Scooped! I’ve long adored vulvas, having written a few things on how to develop a vulva and how to evolve a vulva, so I’m a little peeved that this upstart at scienceblogs, Greg Laden, has written up a recent story on nematode vulva evolution before me. Aaargh, all vulvas must be mine! I’ve just got too much other work stacked in front of me.
I may have to revisit this story later, though. I made a quick skim of the paper and don’t see quite how they arrived at their conclusion, that vulva evolution is dominated by selective events rather than chance. I can’t say they’re wrong, but I’m going to have to read it more carefully before I can agree with it.
“bag o’ worms” is the best mutant name in existence.
Just sayin’.
Uh oh! Other people are blogging about SCIENCE on SCIENCEBLOGS!
It’s the triple rows of razor sharp teeth which worry me.
Only feminists have those.
Your evil plan is coming to fruition PZ. In their frantic attempts to out blog you, they will simply do the bulk of the science blogging work… leaving you to ponder over domination with an iron tentacle!
Aaargh, all vulvas must be mine!
Ummm… do you mind if I hang onto mine a while longer? I might, you know, need it for something.
Quick PZ! Blog on this:
Evolution Is Deterministic
And reclaim your vulva.
You mean we might have a case of, you know, the a-word?
Quick, somebody tell Larry Moran!
When I was a young lad, I too was convinced that the appearance of a vulva (to me, at least) was a matter of chance, but I now realise that their owners were just being selective.
I’ve had 2 Vulvas. One of ’em lasted over 400,000 km before the back end just rusted out.
Norman Doering:
Evolution is not a purely random process. It is a combination of random mutation and natural selection. Right? It is not surprising that natural selection would exert the same pressures on different species.
“Random” does not mean “any possible outcome will happen with the same likelihood”.
I’m wondering exactly what is supposed to be new or groundbreaking here.
Taking one sentence from the link:
“For example, they concluded that the number of cell divisions needed in vulva development declined over time — instead of randomly increasing and decreasing.”
Perhaps having fewer cell divisions provides an evolutionary advantage?
Or is this supposed to be evidence that cell lines are magically following some kind of mystical blueprint?
Well, I am huge fan o’ the magical vulva too. That being said however, I do not want all of them like PZ does. No, it’s been my experience that some of the symbiotes that are attached to the vulvas need some serious help.
All your vulvas are belong to PZ.
It is not so much that they are saying selective as much as non-random. The pattern of vulva evolution could simply be tightly constrained by something other than selection. (such as phylogenetic effects)
I knew I shoulda recognised Mr. Sanders from somewhere.
Don’t forget the best review title ever, which we owe to this subject:
A Perfect Vulva Every Time, by Cynthia Kenyon
(sorry, that will be behind a subscription wall for non-academic readers)
Hell hath no wrath like a cephalopod scorned!
Beware the determined vulva… Oh wait, deterministic. Never mind.
I’d rather not read the words “beaten” and “vulva” in a headline ever again thankyou. Makes me wince.
Before anyone thinks of making any “ladder theory” puns on “deterministic vulva”… x.x
I smell an ignobel on the way! Seriously, scientists studying roundworm genitals, comedy gold.
I’m idly wondering if the number of hits on this site doesn’t spike when the word “vulva” is mentioned in an entry. I simply am recalling my freinds and I having momentary visceral thrills by using the unabridged dictionary in our middle school (grades 6 through 8) library to look up the scientific terms for particular sex acts.
Greg Laden, has written up a recent story on nematode vulva evolution before me.
What? You couldn’t have said that he ‘snatched’ the story from you? Is it too much to ask for a little low-brow humor once in a while?!?
The human vulva is clear evidence for intelligent design and a benign Creator. QED.
Huh? Why isn’t there public access to the vul… oh, never mind.
So it is not necessarily selective, but the distributions of measures of the chosen characters correlate with evolutionary change?
