[general_re]

Apparently, the observation which was to tumble the whole Darwinian house of cards was that the 40 nucleotides left unchanged since the GLO gene became non-functional coincide with some of the unchanged positions in the functional gene.

If I find I have a bit of time, it would probably be interesting to see if that coincidence is actually statistically significant, or if it's roughly what we should expect from random chance.

[Nebullis]

It's a little tough to rule out all the factors, for example, inaccessibility to mutagens, that normally contribute to clustering. We have no further information for this stretch of DNA. But a good rule of thumb when you see footprints outside your window, is to assume horses rather than zebras.

[AndrewC]

If I find I have a bit of time, it would probably be interesting to see if that coincidence is actually statistically significant,

Good, and please tell me if a deletion, a C , a T, and a G at the same location does not imply 3 mutations? Plus unless the macaque is a kissin cousin to the rat and mouse there is another 3 mutation spot.

[Ichneumon]

[The poster known as LLLICHY wrote:] Good, and please tell me if a deletion, a C , a T, and a G at the same location does not imply 3 mutations?

Argh, yes it does. Thanks for the correction. Yet again, my old eyes were having trouble spotting a difference between a "C" and a "G". Either I start posting with my bifocals on, or I bump up my monitor's font size.

Plus unless the macaque is a kissin cousin to the rat and mouse there is another 3 mutation spot.

Good point, I hadn't noticed that. But then that only pops up during second-order analysis from presumed phylogenies, and I was really trying to keep away from that as much as possible, because that opens up a whole new level of having to explain how we know what and why. It was better to stick with the less controversial relationships, and just lump the primates together, and the ungulates, and the rodents, and then expound on what those can teach us. Cladograms can wait for another day.