of certain proteins have functions not obviously related to the parent protein's function. for example, one breakdown product of collagen is endostatin, a peptide that regulates new blood vessel growth.

Since this is a political forum I decided to ignore non-mammalian genetic problems. This is an accepted practice as in biologists usually ignore the fact that birds use ZW sex selection when discussing pair bonding. That male birds and female mammals are homozygous for sex chromosomes no doubt has major effects on rates of pairbonding in birds vs. mammals but in either case a very wide range of sexual behaviors are seen. So ignoring the political implications of bee or other critters' genetic strategies does not strike me as a big deal. The confusion caused by changing knowledge does need exposition. In particular the advocacy of genetic policies by non-geneticists as in China, India and Vietnam with their increasingly insane sex ratios is a big political problem both internally and externally, so thanks for the thread.

Fair enough limiting discussion to human or mammalian genetics in this forum. Regarding the confusion caused by advancing information (I prefer "advancing" to "changing"), this does merit exposition. However, I think the confusion comes more in to play in how we use the knowledge we obtain, not so much in how we actually obtain it. For example, as we learn more about nutrition and metabolism, the fundamental understanding of how our bodies function doesn't often change frequently; it is only clarified. What does change is how we apply this information: What should we eat to stay healthy and liver longer? Your mention of genetic policies in another good example.

I think one thing we need to do as a society is better educate people on how scientific info is gained, so they better can understand how it is applied. That alone would help people more rationally evaluate science-based policy or life-style recommendations.

Fun thread! I enjoy it too.

[Vitiate]

Since this is a political forum I decided to ignore non-mammalian genetic problems. This is an accepted practice as in biologists usually ignore the fact that birds use ZW sex selection when discussing pair bonding. That male birds and female mammals are homozygous for sex chromosomes no doubt has major effects on rates of pairbonding in birds vs. mammals but in either case a very wide range of sexual behaviors are seen. So ignoring the political implications of bee or other critters' genetic strategies does not strike me as a big deal. The confusion caused by changing knowledge does need exposition. In particular the advocacy of genetic policies by non-geneticists as in China, India and Vietnam with their increasingly insane sex ratios is a big political problem both internally and externally, so thanks for the thread.

Don't discount non-mammalian genetics. Studies on drosophila flies and plant specimens have, in-large part, affected the field of cytogenetics. For example, sex-linkage for genes was determined in the early 1900's by use of drosophila; this was applied to hemophiliacs. The basis of codominance or genes linked together on the same autosomes were established using sample sizes of just flowers.

[william the wierd]

Now that I am back online after mother's day I may be a bit punchy. (Mom is slowly going deaf and blind. it makes visiting with her a trip since she has gotten somewhat more opinionated in her 90s.) There are at least three areas of political concern in genetic fitness:

1) Education lag. The number of educational cycles needed to get information integrated into a coherent whole is way the heck up there. For example birthing tanks were invented over a century ago and while safer for mother and baby are not massively so. ("Survival of the Sickest" by Dr. Sharon Moalem) The reason water birthing has not been generally accepted was best explained by believe it or don't Maynard Keynes in his "General Theory". Each relevant specialty has to integrate the new data into theories that work better than previously attempted alternatives and then the new and improved theory from specialty A becomes an input for similar theories in specialties B-Z which in turn are inputs for A and the rest of B-Z. This process is a bitch and half. The aquatic ape evidence that explains birthing tanks undermines evolutionary, dietary and many other biological theories. Cutting edge biology is 50-100 years out of date in its assumptions, social sciences are still squishy enough to be only about 50- years out of date and the hard sciences are simple enough to stay fairly up to date.

2) The reason for the lag is that biological knowledge is factorial: 17K human genes = 17K! possible interactions or ([1+17K]/2)17K x ([1+17K-1]/2)17K-1 ... The number of quarks in the universe is a trivial sum by comparison.

3) Nobody knows what to do with the knowledge because there are too many organisms to work with.

Politicians have not adapted to the fact that they are clueless and that this is going to stay true.

[william the wierd]

Don't discount non-mammalian genetics. Studies on drosophila flies and plant specimens have, in-large part, affected the field of cytogenetics. For example, sex-linkage for genes was determined in the early 1900's by use of drosophila; this was applied to hemophiliacs. The basis of codominance or genes linked together on the same autosomes were established using sample sizes of just flowers.

I don't I just think the political adaptations to the explosion of knowledge is really dragging.