Comments

• I know that this show aired a long time ago, but since I have nothing better to do in my spare time, I listen to all the Radio Lab show (again). Anyway, I wanted to comment on part of this show, not that I really expect anyone to respond or clarify my statement, but it never hurts to ask. During the 'primordial soup' section the... organisms mentioned- is that the right term?- are swapping DNA willy-nilly with each other, gaining advantages and disadvantages. Robert gives the example of gaining the cold temperature resistance. So this DNA swapping goes on for a long time until the "Bill Gates" organism comes along. My point that I would really like some clarification on is that moment in evolution. We all know that this is the way organisms function now and ever since then, but I'm curious about why. Considering the moment the "Bill Gates" organism shows up, how do more organisms get the same trait if the "Bill Gates" organism refuses to share? I would assume that this trait is a genetic mutation, the non-sharing trait, so then how does this same trait appear in other organisms in an age of free DNA exchange? Is it something like this "Bill Gates" organism is the first organism to ALSO have the ability to replicate itself? Or is it more along the lines of over a billion years, perhaps a trillion variations of organisms with the "Bill Gates" trait randomly 'appeared' and finally one ALSO had to ability to copy/reproduce itself? My second point that I'd like to make is why did the 'selfish' method win out over the free DNA swapping method? If traits and are both good and bad can be shared willy-nilly, then traits that help something survive get passed along to others, increasing the chance that those organisms live, where was negative traits that harm an organism's chances to survive will end up killing off so many organisms, there-by reducing the chance that the negative trait(s) are passed on. In this model, it would seem that over the course of time, those positive traits would endure and when considering the "Bill Gates" organism, other positive traits would not be able to get passed on to an organism that couldn't share DNA. It's hard for me to figure out how the selfish method won out. I really hope that you (Radio Lab) do a short to follow up on this and other issues raised by some of these people commenting here. It won't ruin my life if you don't do a follow up, but if you did, I know it'd make me very happy. Thanks for all the work you do, you are my favorite radio show!
  in (So-Called) Life
  Tuesday March 15, 2011, 07:03 PM