Mystery of Ascia

Jeff Wilson · 22 Jan 2011, 04:14 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:14:18 -0600
Subject: (urth) Mystery of Ascia
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W45C15E43818C3488355001CFFB0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W45C15E43818C3488355001CFFB0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D3A599A.4000409 at io.com>

On 1/21/2011 7:34 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> The mechanism of shutting off is completely irrelevant. If a gene is shut off over many generations
>> it is because another gene has changed, or been lost, or gained.
>
> This is an outdated understanding of genetics and organismal development. Expressed traits are now
> understood to be a function of GRNs (gene regulatory networks). A constellation of genes work in
> concert and there are what might be seen as genetic on/off switches.

Who are you and what have you done with the real Lee Berman?!

Seriously guys, despite Lee's fast and loose style in association of 
literature with mythology, everything Les says about biological fact in 
this post agress with my understanding of the subject as of the 
exhaustive consultations I arranged with multiple authorities including 
two working experimental researchers in the genetic engineering field 
and an editor of several of the field's professional journals on the 
occasion of GURPS BIO-TECH about four years back.

And perhaps more remarkable, Lee's comments on Chinese parenting agree 
with lots and lots of passages in the autobiographical fiction of Amy 
Tan and the autobiography of Wen Ho Lee, two prominent Chinese 
Americans. (Wen Ho is also a fellow Ag, who emigrated and went to grad 
school at Texas A&M about a decade after Wolfe.)

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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