> that three species should have a near-identical sequence coding for a near-identical protein suggests rather strongly that this version of the gene arose in one species and was then acquired by the other two
We'd strongly expect the amino acid sequence to be similar both by "convergent evolution" (each case evolved independently with the same motivation) and "lateral transfer" (one case evolved and then shared DNA across species), so this wouldn't typically distinguish those two cases.
The sibling answer about structure of introns and exons is a more convincing answer, in my opinion. I don't think we would expect to see that in convergent evolution, but we would in a copy-paste job.
On what basis do you hold any such expectation? The paper explicitly contrasts its subject with several examples of convergent evolution producing functionally equivalent, but proteomically and genomically highly distinct, outcomes - which is typical of convergent evolution in general.
That said, I agree that the similarity of adjacent noncoding sequence is also a strong indicator that convergent evolution isn't causative here.
> On what basis do you hold any such expectation?... The paper explicitly contrasts its subject with several examples of convergent evolution producing functionally equivalent, but proteomically and genomically highly distinct, outcomes
On the basis that the protein is the function here. (antifreeze protein). There might only be one good, or best local maximum, solution for this problem at the protein level. So, we would expect natural selection might converge on that one solution. And, the results of two runs would not be nearly as different as they are in cases where natural selection is optimizing for a system process.
Obligatory coding comparison:
If I asked two programmers to code a webshop, I would expect the underlying code to look substantially different - if the code looked the same, I'd take it as evidence of copying.
If I asked two programmers to code "If A then B", I would expect the underlying code to look substantially the same, whether or not they copied.
A specific antifreeze protein is the second case: both the code and the outcome. It's not part of a system which would have more freedom of variation in its solutions.
Preventing crystallization of water is the function. And again, on what basis so presume? Trivial literature review would have sufficed to reveal that there is a whole, mostly very nonhomologous, class of these proteins, not just the one. [1] It is precisely for this reason that near identity observed in the proteins used by these three unrelated fish species is surprising.
As I have already noted this morning, it is at best pointless to attempt to reason out genomics based on first principles drawn from computing. Thank you for taking the time to demonstrate the kind of error that invariably results!
Even with all this 'trivial literature review', there still remains the possibility three fish might have randomly walked [or non-randomly walked] into the same solution with the same local maximum, which couldn't be distinguished from lateral transfer just by looking at the protein structure.
"A doesn't always happen this way" isn't evidence, at all, for B happening. Your logic is faulty.
Thank you for appreciating my sense of humour. As someone who has worked in a genomics lab, I think coding analogies are perfectly fine. The analogy is not in error.
Happily, the paper does not only do that! Too, there are several comments peripheral to this thread which discuss the paper's findings outside the proteome.
Far be it from me to suggest that anyone in a Hacker News thread has failed to do even the most basic of reading in a field outside their own, but I will say that the paper is linked in one of my earlier comments, should you perhaps like to renew your acquaintance with its contents.
Yes, happily! Since, as I was saying in my first comment: I didn't agree with this part of the paper's abstract being relevant evidence, or your take on it; but I agreed with it in other aspects.
Yes, and your disagreement appears to proceed from an attempt to reason purely from first principles, with no sign of apprehending either the clear evidence that convergent evolution on proteins which prevent water from crystallizing into ice in no other case has produced anything like such genomic or proteomic similarity as in the case under discussion, or the infinitesimal probability of that happening by coincidence.
I'm not averse to the idea that I may be wrong on any of those points, but thus far I'm not seeing anything substantive to suspect I am likely to be so. These are just assertions that you're making, and while your reasoning itself is not unsound, the premises from which it follows as yet lack anything resembling substantiation, which is sorely needed given that those premises so contradict all available evidence.
...and, in response to your prior edit, this is coming from someone who has also worked in a genomics lab. Even if I hadn't, what point to claiming authority on that basis?
I apprehended it perfectly well; I'm still in disagreement, since my argument is unaffected.
> so contradict all available evidence
It doesn't, and that's what you have missed. What I said is logically harmonious with all available evidence.
By observing three fish with the same solution for antifreeze, we know that three fish have the same solution for antifreeze. This immediately contradicts any claim that all unrelated species have different solutions for antifreeze, which makes them worthy of study. It's a "black swan".
As such, whatever mechanism has caused this has not been seen to work this way elsewhere. Therefore, saying "this mechanism is not seen to work this way elsewhere" is not remarkable as evidence.
It's now a neutral statement which matches our expectation, and can't therefore be evidence against the mechanism. It's certainly not evidence for another mechanism.
