Evolution, language and analogy in functional genomics.
Almost a century ago, Wittgenstein pointed out that theory in science is intricately connected to language. This connection is not a frequent topic in the genomics literature. But a case can be made that functional genomics is today hindered by the paradoxes that Wittgenstein identified. If this is true, until these paradoxes are recognized and addressed, functional genomics will continue to be limited in its ability to extrapolate information from genomic sequences.
Benner
S A
SA
Dept of Chemistry, NASA Astrobiology Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7200, USA. benner@chem.ufl.edu
Gaucher
E A
EA
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D013379:Substrate Specificity
D011506:Proteins