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Bees Reveal Nature-Nurture Secrets
NoFear writes "The nature-nurture debate is a 'giant step' closer to being resolved after scientists studying bees documented how environmental inputs can modify our genetic hardware. The researchers uncovered extensive molecular differences in the brains of worker bees and queen bees which develop along very different paths when put on different diets. The research was led by Professor Ryszard Maleszka of The Australian National University's College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, working with colleagues from the German Cancer Institute in Heidelberg, Germany and will be published next week in the online, open access journal PLoS Biology."
...that a possibly major scientific paper is published in an open access journal. This trend seems ever more powerful, to the benefit of all, except the usual vultures (Elzevier, Springer, Wiley...).
But we’re gonna need a lot. Beads aren’t cheap. Are beads cheap?
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
What is the cause of the behavior of a program, its code or input? Obviously both in virtually all cases. The code sets what inputs it can respond to, and the inputs determine which response occurs. Flexible programs have long-term state, allowing inputs to have an effect on response far into the future. Why is there even a debate as to whether it's the code or input that entirely decides behavior? The particular behavior depends on the program, of course. A program which merely echoes its input back, without any state, is less-flexible than one that receives a script, then interprets it.
People may not like to hear it, but the parent comment succinctly embodies the motivations for all nature-nurture studies and indeed a significant chunk of genetic/biology studies seen in the popular press.
People can be bigoted and racist if they want; but we are free to object when they try to call their opinions science.
May the Maths Be with you!
When bees were asked about this study, they just cheered that they're making the news again after so long.
All glory to Arstotzka!
There is no nature-nurture debate.
Of course there is, just not among scientists (and certainly not among geneticists who are aware of heritability).
Ask me about repetitive DNA
I often hear it referred to as "the nature/nurture debate," as if people are actually debating whether we are products of our genetics or our environment. There is no debate, we are products of both. I suppose there are lots of little debates about how much each affects some particular trait. But the implication here that there is a single, central debate that can somehow be "resolved" is absurd.
To quote Matt Ridley:
The discovery of how genes actually influence human behaviour, and how human behaviour influences genes, is about to recast the debate entirely. No longer is it nature versus nurture, but nature via nurture. Genes are designed to take their cues from nurture
Goodbye, nature vs nurture
Replace human for bee or for organism and I think the quote still stands. It is not that the behaviour of an organism is for the most part determined by it genes, or either that is is determined by it nurture.
Nurture will give direction, Nature will limit the abilities.
How much you'll train a dog, it will never be able to play chess. How much you'll train a toddler, it will never be able to have capabilities to follow a scent trail like a bloodhound.
I always thought the nature-nurture debate is a bit stupid. Seems to be part of the trend to find The Cause of everything. When you do cancer research you try to find what is the cause of cancer: Is it bad genes, environmental toxins or unhealthy lifestyle. It sometimes seems that scientists (esp. in the life-sciences) forget that it can be a combinations of the above together with the special magic ingredient called "Luck" (or bad luck).
The same is with the nature-nurture debate. They seem to ignore the most logical explanation: That a personal trait (behavior, for example) is the result of the individual's genetic makeup, environmental influences (e.g. education) and some element of luck. Even identical twins raised in exactly the same conditions have a great possibility to come out different. Since the body functions due to chemical processes that are inheritly statistical, there has to be a certain measure of incertainty - even if all the genetic and environmental factors are accounted for.
So the nature-nurture is just being turned into a petty argument over the relative influence of each factor: Is it 40% nature, 50% nurture and 10% blind luck or some other combination of the above.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
I play chess with my dog all the time. He's the only one I can beat!
For BEES!
That will be totally applicable to humans.
Once we learn to fly.
And turn yellow with black stripes.
And grow bee fuzz.
And grow another pair of limbs...
[...]
How much you'll train a dog, it will never be able to play chess. How much you'll train a toddler, it will never be able to have capabilities to follow a scent trail like a bloodhound.
No one is debating absurdities like that though. The question is more like, was Manson destined to be a serial killer or was that a social effect? Or phrased more dangerously, if I add some environmental inputs, can I make sure no one is gay ever again?
You missed at least one factor -- your parents' and grandparents' environments.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
You do understand I was talking in general terms? I'm sure I missed many more factors, but the basic idea still stands: It's more than one factor taking all the blame and luck/chance/statistics has a major part in it, in addition to the calculatable factors.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Agreed... it's a false dichotomy.
Resolving this debate is as easy as describing the sound of one hand clapping or finding a coin with only one side.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I remember reading an article years ago mentioning that queen bees become queens because their were fed a special diet not because they are genetically different. In fact they said it while explaining how if a queen bee dies the workers simply pick a worker larva at random and feed it royal jelly and it becomes a new queen bee. The article spoke of it even then as a well accepted fact, not some breaking news.
