Need to write a Norm Pace macro for Word -it replaces 'prokaryote' with 'bacteria and archaea' and inserts misc. expletives in the textAnd since the author of the tweet is giving a talk at UC Davis tomorrow I decided to help him out.
— Noah Fierer (@NoahFierer) January 8, 2013
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| From Norm Pace talk at UC Davis 2/24/2011 |
Pace, and you, are assuming that the Three Domain Hypothesis is a done deal and it's time that everyone bow down before it.
ReplyDeleteThat's not true. As you well know, it's not at all clear that eukaryotes evolved exclusively from an ancestor the we would classify today as an archaebacterium. It's more than likely that eukaryotes arose a via a fusion of two primitive bacteria from different taxons—one of which might have been something like modern archaebacteria. (Not to mention the contribution of proteobacteria via mitochondria.)
If the fusion hypothesis is correct then there's no reason why the big pool of primitive species without nuclei can't be called prokaryotes and no reason why their descendants can't be called prokaryotes.
If Ford Doolittle (and Carl Woese in later years) are correct then the major groups of bacteria (including archaebacteria) emerged relatively late from a pool of organisms that exchanged genes. There's no reason why we can't call them all prokaryotes since they share so many genes.
It's funny. While I was making this I was thinking, truly "What would Larry Moran say?" I was not trying to endorse a particular phylogenetic position here, I was just making a video for Noah F in response to his Tweet about Norm ...
DeleteProkaryote is term describing restaurants (typically pizza and Chinese restaurants) that have employees to deliver food to your door. A Eukaryote on the other hand is one where you actually need to pick up the meal yourself.
ReplyDeleteI "pro carry out" is pronounced the same as "prokaryote" mostly in Canada.
DeleteThis is the first time I have ever wanted to have audio clips on my blog ...
DeleteI never heard it pronounced as "pro carry out" as we pronounce "out" in Canada. I pronounce the last three letters as "ut" but I've frequently heard it as "ote" as in "tote," "dote," "mote," "note," "rote," and "vote."
DeleteHow do you guys pronounce it?
Well, when Norm isn't around I pronounce it "PRO" (as in TOE) "CARRY" (as in LARRY) and "OTE" (as in VOTE) ...
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