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Mouse Retinal Assembly “Immensely Complex” and “Confounding”

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The fundamental unit of life is the cell and there are many different types of cells. In humans, for example, there are skin cells, muscle cells, blood cells and so forth. In all there are hundreds of different kinds of cells that need to work together in various ways. Now a recent study has investigated the different cell types in the retina of mice. The research focused on the number of cells present in the retina. That may not sound very interesting, but the results were indeed eye-opening.  Read more

Comments
True. There's been no follow-up so maybe this item proved to A_b that the observed data is in conflict with evolution -- and therefore the theory has failed. If so, that's a good thing.Silver Asiatic
June 24, 2014
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You wonder at Humphrey's chuzpah, though, don't you? Although he did sound unaware of his 'heads I win, tails you lose' daftness.Axel
June 23, 2014
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Evolutionary theory has some very useful predictions: 1. Whatever we observe in nature indicates that something might have happened to cause it, or perhaps not 2. Our observations show that things in nature may or may not seem similar in various ways 3. Whatever we observe in nature or in tests can be explained somehow 4. Some things in nature might have changed over time, or they might not have changed at all So there we have it. It's quite an elegant theory and I think it has proven to be 100% correct so far!Silver Asiatic
June 23, 2014
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So either way, evolutionary theory is confirmed.
Just so. And as someone wise once said "a theory which can explain anything explains nothing".cantor
June 23, 2014
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How so? Not only is variability NOT contrary to evolution, it is a requirement.
variability between highly-related strains
"Highly related strains" show little correlation. This was contrary to what the researchers expected (from the Science Daily article):
Using a rodent model, Keeley and his colleagues quantified the number of cells present in each retina for 12 different retinal cell types across 30 genetically distinct lines of mice. For every cell type the team investigated, the researchers found a remarkable degree of variation in cell number across the strains. More surprising, the variation in the number of different cell types was largely independent of one another across the strains. This has substantial implications for retinal wiring during cellular development. "These cells are connected to each other, and their convergence ratios are believed to underlie various aspects of visual processing," Keeley explained, "so it was expected that the numbers of these cell types might be correlated. But that was not the case at all. We found very few significant correlations and even the ones we did find were modest." Using quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis -- a statistical method that links two types of information, in this case cell number and genetic markers -- Keeley's team compared not only the covariance between different types of cells but also the genetic co-regulation of their number. When they mapped the variation in cell number to locations within the genome, the locations were rarely the same for different types of cells. The result was entirely unexpected.
So it was "remarkable", "surprising" and "entirely unexpected" to find the variation. In other words, it was a failed prediction and contrary to what evolutionary theory hypothesizes. You seem be saying that the researchers should have expected this variation because it is a "requirement" for evolution. The researchers expected correlation -- if they had found it then evolutionary expectations would have been confirmed. Instead, they found variation -- but you explain that this variation is not contrary to evolution. So either way, evolutionary theory is confirmed. it was expected that the numbers of these cell types might be correlated ... If that had occurred, then evolutionary theory is confirmed on that point. Instead, "a remarkable degree of variation" was found and the cell types were not correlated. This means that evolutionary theory is quite accurate and there was no problem for what the theory expected at all. I understand how this works.Silver Asiatic
June 23, 2014
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"Needless to say, this sort of variability between highly-related strains, and this level of sophistication and complexity, are inconsistent with evolutionary theory." How so? Not only is variability NOT contrary to evolution, it is a requirement.Acartia_bogart
June 23, 2014
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