And if it is selective it could be varying selective pressures, I take it from RickD. This makes me curious. From the post one get the impression that Neutral Theory and Adaptionism aren’t fully compatible. Perhaps in the sense that Quantum Mechanics aren’t fully compatible with General Relativity.
Notably there is for the later a proposed resolution of M Theory, where the effective theory of GR takes the backseat to the more fundamental QM. (Fun OT note: by way of scaffolding btw, with transformable manifolds instead of transformable gene copies.)
So is that a working proposition here, the perhaps more fundamental (genomic) theory of Neutral Theory should somehow push the perhaps more effective (trait) theory of Adaptionism into a malleable form?
OTOH, is that needed? I’m not sure how one envision a map between genomes and traits that necessarily gives as much correlation as in the seemingly chosen proxy for traits (distributions of characters). I.e. why do the entire genome need to correlate as much to a certain set of characters as the entire set of traits do, if the genome and trait sets differ (assuming the question makes sense)?
Huh? Why isn’t there public access to the vul… oh, never mind.
So it is not necessarily selective, but the distributions of measures of the chosen characters correlate with evolutionary change?
And if it is selective it could be varying selective pressures, I take it from RickD. This makes me curious. From the post one get the impression that Neutral Theory and Adaptionism aren’t fully compatible. Perhaps in the sense that Quantum Mechanics aren’t fully compatible with General Relativity.
Notably there is for the later a proposed resolution of M Theory, where the effective theory of GR takes the backseat to the more fundamental QM. (Fun OT note: by way of scaffolding btw, with transformable manifolds instead of transformable gene copies.)
So is that a working proposition here, the perhaps more fundamental (genomic) theory of Neutral Theory should somehow push the perhaps more effective (trait) theory of Adaptionism into a malleable form?
OTOH, is that needed? I’m not sure how one envision a map between genomes and traits that necessarily gives as much correlation as in the seemingly chosen proxy for traits (distributions of characters). I.e. why do the entire genome need to correlate as much to a certain set of characters as the entire set of traits do, if the genome and trait sets differ (assuming the question makes sense)?
I seem to recall a book by some mechanic-cum-OBGYN called “My Girlfriend Wants Me To Touch Her Volvo”, I believe it’s in a boxed edition along with Seinfeld’s “Things That Rhyme with Mulva” and Chelsea Handler’s “No, I don’t Have a Cherry… But I Have The Box It Came In”.
……
Do nematode vulvae and priapulids go together?
“Quantum Mechanics aren’t fully compatible” – Quantum Mechanics isn’t fully compatible.
My largest personal pet peeve – why does Torbjörn Larsson have to confuse singular and plural verb forms in texts all the time? (Hint: They don’t usually differ in swedish, so I should backtrack each and every change in a list. But why steer by looking in the rear mirror? :-P)
My next to largest personal pet peeve – why do Wilkins and Larsson use third person when writing about themselves? (Hints: -.)
“Quantum Mechanics aren’t fully compatible” – Quantum Mechanics isn’t fully compatible.
My largest personal pet peeve – why does Torbjörn Larsson have to confuse singular and plural verb forms in texts all the time? (Hint: They don’t usually differ in swedish, so I should backtrack each and every change in a list. But why steer by looking in the rear mirror? :-P)
My next to largest personal pet peeve – why do Wilkins and Larsson use third person when writing about themselves? (Hints: -.)
Everything gets studied on that particular roundworm, and that’s considered normal. That’s not going to produce an IgNobel Prize.
Nematodes, priapulids, and arthropods are all fairly closely related…
Everything gets studied on that particular roundworm, and that’s considered normal. That’s not going to produce an IgNobel Prize.
Nematodes, priapulids, and arthropods are all fairly closely related…
“Only feminists have those”
You better watch out the distaff staff doesn’t slip a kraat in your lunch-pail!
Those things bite!
David #28
‘Do nematode vulvae and priapulids go together?”
It was a JOKE. PENIS shaped worms and VULVAE! ’twas meant to be a groaner…
MartinR,
“Benign”?
To whom?!