I could just as well say "I have only observed horizontal transfer in N other cases, and this is not one of those N cases, therefore it is not horizontal transfer". That would be wrong, but has equal logical merit as your claim.
All of which still ignores how wildly unlikely it is that such a high degree of similarity occurs by chance.
The paper doesn't claim causality either, but only argues, in my view pretty convincingly, that lateral gene transfer is a likelier explanation for the observed similarity than any other including convergent evolution. You haven't argued otherwise, but only that convergent evolution in this case is not implausible - which is true, but answers no claim that anyone is actually making.
There's no point in that that I can see, so if you want to keep on doing it, I'm afraid you'll need to do so in the absence of an interlocutor, or at least of an interlocutor who is me.
> All of which still ignores how wildly unlikely it is that such a high degree of similarity occurs by chance.
It is wildly unlikely that I should exist through the process of evolution, to waste my afternoon on this argument, and yet: here I am :) Have a nice day.
> Even if I hadn't, what point to claiming authority on that basis?
Oh, this was a direct response to the fact that you repeatedly implied that I was ignorant and hadn't done basic reading in the field. You were wrong about that as well.
Someone disagreeing with you is not always a sign of ignorance.
Yours is an anti-capitalist take which I don't see as a criticism of VW specifically here.
The reason this service can potentially exist is only because Tesla is charging such a high upfront cost, and because it may be more accessible (or indeed cheaper) for some people to rent on a pay-as-you-go basis.
"This is 100% a way to extract more money from consumers" is true of literally everything that every corporation does. That's the point of its existence.
Are they spinning it to sound good? Of course, that's part of the job. Do you have to take the service if it provides no additional benefit to you? No, you can still buy a Tesla (or not).
> no one has really approached this type of bet sizing from a rigorous perspective beyond the relatively simple Kelly Criterion.
Kelly Criterion takes into account your bankroll at the point of betting, so it does take that into account
I haven't understood your points further than that - minimizing risk of ruin (taken literally) is typically equivalent to not ever gambling at all. No gambler would agree with that, by definition of them being a gambler.
This comment is right - and the study began shortly after Ohio's peak of infections.
As such, most infected participants would have been recently infected in a situation with low and decreasing virus circulation. Nobody thinks there's any risk of reinfection at that point.
London's transport strikes have been shown to ultimately benefit the wider economy, as people have broken out of their local maximums and found more efficient ways to travel around.
> In 1990, twelve countries in Europe had a wealth tax. Today, there are only three
The "Today,..." claim is is simply false (both when the article was written, and now).
Wikipedia lists examples including six countries in Europe. Belgium is listed, which created a wealth tax in 2018 - why is that missing from this article of 2019?
Tax regimes in Europe change frequently according to the political situation, so this presents little evidence as to whether any individual tax "worked" anyway. But, this claim is just badly researched (generously speaking).
I would say in general that you want to motivate money to move as much as possible - and the problem with excessive wealth is that the money is not moving.
In an ideal world, I would tax money only when it is static.
Wealth taxes are extremely well-supported, despite the media as an industry [and politicians] being owned by people strongly motivated to campaign against it all costs, e.g.:
There are two studies cited. One on the repeals is by "Institut de l'Entreprise" which seems to be a wealthy people's think tank [1] and the other is about why the wealth tax wasn't introduced in the UK [2]. I'm not convinced by the evidence here.
It's true that a number of European countries that previously had wealth taxes no longer do. However, European countries only collect taxes on residents. If you wanted to avoid wealth taxes you could simply move to another country (and the bar to doing so is very low in the EU...), whereas the IRS collects taxes on US citizens regardless of where they live. So the situations are not totally analogous and it's not clear that a wealth tax in the United States would also fail.
The "idea" of wealth tax is liked, the reality is that is has never been implemented successfully. Everywhere it has been tried, it has been rolled back.
As best I can tell, Bitcoin has moved more than [it has so far today, ~6%] on 42 days in the last year, and 38 days the year before that, considering open-to-open values.
10% daily moves happened four times in May: twice in each direction.
Statistically, we should consider it just a normal, unremarkable day for Bitcoin.
We'd strongly expect the amino acid sequence to be similar both by "convergent evolution" (each case evolved independently with the same motivation) and "lateral transfer" (one case evolved and then shared DNA across species), so this wouldn't typically distinguish those two cases.
The sibling answer about structure of introns and exons is a more convincing answer, in my opinion. I don't think we would expect to see that in convergent evolution, but we would in a copy-paste job.