The Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology, despite the fancy name, must not have much in the way of standards because they published this article, Genome Size and Chromosome Number Relationship Contradicts the Principle of Darwinian Evolution from Common Ancestor. It’s bizarre. The authors have a deep misconception about evolution and they just run with it right into crazyland.
They seem to think there is some kind of progression in chromosome number — that life is supposed to go from some low chromosome number in primitive organisms, to a much larger number in ‘advanced’ organisms, and they have just discovered…chromosome numbers are scattered all over the place! Therefore evolution must be false, because humans are supposed to have the biggest number!
The human genome was located at 4/6 away from the controversial common ancestor genome and 2/6 away from the largest detected genome. Results of this study contradict the principle of Darwinian evolution from common ancestor and support the independent appearance of living organisms on earth. This will open the door for new explanations for the existence of living organisms on earth based on genome size.
Shocking, huh? It’s not as if you can find this fact in introductory genetics textbooks. Oh, wait, you can!
So these guys have some archaic notion of progressive evolution, and also have this strange idea that the number of chromosomes is indicative of complexity. I don’t know where they get that idea — you won’t find that in any of the genetics or evolutionary biology textbooks.
They’re very explicit about it, too. I don’t know how this could have gotten past a reviewer, unless they paper wasn’t reviewed at all (it wasn’t edited in any way, either — the typos and poor grammar are everywhere.)
It is certain that a genome controls the organism structure and development therefore; the genome is expected to evolve before the evolution of the organism. So, based on Darwinian evolution from common ancestor, we expect gradual change (increase) in genome size from the assumed common ancestor (smallest detected genome in this study, Buchnera sp.) to the largest detected genome (P. aethiopicus). Based on this assumption, human is expected to have the largest genome because it is the most recent and the most developed species on earth [30-32] and consequently is expected to lie at the end of genome size evolution curve. In addition, according to the Darwinian evolution from common ancestor, the gradual increase in genome size must be correlated with gradual increase or decrease in chromosome number (chromosome number evolution) as well as with organism evolution. The location of human genome among other genomes based on genome size and chromosome number (Figure 2) confirms that there is no correlation between genome size of species and their emergence on earth (genome evolution). This rolls out the idea that human genome evolved from smaller pre-existing genome. It is well documented that the genome size of an organism does not reflect its structural complexity which raised the question about what mechanisms led to these huge variations in genome size . This was described as the ‘C-value enigma’ . In addition, finding diploid plants with larger genome size than human genome raises a cloud of doubt about the sequence of appearance of living organisms on earth.
I had to look up citations #30, #31, and #32, to find out what fool made the argument that humans are the
most recent and the most developed species on earth. More surprises!
30. Elhaik E, Tatarinova TV, Klyosov AA, Graur D (2014) The extremely ancient chromosome that isn’t: a forensic bioinformatic investigation of Albert Perry”s X-degenerate portion of the Y chromosome. EJHG 22: 1111-1116.
31. Elhaik E, Tatarinova TV, Klyosov AA, Graur D (2014) The extremely ancient chromosome that isn’t: a forensic bioinformatic investigation of Albert Perry”s X-degenerate portion of the Y chromosome. EJHG 22: 1111-1116.
32. Royer DL (2006) CO2-forced climate thresholds during the Phanerozoic. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 70: 5665-5675.
There are some lessons to share with my science writing students.
- The fool in question is Dan Graur, author of the book Molecular and Genome Evolution. He’s going to be so surprised!
- That’s a good trick to pad your citations, listing the exact same article twice. I guess that makes your point doubly powerful.
- I’ve read those first two (one) paper(s). They make no such argument. I didn’t know you could just sprinkle your paper with irrelevant citations with no connection to your claims.
- Speaking of which, the third (second) paper is about climate change, not human evolution.
I don’t think the Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology is going to be on my routine reading list.