So this can't be the news. From reading the article I gather the researchers discovered the actual chemical mechanism, whatever it is. That's the only news here. But most comments' authors here on slashdot seem to talk about 'nature vs nurture' as if we discovered worker larvas can become queen bees just this minute.
What's more interesting is to note that the bees' DNA is obviously crafted to look for that different 'royal jelly', and uses it as a trigger. The royal jelly doesn't change the DNA, it's just a code for which the DNA looks.
Nurture will give direction, Nature will limit the abilities.
I think you may be confusing nurture with training. In any case, nurture can certainly be limiting (as in eating habits effect on athletic performance) and nature can give directions (the giraffe will eat from tall trees).
What you call 'luck' is what the rest of us call 'a combination of known unknowns and unknown unknowns'. It absolutely is calculatable, given enough data and research.
mediocrity rules, man
Get cancer, or do not get cancer. There is no luck.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
I take a dice and throw it in the air. Even if I give you the starting terms and the exact forces used to throw the cube, you still cannot, with 100% absolute certainty, tell me what number it will land on. Even with everything known, there are things we cannot calculate.
I remember an example from Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, "The Black Swan". If you hit a ball on a pool table, it is very easy to predict the outcome of the first collision. At about the 5th collision (IIRC, I don't have the book at hand), the mechanics of the collision are affected by the gravitational pull of someone standing near the table. A few more collisions, and the outcome is dependent on every mass in the universe. Given that, can you really predict the outcome of throwing a dice? Can you predict with 100% certainty if someone will have cancer, which type and at what age? We cannot predict everything, even if all the variables are taken into account. This uncertainty is what we call Luck.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Or you take the third approach: it was inevitable that Manson became what he is. We humans are composed of non-thinking, non-sentient base elements (mainly hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and other trace metals). As such, our bodies are bound by the physical laws of this universe. Change the position of one quark at the beginning of the universe and our solar system may not even exist today (let alone Charles Manson).
It sometimes seems that scientists (esp. in the life-sciences) forget that it can be a combinations of the above together with the special magic ingredient called "Luck" (or bad luck).
Don't mistake the simplifications of journalists for a lack of understanding on the part of scientists. *Everyone* working on cancer knows that it is a multifactorial disease process.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I take a dice and throw it in the air. Even if I give you the starting terms and the exact forces used to throw the cube, you still cannot, with 100% absolute certainty, tell me what number it will land on. Even with everything known, there are things we cannot calculate.
I'm pretty sure if we had a marker on the cube and a hi-speed camera plus a rather fast image processing computer, we could give you an answer before the dice had landed. Also it wouldn't be too hard to create a robot arm to throw the dice with exactly the same force and position each time.
Dice have to adhere to the laws of physics just like everything else. Its just when humans throw them, there are so many variables that it seems random.
Now, when we start talking about particle decay or trying to determine the position of an electron.
Then yeah... We can start talking about random.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Right, we know through various studies that you are mainly shaped by your environment, not your genetics.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
The sound of one hand clapping sounds similar to two hands clapping, but less loud due to less force. A coin with one side would be a mobius strip as currency.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
It absolutely is calculatable, given enough data and research.
I believe that quantum mechanics would disagree with that statement.
we know through various studies that you are mainly shaped by your environment, not your genetics.
It depends on the trait, see information on the aforementioned heritability.
If you refer to "shaped" as in physical appearance excluding clothing, hair dye, and other accessories, then there are a number of physical traits (considered distinguishing in western culture) that have a substantial or very high heritability, e.g. eye colour, height, hair colour, skin colour. The accessories, or external "shapes" that we put onto ourselves, have extremely low heritability. But even then it's still not always zero, e.g. a person with polydactyly may not be able to fit a standard glove or shoe, hair dyes for some colours do not work for all base hair colours, a tetrachromat may have a different fashion sense and choose a greater variety of "green" clothes to wear.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Just because quantum physics is most obvious at sub-atomic levels does not mean it has no effect on the macroscopic world. Some cancers are potentially caused by nothing more then a gamma ray impacting a molecular structure in a cell in just the right not to cause it to start misbehaving. These gamma rays, being a result of a fusion reaction in the sun, are spawned with a random trajectory at a random time (quantum physics at work in the fusion reaction) and if it just happens to hit said molecule in you then you have lost the lottery, no defense, no way to predict it, it just happened so sorry. The same goes for a die throw or a pool table, the results can be predicted with excellent accuracy using only Newtonian physics up to a point after that the minuscule random effects start to add up and with all the sensory equipment and all the computing power in the world wont predict the outcome.
