DNA study challenges basic ideas in genetics Genome 'junk' appears essential

[sneez]

This is what any involved person intuitivelly knew from the beginning of the hype, and now even the scientists figured out:

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2007/06/14/dna_study_challenges_basic_ideas_in_genetics/"

 

[BoomBoom]

I'm not sure if any scientists refer to non-coding DNA as "junk"...it's probably more of a media term or a leftover relic. Sure that is what we were taught in high school back in the 80's (I hope that is not the case today), but regulatory networks, transcriptomics and the like have been under active investigation for quite some time and are among the hot topics in genomics these days.

 

[arildno]

This is what any involved person intuitivelly knew from the beginning of the hype, and now even the scientists figured out:

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2007/06/14/dna_study_challenges_basic_ideas_in_genetics/"

uneducated common sense has disproven itself from being a RELIABLE source of judgment about the world.

If something doesn't show itself to have some function, it is silly to state that it has a function, because you don't have any evidence for that claim.
If later tests show that it DOES have a function after all, then one merely revises the best opinion one had without that new evidence.
Is it so hard to understand that science progresses very well by confining itself to the minimal assumptions warranted by available evidence?

 

[sneez]

uneducated common sense has disproven itself from being a RELIABLE source of judgment about the world.

If something doesn't show itself to have some function, it is silly to state that it has a function, because you don't have any evidence for that claim.
If later tests show that it DOES have a function after all, then one merely revises the best opinion one had without that new evidence.
Is it so hard to understand that science progresses very well by confining itself to the minimal assumptions warranted by available evidence?

What...?

First i said:

any involved person intuitivelly knew

Second, any involved person (those involved in the field intellectually but not speciealist with PHD. in the field who think for themselves) , and for that matter any scientific minded individum knows if there is no evidence for something than one should not make conclusions and based theories on top of that on it !
So it seems that the good old white coat guys in labs are guilty of the uneducated common sense which you seem to support as long as its tied to limited evidence connected through some adjective words.



There are many theories in cell biology (and genetics) which are completelly baseless, just like it turned out the "junk" DNA case. Thats my point, its microreductionist principle that fails us in biology over and over.

Is it so hard to understand that science progresses very well by confining itself to the minimal assumptions warranted by available evidence?

This is scientism belief which actually is existing only in some idealistic mind. Any person (including scientists, unfortunatelly) must have framework behind each theory. None can work only with assumptions that are shown in very limited manner in disconnected pattern. Each person will have a comprehensive view which is consistent with the limited assumptions relativelly supported by evidence which incorporated many made up assumptions to complete the picture.

So it was much more scientific to conclude/admit our ignorance of the issue of "junk" DNA and not to conclude that it had no significance. Actually as you can see it was accepted for more than 20 years as valid assumptions which is laughable. If I was bilogists instead of physicist I would make my stance (and ended scintificaly dead, as many others have done before).

Well...

 

[BoomBoom]

There are many theories in cell biology (and genetics) which are completelly baseless

Perhaps you can be more specific? ...name one.

If I was bilogists instead of physicist I would make my stance (and ended scintificaly dead, as many others have done before).

Well...

Huh?

Unlike the field of physics, biology is fairly straightforward and experiments can be tested and reproduced on a regular basis. Regulatory networks, for example, are hugely complicated involving mountains of data that are tested via point mutations and perturbations and checked by downstream effects of transcription and assembled in vast data networks in which each element interacts with others and results in some sort of effect on the overall transcription rates. New discoveries in biology are added to the overall knowledge-base and don't necessarily contradict anything.

The world of physics does not seem to be so neat and tidy... although I admire it greatly all the same!