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"mendel's law may be flawed"

NPR had a story on it this evening..if true..this is earth-shaking for the study of genetics.
 
I just learned about that in my science class. We had to do all this punnet square stuff. Maybe I should go and sue the school for censored literature. Just kidding...
 
well, this new discovery doesnt really indicate that Mendel's law is flawed..
just that this new research adds something to Mendel that hasnt been known before..
i dont see how this is a flaw in Mendelian Genetics, its simply a new addition to it..
very cool though!
Scot
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (scottychaos @ Mar. 23 2005,10:24)]well, this new discovery doesnt really indicate that Mendel's law is flawed..
just that this new research adds something to Mendel that hasnt been known before..
i dont see how this is a flaw in Mendelian Genetics, its simply a new addition to it..
very cool though!
Scot
A thought occurred to me on this one: Perhaps when Mendel did his research, the environment in which he did them was too controlled. Perhaps, there wasn't enough stressors for his peas to correct anything. in contrast, the cress were under conditions that had more environmental stressors, thus being in a position and need to correct things. It's a thought.
 
It just shows things are always more complicated than we think.  Not to revive a notorious topic, but this shows the value of the scientific method.  Somebody finds something that causes upheaval.  Everyone debates and tests it.  If valid, it's accepted.  The person who discovered it need not worry about having his eyes gouged out or his body crushed or whatever might happen in a faith based society.
 
Mendels environment was controlled, and he did know that some of the genetics he was examining were more complicated than others - he worked with the most simple first in order to understand what was going on - the more complex stuff that did not conform he set aside (for later presumably).
All this new stuff means is that his rules still apply - but are more difficult to find in a more complex situation. He also did not manage to understand genes swopping bits with each other during replication, but we do now...
However - I think this may be useful in some of the genetics we all see - like yellow flowered variants in sarracenias.
BR
Chris
 
Yea, you are trying to revive that topic....
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I could say something about it but I'm gonna let it fly cause I don't wanna start that topic. Anyway, It took me a sec to figure what you were talking about then I remembered. It's interesting, there are definately gonna be some changes in a lot of science courses! LOL
 
yeah i really dont see it as a flaw. like was stated its an addition to. plus how long ago was Mendels research? most of what the article discusses would have been quite difficult to understand or explain or even prove in Mendels time. it just shows that the world is far more complicated than we think it is
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  • #10
Right on the money mt! I can only imagine what terrorism would look like if human kind had known what it knows now! LOL
 
  • #11
If Mendel had studied watercress instead of peas, the results may have been so confounding that he may not have been able to develop his laws.
 
  • #12
You know, this is pure news sensationalism.  Mendel's work isn't flawed from this finding.  Evolution isn't flawed from this finding.  They just found one plant which has a backup to certain functions.  There are tons of redundancy and repairing built into DNA, ie some mutations can occur and not change the protein the DNA encodes for.  The amount of interactions between proteins is staggering.  This plant just has another gene or protein that helps recover from this one instance.  I'm sure in the future you'll find a lot of plants/animals that have similiar genes that can be recovered from tampering.

This is just media playing off of the evolution/no evolution debate.
 
  • #13
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]This is just media playing off of the evolution/no evolution debate.
the CONSERVATIVE media? lol
 
  • #14
Oh just FYI that finding was published in today's issue of "Nature". They are now theoriezing and experimenting with other plants to see if other plants can do it. If so they will move on to animals and then eventually humans. If it works for some things this will help genetic engineering/cloning babies enormously. Think about it, no more genetic diseases. The only bad thing is some good traits may also be eliminated.
 
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