Unless of course you subscribe to Einsteins view of the universe where "God does not play dice with the universe" in which case you could do just that, assuming you knew the exact state of the whole universe down to an atomic level.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
If you re-read my pool table example, you would understand that even with a completely accurate robot arm, repeated throws of a dice would give you different results, because the operator/a nearby car/the moon/Alpha Centauri just moved a bit during the time between throws.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Agreed, but somehow during all my studies I never saw one doctor that included "Luck" as one of the causes of cancer. It seems they are afraid to include it. They prefer to believe in a false world where everything is potentially predictable. I believe that even in a thousand years, after finding all the causes of cancer, we would still have a significant portion (20%, 40%, 50%?) that will be subscribed to chance.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
If you had enough data you could absolutely determine what side a dice will land on, the fact that determining those factors is outside the realm of any current technology we have and that no human being would be able to throw accurately enough to take advantage of them doesn't mean it couldn't be done. If you could calculate all the force which act, you could predict the result. The prediction isn't meaningful, but you could still do it.
Don't want to die of cancer? Just keep eating at McD and supersize your meals. Finish those huge sodas and servings of fries.
:).
You won't die of cancer if you stick to this anti-cancer diet for the rest of your life.
Side effects? You won't live very long either
As I told someone else in this thread, to absolutely and 100% accurately predict the fall of a dice, you have to take into account every atom in the universe (see my example of the pool table). I find it hard to believe you would someday have a computer able to calculate that (and with only 640KB! :) ). Just look at the three-body problem. We still can't solve the gravitational relationships between 3 objects.
Even if possible, you should probably take into account also any minuscule force exerted by Quantum particles, which are completely random. Although they may have a small effect, they still add a measure of incertainty to the calculation.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
There is an interesting book, called "A general theory of love", it describes a model - the triune brain*, which stipulates that the brain is made from 3 different regions (reptilian, limbic, neocortex) and explains how they interact with each other.
The authors provide a lot of examples which illustrate that in the case of mammals, nurture plays a very important role. Children who do not play, or who don't hang out with other humans grow up to be solitary, lacking social skills, their lives are shorter, they get sick more often, etc.
Experiments with other primates yield similar results; read about "the wire mother" and "the pit of despair".
Insects have a much more simple nervous system; the findings described in the article mean that even at such levels - there's still something that can override whatever is defined in the DNA. In the case of complex life forms with a neocortex - this wouldn't be a surprise; I'm impressed by the fact that bees have such a feature.
* The triune brain model is known to have some issues, but it is still an interesting read.
The saddest poem
Nurture not only makes a queen out of the common female lava (that would have become a female worker) but also the drones that are MALE. So, as suggested, the DNA of a female worker and the DNA of a queen may be the same but royal jelly 'triggers' the DNA to make a bigger queen; then what about making the drone? The DNA of a female, be it worker or queen, can't possibly be the same as a male, the drone, can it?
Oh my God! That's a 50% chance of getting cancer!
DOOOOOOOooooooooooomed...
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Bees are not a good example here. Their genome contains two fairly fixed paths (queen bee, worker bee) that are chosen depending on what kind of food the bee is fed as a larva. The individual cannot "transcend" its set of genes, it's just that the bee genome contains these two paths.
Richard Feynman talked about this in one of his books, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman (I think). He said with a bit of practice, he could tell which objects in a room were handled by which people. I don't see why you couldn't train a human to follow a trail with some level of success.
I'm glad that scientists have finally solved that pesky nature/nurture debate that headline writers seem to like so much. I mean there was me thinking that most people with any sort of intelligence and/or access to publised studies realised that most matters were "a bit of both".
to absolutely and 100% accurately predict the fall of a dice, you have to take into account every atom in the universe (see my example of the pool table).
I don't buy either example. At some reasonable range, probably measured in centimeters(or at most, meters), the external effects are so minute that they have no real effect on the motion of the dice, or the billiard ball. The fact that the billiard ball is cited from a popular book does not make it a credible statement. It is possible that the billiard ball example might be accurate in an idealized situation of perfectly elastic collisions and no friction, but that is hardly real life.
--
JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
Luck is what people who don't believe in the supernatural call forces that they do not fully comprehend.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Replace human for bee or for organism and I think the quote still stands.
It's been obvious for decades now that "nature vs nurture" is a stupid way to decompose the various influences on human behaviour, but journalists and idiots (but I repeat myself) will continue to ask the "burning" question "nature vs nurture?" for at least a couple of decades more.
Even so, /. in 2025 will probably carry stories with headlines:
"Nature or Nurture: Which explains the failure of Linux on the desktop?"
"Engineers look to unexpected places for variable geometry low-speed wing design: birds!"
"Company goes green for totally unexpected reason: to save money!"
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Maybe. For me Luck is what I can otherwise call Randomness. Since even with the best calculation that we may have in the future, there will still be an element of randomness, there will always be room for "Luck". I can call it uncertainty, if you prefer it that way.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
yeah, bur creationist, young earthist and other crazy crackpot theorists need this kind of hyperbol. How otherwise are they going to pretend that " [hard science xyz] is a theory in crisis as proved by major debate therefore we have to teach content of bronze-age book as a viable alternative" ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]