Research blinds people to effects of a nutrient-poor environment in cave fish

By: James V. Kohl | Published on: February 23, 2014

Genetics of how and why fish swim in schools: Research sheds light on complex social behavior

Excerpt: “The motivation to be social is common among fish and humans,” said Greenwood
Excerpt: “That really suggests that there’s some kind of genetic factor controlling this difference,” Greenwood said.”
Excerpt: “…a single gene could cause fish to detect their environment differently…”
Excerpt: “If we can understand the process by which evolution works and the genes that tend to be affected during evolution in these other model systems, we can apply that to humans,” she said.”

My comment: This report from Sept 13, 2013 on research blinds people, which is probably why it was posted to the ISHE’s yahoo group more than five months later, on 2/23/14. It  does not shed any new light on complex social behavior. It merely implies that the environment might cause genetic differences during the evolution of behavior.

If the researchers had reported that the nutrient-dependent de novo creation of species-specific olfactory receptor genes caused the fish to detect their environment differently than might be expected to occur in blind cave fish, that fact might have helped others understand the process by which ecological variation involves genes that tend to be epigenetically effected during ecological adaptations that occur in other model organisms.
For example, that fact could have been compared to facts about blind cave fish. They do not need eyes in their nutrient-poor environment, and the physiology of reproduction controls eye regression via the ecological adaptations to a nutrient-poor environment that are manifested in morphological and behavioral phenotypes. This exemplifies biologically-based cause and effect that is common among species from microbes to man.
For information on why the moderator of the ISHE’s yahoo group might want to blind people to biological facts, see the moderator’s post and my blog post on transubstantiation:
 


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