GULO Pseudogene as evidence for common ancestry among primates

[mark kennedy]

I don't know how I got subscribed to this thread since I have little time for these discussions of late but I thought I'd toss a little something in:

Previous studies of the orthologous primate GULO gene and pseudogene have focused on those parts of a few exons that appear to correspond between humans and rats. A more recent study32 is much more comprehensive. It is now believed that, relative to the 12 exons that comprise the functional rat GULO gene, the human GULO pseudogene is limited to counterparts of exons 4, 7, 9, 10, and 12. Owing to the fact that the guinea pig and the simian primates are obviously not sister groups (fig. 3), it is impossible for the guinea pig GULO pseudogene and the human GULO pseudogene to have both originated from the same ancestral pseudogene.The GULO pseudogenes: numerous ‘shared mistakes’ without common ancestry​

This gene broke in the same place in separate lineages, these arguments never seem to stand up to close scrutiny.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Mike Elphick]

This gene broke in the same place in separate lineages, these arguments never seem to stand up to close scrutiny.

Very scientific sounding, but fatally flawed. Woodmorappe has made all his comparisons against the rat GULO gene, without realising that substitutions could have occurred in the rat lineage after the split from the other two (human and guinea pig). Using the rat as the reference, there appear to be parallel nucleotide substitutions, but this is because many of the changes are actually within the rat lineage. Using the data this way masks the separate substitutions found in guinea pigs, humans and other animals. If you take that into account the human GULO gene is more similar to that of the chimp (followed by the oragutan and macaque) than it is to the guinea pig.

It seems the authors of the paper cited by Woodmoreappe made a methodological mistake:-

However, the sections quoted from Inai et al. (2003) [Ref 34 in Woodmorappe's article] suffer from a major methodological error; they failed to consider that substitutions could have occured in the rat lineage after the splits from the other two. The researchers actually clustered substitutions that are specific to the rat lineage with separate substitutions shared by guinea pigs and humans.
Scurvy, Guinea Pigs, and You - The Panda's Thumb

 

[sfs]

It seems the authors of the paper cited by Woodmoreappe made a methodological mistake:-

Yes, the original authors made a really bone-headed mistake. I looked into it once upon a time, and even wrote a post about it here.

 

[AnEmpiricalAgnostic]

Wow... I feel like I've been resurrected.

I see some things never change