I had predicted this a number of times before. As we study genetics further we will find a better way to classify species. Alas, here we have a new paper that
Recent experimental data from proteomics and genomics are interpreted
here in ways that challenge the predominant viewpoint in biology
according to which the four evolutionary processes, including mutation,
recombination, natural selection and genetic drift, are sufficient to
explain the origination of species. The predominant viewpoint appears
incompatible with the finding that the sequenced genome of each species
contains hundreds, or even thousands, of unique genes – the genes that
are not shared with any other species. These unique genes and proteins,
singletons, define the very character of every species. Moreover, the
distribution of protein families from the sequenced genomes indicates
that the complexity of genomes grows in a manner different from that of
self-organizing networks: the dominance of singletons leads to the
conclusion that in living organisms a most unlikely phenomenon can be
the most common one. In order to provide proper rationale for these
conclusions related to the singletons, the paper first treats the
frequency of functional proteins among random sequences, followed by a
discussion on the protein structure space, and it ends by questioning
the idea that protein domains represent conserved units of evolution.
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