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NOT A SIMPLE CORRELATION. "The relationship between genomic complexity and the complexity at various levels of the phenotype, from molecular to organismal, is far from being straightforward as it has become clear already in the pre-genomic era." Some relatively simple creatures have much greater genomic complexity than more complex creatures. https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp View in LinkedIn

THE START. "Primed to carry out the requisite natural selections, Ray's digital ecosphere was nearly complete. He called it Tierra (Spanish for "earth") and started preparing the final touch: an inhabitant. Later dubbed "the Ancestor," it was the first worm Tom Ray ever created – an 80-byte-long self-replicating machine written in Tierra's quirky assembly language – and as it happens, it was also the last." https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn

GENOME COMPLEXITY ISSUES. "Despite recent developments in genomics it remains unclear why gene content, chromosome number, and genome size vary independently of each other. Is there a tendency for genome size or chromosome number to increase or decrease over time? Does genome size or chromosome number have an adaptive value and, if so, what is that value?" https://lnkd.in/dsqiJD5 View in LinkedIn

INCREASING GENOMIC COMPLEXITY. "Complete genomic sequences from diverse phylogenetic lineages reveal notable increases in genome complexity from prokaryotes to multicellular eukaryotes. The changes include gradual increases in gene number, resulting from the retention of duplicate genes, and more abrupt increases in the abundance of spliceosomal introns and mobile genetic elements." https://lnkd.in/dsqiJD5 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE ruminates on whether there is any evidence that nature operates primarily to increase genetic information. This question is more accessible today due to the large amount of data incoming on sequencing genomes of many taxa, and although very, very, far from complete, early indications give some clues to this question. View in LinkedIn

MOBILE ELEMENTS. "First, DNAs without immediate phenotypic benefit are of no immediate selective advantage to their possessor. Excess DNA should represent an energetic burden, and some of the activities of transposable elements are frankly destructive. Evolution is not anticipatory; structures do not evolve because they may later prove useful." https://lnkd.in/duMgVnm View in LinkedIn

OUTSIDE OF SELECTION. "Although transposable elements may well be beneficially involved in eukaryote evolution, there are two reasons to doubt they arose or are maintained by selection pressures for such evolutionary functions." https://lnkd.in/duMgVnm View in LinkedIn

THE KEY PROOF. "If a given gene (region of DNA) or class of genes (regions) has evolved a strategy which increases its probability of survival within cells, then no additional (phenotypic) explanation for its origin or its continued existence is required." https://lnkd.in/duMgVnm View in LinkedIn

SURVIVAL OF THE GENE. "A useful way to look at this problem is Dawkins's "Selfish Gene" picture of evolution, where the fundamental unit to be maintained by natural selection is not the individual, nor the group or the species, but the gene." https://lnkd.in/ecMXQ_u View in LinkedIn

DNA SELECTIVE PRESSURE. "The only natural selection pressure that DNAs experience directly is the pressure to survive within cells." https://lnkd.in/duMgVnm View in LinkedIn