IUBio

Is "Junk" DNA Used to Provide Genetic Memory

Rifle River jstream at girch1.med.uth.tmc.edu
Thu Apr 28 12:03:08 EST 1994


In article <9404272000.AA07826 at bambi.ccs.fau.edu>, tomh at BAMBI.CCS.FAU.EDU
(Tom Holroyd) wrote:

> Saying there is a "motor program" for something like spinning is no more
> useful than saying there is junk-DNA for it, I would hazard.

That would depend on your definition of motor program.  It may be a good 
idea for the two of you to each define motor program before further
discussion.

>  One is led
> to ask, "where is this motor program stored?" and "how is it switched on?"

Are both of these questions necessary and sufficient for understanding how
the 
motor program results in specific intrinsic behaviors?

> such as in nest building or web spinning.  There need not be any program
> for web spinning at all, merely a small set of other behaviors.

Wouldn't all of the programs comprising the different subsets constitute a
web spinning program?
 
>  Spinning is just a natural consequence of the
> interactions (couplings) between the various subsystems,

Why isn't this a complex program made up of many simpler subprograms?

> varying the conditions 
>  can produce different behaviors from
> otherwise similar circumstances.

Doesn't this merely mean that the program is plastic or capable of changing
based on previous experience (learning)?

>  If you vary things smoothly enough you
> can even see transitions from one mode of behavior to another.  What you
> are probing in such cases is not a "motor program" but the self-organized,
> emergent pattern formation process.

This looks like a definition.  I am obviously not familiar with this, so
could 
expand on this a little further?  It almost sounds like you have the
pattern
formation (behavior?) independent of the motor movements which make
up the behavior.  I am probably way off base here...

+++++++++++++++                   

Rifle River                      
jstream at girch1.med.uth.tmc.edu   
                                  



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