I said: > This may well be so, and yet for any pair of species A and B there > are paths in gene space that have the property that one end of the > path is in the cluster for species A, the other end of the path is > in cluster B, and every point along the path gives the genome of a > viable organism (given a suitable environment in which > morphogenesis can occur). (This is true because any pair of species > have a common ancestor if one looks far enough back in time, so one > can head from species A towards a genome from the ancestral species > C, and from there towards species B.)
I should note that this isn't the situation I described in my original thought experiment, because the genomes of the ancestral forms will in general not be combinations of various parts of modern genomes. This means that, for example, that there might not be viable organisms with a genome that is half human and half chimp. Getting around this issue was assumed to be part of the fiendish process involved by my scientist. I don't think this affects my argument at all though, but if it does one can construct a similar series along the path through gene space described above. Rich _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
