What if someone found an organism whose genes assignation is 1/3 bacterial, 1/3 archaeal, and 1/3 unknown?
We jumped the gun and posed this question to our friend Ramy Aziz. He responded with answers that reflect various phylogenetic points of view.
- Scientist A thinks this organism is whatever its ribosomal DNA tells us it is.
- Scientist B believes it's whatever its recA gene tells us it is.
- Scientist C proposes that this is proof that there is no tree of life, but rather a reticulum.
- Scientist D declares that, whatever it is, it’s certainly not a prokaryote (as there is no such thing).
- Scientist E tells us that it's an unknown organism that ate both a bacterium and an archaeon.
- Scientist F puts forth that that proves there is a fourth domain of life, or — just wait a while — that it's a synthetic, biologically-created hybrid.
- Scientist G says that it's proof of a viral origin of life.
And yours?
The diversity of opinions is, itself, interesting. Does this show how much is, as yet, unknown? Or does it show that we are still in the "phlogiston" stage of discovery?
Posted by: Howard Kaplan | October 02, 2010 at 09:31 AM