Blog Comments

Kinetica Online is pleased to provide direct links to commentaries from our senior editor Dr. Steven Pelech has posted on other blogs sites. Most of these comments appear on the GenomeWeb Daily Scan website, which in turn highlight interesting blogs that have been posted at numerous sites in the blogosphere since the beginning of 2010. A wide variety of topical subjects are covered ranging from the latest scientific breakthroughs, research trends, politics and career advice. The original blogs and Dr. Pelech’s comments are summarized here under the title of the original blog. Should viewers wish to add to these discussions, they should add their comments at the original blog sites.

The views expressed by Dr. Pelech do not necessarily reflect those of the other management and staff at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. However, we wish to encourage healthy debate that might spur improvements in how biomedical research is supported and conducted.

Darwin

Genotype-Phenotype Correlations Confer 'Chaotic' Evolution

Keith Bennett at Queen's University Belfast examined the burgeoning "chaos theory of evolution," and argues that the connection between environmental change and evolutionary change is weak, which is not what might have been expected from Darwin's hypothesis, and that macroevolution may, over the longer-term, be driven largely by internally generated genetic change, not adaptation to a changing environment. S. Pelech comments that it would be unwise to under-estimate the impact of a rapidly changing environment on evolution, including the rapid disappearance of dinosaurs following an asteroid impact 65 million years ago or as a consequence of human activity today. Read More...